He’d gotten the message and had not pulled over at the particular exit I’d first pointed out, but a better one a few exits later with a hell of a gas station that was, apparently, a trucker’s paradise.
No, really.
It was called ‘Trucker’s Paradise’ and was literally filled with so many truckers I couldn’t see a regular car from where he’d stopped us.
“I have a bad feeling,” he admitted, rubbing his sternum.
“A bad feeling about what?” I wondered, looking at him like he was the love of my life, and hoping that it didn’t show on my face or in my eyes.
Luckily, he was really concentrated on the pump and not my utter devotion to him.
He rubbed his chest some more.
He stayed silent so long that I considered going to the bathroom and waiting him out, but just as I was about to take a step in the direction of the store, he spoke.
“Zakelina,” he murmured. “She was watching us as we were heading out. You waved to her, and she waved back. She looked… sad.”
I had noticed that, actually.
That was why I’d waved.
She’d been sitting on the porch, watching the neighborhood as if she’d rather be anywhere but where she was at.
It’d broken my heart and made me want to pluck her off of the porch and steal her away with us.
Alas, I tried not to do illegal things that would get me sent to jail for long periods of time, so I’d left her there. Even though it’d broken my heart to do so.
Being an adult was so hard sometimes.
“I noticed that,” I admitted, repeating my thoughts.
He finished filling up his tank, hung the nozzle back up, and then tightened his gas cap down before finally looking at me.
What I saw made my heart race.
“You’re really worried,” I found myself saying.
He nodded once, then jerked his chin in the direction of the store.
I fell into line with him, then grabbed his hand and held on tight as he confirmed my suspicions.
“I’m worried as fuck,” he admitted. “The parents were fighting today. Really loud when I went for that run. They were yelling about finances or something. When I came back almost an hour later, they were still yelling, only Zakelina had come out onto the porch to get away from them. Sin said that the dad was abusive, and though I’ve never seen signs of it on the little girl, I’ve had this worsening feeling in my gut for the last hour and a half that I shouldn’t have left.”
That was what had been bothering him. I had noticed that it’d gotten progressively worse as time had passed. I’d just assumed it was because of his visit to his parents’ house.
“Call Laric and tell him to go stay at your house. Or mine. Yours is next door, but mine is across the street, and it would look right at where he needed to be watching if he sat out on the front porch like he’s known to do with his dogs,” I suggested, coming up with a plan on the fly. “And didn’t he say that he was staying at a hotel because his concrete floors were getting stained?”
Zach nodded. “Actually, yeah. And it would be the perfect amount of time since you were able to snag four days off.”
That was right. After discussing it with Murphy, we’d decided that I would be taking the next four days off. Murphy would be running the store if he felt like it, sans grill, and he would also be interviewing people to take over for me two days a week, open to close.
It was… freeing.
I hadn’t had a vacation in so long that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“Call him,” I urged when he caught the store’s door for me and gestured me inside. “I’m going to go pee three gallons of water.”
He winked at me, and I hurried toward the bathroom.
When I came back out, he was just shoving his phone into his pocket and looking a lot calmer than when I’d left him.
“He agree?” I ask.
Zach nodded, then reached forward to grab my hair and tug me toward him.
After placing a claiming kiss on my mouth, he winked at me and then disappeared into the bathroom, leaving me to wander around the aisles and aisles of trucker stuff—I really wanted to put a CB radio in my car if it ever got fixed—and waited for him to arrive.
I was loitering in the Velcro patch section, admiring the Texas Flag patch that looked like it was rippling and tattered, when I felt the presence of someone come up behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and blanched when I saw the massive guy standing there.
I instinctively crowded closer to the display rack and hoped that the man would take the hint and either pass me or back the fuck off, but he did neither.