52. Utah

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

utah

I was very much having second thoughts about this outing now that New Jersey was involved.

This bar guy was just some construction worker for the state of Indiana. He worked on a fucking road crew. He wasn’t dangerous. I didn’t need backup. I didn’t need to kill anyone. I probably didn’t even need to hurt anyone to scare him off. Showing up wherever he was would likely do the trick. Demonstrating that I could find someone with no information at all on them was usually enough to frighten people all the way to their core.

To make matters worse, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from being alone in this car with New Jersey. But whatever this was, it was even weirder than I imagined. He never shut his mouth when I was around. The fact that he had the ability to open it at all was the absolute worst thing about him. In this car, though? No sound at all came from him. The temptation to reach for the radio just to add noise to this unpleasant fucking space was a strong one, but he seemed to leave it off very intentionally.

Indy was still sending me pieces of information about our guy, and I was most grateful for that distraction.

A text from Triss interrupted the emails and messages from Indy though.

Triss

She is pissed, man. PISSED.

I couldn’t help but laugh right at my phone.

Me

At me? Or New Jersey?

Triss

All of us. Indy had to lock himself in his room to get away from her. She said she’s going to make sure that none of us ever have access to the Internet from our phones again.

Can she really do that?

Trista’s texts were interrupted by a phone call from Memphis. I held the phone up between us so Jersey could see the screen. He smirked and shook his head.

“Don’t do it, kid.”

“Don’t answer her?”

“Don’t answer her.”

“I can’t just ignore her,” I said.

“You can. You should .”

“She won’t just be angrier when I have to face her later anyway?”

Was I really asking this guy— this fucking guy— for Memphis advice?

I shook my own head and slid my thumb across the screen.

“Mistake,” Jersey scoffed.

“Yes, angel?” I asked, ignoring him completely.

“Don’t you fucking yes, angel me, Utah. Come back here,” she hissed. I chewed on my own lip to try to keep from laughing. The hellfire that she was willing to let rain down when she was safe on the other end of a phone was ridiculous. Fucking. Ridiculous. This whole other person was able to shine through when she wasn’t face-to-face with conflict.

“I’m not driving, sugar. I can’t make him turn around.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

I shrugged my shoulders like she could see the motion. “I thought it was a little fu?—”

“Give the phone to Jersey Boy,” she interrupted. “Now.”

“That’s just not safe. I think it’s even against the law to be on the phone while you’re driving in this state unless it’s hands-free.”

“You can’t be serious right now. I know you know how to use that tiny piece of technology well enough to put it on fucking speakerphone, Utah. That’s not rocket science. If Jersey can do it, you can do it. So, if you would be so kind, dearest love of my life, put. It. On. Speaker.”

Every part of my body froze. Heart included.

I heard her suck in a sharp breath on her end when she seemed to realize after the fact what she’d actually said.

Not exactly how I would’ve imagined hearing her tell me for the first time that she loved me.

Somehow, it was also perfectly fitting that it would burst out of her like a wild animal while she was worked up into a raging fireball that was bound and determined to set me ablaze.

“Memphis—” I said softly before she interrupted me again.

“Don’t,” she said quickly. “Please, just come back here. Tell him to turn around. It’s a bad idea and we don’t have time for this.”

She hung up and left me staring straight down at her contact info on the screen.

“Told you it was a bad idea,” Jersey said.

But it wasn’t.

“She loves me,” I said mostly to myself and chuckled, still staring at the phone.

The display on the dash of the car lit up with an incoming call from Memphis the next second. He laughed and immediately pushed a button on the steering wheel to decline it.

“Well, if she’s in love with you, I’m sure as shit not taking on the full wrath of angry Memphis alone just because she can’t stay that way at you. Where are we heading? Better figure it out quick before she shuts all our phones down.”

“She won’t do that. I’d bet my life that she’s sitting there panicking about all the ways this could go wrong, and she’ll need to make sure we have access to her in case we need her help.”

Indy had us heading for an empty lot next to a busy interstate not long after that. It was where this road crew was supposed to meet today before they got their workday started.

A horrible grinding noise came from New Jersey’s car before my seatbelt locked across my chest while the car slammed to an immediate halt right where we were on the road. All the power disappeared from inside the vehicle at once as he stared down at the dash.

Until just the display screen in the center lit up.

Memphis

You WILL answer the phone when I call, Jersey Boy.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he hissed. “She can hack my car?”

His phone rang a couple seconds later while I tried desperately to swallow the laughter.

“Memphis,” Jersey said into the phone and breathed in as deeply as I imagined his body would allow. “I love you, honey. I do. But if you don’t give control of Seph back to me, and I mean right the fuck now, sweet pea, we’ll have a problem.”

He glanced in my direction while he listened to whatever she had to say. I watched his eyes roam across my entire body like he was sizing me up for a fight. But he shrugged his shoulders and looked back out the windshield rather than throwing a punch.

“He’s your boyfriend, Memphis. I didn’t pick him. And this was his idea. I’m just here to make sure he stays out of trouble,” he said into the phone. He laughed almost immediately after that. I imagined she was screaming at him about which one of us was the one more likely to cause trouble for this scenario. She wouldn’t find this anywhere near as amusing as he did.

“We’re not out here to kill anyone, honey,” he said and quickly looked at me for confirmation. I shook my head. “Yeah, we aren’t even here to kill anyone. Chill the fuck out.”

He held the phone out away from his ear that time when even I could hear her voice raise to its angriest, shrillest level. He chuckled again before he put it back to his ear.

