Chapter Eight: Jay

They drove well into the night, but Jay never allowed himself to drift off to sleep. He’d been under the naïve impression that his hold on Addy had been tight, but her stunt at the restaurant had proved him wrong. She was a fighter, but she was subtle. That was dangerous for him. He didn’t like sneaky. Sneaky was bad. She was not only sneaky, but she was deceiving. That was even worse.
Addy was not a large girl; she was short and thin, but he did not doubt that if she got fired up enough to punch him, she could probably break his nose. He’d never met a woman like her before. He had never met a woman with her biting wit and sharp tongue. She challenged him, but even more, she compelled him.
Also, she made him want to shoot himself in the foot.
“Umatilla, Oregon,” Addy read aloud. “We live in the next state over, and I’ve never even been to Oregon. It’s—nice. Well, kind of.”
“It’s flatland,” Jay said. “And it’s ugly as all shit.” He rubbed his face, fatigue grasping at him.
“Are we stopping?”
In the dark of the car, the light from the moon shone down on Addy’s face, highlighting her features in the dim glow. Jay saw the freckles dotted on her skin, the ones that made her look almost childlike in the blackness around them. There were dark bags under her eyes, and guilt washed over him. If he were tired, she would be, too. Her lips were dry and slightly cracked, but something about the way she chewed thoughtfully on the bottom one made Jay want to lean over and kiss her, just to see what she’d do.
Send him straight to hell, probably.
“I guess.”
“Are you going to tie me up again?”
“Yes.”
“You’re an asshole,” Addy said, and Jay smiled despite himself.
“That’s what they say.”
Silence settled over the car, and Jay forced himself to look away from Addy and focus on the unwinding road instead. After a few minutes, she spoke again.
“What did you do?”
He looked back at her, but she wasn’t looking at him, only focused on the road. “What do you mean?”
“Whatever it is you did,” Addy said. “Maybe you killed someone. Or stole a car. Or embezzled money.”
Jay was silent for a moment, rotating her words over in his mind. What did he do? What had he done to serve the last seven years in prison? Seven brutal, heart-wrenching, horrible years behind bars.
What did he do?
“I killed my father and sister.” He kept his eyes on Addy, gauging her reaction. For a moment, she didn’t look at him, but when she finally did, he found those gray eyes looking right through him, searching his soul for something more, something that she could cling to with any tiny amount of hope.
“Why?” she said finally.
Jay thought of his sister’s face. Ashley. Beautiful, sweet, funny Ashley. Seven years later he could hear her voice in his head as if he’d seen her only moments ago.
“I have my reasons,” he said finally. It wasn’t time, not yet. He was still trying to decide if he could trust this girl in the seat next to him, even if she thought it was the other way around.
Addy took the next exit without him having to point it out, flipping on the blinker to head toward a motel somewhere out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Typical Hicksville.
“So, you’re just going to run away forever?”
Jay took a deep, calming breath, but it didn’t work. His nerves had been toyed with, wavering at the edge of a cliff, and Addy was standing behind him poking, pushing, and prodding.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said. Staring straight ahead, Jay tapped his foot, a habit he’d acquired as a kid, something his father and Laurel had always been on him for.
Rich kids didn’t have rude habits.
Laurel had been the one to tell him that; Laurel, his snooty, bitch of a stepmother.
“I’m a curious girl,” Addy said. “What can I say?”
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
Despite how annoying Addy’s questions were, he knew she had a point. How much longer could he run? Especially with her by his side, he was asking for trouble. He was surprised they hadn’t been run down by feds yet. Would he be able to do what he needed before time ran out? He couldn’t go back to prison. No fucking way. He had to get rid of her. He had to. But how?
Leaving her in a populated area was bound to get him into trouble more quickly. He could dump her off in the middle of nowhere and tell her to find her way home, but he wasn’t comfortable with that, either. He was the villain, sure, but it would still be on him if she got raped or killed because he’d dumped her off somewhere and didn’t look back.
Jay dug into his bag and pulled out another cigarette, making a mental note to buy a new pack. It was a disgusting habit; he knew that—but it seemed to be the only thing that kept him from losing it, even if it made him smell like a bar.
“Do you have to do that here?” Addy snapped. “It stinks.”
Jay lit it up anyway, inhaling the toxic-smelling smoke. “You’re the one who bummed one from me that night,” he said, glancing in her direction. “What were you trying to do, impress me?”
“Of course not. Sometimes it just helps soothe my nerves.”
“Is that the real reason?” he asked. “Or is it because you have some stupid vendetta against your boyfriend?”
“Fiancé,” corrected Addy, and Jay smirked with pleasure as she flushed red in the dark of the car. He liked pushing her buttons. Even angry emotions were better than no emotions. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
“Sweetheart, I think you just made it my business.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.” She looked furious like she might blow a gasket, and Jay wondered if he should quit while he was ahead. He’d found her weakness. This man, this guy, some douchebag with an inflated ego and a knack for picking on women; that was her trigger. “I’m not your sweetheart or your honey or your baby—I’m not anything to you. I’m just the stupid girl that offered you a ride out of the rain.”
“You’re right.” He flicked the rest of the cigarette out the window and leaned back in the seat, narrowing his eyes at her. “That is all you are to me, Addy. Don’t you forget it.”
They traveled in silence for another few miles. Addy kept her eyes trained on the road, and Jay did the same. He could see how angry she was, even in the dark. Her lips set in a pout, her eyes squinted and angry, jaw clenched as she ground her teeth. Had the circumstances been different, Jay would have feared running into this girl somewhere in a dark alley. She wasn’t someone he’d want to tangle with in a mood like that.
“The car needs to gas up again,” she said after a few minutes. Her tone was deadpan; all fucks out the window.
“That’s fine,” Jay said. “It’s time to ditch this thing anyway.”
* * *
A tiny ray of hope appeared just then, and for a brief second, Addy hoped Jay would be on his way and let her go home. He didn’t need her, and the car was about out of gas; would she finally be free from this mess?
“Okay,” she said. “And then what?”
“What do you mean, and then what?”
“I mean, Jay, are you going to let me go home?” Addy tried to keep the hysteria from rising in her voice, but it was deemed unsuccessful, especially when she looked over to find Jay shaking his head.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Her tone was rising in pitch, the utter panic she’d been struggling with for the last few hours ready to burst at the seams and erupt into what could either be a furious rage or a mental breakdown. She wasn’t sure which. “You said you needed the car, Jay, and now the car is almost out of gas for the second time. Let me go.”
“I can’t.”
Jay looked at her then, and Addy forced herself to look back. She saw no anger in his face, not this time, but there was something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. His eyebrows were pressed together in a small frown, fingers pinching his bottom lip pensively. His eyes traveled over her face, as though searching for some answer she didn’t have.
“I can’t take the chance of you turning me in,” he said finally.
“You’re assuming I give a flying fuck about who you are and where you’re going,” Addy said.
“While I’m flattered how adamant you are about the flying fucks you don’t give, I can’t just let you go yet. I’m sorry.” When she didn’t answer, he flashed a cocky grin and shrugged one shoulder. “Be flattered. Maybe I like your company.”