32. Utah

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

utah

S he went from smiling at her phone to looking like she might cry over it in a matter of seconds. I knew it was about New Jersey just because of the timing. That didn’t make it any easier to swallow. It was a super fucking weird relationship. Trista had referred to it as a brother-sister/daddy-daughter trauma bond once. I hadn’t come up with a better description for it myself yet, but something about that still didn’t quite explain it either.

They loved each other, but they weren’t in love with each other. There was nothing remotely sexual about it. They both acted like the thought of the other being sexual in any sense was repulsive. At the same time, she’d been having an incredibly difficult time adjusting to his absence. It was hard to understand, given the nature of their working relationship before all of our jobs went to hell. They’d never actually spent time together. They hadn’t even met one another. Whether it was the physical distance now, or the fact that she felt like she couldn’t talk to him on the phone all day without being a burden to his mental health, it was clearly painful for her.

And I didn’t like that shit one bit.

He and I weren’t fans of one another. He didn’t like the fact that I existed, and I wasn’t particularly fond of the fact that he’d been given the ability to speak. He would absolutely despise the knowledge that this tiny shred of physical intimacy had developed between Memphis and me. But I also had to be ready to just fucking deal with the fact that he wasn’t really going anywhere. He might have been in the middle of the ocean somewhere currently, but he was in her life to stay. She obviously wanted him back in her life around here. She just didn’t know how to make that request without feeling guilty about it.

“Will you tell me what happened in the bar last night?” I asked.

“No,” she said so quickly that it made me laugh.

“Some guy was dragging you out of that building,” I continued anyway. “You didn’t want to go with him. Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

“I knew you would do something about it,” she said, and laid her menu back down when the waitress interrupted that conversation to take our order. I continued to stare right at Memphis even once the waitress was gone.

“I panicked,” she finally whispered. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m not good in crowds, or just with people in general. I can barely sit here and talk to you right now. I’m supposed to be holed up in a room in front of a display of computer monitors. Probably with thick velvet curtains drawn and the door locked from the outside. Like a vampire.”

“You know a lot about vampires,” I said. Wasn’t a question; I saw some of those book titles.

She glared at me. “I know you looked in that box.”

I smiled at the fire in her eyes. “You know you’re even cuter when you’re mad.”

“You know I like you a little less every time your mouth opens.”

“You won’t feel that way once my mouth makes you see God, angel.”

I laughed while she choked on her coffee. She looked all the way around us as she laughed and tried to wipe her mouth with her napkin before her giant, panicked eyes landed back on me.

“Nobody was paying any attention at all to either of us before you decided to spit your coffee out,” I chuckled. “Stop worrying about what they think. You don’t know these people.”

“Do you have some sort of quota to meet for how often you’re able to embarrass me? Is there a goal you’re trying to achieve?”

I leaned on the table so I could reach across it and grab her hand. “I just like the way your face looks when you smile, Memphis. I want to be the reason it happens.”

While she sat there and stared at me like those words had somehow confused her, it took me all of about two seconds to decide that I was keeping her to myself for the rest of the day. And all night if I could get away with it.

She never did admit that her greasy pile of food made her feel better, but she ate the entire cheeseburger, all of her fries, and then some of my fries.

“What are we doing today, angel?” I asked when she was done. She rubbed her hands over her face again.

“I need to compare the Marshalls to Indy’s list of missing kids,” Memphis said with a heavy sigh.

“Alright then,” I said and pulled out my phone. “I guess I’ll decide what we’re doing today.”

I texted Indy to tell him that we were taking the day off, but that if anything worth knowing happened to let me know rather than Memphis. Then I started looking for things that we could do that would put her out of control of the situation, so she’d have to just be in the moment with me.

The intense hangover she was experiencing probably wouldn’t pair well with a rollercoaster, so she lucked out of an amusement park being the winner. This chunk of Indiana definitely didn’t have much to offer to thrill seekers though. Making her jump out of an airplane with me seemed like an even worse idea than the rollercoaster.

The Internet suggested that Fall in Indiana had a grand total of two things to offer. Orchards for pumpkins and apples, and corn mazes. The mazes weren’t open until the evenings, and most were haunted. I didn’t bother to ask Memphis if she enjoyed being scared. That was most definitely something we’d have to work up to later to continue dragging her out of her little bubble of comfort. Surely, the hangover queen could survive a wagon ride behind a tractor, though. If not, there would at least be plenty of open space for her to throw up.

She laid her head back against the seat of my truck and rolled her eyes at me when I parked in the field of a big ass pumpkin patch.

“Don’t look at me like that. Girls are supposed to love this fall shit,” I said. “Pumpkin spice, and weird boots that don’t actually function as boots, and flannels, oh my.”

She looked down at the flannel of mine that she was still wearing and then glared at me.

“I’ve got some actual boots in the back if you want to complete the look,” I said and nodded toward the backseat.

“I think I’m more of a curses, poison, and witches, oh my kind of fall girl.”

“And vampires,” I added before I leapt out of that truck for the sake of my own safety. I went right around to where she was busy slamming the truck door. As soon as the little rageball turned to face me, I put both hands on the sides of her face to kiss her. I moved with her when she stumbled backward a little so I could walk her back against my truck and use it to my advantage another time. I’d only done this a handful of times, but I already knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I very much wanted to spend the rest of my life continuing to do exactly this. Her hands were locked in their death grip on my hips, and she still had her eyes closed when I stood upright again. She giggled and shook her head before she moved her hands to my wrists.

“That’s not good,” she whispered.

“Really?” I asked and moved a hand from her face to cup it between her legs. “I bet I’d be calling you a liar right now if I could feel beneath these jeans.”

The tiny little gasp that came out of her right along with my name had me reconsidering this pumpkin patch trip. If I’d had a way to teleport us back to my bed just then, I’d have done it without so much as a second thought.

“I meant—” she started to say and giggled before she forced herself to look up to my face again. “I meant that’s not good that I was fucking pissed at you a minute ago, and now—I’m just not. You’re probably not supposed to be able to wipe out anger completely with a kiss.”

She exhaled hard when I dragged my hand from where it rested between her legs all the way back up to her neck without ever leaving her body.

“Yeah, attractive men who know how to make you feel things you’ve never felt before are the fucking worst, aren’t they?” I whispered and kissed her forehead. I stepped back and grabbed her hand to pull her away from the truck until she was walking beside me.

“Is this actually happening right now?” Memphis asked and laughed after a quiet few seconds. “Did that just happen? And now we’re just going to go play fall games with other people like it didn’t happen? Which part of this did my brain just imagine entirely?”

“I’ll take you back home right now if that’s what you’d rather do to know that not a single bit of that was only imagined ,” I said, and probably scared her right into a near-death experience.

She squeezed my hand. “Utah, I?—”

“Then we’ll stay here, and you’ll just have to take my word for it, angel,” I interrupted. She smiled and leaned her head against my shoulder before she added her other hand to hold onto my arm while we got in line to pay to go play with some pumpkins for the day like two perfectly ordinary Indiana people.