Page 15 of Dotted Lines (Runaway 5)

Lou’s jeans bagged and sagged on his frame, the faded red suspenders he wore at all times the only thing keeping them up. He was a big man, taller even than Karson.

He would have been a mountain if he had stood straight and pulled his shoulders back. As it was, they were always hunched and curled forward. The gray scruff on Lou’s face covered his jaw. The white hair on his head was oily and stuck up in all directions.

Lou finished with the padlock and shoved the fence open a few feet. Then he turned and trudged back to his shack, not sparing us a glance.

“See?” Aria shot me a smirk as she continued on to the fence. “Told you he loves us.”

“Maybe he has a customer coming.”

“He totally opened the gate for us so we didn’t have to squeeze through the little one today. Because he loves us.”

I laughed. “You’re delusional.”

“You know I’m right.”

Aria wanted to believe there was an adult in this world who looked out for us. Maybe she was right and Lou did care. Part of me wanted to believe it too because we’d never really know.

Lou had hardly spoken to us in years and with just weeks left to go, I doubted we’d ever know the man. Not one of us had set foot inside his shack, even Karson.

Following Aria through the gate, I cast a backward glance over my shoulder to Karson’s tent, but there was no sign of him. I hadn’t seen him in two days.

That time seemed precious now.

I just hoped he hadn’t gotten into any trouble.

“How about Florida?” Aria asked as we started down the road toward town.

“Too far away.”

“But it’s so green and there’s the ocean. I think I’d like the ocean.”

“It’s on the exact opposite side of the country. Traveling that far is going to cost too much. Besides, if you want the ocean, we can just find another place in California.”

“No. Never. I want out of here.” She spoke in a way that said she wouldn’t be back either.

“Um . . . how about Vegas?” I held my breath, hoping she didn’t immediately nix the other idea I’d been toying with lately.

Aria looked at me like I’d grown another arm. “Seriously?”

“It’s not that far away. There are tons of hotels where we could work as housekeepers or whatever. And there’s money there, Aria. It’s Vegas.”

“True,” she muttered, thinking it over for a few moments. “I guess if we didn’t like it, we could leave.”

“Exactly.” A rush of excitement swelled, exactly what I’d been searching for.

We walked a few more steps until she nodded and said, “Okay. Vegas.”

I smiled and did a fist pump with the hand she couldn’t see. I’d thought it would take more convincing. One of the line cooks at the diner had visited Vegas a couple of weeks ago and had told me he was getting ready to move there. He’d spent an entire shift telling me about the Strip and the hotels and how he’d already lined up another job.

The way he’d described the neon lights of the casinos had been so vivid that I’d wanted to see them for myself. There was no way I’d go without Aria. Since I’d convinced her so easily, maybe I could convince Karson too.

He wasn’t set on a certain place, at least not one that he’d told me about. So why not Vegas? The three of us could find a place to rent, an actual apartment with a roof and bedrooms and a bathroom.

Hope for that future blossomed as we walked. Visions of a living room filled with Aria’s plants and a TV for Karson to watch swirled in my mind. Maybe one day, Karson would be watching a movie on that TV and I’d be curled into his side on the couch that we’d picked out together.

“What the hell?” Aria whispered.

“What?”