Page 10 of Pride

THREE

Anna

My original goal was simply to separate myself from my boyfriend. It wasn’t one of those the farther away the better scenarios, all I needed to do was escape his abusive behavior. Despite my plan to go to San Antonio or Austin, I stood 900 miles in the opposite direction at a gas station parking lot in Tucson, Arizona, wondering at what point my impromptu road trip was going to end.

Not that I wanted it to.

Fisher Knox fascinated me. He was a walking contradiction of everything I’d grown to believe about men, society, and the military.

He was a former Marine, but he sure didn’t look like it. His brown hair wasn’t cut in the traditional high-and-tight – it draped over his shoulders, and was longer than mine. He was an attractive man, but he didn’t make sexual advances toward me. Lastly, according to society, he was a murderer. Yet, he was kind, considerate, and caring.

As he walked from inside the gas station toward where I was standing, I studied him. Dressed in a new pair of tight-fitting jeans, a wife beater, and black leather lace-up boots, he exemplified the type of man I’d spent my adult years lusting after.

The shirt clung to him like a stark white layer of skin. His waist was small, and his stomach was flat, like the boys who played basketball in high school. His chest, however, was broad, like a weight lifter or a football player. It took everything within me to maintain even an ounce of ladylike behavior.

I tore my eyes away from him and gazed out at the cactus rich horizon. For the past two nights, we’d slept in the same bed. He had yet to make any sexual advances toward me – or even joke about it for that matter. I’d gone from expecting it to desiring it, and the fact he wasn’t so much as trying was driving me insane.

My sexual tension was at an all-time high.

He stepped in front of me and raised his right hand between us. A plastic bag dangled from his clenched fist. “Didn’t have much, but Mesa’s only two hours away. Figured we’d stop there for the night. Egg rolls or fried burritos. Pick one.”

I hadn’t eaten for six hours, and was miserably hungry. I playfully snatched the bag from his grasp and peered inside. Two egg rolls and two burritos were in the bottom of the bag, along with a handful of napkins.

“I’ll have one of each,” I announced. “And you can have one of each.”

He chuckled. “You’ve got to pick one or the other.”

“One or the other?” I looked at him. “Seriously? Why?”

“Life’s about making decisions and living with the consequences.” He gestured toward the bag. “Pick one.”

There weren’t any consequences associated with eating a fried burrito that I knew of. I coughed out a laugh. “What consequences are there with gas station foodstuffs?”

“The burrito’s pork. It has more protein than the egg roll – so it’ll stick with you longer – but it has a shorter shelf life. Impossible to say how long it’s been under that heat lamp, so it might be the carrier of a few strains of bacteria. The eggrolls, on the other hand, won’t fill you up as much, but they’re less apt to make you sick.” He gestured toward the sack. “That bag’s filled with consequences.”

His theory was batshit crazy. I looked in the bag and then at him. “You’re nuts. Where do you get your information?”

He shrugged. “It’s common knowledge.”

I’d eaten my fair share of meals that were cooked by questionable gas station attendants and left beneath flickering heat lamps, and I’d never had any adverse effects. I wanted the burritos, even if they were going to make me sick, but I figured he needed the protein more than me. He outweighed me by a hundred pounds, and he hadn’t eaten since lunch.

“I’ll go with the eggrolls,” I said.

He folded his arms over his chest and grinned a little. “Scared of the burrito?”

I was a risk taker, but I was also a nurturer, and he needed to eat more than I did. “I’m just going with the eggrolls. No real reason.”

He reached into the bag and pulled out one eggroll and one burrito.

I gave him a look. “Hey, you said one or the other.”

“It was a test. I was seeing if you were a risk taker.”

“Why?”

“It’d let me know how to plan the rest of the trip.”

I wondered what he meant, and further wondered if I was in for an adventure. I reached into the bag and pulled out a burrito. “Assume I picked the burritos.”