Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Wolf
Two days ago, we’d tried to steal a catalytic converter off a Prius parked behind the Piggly Wiggly.
All Jade had to do was be the lookout, but instead of watching for the owner, she had been hyper focused on some crackhead on the corner shouting, “The end is nigh.” By the time she whistled to alert me, the owner of the Prius was already halfway to the car.
I had to book it through the woods at the back of the store—without the converter.
But tonight, I thought I’d finally found something Jade-proof.
Break into a dead man’s trailer in the middle of the woods. No alarms. No owner. No witnesses…
Jade followed close behind me as we cut through the dark, overgrown lot. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she whispered, pressing close when I stopped in front of the door. “No, I can’t believe I’m doing this. You…”
I huffed a laugh before wedging the crowbar into the doorjamb. “Me, what?” One hard tug, and the door popped open, the unwelcoming scent of stale air and curdled milk creeping out.
“You’re a criminal.”
“Good thing you’re into that.”
Jade followed me into the dark living room, cutting on her phone’s flashlight before she closed the door. “Usually…”
“You mean you don’t want to screw on his bed?”
She frowned when I glanced back at her. “There’s something wrong with you.”
Laughing, I moved past the tattered couch to one of the end tables.
“This is so low,” she whispered. “I feel…dirty.”
If I were honest, so did I. “The guy is dead. He doesn’t need this stuff. It’s just going to sit here and rot.” And I knew that because I’d browsed the obituaries looking for some poor, unfortunate soul with no surviving relatives
“Still…you think he died in here?” Jade shined the light over a cluttered sideboard. “Smells like it.” She rifled through a few things. “Surely, an old man in a trailer won’t have anything of value.”
Everything had some kind of value, and in the situation Jade was in, every penny counted.
“You’d be surprised,” I said, rummaging through a drawer filled with junk—papers, screws, matches…
“Baseball cards are a thing, right?” she asked, pulling a small stack of tattered cards from another drawer.
“Yeah. Shove ‘em in your pocket.”
I opened another drawer, and something clattered to the floor behind me. The light dipped when Jade crouched.
“Oh, my God.” She shoved to her feet and gripped my arm. “We should go. I think he was a serial killer.”
“What?”
She shined the light over the floor, and the teeth scattered across it.
“What the fuck?” The longer I stared at them, the hair on my arms lifted. I reminded myself that Mom had kept my baby teeth in a travel toothbrush case, but then Jeffrey Dahmer had kept brains in his fridge…
“See!” she whispered, her clammy grip on my arm tightening. “We’re robbing a dead serial killer. That’s got to be some eternal bad juju.”
“Probably his kids’” Although that was a lot of teeth…
“You said he didn’t have relatives.”
“The paper said no surviving relatives.”
“That’s like three kids’ teeth. What are the chances all of his kids died?”
We both stood in silence, our gazes fixed on those damn teeth.
“Okay, this is freaking me out.” She released my arm and headed to the door. “I’m waiting outside.”
The second it banged shut, unease crept through me. Having a gun pulled on me, I could handle. Paranormal shit put me on edge.
I took a quick look around again. Yep. She was right.
An old man who collected teeth wasn’t going to have anything of value…
that was why I headed to the door. Just before I reached for the knob, I stopped.
A framed picture of Paul Bear Bryant—one of the most legendary Alabama football coaches to exist—hung over the light switch.
My gaze dropped to a signature scrawled in the corner.
And holy shit, could that be worth some major cash.
“Bless your soul, you creepy fuck,” I said, taking it from the wall and leaving.
Night air and the chirp of crickets wrapped around me when I stepped outside. Jade waited a good ten feet away from the trailer, her arms wrapped around herself.
I waded through the knee-high grass and held up the picture. “Jackpot!”
“Great. Bring the haunted picture of some old guy. Wait.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is that him?”
“Are you serious?”
She shined the light on the picture, then shifted to the side. “His serial killer eyes are following me. It’s freaking me out.”
“This is Bear Bryant.”
Jade gave me a blank stare.
“The football coach.” Nothing. “Crimson Tide? Six national championships. Thirteen conference championships…” God, she was hopeless.