“Not that I don’t love being back on the receiving end of your grumpy phone calls, Memphis, but we’re going to have to get to it if we’ll be doing this without an audience. Give control of the car back to me or I’ll shoot your fucking boyfriend, sweetheart.”

I didn’t want to admit that I was impressed that he had big enough balls to hang up on her, but that was exactly what he did.

Then I couldn’t believe it worked when the car started a few moments later. That left me wondering if she’d actually believed his threat on my life, or if she’d just realized that we’d need a functioning car to get back out of this situation.

Either way, we sat quietly for a few minutes once we reached that empty parking lot before Jersey reached behind the seat and pulled ski masks from the pink duffel bag in the back. I smirked when he held one out toward me.

“Probably won’t do much good on my part. I sent him a picture of me in bed with her when this first started,” I said and laughed. “If I get my hands on his phone, I’ll be sure to make it the wallpaper on it.”

For a split second, I was horrified that we were about to have a bonding moment where New Jersey would try to tell me that he would’ve done something similar.

Instead, he slapped the mask against my chest.

“Put it on, kid. The last thing we need right now is to end up going viral on the Internet.”

Unfortunately for everyone involved, two trucks pulled into the lot at the same time.

“Fuck,” Jersey grumbled beside me.

“I’ll grab him if you want to get us an opening in that fence,” I said, nodding toward the trees that lined the edge of the road and the wire fence that sat just in front of them.

“Plan for the second guy?” he asked.

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” I asked and opened my door to start escaping his car. “Make sure I don’t get in trouble or some shit?”

“Awesome. It’s like having a male Memphis around,” I heard him mumble while he got out too. I paced around the car for a few minutes while he grabbed something from the trunk and stomped off toward the fence and the trees. Neither of the men were out of their trucks by the time I was walking up to the driver’s side of Memphis’ poor decision. It was a newer model of truck, and like most men, he probably never thought twice about how his doors unlocked automatically when he shifted into park to sit and scroll on his phone for a few minutes before getting ready for work.

I ripped the door open and had a firm hold on his shirt before he’d even tried to speak. I smacked his phone out of his hand as soon as I had his body out of his truck, and promptly stomped down on the device with the heel of my boot. I paused only to punch him in the mouth when he started to protest about me dragging him across the ground toward New Jersey and the fence.

“Behind you, kid,” Jersey called

I turned in time to see the man from the other truck barreling toward me while his coworker screamed for help. I released his shirt and let him fall the rest of the way to the ground so I could handle the one making his way toward us. It didn’t take much effort to drop him to his ass either, but it definitely took all my effort to avoid laughing when Jersey tossed a handful of zip ties on the ground beside me once I was sitting on this man to hold him in place. I made quick work out of getting his hands bound.

“I thought you were supposed to be helping me with —,” I started to say to Jersey but looked up in time to see him already dragging Memphis’ wannabe-boyfriend into the trees.

“This is the one I want,” he said over his shoulder without stopping.

Great .

I got up as quickly as I could move, snatched this man up by his shirt, and returned him to the truck closest to us. I dug through his pockets to take his keys and his phone before I walked away. I tossed them both out into the grass on my way to find Jersey.

I caught up to them as Jersey was dropping him face first in the dirt right next to a tree. He sat up quickly just to scoot backward until he was against that tree. He was already crying, already asking what we wanted, asking who we were. I watched New Jersey unbutton the front of his suit jacket and crouch right in front of him.

“The girl you met in the bar,” Jersey said. “You were told to leave her alone. More than once, as I understand it. Is that right?”

“The bar? Who?” the wannabe-boyfriend cried.

I laughed out-fucking-loud when New Jersey slapped him.

“The pretty midget with the black hair,” Jersey explained. I watched a realization cross this man’s face and for a brief moment, he seemed to find his nerve.

“What is this?” He demanded and looked at me. “Are you her dad or something?” Then he looked back at Jersey. “Her grandpa?”

I had to act like I was choking to death on nothing to hide the laugh that time.

New Jersey grabbed him by his neck to pull him closer to his own face.

“You’re going to leave her alone. Starting now, you’re never going to reach out to her again, you’re never going to try. You’re never even going to so much as think about her again. Understand?” Jersey paused for just a second to see if he would respond. When he didn’t, Jersey continued. “This is as nice as I can be about it. If we have to come find you another time, it’ll be a violent encounter.”

“This hasn’t been violent?” He asked and tried to look down to where Jersey’s hand was around his neck.

We both laughed at that question.

“No,” Jersey said. “It hasn’t.”

New Jersey pushed him back against the tree before he stood upright again and looked at me.

“Anything to add?” He asked.

I shook my head. “Think that pretty much covers it.”

Jersey kicked him in the head hard enough that he just slumped right over.

“I don’t even think I needed to be present for this little outing,” I mumbled while we made our way back out of the trees. “You just bored? Needed the chance to knock somebody out?”

“I don’t think anybody would take too kindly to me knocking you or your Judge out. Had to get it out somehow.”

I rolled my eyes, and they landed on the truck door that now sat open where I distinctly remembered closing the coworker before I tossed his phone and his keys.

“That’s not good,” I said out loud, but really just to myself, while I scanned the area around us. My phone vibrated in my pocket while I walked in the direction that I’d tossed the other phone. If he’d found the keys, the truck would’ve been gone.

“Uh, Indy,” I said to answer the call. “We might have an issue.”

“I think I found the house, Utah,” Indy said, ignoring my concern entirely.

Hell, my own concern vanished right into thin air with his words.