Chapter 13
It’s an unusually warm day for mid-October and under normal circumstances I would be on my way to a pumpkin patch with Annica
and Dani, a pumpkin spice latte in hand. But instead, I’m getting in the front seat of Asher’s car to be taken to a potentially
dangerous situation, no pumpkin spice latte in hand. Asher sits in the driver’s seat in a T-shirt and jeans, sunglasses on,
with one hand on the steering wheel. He looks like an album cover for a country music star who is borderline pop.
“Well?” I ask as soon as I get in the car. “Did anything happen to Bryce last night?”
Asher sighs. “He’s dead.”
My stomach hits my throat, like a ride that takes you to the top only to suddenly drop you a hundred feet. I stare at him
wide-eyed. “You said he’d be fine!”
Asher lets out a laugh, his whole fake-solemn demeanor changing. “I’m just kidding, he’s fine. Coincidentally enough I ran
into him when I was picking this up. Here.” He hands me a coffee cup and I just stare at him, mouth agape.
“You are such a—”
“Good person? For picking up a pumpkin spice latte for you this morning?” he interrupts. I have half a mind to take off the lid and dump it on him.
“Just drive the car,” I say. He pulls out of my apartment complex and puts Luna’s into the GPS.
“So what’s your game plan? What are you going to say to him?” he asks. I lay awake all night last night playing the scenario
over and over again in my head until I eventually fell asleep.
“I’m going to ask him what he wants and why he’s doing this.”
“And what if he plays it off like he doesn’t know what you’re talking about?”
“Then I’ll change tactics.” Though I don’t know to what yet. My only definite plan is that I’m going to be secretly recording
on my phone during the conversation. “What are you going to be doing the whole time?” I ask him.
“I’m going to be searching his car,” he says confidently.
“You’re going to break into his car? You don’t even know what he drives.”
He looks over at me. “That’s why you’re going to tell me.”
“And when the car alarm starts going off?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“It’s a white Jeep Wrangler,” I say. “And he puts the top down when it’s warm out.”
“Even better.” He smiles.
Nearly two hours later we pull into a small lot behind Luna’s.
It’s an eccentric-looking café painted blue on the outside with flowers climbing up the walls.
The back lot is small, with room for only a few cars, and sure enough Miles’s Jeep is one of them.
Asher parks across from it and we both get out of the car.
He stretches his arms and legs and I nervously wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans.
“You ready?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
We look over at the Jeep, which is entirely open in the warm weather, just as I predicted. Asher won’t even have to break
in. “Man, this is too easy,” he says. “Call me if anything crazy happens in there so I know to get out of the car.”
“Okay,” I say, but it’s barely above a whisper.
Asher opens his mouth to say something but closes it to give me a tight-lipped smile before turning toward the Jeep.
I walk up the small set of stairs before the back door to the coffee shop and take a few breaths before going in. “You can
do this,” I say to myself.
I open the door and am met with the overwhelming smell of coffee beans and fresh flowers.
Large vases full of stems sit all around the shop, making it difficult to see much of anything.
I take a few slow steps farther in, getting closer to the coffee bar in the center of the shop.
Small wooden tables are placed around it, each full of people, but none of them are him.
My heeled boots clack on the white tile floor as I keep walking to where you order.
When I look to my left I see a black-wire spiral staircase leading to an upstairs of the shop, where more tables are lined against the wall, overlooking the downstairs.
I peer up at the landing, and that’s when I see him.
Miles Holland sits at a small table for two, with a coffee mug in his left hand.
He brings it to his lips for a sip as his right hand types over the keyboard of his laptop, the bright white screen reflecting off his glasses.
He sets the coffee down and checks the time on his watch.
I’m suddenly flooded with memories, particularly the bad ones, and I duck back beneath the cover of the landing so that he can’t see me if he looks down.
What am I doing? I can’t do this. I take out my phone and start to email him back saying I have to cancel and send it without a second thought.
I creep around the spiral stairs just slightly to see his face when he reads my email.
He only sighs and shuts his laptop, starting to pack up.
Shit.
I make my way back out to the parking lot and yell for Asher. His head pops up from inside Miles’s trunk.
