Beautiful Villain

“Hey!” She yells.

Of course, he’s not an idiot, and he slams on his breaks to avoid hitting her.

Like Finley, he doesn’t turn off the car. What the fuck? He just hops out and yells to her.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question,” she snaps.

Irritated and concerned, I reach over and kill the engine. Then I hop out of the car and pocket her keys. I move carefully toward them both. I don’t want to spook the sheriff. The last thing I want to do is get shot or end back in prison, although right now, I’m not sure which one would be worse.

“I’m driving,” the sheriff tells her.

“Following me.”

“I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“No, you wanted to make sure I wasn’t bring home Neil.”

“Well, he is a criminal.”

“No, he’s not,” she shakes her head, hands on her hips, and something swells inside of me. Is it pride? Happiness? Contentment? She’s defending me, which is something no one has ever done for me before.

Well, aside from my Grandpa.

No one has ever utterly defended me to the ends of the Earth. At this point, it doesn’t even matter what anyone else thinks about me. I’m just so totally enamored to have her happy with me. Finley likes me, and she believes in me, and that’s really all I care about.

At the end of the day, she’s proud of everything I’ve done.

What else do I need?

“He didn’t do it,” she says.

“He did.”

“He didn’t, and even if he did, he served his time, Sheriff. You don’t need to harass him anymore, besides, we learned something tonight.”

Oh shit.

She should not tell him.

She just shouldn’t.

“Finley,” I say carefully.

“It’s all right, Neil,” she ignores me, and keep staring straight at the sheriff.

The fact that I don’t want her to tell him our suspicions seems to make him more keen on listening and hearing exactly what she has to say.

Maybe that’s part of his plan.

He definitely is curious.

“What is it?” He asks.

“Neil and I found something tonight.”

“What?”