“Hmm,” he said. His gaze was distant.
“I always win this game. No matter how many shots of tequila I drank, I always won against any Wraith.”
“Wraith?”
“The Iron Wraiths. Just a club I used to hang around.”
“What kind of club? Like that one with Gretchen? The book club.”
“No. Not like that.” I doubted most of the Wraiths could even read. “They’re bad news. I don’t think about them anymore.”
“Okay,” Sanders said casually. “If you ever want to talk about it …”
“And if you ever want to talk about your past,” I snapped back.
I wasn’t being fair but I wasn’t about to pour my heart out because we played one game. Life wasn’t that simple. People certainly weren’t. We may be able to read each other easily—unnervingly so—but it didn’t mean anything.
This closeness bridged felt like too much, too soon. But I’d felt like that since our first night together. A bird squawked loudly in the tree above us.
I backed up. “I better get to work.”
He blinked a couple times and said, “Yeah, me too.”
“In the morning, let’s meet to discuss the plan,” I said. “For MooreTek.”
He smiled genuinely. “That’d be great.”
Sanders and I might have a connection I couldn’t quite explain, but he was leaving soon and I needed to focus on work. We could play nice together, but it wasn’t any more than that. It couldn’t be any more than that.
Chapter 15
Sanders
Skip once told me about this thing called cry porn. It was when people purposely watched those videos of deaf babies hearing for the first time, or neglected dogs being rescued back to health. He said sometimes he watched them when the sadness got too close to the surface and he just needed to crack it open and let out some of his gooey softness.
I never understood that. Leaning fully into the pain of life. Better to keep moving, never settling. Let me be the river that washed around the boulder never moving it. I went on adventures, bungee jumped, skydived. Anything that spiked my adrenaline, reminding me I was alive. That’s what I needed.
I needed to get away but I was already away in a new town. The intense session with Roxy inexplicably caused acid in my throat, sending me straight back to my room to pop more antacids. I was reaching for my phone when the air-conditioning unit clicked on in the room. Something about the Freon smell and the heavy hum of the unit in the tiny room sent my mind back in time to a month ago. Not even a month.
My dad, fifty pounds too light, sat in the stiff-backed chair at the care home. His pale flesh, papery and bruised. His eyes saw nothing at all. He wasn’t speaking then. I couldn’t stand looking at him like that. I physically couldn’t stomach it. Sometimes he’d laugh. It was best when he laughed because then I thought at least wherever he was, he wasn’t suffering.
I gasped for air as the acid churned in my gut.
“Shit,” I said and ran to the bathroom.
I retched up the nuts and fruit I’d eaten that day. Guilt swirled with helpless anger. Roxy was still front and center in my thoughts which then only made me feel guiltier and angrier about everything back home. I needed to get it together. I couldn’t let it own me. Hadn’t I just said that to Roxy? Don’t let things weigh you down, leave all the heavy shit behind. Just as I was rinsing out my mouth, there was a knock at my door.
“Sanders?” Skip’s voice asked through the door.
I sniffed, rubbed at my eyes, and opened the door. “Skippo, what’s up, mate?”
“Are you okay?” He looked behind me and I wondered if he’d heard all that.
“All good, yeah. Come on in. What’s up?”
“Just wanted to see if you wanted to grab some dinner.” His eyes shot to the roll of Tums on my bedside table. “Are you sick?”
I had to shut this down before concerned Skip took charge, so I quickly changed the subject. “I showed Roxy my tattoo today.”
