“Let me lay it out for you,” he begins, running his fingers through his hair and cringing like he can't believe how dirty it is. “I won't tell your secret if you don't, how's that?” I stare at him like he's crazy.
“Come again?” Turner steps forward, and I step back. Car lights flicker across his face, and when I turn, the car is pulling away. Strange. Turner grabs my chin and forces my gaze back to his. I come this close to punching him in the jaw again.
“I won't tell anybody what I saw,” he says and then pauses like he's just thought of something. My throat gets tight. “But I want you to do one thing for me.” My lip curls in disgust. If he asks me to suck his cock … “Forget that promise we made.” I blink rapidly, confused.
“Promise?” Turner releases my chin and brushes some hair off my forehead.
“About being done with each other, not seeing each other. I changed my mind about that.”
“I see.” He grins and drops his hand, looking for all the world like a fucking devil again.
“And I want your story, all of it. From birth to death, or at least as close to it as you can get.” He pauses again and rubs at his split lip with the back of his hand. “And I need to know all about that night, everything we did, everything I said.”
“You're fucking nuts,” I tell him, but I know I'll do it. I tell myself that it's just so he'll keep his big, fat mouth shut, but in actuality I'm just keeping another secret from myself.
Naomi Knox is a murderer.
The thought doesn't bother me as much as it should. I get the feeling that the people in the video had it coming and try not to delve too deep into that line of thinking. She'll tell me about it. I can tell from her body language that she's already accepted that she has to spill her guts for me. If I find out they molested her though, I might go ballistic. Any man that thinks he can take a woman without her will disgusts me. Pathetic.
I trail behind Naomi and finish my joint, ending up standing in awkward silence next to her drummer friend while he glares at me, and she stashes the phone bits somewhere in the back of the bus. I do my best to ignore him, pretty fucking sure that if something starts between us, it's gonna end up ugly.
I take deep breaths to calm my nerves and try to bring myself down from the nervous high I've been on all night. That video seriously screwed with my head. I mean, I admit to myself how I feel about this chick and then I get railroaded with crap like that? What a load of bull. Whoever sent it had some pretty fucked up intentions in mind. I point at the fridge and keep my eyes off that emo dude's face and on Naomi's ass as she bends down and messes with something under her bunk.
“I'm gonna grab a beer.” I reach for the fridge door and yank it open, grabbing a couple cans and tossing one to Knox when she starts back this way. She catches it in her hand and then drops it in her purse, pausing next to me to reopen the fridge. She grabs a six pack and then gestures at me to follow her outside again, past groups of loitering people, trailers, buses, until we end up sitting on the curb as far from the action as humanly possible.
Behind us, the highway flashes with lights and rumbling engines, busy and getting busier. In the distance, I can see the sun rising up from behind the mountains. I pop the top on my can and swig it.
“I'm going to be blunt with you, okay?” she says, and I shrug.
“Haven't seen you as anything but,” I tell her as I study her face and wonder when she'll figure out that I'm after her, for keeps this time. A smirk curls my lip, but I force it back. I can't let her know that I've come to this abrupt decision. She'll think I'm fucking nuts. I think I'm fucking nuts. Everybody does. But shit, when the heart wants something, it'll do anything to get it, and right now, mine's in a fucking frenzy.
“Well, I was born, put up for adoption, adopted.” She puts her beer to her lips, and I watch as her throat works, swallowing the alcohol down like it's water. When she's finished, she takes a deep breath and crumples the can, tossing it into her purse and starting in on a second. I rush to catch up. Turner Campbell doesn't get drunk under the table. Nuh uh. “My adoptive parents were killed in a car accident when I was seven.” She smiles tightly at me. “Am I going too fast for you?” I lick my lips and lean in close.
“You go as fast as you want, baby.” My fingers trace down her upper arm, and she shivers. “But when you're finished, I might have you go back for all the little details.” I smile, and Naomi curls her lip at me. She acts like we never fucked, and it annoys the shit out of me. I wonder if she's doing it on purpose. She can't lie to me though. No matter how she acts, what she says, what she does, I saw her eyes wet. Thinking back, I figure she probably thought I meant something else. But all that dryness there was lit up for a brief second. I do my best to keep the smirk off my face.