46-Zach
“Greg’s not going to agree to this. No freaking way.”
My pulse spikes so hard it rattles my ribs. It was supposed to be a clean escape after tonight’s show, and instead I walked straight into this.
Seth, Yensil, Cooper, and Kit, waiting in front of my rental car, the latter carrying an overnight duffel. My throat tightens.
“Besides,” I continue, throwing my hands up, “If I don’t make it back in time for the next show, that’s fine.” I glance from Seth to Kit, then back to Seth again, waiting for one of them to crack and admit this is some elaborate joke. “If Kit doesn’t, it’s a disaster.”
“I’ve got it all sorted, love.” Seth’s bronzed skin crinkles as he grins, one hip leaning against the driver’s door to keep me from bolting.
“Greg knows he needs a proper break, and not that ‘sit in a dark room and pretend to meditate’ shite. But we haven’t got a clue where to put him.
That’s where you come in, since you’re headin’ ta the middle of nowhere. ”
“I don’t know,” Cooper pipes up behind me, “you might not want to entrust her with being your chauffeur. She may have her license, but this woman can’t drive to save her life.
” He taps the roof of the decade-old white sedan.
“I’m shocked the rental company didn’t have her sign a waiver for this bad boy. ”
I spin around and shove him hard in the shoulder. “Shut up.”
Coop stumbles back, hands raised innocently even though he knows he’s poking the bear. His stupid grin says it all; loving every second of this.
“Would you prefer me not to come?” Kit asks in a whisper.
I turn to him, arms crossed, ready to say most fucking definitely.
His chin is dipped to the ground; shoulders tense beneath an oversized slate-gray sweatshirt. For someone six feet tall, he looks small. Delicate. He stares at his pristine designer sneakers, anywhere but my face.
Despite Endymion’s earlier warnings, something in me softens for the lanky, handsome Brit.
The idea of spending two days with him intrigues but also terrifies me. There are half-formed feelings between us, tangled and messy. I don’t have the courage to unravel them alone, and he’s not in a place to add another pound to the emotional weight he already carries.
I haven’t been back home since my dad died. When I set foot there again, I don’t know who I’ll be. But I want him with me; a reassuring presence at times when I’m ready to tumble over the edge. Even if wanting him feels like stepping toward a cliff.
Before I can respond, a low throat-clear comes from my right.
Yensil stands a few feet away, posture straight as a steel beam, hands clasped behind his back. The overhead parking-lot lights cast a pale glow across his newly-shaved head. His black tactical jacket blends into the shadows, but the matte glint of the firearm holstered at his hip catches my eye.
“Evenin’, Zach,” he says quietly, voice low and careful, stepping back as if afraid to startle me. “I won’t…crowd the space. I’ll keep my distance.”
My stomach drops. I swallow hard.
Yensil’s shadowy eyes flick to mine, then away, guilt tightening his stony features.
He shifts his weight, boots scraping softly against the asphalt.
There’s something unspoken between us; he’s been awkward around me ever since the hotel incident, professional to a fault, but softer somehow. Apologetic without saying the words.
Kit glances between us, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask him. Kit lifts his small, barrel-shaped duffel bag in answer. I turn to Seth, knowing I’m going to live to regret this. “Are you sure about this?”
“He needs this.”
Seth leans in, puckering his lips and accentuating already too-big eyes in an annoyingly sweet puppy-dog look. He opens the back seat of the rental. Kit tosses him the duffel bag, and Seth chucks it inside like he’s loading a getaway car, slamming the door shut in finality.
Yensil steps forward then, clearing his throat again. “I’ll follow behind, the roads are a bit messy tonight.”
My chest tightens. “You don’t have to—”
“It’s my job,” he says simply, but the guilt is still there, sitting heavy in his eyes. He nods once more, then steps back into the shadows.
“I could always leave you on the side of the road,” I mutter to Kit as he walks past me toward the passenger side.
“Yensil would just pick me up, silly.”
I stick my tongue out at him, because of course, master Kit has thought of everything.
He laughs, and it’s like someone switched on a light.
The harsh worry lines soften, irises sparking bright and clear, as if fog’s been wiped from a window.
Sharp angles rearrange into something youthful, changing everything about him.
It’s the boy he was before life drowned him in its unkindness, twisting vigorous innocence into brittle culpability. The version of him untouched by the slow, grinding weight of being alive long enough for life to take things.
Because that’s what life does.
