AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Because you can’t lose her again.
* * *
When I step inside my RV, I find Lenny sitting on the kitchen counter still in my t-shirt with the bottle of vodka between her legs. I can see her navy-blue panties behind the clear glass and do my best to seem indifferent although my cock jumps at the sight, remembering how she tasted on my tongue, how she came undone screaming my name.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity,” she says, softly, adding, “Edgar Allan Poe.” As if I don’t know where the quote came from. As if I haven’t read or reread everything the man ever wrote after the night on the bridge.
“So, what’s the plan, Stan?” she asks, her voice raspy and sad.
“Plan?”
“Yes. The plan. What are you waiting for? What am I waiting for?” She rests both hands on the neck of the bottle. “Are you waiting to find Jared or waiting to figure out if I’m a liar before you let me go? And if I am a liar, are you just going to off me and dump me in the swamp like the severed head?” She hiccups, and I notice a slight slur in her speech. “Or, are you just waiting for Ricci’s men to magically lose interest in me? Or are you planning on keeping me here forever and evers?” Hiccup. “I’m a bird in a cage. Again.” She takes another gulp of vodka and rests it on her thigh, leaning the neck of the bottle toward me as she talks. “I’ve been that bird before. Been there. Done that. And you know what? It was totally my fault. I trapped myself. Me, me, me, and only me. But, I can for sure tell you, I didn’t like it all that much.” She scrunches her nose. “Nope, didn’t like it at alls.”
I take the bottle from her and set it to the side. “No cages. I don’t know the long-term plan yet. I’m still trying to figure all this out.”
She picks the bottle right back up. “But you’re still looking for him, right? Because when you find him, I’ve got some things I need to get off my chest.”
“Yeah, I’m still looking.”
For the money, anyway.
“How, how are you looking?” she demands to know.
“I’ve been hacking into his work server. Bank records. Paper trails. Anything I can think of.” That part is true.
“Hacking? You good with computers or something? Because, and I’m only being honest here, I don’t really see you as the computer nerd type.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I tell her.
“Ditto,” she says tipping the bottle to her mouth.
“I’m still trying to figure all this out, Lenny.”
“Is that why you left before? Because you are just trying to figure it all out?” Her eyes are glassy and rimmed in red.
“You can say that.” I push the hair from her eyes. She yanks away and I ball my fist before dropping it to my side.
“I just did say that,” she argues. Hiccup. “I just don’t like being left alls alone is all. At least, not without a goodbye. Jared lefted me. You lefted me.” Her unfocused eyes meet mine. “Bridge boy lefted me.”
My mouth goes dry. “Bridge boy?” I ask, making sure I heard her correctly.
Hiccup. “Yup, bridge boy lefted me.” She picks up the bottle once again and take a healthy swig. “Well, technically I left him. I slipped and went down, down, down. All my fault. Never even got his name. He probably thinks I’m dead. I should be dead. But nope.” She holds out her arms. “Surprise! Totally not a dead. Nope. Not dead at all. I crawled to the shore and barfed up half the bay and walked home barefoot. Watched them dragging the river from the other side, but they never found me.” She giggles then whispers, “Because I wasn’t in there.” She sighs. “Good times.” Her words are slurred, but it does nothing to dull their impact. “I thinks about hims every day. Bridge Boy. Where he is? What he’s doing? If he has a goldfish named Bam-Bam?” She giggle-snorts.
My heart lurches just as Lenny sways and starts to fall sideways off the counter. I catch both her and the vodka, setting them both upright. “I definitely don’t think he has a fish named Bam-Bam,” I say, lifting her into my arms. She’s so tiny and weighs practically nothing. I easily carry her to my bed and lay her down, covering her with the blanket.
Her eyes are closed, and I think she’s asleep, but after a few seconds she whispers. “Do you think bridge boy thinks of me?”
The second the question leaves her lips, she begins to lightly snore.
I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Only every fucking day.”
Chapter Nineteen
LENNY
It’s been a few days since my drunken melt down and I’m still a bird in a cage, only my cage is a future meth lab that is Nine’s RV.
