16. Chapter 16
She probably, definitely would have gone for that ride.
She’d never been on a motorcycle, which was reason enough.
And if Graham caught her on the back of Jase’s bike, she’d finally have his attention.
Now that she was alone, her only company the muffled music from the bar next door and the spider on the back of her chair, Lindsey’s thoughts drifted back to Farmer Pederson, and his words that followed her from Kentucky.
You’re too good for him, kid.
He hit her with his observation the moment Jase snapped their picture.
At first, she thought the farmer was being severe; he didn’t even know Graham, and it wasn’t fair to judge someone based on their brief exchange.
On the other hand, what if he picked up on something Lindsey noticed and chose to ignore the past few weeks?
Months. The past few months.
Surely not the whole year.
She tried reading Lovers Who Wander, finally closing the book on the page she’d read three times and couldn’t get past the paragraph describing the heroine’s nipple in pink pebbled detail.
Her phone buzzed with a new message from her mom asking if Lindsey had heard from her brother Luke recently, and how did he sound?
She hadn’t talked to any of her brothers in weeks and hadn’t been home since April.
Not that she was intentionally avoiding her family.
Any almost thirty-year-old woman would’ve been thrilled to continue the conversation her father started after Easter dinner, when Leroy Adams pressured her to come home for an extended stay, away from Graham, and get some perspective on what she wanted in life.
He wasn’t impressed she was still bartending after taking a break from college or dating a man for a year who still hadn’t asked for her hand.
Marriage. The word had never crossed her lips in a relationship.
She responded to her mom’s message—No, I haven’t heard from Luke.
Is something wrong?—and read an earlier text from Charity, a fellow bartender from Smitty’s and probably Lindsey’s only real friend in Dayton, then peered across the parking lot at the bar where Graham was getting drunk.
Again. The scratches on her back stung as sweat dripped beneath her tank top, a reminder of two nights ago when, after too many bourbon sours, they’d had sex against a brick wall in an alley between a sushi restaurant and a laundromat.
He couldn’t wait until they got back to his place; he needed her, he’d said, though not as much as the alcohol he drank every night as if the answer to his grief was at the bottom of a bottle.
You’re going to want to quit. Don’t. No matter how bad it gets, promise me you’ll stick it out until the end.
Jason Sr.’s request, at odds with Farmer Pederson’s assessment, followed her into the motel room where it was slightly cooler and the stench of dead mice and cockroach nests clogged the back of her throat.
What was she supposed to do alone for however long it took Graham to drink enough to forget they weren’t speaking?
She’d pretend to be asleep when he finally stumbled in, and he’d pull the grungy sheets back and try waking her with his hand between her legs. The sex would be rough and sloppy, stinking of alcohol, the orgasm impossible to chase.
Jase’s guess about why she needed a spicy book in her life was spot-on, not that she’d ever admit it to him.
Graham had chiseled his somewhat doughy edges with a new, almost obsessive workout routine, and was physically better-looking (at least, from the neck down.
His beard could benefit from a trim) than when they met, but his enthusiasm for her pleasure had waned ever since…
Well, ever since his dad got sick.
His sexual carelessness wasn’t enough for her to start scouring the apps on her phone for a ride away from the motel, but coupled with how this first day was ending, Lindsey said aloud, “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
Silently, she begged Jason to forgive her for the quitting she swore she wouldn’t do.
There were two drivers who could be there in ten minutes to take her to the nearest bus station.
Escape from this cesspool and the boyfriend who wouldn’t know she was gone for a few hours was as close as pressing a button on her phone.
Maybe the quitting Jason meant wasn’t the trip.
Maybe he just didn’t want her giving up on Graham too soon.
A few weeks apart might actually save their relationship.
At least, that’s what she told herself to assuage her guilt over breaking the most important promise she ever made.
Lindsey opened her red journal to a fresh page, sat on the edge of the bed, and picked up a pen.
Graham,
While you were next door getting wasted, I wasted my night in this disgusting motel waiting for you. And do you know what I realized? I am ALWAYS waiting for you.
I waited for you to accept your father’s illness, to grieve. To realize you love me. You haven’t done any of those things so I’m going home. I hope your dad forgives me.
Don’t call me until the trip is over—and only then if this drive opens your eyes.
Linds