I wanted their guidance. Their suggestions. Their support.
And all I had was this damn grass.
I wasn't nervous or afraid. I was desperate. What should I do? Give up? Sell my car? Try to get a loan? Start a murder-for-hire business?
Quitting wasn't a part of my DNA. Being forced to submit was but it was also a last resort. I'd always thought of myself as being practical.
I had no idea how long I sat there, looking at the etched names with a heavy soul. It couldn't have been that long if the sun was still out—low but it was there. Tired emotionally rather than physically, I got up and made my way back to the car to find Dex sitting in the bed with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes made a slow path over me as I got closer, checking and inspecting.
Dex stood up, throwing a long leg over the tail bed. With a graceful hop, he dropped to the ground, tucking his cigarette behind his ear.
Neither one of us said anything as I walked over to him and slipped my arms around his waist. Dex wrapped an arm over the top of my shoulders, his free hand finding its way into my hair. I took a hesitant sniff of his shirt, but all he did was smell faintly like soap and laundry detergent.
"You don't have to quit smoking because of me," I told him though obviously I'd rather he did, but I wouldn't ask him to.
He twisted my hair around his fingers. "'Kay."
"I'm serious."
He kept twisting knots at the end of my ponytail. "Went five years without a smoke, babe," he whispered into my ear, his lower lip brushing the shell. "There's shit I want and shit I need. A smoke's not one of 'em, 'specially not when I'm around you."
Was it wrong that his words made me swoon a little? And that I wasn't even going to bother arguing with him more about it?
Going up to the tips of my toes, I pressed my lips against the underside of his chin. "In that case, thank you." I pressed my face to his chest for a moment, savoring the hug.
"You doin' all right?"
I nodded enough so that the top of my head brushed his chin. "Yeah. I just miss them."
Dex hummed in his throat, his arms tightening around me in response to my comment. His body, his heat, his comfort, and safety, saturated me. The feel of him fed the parts of me that were needy and that grounded me. It wasn't that anyone or anything could ever replace the two women who had raised me, but Dex was so much man and personality, that I realized I wasn't alone anymore.
And as selfish as it was, I hoped I wouldn't be alone ever again.
I squeezed his waist. "Since we're here and all, want to go to my favorite pizza place? Sonny used to say they made the best pepperoni."
“I like pizza.” A hand slid down the curve of my spine until I felt a strong pinch on my bottom. "What are you gonna eat? Cheese?" he snickered.
"Spinach alfredo, smart ass." I snorted and took a step away from him, rubbing where he'd gotten me.
Dex wrinkled his nose but made his way around me, swatting my rear when he had the chance. "Spinach alfredo it is, babe," he said.
I got into the truck after him, smiling like a moron. I was in the middle of thinking all about magical thin crust delicacies as Dex steered us out of the cemetery. For some reason, just as we were stopping at the gates, I happened to look across the street. There was one of those pay-per-hour motels on the corner.
"Left or right?" Dex asked.
It was supposed to be a left but something had me zeroing in on the hooker hostel. "Right." Worse case was, we could circle around and head back in the same direction, right?
Dex turned right.
I craned my head to look into the parking lot. What would I really find? Nothing, more than likely.
And I didn't, at first at least. Cars and trucks. Then I saw the handlebar. It could have been anyone's but what if it wasn't? It couldn't be that obvious...
I reached over to slap Dex's arm. "Pull in there, please."
That wonderful man didn't even bother asking why I wanted him to turn into the lot. Swinging the truck to a hard left, he drove the pickup into the two-story motel's parking lot. Up close now, the bike was like a kick to the sternum.
It was still shiny, black with a coil of red shot through the body. Almost a decade later, I still recognized it like the back of my hand. Torn between the memories of being a kid and climbing all over it when it'd been parked in the driveway, and the last memory I had of my dad riding away immediately after Mom's funeral, a frog curled in my throat.
"It's him."
The tires squealed as he slammed down on the brakes. Dex didn't even bother pulling into a spot before parking behind two cars in the lot. I was out of the truck before him, looking at all of the doors like I had some type of internal radar that let me know which room he was in.
"Lemme go find out where he's at," Dex murmured with a squeeze to my forearm.
Uhh...
Yeah, maybe I didn't want to know how he was planning on getting that information.
I stood there as he walked in the direction of the tiny office by the parking lot's entrance. Looking, looking, looking. In less than five minutes Dex's loose gait had him standing next to me.
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and tipped my head up, trying to be confident. "Is the employee still alive?"
He smirked, the corner of his mouth arching up so high those pretty white teeth flashed at me. He tugged on the hem of my shirt. "Alive and fingers intact, babe."
"Smart ass." Not laughing was impossible. I held up my hand for a high-five. Dex shook his head with a chuckle and slapped it, linking our fingers together afterward.
"Let's go."
I wrapped my free hand around the inside of his elbow, taking confidence in the dark tattoos on his arms. They reminded me of Pins, and my friends there. Safety. Familiarity. Tattoos were Dex. My friend. My protector.
"Let's do this," I agreed.
Up the stairs we went. Down the hallway. A turn to the right.
And we stopped.
Dex held up a hand to knock on the door but I stopped him by grabbing his wrist. I ducked my head and pressed my lips to his thumb, sucking a breath to steady myself. Dex was watching me with those dark, steady eyes—curious.
"Thank you for coming with me," I whispered.
His nostrils flared, and he nodded briskly.
I knocked but no one answered immediately.
I knocked again, this time harder.
Still nothing.
I knocked even harder, faster, more annoyingly persistent.
Still, nothing.
Dex leaned over me, pounding his fist against the door. "Open the fuckin' door," he growled.
Oh hell.
Six foot three and bossy? As long as it wasn't directed at me, it made my ovaries sing an opera.
The lock turning was the only thing that pulled me from my Dex-fantasies. For some reason, I suddenly wondered whether my dad still had facial hair or not.
It was just like a movie in slow motion.
The door opening.
The dark hotel room.
The expectation.
At the door, a woman stood in a t-shirt three sizes too large. A woman that was possibly only a decade older than me.
"Uh, can I help you?"
If he was in there, I was going to kill him. I decided that immediately.
I ignored the woman in front of me and looked over my shoulder at my dark-haired Dex. I wasn't going to have a panic attack or turn into a rabid raccoon with him behind me, that was for sure. "Are you sure this is his room?"
All he needed to do was nod before a confidence and a rage I wasn't extremely familiar with, flooded my stomach.
Fuck this.
With balls that I didn't even know I had, I leaned forward and spoke louder than I probably ever had. "I know you're in there, and I'm not leaving until you get out here."