Smash Into You (4 page)

             
Daggum. "Fine," I bit out. The least she touched me the better, but whatever. I was about to drop her off. It wasn't like she had time to help me anyway.

             
She moved, her knees touching my thighs as she leaned over me. She pulled the collar of my shirt over and hissed. "You must've gotten sliced by the shoe guard on the floor by the bar. Mark said their boots were tearing the bar up, so he had it installed, but I've caught my foot on it a couple times." She leaned back to see my face. "It's kinda sharp. And nasty. We need to clean this up." She looked at it again. "You might even need stitches."

             
"No stitches because that requires hospitals." I kept up my search for headlights in the rearview mirror. "Where do you live? I'll drop you off."

             
She bit into her lip, a sure sign that I wasn't going to like her answer. "I'm not going home. You need me to help-"

             
"You're going home," I said louder. "You can't stay with me."

             
"I can't go home," she sulked and gulped. She sat roughly in the seat, not scooting over so we were still touching. She whispered to herself, "Oh, great. I'm going to have to tell you, aren't I?"

             
"Tell me what?" I barked.

             
"Let's just go to the drugstore, I'll fix you up, and then you can drop me off at the police station or something. I'll get a ride from there."

             
"I'm not dropping you off anywhere but home at midnight. Where do you live?"
              She sighed and scooted all the way over to her door. I wanted to punch myself for missing her. She looked out her window and puffed a breath. It made a fog cloud on the glass. "Marley," I prompted.

             
"I live in my car, OK?"

             
I blinked, looked at the road, and then blinked some more. "What?"

             
"I was a foster kid. They kicked me out of the system when I was eighteen. I got a job, but I've never been able to really...keep up. With the cost of classes and everything...I live in my car."

             
What the hell was I supposed to say to that? There was no way I was going to take her to go sleep in her car when Biloxi just plowed through her place of employment. Speaking of, she was probably out of a job now. Daggumit.

             
She scoffed. "Silence is what usually accompanies that little confession." Her laugh was humorless and the way she gripped her collar, as if she were hanging on for her life, made my stomach flip. "Just drop me off at the nearest place and I'll be fine."

             
"Like hell I'm just dropping you off somewhere," I heard myself say. I squeezed my eyes shut for just a second or two. "Marley..." I sighed.

             
"Just ditch me. So what." She scoffed yet again, like she was used to people just throwing her away. "It's not like you know me."

             
"I
am
going to ditch you!" I heard myself growl. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, remembering this was for her own good. "You're right. I don't know you and I've got to leave. That guy...he's after me. Has been for as long as I can remember." She whipped her gaze back to mine. "So yes, I'm ditching you. I've got to."

             
She shook her head. "Wow. The ol'
I'm a spy
bit?" She looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to say
gotcha
or something. "Really?" I just glanced at her and then back to the road. "What's next? You're an FBI agent and I can't tell anyone or you'll have to kill me?"

             
I just stayed silent. There was just no use in saying anything. She thought I was a jerk so let her just keep right on thinking that.

             
She pointed out the window to an old drugstore. "Turn in here."

             
"I told you I'll be fine," I argued.

             
"Turn. In. Here," she growled in an angry, husky voice. I looked over and felt that growl all the way to my toes. What the hell was happening to me? This girl was reducing me to mush over the stupidest things. And she was aggravating as all get out, obviously had some daddy issues that would come into play later on, needed someone to take care of her
—
which sureas hell wasn't going to be m
e—
and had managed to disarm me in more ways than one after she messed up my truck. The girl was batting five for five.

             
Needless to say, I turned into the drugstore, parking in the back. As I turned off the ignition, I thought to myself that this could actually work to my advantage. Biloxi would expect me to skip town as soon as possible, most times without even going to my apartment to get my things. I didn't own much anyway, but still. I turned to her. She was looking at my shoulder. The worry was all over her face and though I couldn't help her in any other way, I could at least let her know that I was going to be fine. I got out quickly, wincing as the cut on my shoulder pulled, and came to her side. She had just opened her door. I took her hands and helped her down. She seemed a little taken aback by the gesture, but I just leaned in. "Are you sure you weren't hurt?"

             
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine." She started to walk with my hand guiding her swiftly on her back. She stopped and looked back at me. "You're not to blame, you know that right?" She didn't wait for my answer. "Whoever that guy is made the decision to do that and risk others while he searched for you. You can't feel bad that you're just trying to survive." Her eyes took on a faraway look. She said, "You do a lot of things to survive, sometimes things you're not proud of, but when someone's after you, forcing your hand? That is completely not your fault."

             
I didn't respond to that. What would be the point? We'd get into a debate about how I'm such a bastard, and how she thinks I'm not, but I know deep, deep in my guts that I am and deserve everything that happens to me because I was born. I burdened my mother and she died trying to save me. Nah...I wasn't about to do that.

             
I pushed her to the back door. It dinged at our entrance and I searched around for what we needed. And when I found it, I searched for the clerk. He yelled out, "We're closed! Sorry."

             
OK. I was going to have to steal it. "All right. Just using the bathroom."

