Except…
That’s not entirely accurate. My goal tonight isn’t getting away from her so much as keeping my hands off of her.
Something that’ll be a hell of a lot easier in a public place. I mean, it won’t be easy. I can’t not want to touch her. But it’ll be easier than staying here with nothing but stars and quiet nights and about a thousand places to fuck all night.
She sighs a little at my silence. “Let me guess. There’s only one bar, it’s where you were headed, and now you’re trying to think of a way to get out of spending time with me.”
I narrow my eyes at the resignation in her voice, and I’m struck by the need to surprise her—to be something different than what she’s come to expect.
I jerk my head toward the truck. “Get in.”
She blinks. “Really?”
“You’re right, princess. There is only one bar, and yeah,
I’m headed there. But you’ve got every bit as much right to be there as me.”
“So we’re going together?”
Shit. When she says it that way, it sounds…important.
“Just get in the fucking truck,” I mutter.
Surprisingly, she does as I say without arguing. For once.
Her fingers slip under the wig at the nape of her neck as I start the truck, and I glance over. “Do you really have to wear that thing?”
She gives me a look. “Depends. You want your face all over the news tomorrow when you get photographed with Jenny Dawson?”
The flinch is out there before I can stop it, and Jenny snorts. “Thought so.”
She’s dead right, but at the same time, it bugs me that she has to hide. “It’s gotta blow over at some point, right?” I ask. “This thing with the pretty boy?”
Jenny looks out the window. “Yeah. But the urge to be autonomous won’t.”
“That’s what you signed up for, though, right?” I ask, trying to figure her out.
“I’ve got the rest of my life to be recognized,” she says wearily. “Can I please just have tonight?”
Fair enough.
We ride the rest of the short distance in silence, and I wince a little as I pull into the divey parking lot of Gil’s Tavern, seeing it through the eyes of someone who’s spent the last three months of her life in Bel Air or wherever.
Gil’s is one of those places that I’m pretty sure never looked new, even when it was. The outside has peeling white paint, a crooked sign, and tiny, dirty windows, half of which have neon signs advertising cheap beer. The faint smell of deep-fried food permeates the area, even inside the truck, and I risk a glance at Jenny.
I’m surprised to find her grinning. “This is great,” she says, reaching for the door handle.
“Wait,” I say before she can hop out, belatedly remembering Finn.
She glances back.
“You know that guy Finn you met that first day?” I ask. “The electrician? I’m meeting him here.”
I’m sort of expecting her to sulk the way Yvonne always did when anyone crashed our time together—especially Finn—but Jenny just gives me a happy smile.
“Okay!”
That’s Jenny Dawson for you, I’m learning. Okay! and a smile pretty much sums her up. Damned if I’m not starting to like it. A lot.