56. Chapter 56
The setting sun took the desert heat with it. Jase peeled his frozen bones off the rock and checked his phone.
Shit.
“Shit,” he said aloud, thumbing a quick text and hurrying down the trail to their campsite. Rounding the Squire’s rear fender, he found a small fire smoldering in the stone pit and a pile of empty beer bottles by the picnic table.
“Lindsey?” he called out. The words over and gone and broke followed him to the tent she must’ve set up by herself—add “asshole” to the list—while he was gone.
“Linds?”
Her sleeping bag and suitcase were inside. At least he didn’t have to chase her down at an airport or another bus station.
Yet.
Jase grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the station wagon and headed toward the lights and fires of other campsites down the road.
“Check by the VW. They’re having a heck of a party,” a retiree, lounging with his wife in front of a giant motor home, suggested. “And they have some mighty fine weed!”
The heck of a party wasn’t hard to find.
Jase followed the sound of Jefferson Airplane down the rabbit hole to a bank of cars as worn and weathered as their wagon, a yellow VW van among them, at the dark end of the dusty road.
Across the rust-bucket barrier, in the soft glow of the lights strung overhead, a half dozen red-eyed, smiling faces welcomed him.
“I’m looking for a woman,” Jase said.
“Aren’t we all, mate?” A guy in torn shorts with shaggy hair and an English accent grinned.
“She’s about this tall”—Jase held his hand up to his chest—“with long brown hair. Might be wearing a dress.”
“I don’t know about a dress. She sounds like the babe’s latched onto my mate. Come on. Name’s Marc, by the way.”
Marc held open the canvas flap of a huge, round tent for Jase to duck inside. Faces emerged around a circle through a curtain of mighty fine weed, lit in the purples, reds, blues, and yellows of the twinkling Christmas lights wrapped around the ceiling.
“Found another one,” Marc said.
“Graham?” Jase shouldn’t have been surprised to find his brother and Helen on the far side of the circle. Graham had the nose of a bloodhound for pot. “What are you doing here?”
“Baking,” Graham said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Sit! There’s plenty of room.” A doe-eyed brunette tugged on Jase’s pant leg.
“Thanks, I’m looking for someone. She’s—”
“Jase?”
He hadn’t recognized her in a black sweatshirt under another man’s arm. Lindsey pulled back the hood, and the man beside her appraised Jase in the dark.
“Sit.” The brunette tugged at him again. “I have something for you.”
Jase settled in between Lindsey and the brunette, who handed him a burning blunt.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Jase said.
“Me too,” Lindsey said without looking at him.
“Yeah, I know,” Jase croaked around a lungful of weed. He exhaled a blue cloud and passed her the blunt. “I shouldn’t have left for so long.”
“You shouldn’t have left me at all.”
“It’s good, babes,” the man with a death wish and his arm around her said. “We’ve been getting on just fine without him.”
“Who is this guy?” Jase asked her.
“Declan,” he said, peering around Lindsey with a wink. “Don’t worry. We’ve been taking good care of her while you were gone.”
The kid said it like he knew Jase was an ass for leaving her. He was an ass. He didn’t need to hear about it from some British punk taking liberties with Lindsey’s fragile state.
Didn’t you take plenty of your own liberties in Austin, mate?
Why was the voice in his head suddenly British too?
“We heard about your dad’s trip,” the doe-eyed brunette said. “It sounds so cool.”
“I wish my dad did something creative,” Marc said. Jase couldn’t see more than an outline of his shaggy hair across the circle. “All he did was leave me some change for a pint.”
“Seriously, the coolest thing…I’m Cammie, by the way.”
There was a hand on his leg. His left leg. Lindsey was on his other side still under dipshit’s—Declan’s—arm.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Graham said.
“I don’t. Much,” Jase said.
“You get lost today, or what?”
“Interest you in a drink, mate?” Marc tossed a flask into Jase’s lap.
“More of your panty-potion?” Cammie asked.
