Brains become completely irrelevant as she smiles at me again.
“Okay,” Lia says with another smile. “I’ll come back to you.”
Chapter Four
Odin sits next to the open window of the truck, so I have Lia sandwiched between the two of us. I like it. I like it way too much, actually. Odin seems to have accepted her, or at least decided she smells enough like me now that it doesn’t matter. He licks her hand when she pets him and even nuzzles her neck with his nose, making her laugh.
The journey is quiet, but I hold her hand in mine and place them both on her thigh. It is a two-hour drive to Tuba City, and the nearest bus station where she can get a ride the rest of the way to Phoenix. I want to take her to see her mother myself, but she makes it clear she wants to do this alone, and I know I can’t really leave my station for the extended trip. At least I will be able to get some gas for the generator and some supplies.
I watch her legs as they move up the steps of the bus and wonder when they will be wrapped around my waist again. Lia turns back and gives me a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes, and I return the sentiment. Then the doors close, and she is gone.
The drive back to the empty house is a blur – too uneventful to bother committing to memory. Even if it had been more exciting, my mind is too preoccupied to bother with it. Every thought points to her, and it’s more than a little maddening.
When I walk in the door, I am followed closely by Odin, carrying his rubber bone in his mouth. He tries to engage me in play, but all I see is the empty bed with the sheets shoved down to the floor. I take a deep breath, hoping I can still find her scent in the house, but it’s too faint, and I’m probably only imagining it.
Get your shit together, Arden.
I walk back outside and fire up the generator. Dinner is grilled cheese and half of a bag of salad I got from the store next to the bus station. I fire up the netbook PC as I munch on Romaine lettuce, cabbage, and carrot strips without any dressing. All they had in the little convenient store was the brand I hate, and there wasn’t any Italian dressing at all. My email eventually loads as I’m on my second helping.
Pizza Hut – teasing me again. God, I would love a pizza right now.
I’ve won the Bank of Europe lottery. Is there a Bank of Europe?
Alienware would love to have me buy their new gaming machine.
And one more message.
Sender – Roger Moore.
Subject – none.
Body of message – come back.
The message was sent twenty-nine hours ago – I haven’t checked messages since early yesterday. Roger – or rather, Rinaldo – would assume I had received the message and left by now.
I swallow hard and close the PC.
A thousand thoughts run through my mind, and I can’t catalog them all into any semblance of order. I told her to come back, but when she gets here, the place is going to be empty. I can’t hesitate to leave and head back to the city – I just can’t. I have no phone number or any way to contact her. I didn’t even consider it, and if she thought about it, she apparently didn’t think it was necessary to give me her phone number.
Ride my cock for hours, yes, but not give me her fucking number…
Even if she had given me her number, I still don’t have a phone to use in the first place. Not until I get back to Chicago, and there is no way I am going to ask her to come there. If I want to, I can have her found – there can’t be that many Lia Antonio’s with a mother living in Phoenix. I can certainly locate her mother at the very least, but then I wouldn’t know what to say to her.
I’m trying to make excuses. I know what I’m doing and tell myself to cut that shit out. I don’t lie to myself. It’s pointless and destructive. I already know what I have decided because there really isn’t any other choice. I’m not going to bring that girl into my life. No way in hell. The very notion is ridiculous, and I was probably just a little bit insane when I told her to come back here. It could never last.
There’s a small duffle bag underneath the card table in the kitchen, which I haul out and deposit on the bed. My clothes go into it – the dirty and the clean. The netbook goes in there, too, as well as my spare pair of tennis shoes and Odin’s bone. I reach over and grab the rifle, quickly dismantling it so it fits inside the duffel. I take a quick look around the place to make sure nothing important has been forgotten, and there they are.
Her panties – the ones I nearly tore off of her last night – wrapped up in the sheets on the bed. I reach over and untangle them, then place them deep inside the duffle bag.
I have to leave her something.
I briefly consider leaving her my boxers but shake that thought from my head quickly. Her little lacy underwear is seriously sexy – boxers are not. There really isn’t anything I have I can leave for her, so I am stuck with the ultimately lame. I dig around in the “catch all” drawer of the kitchen until I find some paper and a pen. I sit in one of the folding chairs at the table and stare at the blank page.
What the hell can I even say?
I had to leave, but thanks for the great fuck?
I can’t leave her my address. I don’t have a phone number.