I don’t care how you get the money. I get my hundred grand by midnight or I hurt her.
Asshole. Grade clenched his hand around the phone so hard it took a second to let go. The mixture of anger and panic was knotted up in his chest like wire. It made it hard to think. Except, the only thing he could do for Dory was think. Someone like Clay might be able to pull off going in all guns blazing and save the day. Grade would just get them both killed.
Cody would grow up like they had, never knowing the truth.
Bile stung the back of Grade’s throat. He forced it back down and headed for the next flight up. By the time he reached the third floor, there were dark patches of sweat under his arms and he could smell himself even more than he had before.
He dropped the bag and fumbled the key out of his pocket. It nearly slid out of his sweaty fingers as he slotted it into the door. Grade pulled it back out and waited for the door to unlock while he tried to look as much like a typical motel resident as possible.
The two guys in the Honda that had been parked in the Dairy Queen were gone, but that just meant they’d moved somewhere else. They still thought Buchanan might be back.
It took three tries before the card finally worked. Grade kicked the door open and dragged his bag inside. It swung half shut behind him, and he left it for now as he took in the room. The walls were a grubby beige, the carpet looked rough and somehow dusty, and the bedspread was bright yellow and pocked with melted cigarette burn holes. It made Grade’s skin crawl. He could practically feel the bedbugs behind his ears.
He let himself scrub behind his ears once, with both hands simultaneously, until his skin felt hot and clean. Then Grade put it out of his head as he finally flicked the light on, closed the door, and emptied his backpack onto the floor.
Motels had thin walls. Anyone who’d ever stayed in one could swear to that. Any noise in the other room—sex, soaps, or some asshole playingCall of Dutywithout his headphones at 1:00 a.m.—sounded like it was right in your ear.
Nobody ever thought about how easy it would be for anythingelseto get through those walls. They just believed in walls and the social compact of not going through them. Otherwise, Grade supposed, as he untangled the cord of the power saw, they’d never stay anywhere but at home.
There was also the fact that, in most hotels, there would be someone to kick up a fuss if they heard walls being taken down randomly in the middle of the day. Lucky for Grade, the Kettlebottom wasn’t that sort of motel. Even if someone complained, Grade’s money was on him being done and gonebeforethe woman at the reception desk finished her chapter and could be fucked to come up.
He plugged the saw into a socket, lined it up against the wall, and pulled the trigger. It whined to life, high-pitched and juddering, and the vibration numbed Grade’s hands as he cut a lopsided oblong into the wall.
It bothered him more than he liked to admit that it wasn’t straight.
One of the pictures—a smiling girl in a field of grass with a random, massive cross behind her—fell off the wall as he worked. It bounced on the carpet, and the glass shattered. Grade made a mental note to add ten bucks to what he owed when he got back down.
Finally, he managed to force the lines to cross. He pulled the saw back and turned it off. Even when the blade stopped, he could still feel the vibration in the bones of his hand. He set it down on the floor, grabbed the hammer, and started to pull chunks of wallpaper and cheap drywall off. Once there was a big enough gap, he dropped the hammer and used his hands.
Blisters stung across the heart of his palm, and his fingertips were dry and scraped up by the time he finished. He resisted the urge to check the time—the deadline ticked down whether he looked or not—and dragged the duct-tape-patched armchair over to climb up on.
Grade balanced one foot on the arm of the chair as he squirmed through the hole he’d made. Bits of the sliced-through board caught at his T-shirt and scraped his stomach. There was a chest of drawers against the wall on the other side. He hit it with his shoulder and hip as he fell into the room.
He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, wiped his face on the back of his arm, and then someone grabbed the back of his neck with a hard hand and dragged him to his feet. Grade squawked out a “fuck” and threw a wild punch.
Clay grabbed his wrist in his free hand. He looked grim, his hair raked back from his face and jaw set.
“Fuck,” Grade said again. An uncomfortable squirm of what was—probably—guilt made the back of his throat taste bad. He swallowed it and licked his lips nervously. “I didn’t want to—”
Clay gave him a quick, impatient shake to shut him up. Then he pulled him into a rough kiss that scraped stubble over Grade’s mouth and pressed his body against Clay’s. After a confused second, Grade gave into it. He leaned against the hard planes of lean muscle and shoved both hands into Clay’s curls to pull his head closer.
It felt…
He wanted…
Grade didn’t know what it was. He felt like he could breathe for the first time since he’d got the text—that he could just stop for a second, for long enough to drink in the taste of Clay’s mouth.
It was Clay who broke the kiss. He tilted his head back, away from Grade’s instinctive attempt to chase his mouth.
“You could have asked for help,” Clay said as he stepped back. “But you couldn’t do that, could you? Smart City Boy like you, needing help from some backwoods thug with a GED?”
Grade wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “That’s not fair.”
Clay put his knuckle under Grade’s chin and tilted his head back. “You locked me buck naked on my own balcony,” he said. “I don’t have to be fair. What are you…? Don’t. Don’t cry. OK. I’m not that pissed.”
Grade wiped his nose again and lifted his chin. “What are you talking about? I don’t cry. I’m not ten.”
He sniffed and tasted salt on the back of his tongue.