             
He was in the front, stacking boxes of candy, humming as he worked. I took a pack of gauze and stacked it onto my arms, along with antiseptic and some butterfly bandages and tape. I didn't know how bad it was really, but it hurt like a mother.

             
I pushed Marley into the smallest bathroom known to man in the back and locked it behind us. She looked around puzzled, but before she could answer, I explained. "Just in case we need something else. Otherwise we'd blow this joint."

             
She nodded, moving back to lean against the sink as I started to peel off the shirt, but the pain was quickly chasing my breath through my veins. It was all hitting me as I slowed down. This wasn't some little cut and I was sure I probably did need stitches like Marley had said.

             
"Let me do it," she said softly and began to push my ripped shirt from my shoulder. I grimaced and cursed under my breath. "Sorry," she said sincerely.

             
"It's fine. Just do it," I said gruffly.

             
She pushed it down quickly and all I was left with was my black wife-beater. She looked at the shirt and tossed it into the trash can before coming back, searching the wound with her eyes. I leaned back on the door as she opened the peroxide. She took my arm and leaned me over the sink before pouring the freezing liquid over my skin. I know they say peroxide isn't supposed to sting, but it hurt so badly I hissed through my teeth. Then the bubbles started and it felt like my skin was boiling.

             
"Gosh, Jude," she whispered. If I wasn't in so much pain, I would have thought it was adorable. "The more it bubbles, the more germs. I told you that shoe guard is disgusting."

             
"I believe you," I spouted. "Just fix it...please."

             
"Wow," she remarked and poured another spill of the evil liquid on my shoulder. "A please and everything."

             
I didn't say anything, and when she started to dab and clean the wound, I just hung onto the sink and prayed for this to be over soon. She told me to lean back on the counter. She put the butterfly bandages on, and even before she said that I did need stitches and it wasn't going to hold for very long, I already knew it. I shook my head. "It'll have to do for now."

             
She wrapped the bandage and tape around my shoulder, securing it all in place, making sure it was tight. She was leaning on me, her hip resting on my thigh as she reached my shoulder and back. I could hear every breath, see every hair delicately out of place that escaped her ponytail, every little freckle on her skin that was right there for my perusal as she worked on me.

             
She wasn't beautiful in the super obvious way like the head cheerleader or Miss America. She wasn't fake looking. Her tan was all natural, her hair was blond because God made it that way, and her hips and legs were full and luscious because she ate like a human being and wasn't afraid of meat like some girls I'd known. Then I realized that all of my assumptions could be completely off, but I didn't think so.

             
I wanted to find out if I was right or not. As I smelled her right there next to me, I wanted to know if she was a Barbie underneath the girl I saw before me, or if she truly was the real girl I hoped for.              

             
She leaned back and looked into my eyes, all concerned and genuine. "Is that too tight? Is it OK?"

             
I was losing my freaking mind. "It's fine, Marley." A too-long pause. "Thank you."

             
She licked her lips. "I just know you're going to be hurting later."

             
"Can't worry about that now. Here." I took her sleeve in my fist and ripped it along the seam, and then moved on to the next one.

             
"Um…what are you doing?" she asked as she watched me rip the sleeves off her t-shirt.

             
"You had blood on your sleeve," I explained and gave her a once over. "There. Now no one will think anything of it."

             
She looked at herself in the mirror. "I wouldn't have thought of that. You're pretty crafty." She looked at me in the mirror behind her. "Thanks."

             
"Wouldn't want someone to think I beat you or something," I said and gripped her hand, dragging her with me out of the bathroom to the back door of the store. I called out, "Thank you, sir!"

             
"Have a good day now!" he called back with a blind wave.

             
I saw Marley grab a big bottle of Ibuprofen and a couple other things right before we reached the exit. We hopped in the truck and I locked the doors.

             
I drove us out to a diner on the edge of town, parked in the back, and went in to wait out Biloxi. I wanted to see if he'd skip town before I did. I swiped my ball cap from behind the seat and weaved my way to the back booth by the jukebox where we couldn't be seen. I knew I was drawing attention with my arm all bandaged up, but as long as it wasn't the wrong attention, I didn't give two craps.

             
She held her hand out and waited. I put mine under hers and four small, brown pills dropped into it. "Take it," she ordered. Again, my insides mushed and churned. Why the hell was it such a turn on to be bossed around by this little girl?

             
I popped them back, lifted the glass of water to my lips, and swallowed. I even opened my mouth to show her they were gone like they make you do at hospitals. Or so I figured. I'd never been to one. Only seen it on TV.

             
She sat across from me and as I pretended to look at the menu, I watched her. She had just followed me in the diner, shadowing my footsteps and looking defeated. Her lips were moving, like she was biting the inside of her lip nervously. Her eyes stared at the tabletop that didn't match anything else in the place. A decorating job botched all to hell. Her fingers rolled a black pen that was left on the table back and forth. Guilt took my guts and squeezed them.

             
I couldn't take her with me. I just couldn't. She'd get killed and I'd have another female death on my conscience. So after a little time had passed, I would take her to her car, against my better judgment. I was picking the lesser of two evils, you could say.

             
I leaned down trying to catch her gaze. "I'm sorry you got dragged into this."