2. Briggs
Chapter 2
Briggs
“The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.” ― Ovid
N othing could have made my night worse than running into Rose Fields at the one place I didn’t expect her to be. I don’t even know why I thought going to a movie theater I hadn’t been to in years was going to put me in a better head space, but it failed .
Miserably.
Right as the credits started to roll I excused myself, pulling my phone from my pocket and pushing it to my ear. No one was calling me, but she wouldn’t know the difference. I didn’t need to glance back over my shoulder at her before I started descending the stairs of the theater to know she was checking her phone again. She’d checked her phone dozens of times throughout the film, each time tapping irritably on the armrest that divided us whenever her notifications came up blank. I wasn’t going to fill the void she was missing, so at the risk of feeling even more inadequate than I already felt, I fled back to my car.
I should have at least offered her a ride home, but being this close to her was making a sour taste form in my mouth that had taken too long to dampen. I don’t know what had come over me in buying that second ticket, but the flood of immense guilt in seeing her alone was too much for me to take. The guilt I felt whenever I thought about Rose Fields should have been tarnished by now. But it clearly fucking wasn’t.
My Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series came to life in the dark alley I’d parked it in as I reached into my pocket and pressed the auto-start button. The car was beautiful, but a downright facetious gift from my father when I turned sixteen. I told him I didn’t want to stand out, just like I didn’t want his fucking money either. That request earned me a couple of fractured ribs and a split eyebrow that I sutured back together myself.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, I noted the thin white line on the outer edge of my right eyebrow as I looked into the rearview mirror. Barely visible, unless you were looking for it. I guess I was always more prone to revel in my faults rather than any attributes that might deem me worthy of inheriting a multi-billion dollar company—but that’s the way he wanted it to be. At twenty-three years old, I was still being controlled by my father.
It was sickening.
The tapping of fingers on glass jarred my focus away from the mirror and over to the passenger side window.
Rose.
I rolled my window down halfway. “Hey, I wanted to say thank you again for everything, but you just…left.”
“Yep.” I nodded, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and raising the other to blatantly check the time on my wrist. The watch was a gift to myself after turning seventeen—expensive enough to get my father off my back about looking and playing the part he needed me to play, but he missed the engraving on the backside that read, ‘ Fléctere si néqueo súperos Acheronta movebo ,’— If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell. Some people had motivational posters whereas I had a dead language inked on my skin and carved into my belongings.
“Right, well. Thank you, I guess.” Her eyes flicked down to her feet, then over to the end of the alley, her arms wrapped around her small figure to shield herself from the cold. I wasn’t necessarily mad at her for coming after me. She just wanted to thank me for not leaving her alone, ironically enough as I was currently trying to do the very thing. But a girl like her shouldn’t be in a dark alley late at night, which unfortunately she followed me to. There were monsters in the night, and I couldn’t omit myself from that lot as that damn sour taste formed again in my mouth.
I fought back a grimace. “You should go home. It’s late.” I wrapped my fingers around the gear shift. The alley was empty, but shit always happened in small towns to pretty girls, especially when you’d least expect it to.
She bit down on her bottom red lip making some of her lipstick fade to nothing. I blinked away from her lips and clutched harder on the shifter. “The person who was supposed to meet me here was also, kind of, my ride home.” Her baby blue eyes darted up to mine for a second before falling back to her shoes.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose and squeezing my eyes shut. I had a good idea of who stood her up, but I didn’t need her to know how much of her life I’d made myself privy to.
And that guy—he was never coming.
The one bus in town was done doing its route for the night, which meant her only other option was to call her grandparents she’d moved in with years ago after the death of her parents. I couldn’t bring myself to point that out, because that would make me look like a stalker.
Which I wasn’t.
“Get in.” The words came out before I could stop them.
She pulled her hands free from where she’d tucked them between her arms and chest, revealing her cleavage even more as she reached for the handle. If I wasn’t so aggravated at the way she chose to dress on a cold night all for him, I would have appreciated the way her dress hugged her body. But then that guilt settled in like the plague it was and sent sharp pains beneath my ribs, killing that blip of insanity before it had a chance to stir.
Pushing the thoughts away, I cleared my throat, making her freeze in place. “You might want to step back.”
She dropped her hand and took two broad steps back somewhat dramatically as she peered around the car. The door lifted into the air, folding out like a wing, and she pushed her shoulders back, her red lips popping open audibly. Sometimes I forgot just how absurd my car must seem to the people in this town, which is exactly why I parked it in darkened and forgotten alleys. It wasn’t to avoid getting robbed or the car getting stolen, because frankly, that idea kind of excited me knowing it would make my father livid. But no. I kept the car hidden to avoid being noticed—to avoid hearing the voice of my father in my head telling me I was supposed to look down on others, that I was supposed to be better than them, and that they should know that based on my possessions. Because this car cost him close to a million dollars, and yet if he had to spend that to save my life, I doubt he’d pull out the fucking checkbook.
“You aren’t, like, James Bond or something, are you?” Far from it, sweetheart. I shook my head. “Am I even safe getting in the car with you?” Jesus.
“Are you really asking the person who is telling you to ‘get in’ if you are safe with them?” If I was going to do something, I wouldn’t have given her a ticket to watch a 1950s movie with me while her date refused to show his face. I certainly wouldn’t have waited until the very end of the movie to leave, either. I knew dozens of ways to harm someone discreetly and not a single one of those flitted through my head when I was sitting there with her. “Of course, you are safe with me, Rose.”