“Love potion,” Marc corrected. “My grandad makes it in his garage. Tastes like piss but it’ll get you properly fucked up quick.”
“Why is it called love potion?” Lindsey asked.
“A couple sips of this and the panties fall right off,” Declan said.
Jase almost choked on the turpentine in his throat and the urge to punch an Englishman in the jaw.
“It’s magic,” Declan sneered. “Right off.”
“Is that why you’ve been feeding me your nasty garage booze?” Lindsey asked.
“Guilty.”
“I swear to God,” Jase cursed through his teeth.
Jefferson Airplane faded out and Bob Dylan took over. “Rainy Day Women” reminded Jase of the circus. He wanted to pound his chest gorilla-style watching Declan blow smoke into Lindsey mouth and peer over her head at Jase with a look that roughly translated to: My game is stronger than yours, mate.
Jase waited for the slap Lindsey should’ve thrown for such a cheap move, but she laughed—she fucking giggled—and said, “You’re so bad.”
Okay. You want to play, babe? Let’s play.
“So, Tammy,” Jase said.
“Cammie.”
“Cammie. Is that your van out there?”
“It’s my boyfriend’s. Why? Want to check it out?”
“Boyfriend?”
“It’s okay, honey. He swings both ways. Actually, so do I.”
“Of course you do,” Jase muttered with another pull from the flask.
“Shy?” She passed him the blunt. How did it make it back to him already? Was there more than one going around? “This’ll help.”
He hacked out a hit that bloomed in his pores and thought he heard his brother snort and call him a dick. Cammie’s hand moved farther up his leg.
“You work fast.” Lindsey’s voice was laced with poison.
“So do you,” he said.
“You tell him about ’Avasu?” Declan asked her.
“Not yet,” Lindsey said, locked on Jase with a glassy-eyed stare. “Marc and Declan are from Sussex.”
“You don’t say?” Jase lifted his brow in mock interest.
“They’re backpacking around the U.S. this summer,” she said.
“Fascinating.”
“We’ll be in Lake ’Avasu in a few days,” Declan said. “Lindsey’s coming with us to a concert in the desert.”
Jase snorted. “Fat chance.”
“Jase—”
“It’s all right, babes. I can see I’ve got some competition,” Declan said.
“You can’t be serious,” Jase said to Lindsey.
She took the blunt from his fingers and put it to her lips. There was more than anger in her face. He hurt her today—more than he realized until now.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Mm, let’s,” Cammie purred. Her breath on his neck was not unwelcome, it was just the wrong fucking time. Lindsey sprang to her feet, and Graham mouthed fix this or fuck this—something with an f—as Jase stood on leaden legs and followed her out of the tent.
“Lindsey!” he hollered.
Declan, panting at her heels, caught up to her first. “How about you stay with us tonight?”
“Back off, man,” Jase warned.
“This ain’t about you, mate. It’s what the lady wants.” Declan squeezed Lindsey’s hand. “Spend the night with us. There’s plenty of room in my tent. It’ll be fun. I promise, I’ll be a total gentleman.”
“My ass,” Jase said.
“You got a problem, mate?”
“You do, if you think she’s staying with you.”
“It’s her decision, innit?”
Jase glowered at the English prick, and a flicker of doubt crossed Declan’s face. Jase balled his hand into a fist he would’ve used if Lindsey didn’t put hand on Declan’s chest and ease him back a few steps.
“I’m really messed up.” She took off the sweatshirt and handed it to him. “And we have an early morning. I’ve got to go.”
“No, come on, babes. We can play cards or something. I’ll take care of you.”
“Nope.” In a cheap move that should’ve earned him a slap, not more of those damn giggles, Jase swept Lindsey into his arms and said, “Say goodbye.”
“Are you kidding me?” Declan called after them. “What about ’Avasu?”
“I’ll call you!” Lindsey hollered over Jase’s shoulder.
“No,” Jase said, carrying her the fuck away from the heck of a party. “You won’t.”