It snuffs out the light in small, quiet ways: a betrayal here and loss there, a thousand tiny cuts chronically dulling you into a pessimist who can’t help but see the worst in it.
“Have fun, you kids,” Coop says, winking as he opens the driver’s door for me like the gentleman he isn’t.
I shoot him a glare, but smug satisfaction radiates off him and Seth like heat.
“If anything happens to the rockstar,” I warn, pointing between them, “and that includes me needing to kill him, it’s on you two. Remember that.”
“Just let him get some kip,” Seth says, waving me off as he comes back from the passenger’s side. “He needs it. For all our sakes.”
I duck into the car. Kit’s already buckled in, hands folded neatly in his lap, gazing over at me with those stupidly big eyes.
“And what exactly am I supposed to be getting out of all this?” I raise a brow.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He lifts his hand, flashing a smile bright enough to power the Midwest as he gestures at himself. “Exclusive time with yours truly, and I happen to be extraordinary company.”
He winks, and my lips betray me with a smirk, my stomach somersaulting. I slide into the driver’s seat, click my seat belt in, then put the key in the ignition.
Outside, Yensil stands a few paces back, arms folded, watching us with that same conflicted expression of protective and guilty, trying desperately not to show either. When our eyes meet, he gives me a small, stiff nod.
I nod in return.
Kit leans back as the engine purrs to life, closing his eyes. I wave at the two men outside my window and swallow hard, gripping the steering wheel.
Two days on the road, just us. And Yensil. Heading toward a place I’ve spent years avoiding.
“This better be one hell of an exclusive.”
I wake up stiff and half folded in the backseat.
My spine protests with a crack that reminds me I’m not seventeen anymore. Kit seemed nervous about driving in the middle of the night, nearly having a panic attack when a deer hopped out from the ditch, so we pulled into a rest area to wait out the dark.
The idea of sleeping in a car at a truck stop was foreign to him.
But Yensil pulled up beside us in his tailing car, and he relaxed long enough to pass out in the passenger side up front.
Even now, as I stretch, I can see the dark shape of Yensil’s SUV parked a respectful distance away, engine off, and windows fogged from the cold. He’s probably awake, always is.
We brush our teeth in the bathrooms then hit the road again, stopping for a burger at the only fast-food joint that serves them before eleven a.m. The déjà vu batters against my defenses, making way for grief to swallow me.
“That drink is absolutely disgusting,” Kit says through a gagging cough, shoving my root beer between us. He lifts his paper cup of water, the flimsy blue straw bending between his lips. “Some things you Americans come up with are unnecessary.”
I snort through a chew, savoring the red onion. “Coming from people who spread canned beans on toast.” I wrinkle my nose, wiping mayo from my chin. “Yeah, you have no say.”
Through the wide windows, I catch a glimpse of Yensil leaning against his SUV, arms folded, scanning the parking lot with a coiled vigilance as he twirls one of those fidget spinners. He keeps his distance, but the sight of him is a constant reminder that Kit and I aren’t actually alone. Ever.
“Why is it always the beans and toast with you lot,” he says through a mouthful of his own deluxe bacon cheeseburger.
“That’s the only thing you have against us.
I don’t know if you’ve had a proper English roast, but it’s the most delicious thing you’ll ever eat.
Apart from this.” He lifts his half-eaten burger reverently, staring at it like it’s gourmet.
“This is bloody brilliant. Much better than the rot beer.”
“Root beer,” I say around my last bite of burger, leaning over the table so I don’t spill any more condiments on my leggings.
“Whatever. It’s atrocious,” he declares, eating half of what’s left of his burger in one giant chomp.
Crinkling the wrapper, I toss the ball onto the blue plastic tray. Grilled meat and onions fill the tiny burger place, the scent stirring a wave of nostalgia.
Nicole and I used to eat here all the time in high school.
We’d drive forty-five minutes for a kid’s meal we were too old to be ordering just to get the free scoop of custard. It was the kind of monotonous and predictable routine that used to suffocate me. But now, I’d trade anything to have just one more of those days.
“All right, are we off?” Kit asks, snapping me back to a present that’s emptier than a minute ago. Finishing his food, he rolls the paper bag shut and sets it at his feet.
“Yeah,” I say, and we make our way back to the rental.
The engine hums to life startlingly quiet. It’s nothing like Cherry Bomb; no coughing or rattles that run up through the steering column and into my bones. I realize how many bumps and bruises my car’s been hiding under her hood.