Infinity + One (29 page)

I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, shedding my clothing in a frenzy, as if removing them would ease the panic that was coursing in my veins. My chest felt tight, incredibly so—so tight that I couldn’t breathe, and I wondered if I was having a heart attack the pressure was so intense. I flipped on the shower and stepped under the spray before I checked the temperature. The blast of icy water shocked me, distracting me from the vice around my heart for several welcome seconds, but as the water warmed, the fear came back, and I moaned at the simultaneous pressure and pain.

I thought I heard the door open and close. Not the door to the bathroom. I would have welcomed Finn, even in the state I was in. But it was the door that led outside. Finn had gone.

HE RAN AS fast as he could for the first fifteen minutes or so, up and down the streets of the little town, the little blip on the map that he couldn’t even remember the name of. All he knew was they were hugging the northern border of Oklahoma, more than five hundred miles from St. Louis, Missouri, where they’d started their day. And Bonnie was back at the motel, crying in the shower where she didn’t think anyone could hear her. He’d wanted to step beneath the spray with her, damn the world, damn them all, and just be with her. That’s what he’d wanted to do. But instead, he had pulled on his shorts and running shoes and fled out into the cold, quiet streets trying to purge the fear that warred with his desire for the girl who cried for him and confounded him, and made everything so much more complicated than it had to be. And none of it was really her fault. He understood that. But fault or no fault, the situation still existed.

He loped past what appeared to be an elementary school, resting beneath the soft glow of street lights, and he circled the campus until he found a playground and, using the monkey bars, hoisted himself up, over and over again, one pull-up after another, until his back, shoulders and arms were as weary as his legs. The sight of the tall slide made him smile, in spite of himself, and he wished Bonnie were there so she could climb it and sing to him, sing the worry away like she had the night before. Had it only been twenty-four hours ago? Finn became dizzy at the thought. The number of life-changing, plan-altering experiences wedged and crammed into the last few days was mind-boggling.

He resumed his run back toward the direction of the motel, his legs weary, his thoughts heavy, and failed to notice until it was too late, the police cruiser that had idled up next to him. Shit.

“Kinda late for a run, isn’t it?”

“That depends,” Finn said mildly, keeping his pace, and hopefully his tone, steady and unconcerned. “I like it best when it’s quiet. Helps me unwind so I can sleep.”

“Hmm,” the officer said, non-committal. “You from around here?”

“No sir. Just staying at the motel off the freeway up there.” Finn pointed in the general direction of the group of cabins that called themselves something quaint but looked like a row of fish shacks.

“What’s your name?”

Now why in the hell did this guy need to know his name? He was obviously jogging, not bothering anyone. Finn wanted to punch something, but he decided lies would get him nowhere. Lies only made people look guilty when they were uncovered. If this was it, so be it. He would almost welcome it, and Bonnie’s words rung in his ears.
“We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Finn. Finn Clyde.” He jogged over to the officer’s open window and extended his hand, the friendly neighborhood felon. His forthcoming answer seemed to satisfy the officer, who shook his hand briefly but didn’t act as if he recognized the name at all.

“Well, Finn. It’s kinda cold out and you aren’t very warmly dressed, and our streets are more like country roads. Not very well-lit and full of pot holes.”

“I’m warm enough. And it’s not too much farther.” Finn tried not to let his relief show. The officer hadn’t typed his name into a computer or called it into dispatch, as far as he could see. A call came in, and Finn stepped away with a quick wave of his hand. The officer answered the call with his badge number, and then tossed some parting words toward Finn before his attention was pulled elsewhere.

“All right, then. Welcome to Freedom. Have a good night.” The cruiser pulled away and slid down the road. Finn almost stopped running he was so dumbfounded. Then he started to laugh as he remembered. Freedom was the name of the town.

THE ROOM WAS dark when he stepped inside. He let the door swing shut behind him and turned the lock. The drapes were pulled wide, providing enough light to find his way to his bags. He didn’t know why he was digging. His only relatively clean shirt was the one Bonnie had bought him earlier in the day—and it was in the car. He’d had plenty of clothes in the Blazer. Little good that did him. He walked back into the bathroom and pulled off the sweat soaked T-shirt. At least he could get clean beneath the shirt.

When he stepped out fifteen minutes later, Bonnie was sitting in the dark, perched on the end of one of the beds, wearing a little white top and very little else, judging from the bare length of her legs folded beneath her. He had hoped she was asleep. He stopped a few feet from her, rubbing the towel across his head, hand drying his hair before he tossed it toward a chair. He wore his shorts but hadn’t pulled his sweaty shirt back on after his shower. Seeing Bonnie made him wish he had. He felt naked with this girl, defenseless, exposed, and it had very little to do with his bare chest or lack of clothing.

“I thought maybe you left,” she said softly.

“And left you here?”

“I did it to you.”

“And left me a note and two thousand dollars. I was pissed, but I didn’t feel abandoned. I knew why you ran. I didn’t like it. But I understood.” They were both almost whispering, and Finn wasn’t sure why.

She nodded, but stood slowly, her eyes on the ground. Finn kept his eyes on her down-turned face so he wouldn’t see what she’d paired with the white undershirt.

“Will you hold me, Finn?” Bonnie asked, her voice so faint he wasn’t entirely sure that was what she’d said. Because he wasn’t sure, his response was cautious, questioning even.

“It won’t end there, Bonnie—”

“It’ll begin. And that’s what I want,” she interrupted, and he welcomed her honesty, reveled in it, even as he made himself reject her.

