Now I really wanted to know what happened that night.
The night that drew her to Anton’s.
Her climbing into my bed hadn’t been an intentional act. She was too sweet. Too innocent. Too ignorant of how beautiful she was. Michelle was confident in herself, but not in her abilities. Only women who were confident in their abilities knew how wild they drove men.
Like Michelle did me.
Fuck. I felt like an asshole.
I gathered up my dirty clothes and tossed them into my room. I wouldn’t have time in the morning to deliver the rest of those things to people around the community. Yes, it was late. Yes, the sun had already set. But I had a flight I had to catch and a strict schedule to adhere to in the morning.
And I needed to get away from Michelle’s pull on me.
“I’m going to go ahead and take the rest of this stuff to their rightful owners,” I said, as I walked into the kitchen.
Michelle was sitting at the table with her back turned to me. Her chair was turned towards the porch doors and she was staring out the window, almost like she hadn’t heard me. Had it not been for the small nod of her head, I would have repeated myself.
I had really fucked up. In so many ways.
“You should stay behind and double-check things to make sure we haven’t missed anything else.”
“That’s probably for the best,” she said.
I watched her body relax and saw the tension leave her muscles. Was she relieved that she wasn’t going with me? That I wasn’t requiring her to come along?
Did she regret our encounter in the attic?
Gathering up everything in my arms, I grabbed the map. Shit. What if she regretted what we’d done? I hadn’t thought about that. I knew it shouldn’t have happened. That we would be parting ways tomorrow and that it wasn’t smart. But I could never regret what we had just experienced. Never. What I did with her was raw. Passionate. Filled with a necessary emotional release. I felt like a kindred sort of spirit with her. She understood my pain of losing Anton and how that was screwing with my mind. And for some reason, I also felt like she understood my want to get as far away from my hometown as possible.
I didn’t regret her. I could never regret her.
But it was possible she could regret me.
Fuck. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all.
Chapter 18
Michelle
The day had arrived. Grayson’s last day in town. The plan? To avoid him at all costs until he left. I had to, there was no other choice. Because I wanted him to stay far too badly to sit around and watch him pack up. So, I focused my energy on packing myself up. I washed and dried my laundry one last time and counted out all the money I had. I used the internet still at my disposal to look up a few addresses I could get screenshots of. Hotels with prices I could afford for a month or two. Prices for bus tickets if I decided to go back to North Dakota. Since I’d spent the entire time in the house helping Gray with deliveries and pining away over him, I hadn’t gotten around to drawing up a plan for my own future.
I tallied up the hours I had worked for Grayson and wrote them out like he’d asked me to. He was adamant about paying me for my time, and even though part of me still wanted to fight him, I was grateful. Taking the money he owed me and putting it together with the small amount I had stashed away would buy me a little more time before I had to bite the bullet and go home. Back to North Dakota, where my life would dead end and I’d be stuck in the same bleak pattern for the rest of my days.
Any time I could buy myself in one of the three motels in Stillsville meant more time searching for a job. And, depending on how far I could walk, I might be able to find something in one of the neighboring towns. After I tallied up all my hours over the course of the past five days, including the overtime Grayson kept hounding me about, he owed me almost five thousand dollars.
That couldn’t be right. That was way too much money.
I wrote out the math over and over again. Eight hours a day for four days amounted to over three thousand dollars. And the overtime I had put in staying up a couple of nights working things out was time and a half. My eyes bulged as the numbers continued to work themselves out the same way. Over and over again, until that one number stuck out on the paper like an angel parting the clouds above my head.
Four thousand eight hundred and seventy-two dollars.
Holy shit. That would get me by much longer than a month.
That meant I wouldn’t have to accept defeat so quickly. That meant I could rent a car and drive around to the neighboring communities and find a job. I wondered if Grayson meant what he said about that personal recommendation. I could buy myself an outfit that looked presentable for dropping off resumes. I could reach further across the state with a cheap rental car and the ability to buy gas. And with the going rate for the motels around Stillsville, I could easily foot the bill for at least three weeks.
I’d have a place to sleep. Money to buy food. And the ability to present myself with pride.
Which all meant the possibility of not conceding defeat and calling my mother.