“Whatever. It’s still probably haunted.”
“Trust me, this is worth a ghost.”
“Can we leave now?” She started across the lot, and I followed her, ducking through the wire fence that led into the woods at the back of the trailer park.
We walked in silence for a while, me following a short distance behind Jade, until something in the trees rustled. Then I picked up my pace to catch up with her.
“You’re scared.” Not a question. A statement.
“Just a little on edge.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know, I bet those teeth would match some cold cases.”
“You want to go back there and collect them?”
She stopped at the fence line between the woods and the meadow. “No!”
“His secrets died with him, and that’s where they’ll stay,” I said, hopping the fence before grabbing her waist and helping her over.
I had no business thinking about the way her tits pressed against me right then, but it was Jade.
I’d have fucked her on the dead serial killer’s bed if she was into that shit.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll just try not to have nightmares.”
“You do that.” I took her hand and pulled her through the long grass, but she lingered behind. “What are you doing?”
She swept her flashlight over the long grass while taking slow steps. “Checking for snakes.”
“Would you come on? They don’t come out at night.”
“Snakes are most active at night!”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a pessimist?”
“I’m a realist. And a survivalist. No serial killers. No snakes.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you’d last more than five minutes in a zombie apocalypse.” Clutching the picture in one hand, I crouched in front of her. “Get on.”
“What?”
I motioned for my back. “Get on. No snake is getting you up here, and I don’t have all night to walk like we’re in a damn mine field.”
“Oh, really? You have somewhere more important to be than here with me?”
“Yeah, in my bed with you. Hurry up.”
That shut her up. On a huff, she hopped onto my back, wrapping her arms around my throat, her thighs around my waist.
I enjoyed the feel of her against me way too much. “Also, there’s no such thing as zombies. Yet.”
“But if there were…”
“You’d be one?”
“No.” She rested her chin on my shoulder. “Okay, you’re right, I’d be fucked. I’d just lie down and succumb to a life of eating people.”
I laughed. At least she was honest.
When we made it to the clearing by the pond I’d parked by, she asked if we could stay.
I turned my face toward hers still on my shoulder. “You want to stay by the serial killer’s snake-infested property?”
“It’s pretty. Kind of reminds me of the creek behind your trailer.”
Moonlight spilled over a lone pier jutting out into the middle of the water, surrounded by tall reeds.
It was nothing like the ratty creek behind the trailer park I’d grown up in, but I could see what she meant.
It was peaceful. Like the shit of town hadn’t managed to reach it yet. “Yeah, I guess it kind of does.”
I dropped her to the ground. She walked ahead of me, cutting through the clearing, a lone shadow in the dark. The whole scene was reminiscent of one of those 1980s horror films I used to watch with Dad. “Survivalist,” I muttered under my breath, then followed her.
She took a seat on the edge of the pier, dangling her feet over the water.
I stopped for a second to watch her. God, did she look perfect under those stars.
Like something too pure for me. Something I would taint.
That touch of innocence that seemed to cling to her was what had me falling for her back in high school.
She was the only pure thing in that shithole town. The only pure thing in my life.
I rested the picture against one of the rotting posts, then sat beside her.
Water lapped against the pier, almost in rhythm with the croak of frogs. I had to admit, there was a sense of serenity about it. Familiarity. Growing up, all I’d wanted to do was get the hell out of Dayton, the hell out of the South, but moments like this made me appreciate it.
“When we first broke up, whenever I went home, I’d go to the creek and The Lookout. I don’t know if I was hoping you’d be there, too—hoping to see me.”
The first time I’d gone since we’d split up was when I took her last weekend. Those were our places, and as masochistic as I could be, I didn’t want to hurt myself that way. “I couldn’t bring myself to go without you.”
“Never?”
“Not until last weekend.”
Jade swung her feet over the water. “I think I kept going because I was chasing this feeling.”
“What feeling?”
Her gaze met mine, and damn if that soft look in her eyes didn’t make me feel loved. “This?” She rested her head on my shoulder. Her fingers swept the inside of my wrist. “Whatever this is.”
