Infinity + One (10 page)

Finn’s eyes swung back down and settled on his rusted Blazer. Speaking of getting stuck with a girl, the parking lot had cleared out while he’d waited upstairs. The clientele of the Motel 6 were travelers, and no one hung around for the in-room movies or the accommodations. Only two cars remained in the entire lot, and sitting next to the Blazer, perched on a plastic bag spread over the curb, ostensibly to keep her butt from getting wet, was his own little pain in the ass. She wore the puffy, pink coat and the stocking cap she’d purchased from Walmart the day before. The hood was pulled up over her cap, and her hands were pressed between her knees. Her nose was as red as her boots, and she looked miserable. She’d seen him before he’d seen her, and her eyes were locked on his face. She didn’t smile, didn’t greet him, didn’t try to explain herself. She just watched him walk toward her.

He bit back a curse and strode to the driver’s side. Unlocking the door, he tossed his bags in the back, climbed in, and slammed the door. He turned the key and backed out resolutely, trying to ignore that she had risen, her hands on her bags, and that her hood had slipped from her head. She didn’t move forward, didn’t call out to him to wait. She just stood there, watching him go. He shifted into drive and made it a hundred feet before he let his eyes find her figure in the rearview mirror.

“Unbelievable,” Finn ground out, and slammed the wheel with the palm of his hand. He slowed to a stop. “UNBELIEVABLE!” He reprimanded himself even as he engaged the brake, pushed the door open, and lurched out of the idling vehicle. Bonnie still stood with her two duffle bags in her hands, but now her lips were slightly parted, clearly stunned that he’d stopped.

And she wasn’t the only one. Finn felt like he was split right down the middle. The rational part of his brain, the side that ensured his survival and his sanity, was outraged, demanding that he keep driving, while the side of his brain that was connected to his heart and his nether regions was breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn’t let her get away.

She didn’t move, as if she were sure that the moment she did he would change his mind, climb back inside the Blazer, and drive away. So he walked back to her, battling with himself every step of the way. He walked until they were practically toe to toe, her dark eyes wide and lifted to his, his hands shoved into his pockets so he wouldn’t strangle her. But his pockets felt like manacles around his wrists, and he yanked them free, fisting them in the front of Bonnie’s puffy, pink coat and raising her up on her tip toes and into him until they weren’t toe to toe any longer but nose to nose. His emotions were a big, tangled ball of anger, longing, and injustice all wrapped up in impatient outrage, and Finn couldn’t separate one feeling from another. So he did the only thing he could do. He kissed her.

It wasn’t a soft kiss or a sweet kiss. It was a “you-scared-me-and-messed-with-me-and-I’m-mad-and-relieved-and-frustrated-as-hell” kind of kiss. It was teeth and lips and nipping and bruising, and Finn couldn’t make himself stop, even when Bonnie’s teeth tugged at his lower lip, and her hands pulled at his hair. Especially then. And when she wrapped her arms around his neck and stepped up onto his toes so that she could press herself flush against him, he decided revenge really was sweet, and enjoyed the feel of her face against his, the wet heat of her mouth making him forget he was standing in the middle of a Motel 6 parking lot with his car rumbling behind him, the driver side door still hanging wide open. The rational part of his brain was stunned into peaceful silence . . . for all of ten seconds.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Bonnie Rae,” he gasped, pulling away abruptly. He took a deep breath and pushed her gently back, releasing his toes from beneath her boots and his clenched hands from her coat. The thin nylon stayed wadded and crinkled in two big circles above her breasts. Her hands fell from his shoulders to her heaving chest to smooth the wrinkles, and he looked away to give them both a moment.

He was still pissed but he held it in check, keeping his voice low and firm when he continued speaking. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know what the hell you’re doing either. But don’t get back in my ride if you’re going to play games. Don’t do it. Hide and seek is only fun if you’re ten, and everybody knows the rules. Just call your posse, turn yourself back over to your keepers, and leave me the hell alone.”

Bonnie nodded once, her eyes big, her lips bruised. “I got a little worried that you might be a bad man.”

“Well, it’s about damn time,” he said on a sigh.

“What does that even mean, Clyde?” she asked.

“More games, Bonnie?”

“No.” She shook her head emphatically.

“So say what you need to say.”

“What’s with the swastika?”

Finn felt his heart sink. Even though he had known what she was going to say, he had still hoped it was something else. He wasn’t ready to have this conversation with snow starting to fall around their heads and his toes growing numb from the slush that had seeped into his old boots.

“It’s a very long story. And I’ll tell it. But not right now. I will promise you it wasn’t about hate. It was never about hate. Does that make sense? I was a scared kid. That’s all. And it seemed like the only solution.”

Bonnie released her pent up breath, nodded slowly as if she understood, and then picked up her bags. “I can live with that. But I can’t live with wet clothes, and these bags are both wet on the bottom. For that matter, I’m a little wet on the bottom!” she called over her shoulder as she hurried to the Blazer. “Let’s go, Huckleberry.”

Finn rolled his eyes and immediately obeyed, but he couldn’t completely smother his grin. And just like that, Fisher strolled through his mind—blond, smirking, and way smarter than anyone gave him credit for being. He used to call Finn
Huckleberry
sometimes too. And Finn had hated it.

