Chapter 17
ZANE
Keeping up with Sienna was always hard. Impossible even. She just proved that by walking straight past guns pointed at her. And while it’s hard to know what she’ll do next, it’s even more impossible to know what she’s thinking.
Just now, she went from smiling and kissing me, saying we’re together and that’s how we’re staying, to climbing quietly onto the back of my bike, not protesting at all when I told her we will never be anything ever again.
But I’m done trying to figure out the mystery of Sienna.
She’s full of lies.
Lies I was blinded to because I loved her so much. Lies that made me throw away my whole life because I believed them to be true.
I am not making that mistake again.
No matter how good her body pressed against my back feels.
She steers us in the direction of a strip mall not far beyond the borders of the town we just left.
Normally, I’d keep far away from places like shopping malls and such—too many cameras, too many ways to be seen and recognized.
But I doubt this place has any working cameras, the windows of all the stores are grimy, cracked and/or boarded up, and there are only three cars in the parking lot.
“There’s an army store in here,” she says as we’re walking towards the entrance. “I’m sure they’ll have helmets too. Is it OK for you to go in there?”
“You afraid I’ll get arrested and you’ll lose your ride to LA?” I ask as I hold open the creaking, heavily rusted and patched-up door for her. This place has seen many break-ins, though looking at it, I can’t imagine what anyone would want to steal here.
She casts me a hurt glance as she passes me, but rounds on me with a huge, beaming smile on her face once we’re inside.
“Yeah, I am afraid you’ll get arrested,” she says. “Because I don’t ever want to lose you again.”
Typical Sienna. Not taking no for an answer. That much I do know about her. But my mind’s made up. I am not letting her back into my life.
I walk past her without responding, checking out the stores lining the narrow walkway so I don’t have to look at her. Most of the store are closed down permanently, but at the very end the army store is open and lit brighter than Vegas.
She pulls me into another store we pass before we reach it though. This one selling women’s clothes of all sorts.
“I need outfits for the road,” she says. “This will only take a minute.”
The cashier gives us a bored glance and then goes back to scrolling her phone.
“Shopping with you has never taken less than the whole day,” I mutter and get another of her beaming bright smiles. Who needs the sun when you got those?
But I need to get my head on straight, stop thinking crazy, get us to LA and start forgetting about her all over again.
I keep to the darker, shadowier parts of the store while she browses the racks.
Though I doubt there’s much point in trying to hide.
The few people we’ve met so far in this mall are looking right through us, if they’re looking at us at all.
But it’s better to be careful. That’s always been my number one rule.
Sometime later she’s standing in front of me again, a heaping pile of clothes of all sorts in her arms. “Come with me to try these on.”
She doesn’t wait for my answer, which would’ve been no. She just struts to the changing rooms at the back of the store.
She’s already behind the thick black curtain of the dressing room when I reach it, but she left more than a crack open at the side. And as she removes her sweater and her milky white skin with just a hint of caramel comes into view, I’m not thinking about saying no to her anymore. Ever again.
And that’s a very bad thing.
But I forget all about that as she turns and smiles at me.
The bra she’s wearing is the color of her skin and all lace.
It hides nothing. Nor does the shirt she pulls on over it.
All black, tighter than skin, with a cutout right where her breasts press together.
And all I’m thinking is that I’d be the happiest man alive if all I got to do for the rest of my life is keep my head buried in those breasts.
“You like it?” she asks with a tone that suggests she knows exactly what I was thinking.
I clear my throat and look past her. “Let’s hurry this up and get the hell out of here.”
She smiles again, takes my hand, and attempts to pull me behind the curtain. I let her.
“That’s not what either of us wants right now, is it?” she asks quietly.
And then we’re kissing again and I wish the damn shirt wasn’t skin-tight so it’d be easier to peel off her. And that’s more or less all I’m thinking.
She always could hijack my mind. Clearly that never died, not in all the years of stewing all my happy memories of her in hatred. Nor did my need for her. The need I can’t fight.
Her jeans are as tight as her shirt, and I just about have them down when a loud rap on the side of the flimsy dressing room sounds.
“Hey, no funny business in there or I’m calling the cops,” the cashier yells. Her voice is much deeper than I thought it’d be from looking at her. And she said the one, single thing that could stop me from trying to get into Sienna’s pants.
Because if the cops come, I might never get to do that again. And that’s not a reality I’m willing to face.
“Yes, yes, we’ll be right out,” Sienna says in a breathless voice, pushing my hands away so she can button her pants back up. She sounds as frightened by the prospect of cops coming as I am. Probably for the same reason.
She pays for a whole heap of the clothes she never tried on with a black credit card before I can stop her. Then she rushes down the aisle to the army store, leaving me trailing behind her with the bags, wondering how it’ll all fit on my bike.
“You know, I doubt cops come out here much. For anything,” I tell her as we enter the store.
“I don’t want to risk it,” she says. “I only just got you back.”
Then she picks out a helmet in record time—black with golden roses and flames on the sides—and this time I do manage to pay for it in cash before she whips out her credit card again.
“Those can be traced too easily,” I tell her and she nods.
But I also wanted to get something for her. Anything. I’d get anything for her. As I’ve already proven time and again.
Clearly that urge hasn’t died in the years of black hate either. And it’s gonna be a problem. But I’ll figure that out later, once we’re out of this cold northern rain and back in sunny LA where we belong.