She bit down on her lip again and my fingers turned white as I tightened my grip on the shifter. “If I get in, do you promise to bring me straight home?”
My teeth clenched. “Where else would I bring you?”
She shrugged her shoulders, then flicked her gaze down the alley before taking another look at my car and then me. The light that hung at the end of the alley dimmed, then flickered, as if the universe were signaling to me or her in Morse code the same message— Run.
I made a show of checking my watch again, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible. As if she could understand what the universe was undoubtedly telling us both, she took another step back. “Alright, well thanks for the offer. But maybe I should just walk.” Then she turned and started walking back towards the theater.
Fuck. I didn’t bother putting the door back down before I flipped the gear into reverse, cutting the wheel when the curb came near. “It isn’t safe to walk home alone at night. Didn’t your parents ever tell you that?” It was a low jab—bringing up her dead parents.
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her dark brown hair whipping in the wind as she moved. “They did not.” She continued, and I rolled the car slowly back as she moved. Some asshole honked his horn at me as I drove the wrong way along the narrow street and I drew in a deep breath. A part of me wanted to make a note of the plate as he drove on, but I had other things to focus on than petty retribution .
“I’m not going to hurt you, okay? You are safe with me, but you can’t say the same about taking your chances and walking alone. You can’t live that far, right?” She lived exactly nine minutes by car from the small strip we called downtown in Shuster Springs.
“Don’t all guys who try to kidnap girls like me say they are safe with them?” I grinned. Actually fucking grinned. The way she was biting back shouldn’t have made me intrigued, but it did. Some sick part of me liked the game we were playing, liked the way her tongue was so ready to bite back at whatever I said. No one had the balls to talk back to me like that, much less act on it. But Rose did.
“They probably do. But do guys who kidnap girls like you put their car on show in front of the theater they both just saw a movie in, together I might add, as they’re trying to kidnap them?” A line of people turned toward us, their prying eyes widening at either my car or the conversation we were having.
I stopped rolling the car back the moment she froze and turned to face me. “Fine.” In one swift movement, she hiked her bag up over her shoulder and slid into the passenger seat. I waited ten whole seconds before I pressed the button to close the door, giving her time to change her mind—though, honestly, I could debate her walking home alone all night. How I ever thought I’d be able to up and leave her right after the movie, I had no idea. Another car honked behind me and this time I rolled my window down just enough to flip them off.
“Classy,” Rose said, heavy on the sarcasm with the hint of a nervous laugh thrown in there. She buckled her seat belt, then looked around the interior as her palms rubbed over the tops of her knees .
“You can relax, you know.”
She mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like if I had a nickel for every time I heard that , then she sighed and pushed her back into the seat and crossed her legs, which were on full display in the short dress she was wearing. She looked…soft. Too soft. “I live right off of Wilshire Street, in one of the cul-de-sacs. Do you know where that is?”
I nodded, then maneuvered the car in the direction I knew all too well toward her home. I expected questions to flood from her mouth, for that sharp tongue of hers to goad me on and point out every faux pas about my car, or me. Instead, she just sat silently and watched the trees or occasional Christmas lights and lingering Halloween decorations go by through the window, her phone no longer clutched in her hand or on her lap.
Her bag vibrated against the leather seat as we turned down Wilshire Street as if on cue. She flinched back subtly, but enough for me to notice her hesitation in reaching for what I assumed was a text from the one who abandoned her at the theater—August Coleman, one of the biggest pieces of shit I’d ever had the displeasure of knowing.
“The next one is mine. It’s the green house with the porch light on at the end.”
I pulled into the empty driveway, acting like I didn’t know the entire floor plan of her house or that the two-car garage door in front of us concealed a 2007 gray minivan that belonged to her grandfather. “Thank you, again. You really saved my night, in more ways than one with the ride home, too. I guess I kind of owe you.” Her hand went into her purse, searching for her wallet like she'd done at the theater.
My teeth ground together at the thought that she had probably planned to pay for everything tonight. Add that to the list of reasons why August was a literal piece of shit. “You don’t owe me anything. Consider it me paying you back for your help on that history project years ago.” And just like that, I admitted too much.
She grinned, showing the smallest gap between her front two teeth before her lips sealed shut. “So you do remember me, then?”
I shrugged with one shoulder. “Kind of.” I didn’t need her to think we could be friends now. The pain in my chest was already tightening having been around her for the nearly two hours we’d spent together tonight. I adjusted the flap of cloth that hung down from the place where I left my shirt unbuttoned, trying not to make eye contact. I didn’t have an anxious bone in my body, but thinking about Rose Fields always made my body react as if it were in pain. Being in her presence was damn near torturous—and unfortunately, I knew exactly what that felt like.
I tapped on the button, releasing the door to open up to her driveway. Rose’s hand slid into the space between my chest and the steering wheel and I pushed my back into my seat reflexively. “Sorry for biting your head off back there. Are we good?”
“Yeah. All good here.” I shook her outstretched hand like we did so cordially before. My back strained as she unbuckled her seat belt and left the car. I waited until I could hear the sounds of the two locks on her front door, then flipped my car into reverse the second she turned her porch light off .
I guess August wasn’t going to be welcomed over, for tonight at least, after the stunt he pulled. The idea made my lip curve up involuntarily. If feeling that torture meant he wasn’t getting near her tonight, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.