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“Almost.” I brushed past him into the kitchen and opened the door to the garage. I flipped on the light.
Knox’s pride and joy of a vehicle—a brand new look-at-me-green Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Jailbreak edition took up one side of the garage.
I went to the corner of the room and picked up a half-empty bag of Quikrete left over from the landscapers. I turned to head back inside. Smoke stood in the doorway. He moved out of the way as I marched toward him.
Smart man.
I set the bag on the kitchen table and unrolled the top. I took it to the kitchen sink and dumped it down the drain and then I turned on the water to let it run for a few seconds.
“So, he cheated on you, huh?” Smoke asked.
“Yep.” I took the bag of high-strength concrete mix around the house and ruined as many pipes as I could until the bag was empty.
I came back into the kitchen. The sandwich was gone and Smoke was drinking a can of soda. “You done?”
“Nope.” My house keys were on the kitchen table and I swiped them before heading back into the garage. I went over to Knox’s car and gouged the word cheater onto the hood and then keyed the car all the way around so every bit of paint would need to be redone.
I shook small paint chips and clear coat off my keys and then looked over my shoulder at Smoke who’d followed me. “Now I’m done.”
* * *
Smoke put my suitcases in Tavy’s car, making them easy to get to when we stopped for the night. I opened the passenger side door of the moving truck and tossed my sweater and brown leather bag onto the seat. I’d grabbed us a couple of bottles of cold water from the house and I put them in the drink holders.
“I’m just gonna check the tire pressure real quick,” Smoke said. “Make sure we’re road worthy. Don’t need a blowout.”
I nodded and settled into my seat.
A few minutes later, Smoke got into the truck. “We’re good. How are you? Do you need to use the bathroom or anything before we go? If you do, you might have to use a bush in the backyard now that none of the plumbing in the house works.”
He cracked a grin, but when he saw that I didn’t smile, his face went blank. “Not even a snarky clap back, huh? You must really feel like shit.”
“I vacillate between angry and sad. Right now, I’m sad,” I admitted.
“Feel what you gotta feel. You want to listen to angry metal music on the way out of town?”
“Sure. Why not.”
“Thank God. I was worried you’d want to listen to some angsty, whiny, girl music.”
“Metal for me.” A small laugh escaped me. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He started the engine and then fiddled with the radio. A rocker screaming into the mic filtered through the speakers, drowning out the thoughts in my head.
We got on the road. We didn’t speak as Smoke expertly maneuvered the huge truck through neighborhood streets and then merged onto the highway.
He reached for the knob on the radio and turned it down. “Okay. I’m ready to listen.”
“Ready to listen to what?”
“Your story.” He glanced at me quickly.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I admitted.
“I’m driving on a few hours of sleep. You gotta keep me awake. So, you gotta talk.”
“Can’t we discuss something else?” I asked in exasperation. “I’d prefer not to relive my humiliation.”