“It’s what I want too. But it’s not what’s going to happen.”

“Why?” she whispered, and the sadness in her sigh softened his response even further.

“Because I will hold you, and I’ll want more. And I’ll take it, Bonnie. I won’t be able to stop. And then it will be over, and you and I will have crossed a line we can’t uncross.”

“I want to cross it.”

“Really? ‘Cause I’m not sure you know what that means. You and I go down this road, there won’t be any going back for me and the things they’re saying out there? About me being a loser? And a criminal? And a piece of shit, taking advantage of you, hanging onto you because you’re somebody and I’m nobody? All that stuff will be true.”

“No it won’t! But why do we care what people think?”

“Because it
will
be true! Don’t you see? Right now . . . right now I’m your . . . your friend.” Her eyes shot to his in disbelief, and he almost flushed thinking about the way he wanted her, the way he’d kissed her. Several times now. Friends didn’t kiss like that. He ignored the qualm. That was all before he saw the news report. It changed things, and he had to make her understand.

“I’ve done right by you, Bonnie. I have. I’ve taken care of you. And I’ve watched out for you. And I can feel good about that. I haven’t taken anything from you that I didn’t earn or that wasn’t fair. But I haven’t earned this, Bonnie. I haven’t earned you. And if I take you, all that stuff people are saying will be true.”

Bonnie stepped toward him, raised herself up on her toes, and pressed her lips against his, halting his words with her mouth. Finn needed her to cooperate if he was going to be able to stay away from her. But when had she ever done a damn thing he’d asked her to? Her kiss was so sweet, so honest, and so Bonnie Rae. And then she sighed against his lips as if she was exactly where she wanted to be, in spite of everything he’d said.

And Finn couldn’t help himself.

His convictions were immediately reduced to eggshells. Call it weakness. Call it lack of conviction. Call it love. But he just couldn’t help himself. His hands were on her hips, in her hair, sliding down her arms, around her waist, and then back up to cup her face, trying to be everywhere at once and not knowing where to start. Their breathing grew ragged, and together they sank to the bed, Bonnie pulling his body back onto hers as he willed himself to slow down.

“I don’t know what the hell is happening between us,” he whispered, hovering above her mouth, his voice tickling her lips. “I feel like I’m free falling, and any minute I’m going to touch down, and this is all going to be over, or worse, just a dream.” His voice was so low that he wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or talking to himself, but either way, he needed her to hear him. He kissed her again, anxiously, but then pressed his forehead into hers, pulling away as if their mouths were magnetized and it required conscious effort to suspend the kiss, needing to speak but unwilling to entirely disengage.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Bonnie. Not you and me exactly. But this, the media frenzy, the fact that everyone seems to know who I am. This is going to end badly. I can feel it, the way I felt it the night Fish robbed that store. He lost his life, but I lost mine too, just in a different way. I don’t want you to lose your life because of me, Bonnie. Mine’s not worth a whole hell of a lot, but it’s all I’ve got, and you . . . you can do anything, go anywhere, be anything. This isn’t going to end well, Bonnie.”

She shook her head adamantly, her forehead rocking from side to side against his, her eyes squeezed shut, her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Please. Please don’t say that. I believe in Bonnie and Clyde! Why does it have to end at all?”

There were tears in her voice, but she didn’t let them fall, and she raised her hands to his face and pushed him away just enough to find his eyes. She held his gaze until she seemed satisfied that there would be no more talk of endings. Then her lips found his again, briefly, before she let her hands slide from his face and down his neck until they rested against his pounding heart. Then she rose up and kissed his chest. Sweetly, softly, entreating him without words.

Finn braced himself above her and watched her hands and her lips, as they soothed and smoothed, bestowing small caresses and velvet kisses against his throat and arms, against the marks that brought him shame. And in her reverence of his skin, he felt that shame wither and curl, like paper on a flame, and float upward, disintegrating into nothing more substantial than ash, and with her breath, she blew it all away.
I believe in Bonnie and Clyde.

Finn’s eyes stung and his throat grew tight as she drew him close and cradled his face in the slope of her neck, as if she knew he had let something go. The words Finn had pressed upon her with such urgency slipped away from his head like the silky camisole she wore that allowed his hands to slide from her waist to her breasts without resistance. He lifted his hand and pulled one little strap from her shoulders so he could press his lips to her skin, unimpeded. And then his hands framed her face, and he felt the whisper of her sigh as she pressed her lips into his palm.

He wanted to close his fingers over that kiss, to grip it tightly, to crush it into his skin so it couldn’t fly away. But the swell of her lips and the curve of her jaw demanded a gentler touch, a touch he felt incapable of delivering when the intensity of his response pounded in his veins. So he slid his hands into her hair, curling his fingers desperately into the short strands, and pulled her mouth back to his. And this time, instead of words, he used his kiss to impart his trepidation into soft lips that he feared would one day wish him gone.

Flashing red and blue lights filled the room through the uncovered window, circling the walls, one color chasing the next, and Finn and Bonnie froze, their breath and lips halting, even as their bodies demanded they continue. Finn shot up and off the bed, and Bonnie followed, reaching for her jeans and pulling them on without a word, shoving her feet into her boots without bothering with socks. Finn stood to one side of the window, watching the slow-moving cruiser glide past the short row of cabins. Finn was yanking off his shorts and pulling on his jeans as he watched, and he saw Bonnie pause, taking in the expanse of long, smooth, uninterrupted skin before he clipped out her name in warning.