“Peace.” It was peace. I put my arm around her and pulled her closer to my side.
“All yours now.” Because I loved her in a way that didn’t seem real.
That all-consuming love people say doesn’t exist outside of bullshit Hollywood movies and books.
Something I felt without trying. Something I’d felt even when I tried, to my own detriment, not to.
I hadn’t told her I loved her since the night I’d slammed back a bottle of whiskey, and while the urge was clawing at my insides, there was still a part of me that was hesitant.
Afraid to give myself over. I drew in a breath, telling myself to blurt out the damn words, but before I could, she pointed at the sky.
“Look, it’s the drunk sloth.” She traced the pattern of stars with her finger.
Back in high school, Jade had gone through an astronomy phase, and we’d lie on the roof of Dad’s trailer, stargazing.
None of the constellations made sense to me.
They all looked like random patterns, but it made her happy.
Once, I’d pointed out a cluster of stars I thought looked like a football.
Jade started referring to it as Wilson. Every time we’d find a pattern, we’d make up a name for it.
It was stupid, probably, but those nights felt like they belonged to us.
Like the rest of the world didn’t exist. All the pressures of school and home-life, and all the bullshit seemed to disappear.
“I still say it looks more like an anteater.”
“An anteater with no nose? You realize that is literally the key feature of an anteater.”
“It has a nose.” I pointed at the cluster of stars that looked just like a damn nose. “Right there.”
“That’s the sloth’s arm.”
“You see an arm, I see a nose.”
“You sure you haven’t had too many head injuries on the field?” She waved a hand in front of my face. “Maybe your eyesight is going.”
“My eyesight is just fine, thank you.” I lay back on the worn wood and pulled her down beside me. “It’s a nose.”
Jade rested her head on my bicep and slid her palm beneath my shirt, absentmindedly drawing circles over my stomach.
Such a simple, almost innocent touch, but God, did it feel good.
That touch wasn’t about sex. It was affection, love…
electrifying and soothing all at once. Something that made me feel grounded, wanted, needed.
I wasn’t sure how I’d made it a year and a half without this. Without her.
I held her close to me and pressed my lips to the top of her head, soaking up the moment.
The peacefulness of the pond, the feel of her breathing against me, the coconut scent of her hair.
Not that long ago, I thought I’d never have this again.
That everything between us had been burned to shit.
But there we were, in each other’s arms.
I pointed out another pattern. “Remember what we named that one?”
“Ursa Nike. I still say it’s a tick, though.”
“You’re crazy. That is one hundred percent a swoosh.”
She huffed out a laugh. “How many concussions have you had now?”
“Five. But I was saying it was a swoosh at two. Seriously, that is a smooth curve.” I rolled onto my side and swept my hand over the dip from her waist to her hip. “Just like this. Smooth as shit.”
“Now who’s smooth?” She leaned over me, half rolling onto my chest. “Still a tick.”
“You like being wrong, huh?”
“I’m never wrong.” She grinned. “You have impaired vision.”
I slipped a hand under her shirt, brushing her bra. “Think I should start reading braille?”
“My boobs don’t count as braille.”
I pulled down her cup and skimmed a finger over her nipple. “This says differently.”
“You are such an idiot.”
I didn’t miss the hitch in her breath. “Calling me that isn’t politically correct. Head injuries and all.” I went to the other nipple. “Probably should apologize.”
“Probably,” she said, pushing up to shimmy out of her shorts before straddling me.
“I’m good at apologies.” She tugged her shirt over her head, her dark hair falling over her chest, before she took off her bra.
My dick hardened. I’d have sold my soul to get inside her right then.
She fumbled with my fly. “I don’t feel like I’ve apologized enough, though.
” She lowered my fly and fisted my dick.
“Now we’re talking.”
“This isn’t talking…” She shoved her panties to the side before positioning me right where I wanted to be. At the first touch of wet heat, I threw my head back, trying to ground myself.
Then she stopped, and I lifted my head to look at her. “That’s not even half of an apology.”
Smiling, she sank down until all I could focus on was the way she felt wrapped around me. Like fucking heaven.