Chapter 11

Jason

On the low down, I follow Journey back to her hotel.

From the back seat of my ride, I am reeling in horror that Journey’s driver is not headed to the Ritz-Carlton, where I put her up.

Instead, they are headed north on Central Expressway, toward the suburbs.

I check the app. To my dismay, the route that I paid for has been canceled.

Journey did that.

“I changed my mind. We’re headed to Plano.”

“No can do, sir. This ain’t a cab, and I have another pickup in 20 minutes.”

I peel off five twenties and lean over, dropping them on the front passenger seat. “That should cover it.”

“Yes, sir, it does.”

“Good. Can you follow other rides on your app?”

“We’re not supposed to tell people that, but yes.”

“Follow that Nissan to its destination, and I’ll double that tip when we get there.”

He guns the engine, and we’re on our way to Plano.

“Jason, what are you doing here?”

Journey is pissed when she sees me exit the car in front of the pay-by-the-hour cardboard box that passes for a motel. I should expect her pissed-off face, but it still hurts my chest.

I grab her under the arm and aim to pull her toward the car I paid to wait for me.

“Saving you from yourself.”

“But all my stuff is in there! I just want to take a nap.”

“Fine,” I grit out. “But I’m coming with you.”

Journey sighs like I’m the most irritating person on the planet. “I’m not going to bolt. Where would I go?”

She continues to sigh and kvetch and hiss as we walk arm in arm up the staircase to the second floor.

“I’m not worried about you running away; I’m worried about someone murdering you here,” I mutter.

“So dramatic,” she says. However, as we pass what might or might not be a fellow guest of the motel on the down who wears a dirty white tank top and carries a revolver on one side of his belt and a cattle prod on the other, Journey inches closer to me.

“What the fuck?” she whispers.

“Welcome to Texas. Still feel like taking a nice blissful nap here?”

“Zip it, Riggins.”

Five minutes later, but not soon enough, I have Journey buckled into the back seat once again.

When I’m comfortably next to her, the car begins the return journey toward downtown.

“You don’t seriously expect me to go to the Ritz.”

“You didn’t seriously expect me to let you nap at bedbug central.”

She shrugs. “I spent the other night there. It was fine.” She’s lying through her teeth, but I let it go.

“Journey. I meant it when I said Daddy would take care of you.”

She shrieks. “We were playing a game! A private game.”

I glance up at the driver, who is abruptly hanging up on a phone call so he can listen to the drama unfolding in his back seat.

“Do you think me buying the restaurant you were offered a job at is a game? You think I do that for shits and giggles?”

Journey blinks at me, turning over my words in her mind.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. You could have told me who you were? At the very least that you were a chef! I told you I was applying for a job at the Rubicon, but you didn’t tell me you were thinking of buying it.”

And here’s where I could get slapped with a no-contact order. “I wasn’t thinking of buying it until I met you,” I admit.

“Wait…what?” Journey looks at me like I just sprouted a second head.

“That’s the damn truth. I overheard you taking that call from Richard last night. And I lost my fucking mind. I don’t want you working for him. I don’t want you working for anyone else. I’m crazy about you.”

“You’re crazy about my cooking, you mean.” Her pretty throat bobs, and it’s all I can do not to reach out and put my hands back behind her neck and pull her to me. To own her and claim her and let her know with my body what my mouth can’t say. That I love her. That she’s mine.

“I haven’t tried your cooking yet, shortcake, but I already know it’s good.”

“How would you know?”

“Because you have passion coming out of your pores, baby girl.”

She looks away, pursing her lips and letting out a slow, steadying breath.

The car pulls up to the curb. The Ritz-Carlton doorman approaches as our driver exits and opens Journey’s door.

“Let’s go into the lobby and talk,” I say.

“I need sleep,” she says. “And the time it took to drive me back downtown severely ate into my nap time.”

I provide a solution without hesitation. “Then we can go up to your room and talk.”

“That’s still not sleeping,” she says.

“Then you sleep, I’ll talk. You can ignore me.”

This gets me a small, rueful smile and a shake of her head. She shoves her hand through her mop of curls.

The driver asks, “Ma’am, do you want me to get rid of this guy?”

I wait.

She rolls her eyes. “Thanks, but no. I don’t.”