“YOU GONNA MAKE your move, Huckleberry?” Fish was suddenly by his side, and he hadn’t missed the back and forth looks going on between Finn and the lovely Jennifer.

Jennifer
was
pretty. And she kept staring at him. Finn studied her, wondering if he would still like her when they were done making out. He found he usually didn’t, which made him hesitant to approach her.

“Nah.” Finn sighed.

“Why not?” Fish was obviously perplexed.

“I’ll be bored as soon as I do. Plus, she’s more your type than mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Fish pursed his lips, as if considering whether this might be true. He shook his head as if he, too, was going to pass.

“What is your type, Finn? So far, I really don’t think you have one.”

“I don’t know. Tall, thin, smart. Quiet. Good with numbers.” Finn shrugged.

“You’re describing a ruler. Not a girl.”

“I’m describing myself,” Finn conceded with a laugh.

“Oh, and wouldn’t that be fun. Dating yourself. What happened to Libby? She was hot, she was into you, and she’s a damn good kisser.”

Yeah. She was hot, Finn thought to himself. And she was a very good kisser. She’d taught Finn a few things. Things he’d like to try . . . with another girl. Plus, he didn’t like being with girls Fish had already sampled. If you thought about transference, which he did, it was disgusting. But Libby had been talented, he had to agree with Fisher there.

“I liked the kissing. But that was all. Quit trying to set me up. I’ll choose my own girlfriends.” He shot his brother a warning look. As usual, Fish was not deterred.

“Not a good idea, Bro. None of us know what’s good for us. We think we know what our type is, but we have no clue. That’s why I burn through as many girls as I can. See, I’m tryin’ to find what’s good for me—’cause I just don’t know. And neither do you. You think you know because you’re a genius.”

“If I’m the genius, why are you the know-it-all in the family?”

“You think you’re the only one who studies? I study. But I study girls. I study music. I study life.” Fish took a swig of whatever was in the cup. It was probably beer, but it must be his first or second round because he was still his slick self, smiling and waving and working the crowd all the while giving his brother his unsolicited opinion.

“It’s my own theory. I may not think like you and Dad, but this is solid math, man. The girl you think is the perfect girl for you is
never
the perfect girl for you. One of these days, a girl is going to come along, and you won’t even see her comin.’ And she’ll rock your world.” Fisher said this like it was a done deal.

“Oh yeah?” Finn already wanted to leave. But he wouldn’t. He would stick around until Fish was ready to go. And who knew when that would be.

“Yeah! And I guarantee she won’t be your type. And you’re going to strategize, and think, and make lists. And it’s not gonna add up.”

“That’s not your own theory, Fish. It’s chemistry. Opposites attract.”

“Yeah. But it’s more than that. You can have opposites that don’t attract. It has to be just the right kind of opposite. And you won’t know what you’ve got . . .”

“Til it’s gone?” Finn finished the tired cliché, not really listening, his eyes straying back to Jennifer, reconsidering.

“Til it’s gone, baby. And then you’re gonna wonder what the hell hit you, and I’m gonna laugh my ass off and say, ‘who’s the genius now?’”

“GRAN CLOSED HER credit card. My credit card, I should say. I tried to get another room back there at the motel, and the clerk told me it was declined. It kind of scared me. She knows I have it.” I shrugged. “Guess it’s her way of telling me she’s still in charge.”

“They can track credit card usage . . . you know that, don’t you? If you want to disappear, using your gran’s card was never a good idea in the first place.”

“I don’t want to disappear. I just want to be left alone. Just for a while,” I said.

“Have you tried to talk to her?”

“Not since Minnie died. No. I’ve been too angry . . . and tired. And sad. I haven’t been able to muster the energy to make her hear. And making Gran hear anything other than what she wants to hear has always been close to impossible.”

“So you were just going to get another motel room and wait for the cavalry to arrive? Screw you, Clyde?”

“Yep. Screw you, Mr. White Supremacist with a scary-ass tattoo on his chest.”

Clyde laughed. “No games. That’s good. Say it like it is.”

I laughed with him, but his laugh gave me that same drop and slide feeling in my stomach I had felt when he’d smiled at me in the motel room last night, before I’d seen his tattoo and bolted.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Clyde?” The words popped out before I had a chance to register that they were even on my tongue, but I didn’t regret them.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m moving to Vegas.”

“So you had a girlfriend, but broke up with her because you’re leaving town?”

“No.”

“No, you didn’t have a girlfriend, or no, you didn’t break up with her because you’re leaving town?”

Clyde just lowered his eyebrows and shot me an irritated look. I shrugged.

“You’re probably smart to end it now—long distance relationships never work. There was a boy I liked back in Grassley, but after I won
Nashville Forever
, I didn’t ever go back to school. In fact, I didn’t even go home for almost a year. Minnie was the only one from home I kept up with. I talked to her almost every night. When I finally made it back to Grassley, the boyfriend, Matt, was dating another girl. I can’t really blame him. A year when you’re that age feels like ten dog years. It’s forever.”

Clyde just grunted, not participating in the conversation at all. Time to shake things up.

“When I was nineteen, I asked my bodyguard, Bear, if he would have sex with me.”

Finn swore and swung on me, his eyes darting between me and the road. “You don’t have a filter, do you? You just say whatever the hell comes into your head!”

“You just told me no games. You just told me to say it like it is. That’s what I’m doing.”