“You can’t be done already! I just started looking back here, and he’s got so much shit to go through.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I blurt out, going up to the car. “I couldn’t talk to him. I emailed him saying I had to cancel and he
started packing up, so get out of the car, come on.” I gesture for him to get out urgently, but the back door to the coffee
shop opens and I hear Miles’s voice as he leaves the café. He’s turned around talking to someone as he steps out the door.
“Shit, shit, shit!” In a moment of pure idiocy, I hoist myself over the edge of the trunk and land right on top of Asher with
a thud. Something sharp digs into my back as I land, and I hiss before Asher covers my mouth with his hand. We lie completely
still, barely breathing as Miles’s footsteps get closer to the car and walk around to the driver’s side door. He gets in and
starts up the Jeep and I finally lift my head from Asher’s chest enough to look at him with panic in my eyes.
The Jeep shakes and rocks as it pulls out of the gravel lot.
Miles puts music on loud enough to drown out anything going on back here and I take a look at the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
Asher wasn’t kidding when he said there’s a lot back here to go through.
There’s a folded-up dog crate behind me taking up most of the room, and also the culprit of what’s digging into my back.
Multiple duffel bags, papers, towels, and other junk are scattered all around us.
There’s no room for me to get off of Asher.
I’m lying on top of him, with his hands tightly wrapped around me to keep me from sliding into the crate and making noise.
But that’s the last thing I’m thinking about as Miles is driving to god knows where.
“What the fuck are we going to do?” I whisper to Asher over the music.
“We could try jumping out at the next stoplight?” he suggests.
“Into oncoming traffic?” I say. “Not to mention he’ll see that in the rearview mirror.”
“Then I guess we better hope wherever he’s going is a short ride.”
I start to get a kink in my neck after five minutes of trying to not have to rest my head on his chest. I give in and lie
back down, which sends my hair up into his face. I hear him sputter trying to remove it from his mouth. He brings a hand up
and smooths my hair back out of both of our faces, and the gesture feels gentle and comforting. The first comforting touch
I’ve felt in weeks and I close my eyes for a moment just listening to his quickened heartbeat.
“This playlist fucking sucks,” Asher says after about fifteen minutes’ worth of songs goes by, and it hits me then that this
is the playlist I made for him last year.
“I made him this,” I say, more so to myself, because I can’t believe he still listens to it.
“No wonder it sucks.” Hearing Asher’s annoying voice rumble through his chest snaps me out of my thoughts of comfort and I start to look around the trunk for any other place to go so I don’t have to be in this position.
There’s a tiny bit of room where I might be able to curl up into a ball above his head but that would require me dragging my entire body over his face and I am sure neither of us wants that.
He makes an uncomfortable noise as I’m moving around looking for another spot. “Will you stop with that?”
“I’m trying to find another spot to move to,” I snap back at him.
“Trust me, I don’t want to be in this position either.” Miles takes a sharp turn, which has my body sliding up against Asher’s
and rocking back. He lets out another groan and shuts his eyes, and that’s when I feel it.
“Oh my god, tell me that’s not what I think it is,” I say, looking at him, as I’m now positive that he’s hard against me.
“What do you want from me? You’ve been straddling me for the past twenty minutes during a particularly aggressive car ride.”
He grits his teeth and takes a deep breath.
“That’s all it takes? Men are disgusting.” I shake my head. Miles takes another turn, not nearly as tight as the first time,
but for some reason I let my body slide against his again. And why? I don’t know. I tell myself it’s because I like seeing
him miserable.
His arms tighten around me to keep me in place. “You did that one on purpose,” he says. I would never admit that I did, or
how feeling him underneath me with arms around me so tight is making my mind go to mush.
I try to reel it in. Try to clear out the thoughts that are popping into my head about him.
It’s Asher, Sloane. It’s the same guy who is helping you only to get what he wants.
He doesn’t actually care if you go to jail for murders you didn’t commit.
Just three hours ago he told you Bryce was dead just for a laugh. He’s cruel.
Minutes later the car slows to a stop, and Miles puts it in park. I hold my breath again, worried he might come back here
for one of these bags, but his footsteps echo off the pavement, getting farther and farther away. I peek up over the trunk
to see him walking to the door of a brick town house and putting the key in.