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“How’s that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d rather see a guy just openly screwing around and having that reputation than pretending to be a stand-up guy, but cheats on his partner all the time. You know, so long as the women all know that it’s just casual, and don’t think there’s something else going on.”
“An honest slut, that’s what you like in a man, huh?” I asked, getting a snorting little laugh out of her.
“I guess. I just like people who are exactly who they appear to be,” she added. “I don’t like games and mindfucks and not knowing where I stand with someone. In general,” she added. “I don’t really date much anymore.”
“Why not?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“It’s a long road trip. It’s either have a conversation with me, or listen to me belt out this Paris Hilton song on repeat,” I said, tapping the screen of the radio.
“Paris Hilton sings?”
“She had an album.”
“And… you know the words to this song?” she asked, dubious.
“Well, now I feel like I have something to prove,” I said, turning the dial up, and singing the sugar-sweet pop love song that had dominated the radio stations years back.
“That was…” she started when I was done and turned down the sound again.
“Riveting?” I supplied. “A karaoke masterpiece?” I said, watching her lips tip up. “Worthy of winning one of those singing competitions shows on TV?”
“It was… something,” she said, then shot me a smile. Big, sunny, the kind of smile that lit up what seemed to be an otherwise very serious face. “You know, there’s this cat in the alley behind my condo,” she went on. “He makes sounds like that,” she said, getting a chuckle out of me. “Wakes us all out of a dead sleep,” she went on. “I always get up to make sure he isn’t dying or something.”
We fell into a companionable silence then, listening to the music, stopping to let the dogs walk around a bit.
“You fading?” I asked when she leaned back against the SUV, letting out a sigh, looking beat. I’d been watching her get road-weary for the past two hours but she seemed to me like someone who would bristle if I mentioned it before she was ready to admit it first.
“Yeah,” she said. “The coffee isn’t doing shit anymore.”
“We passed a motel fifteen minutes back,” I said. “We could crash for the night. Get going tomorrow with fresh eyes. There’s no way either one of us wants to drive another five hours tonight,” I reasoned. “And the dogs have been cramped up for a long time.”
The dogs seemed to be her weak spot.
We stopped twice as much as we needed to just so they could move around and pee.
“Alright,” she agreed.
The problem was that motel had two rooms, but a no-big-dog policy. The next allowed dogs, but had no rooms. Then, finally, forty minutes of driving around later, we found the last motel, one that reminded me of the run-down one in Shady Valley, L-shaped and straight out of the seventies with a fluorescent light that flickered in the main office.
“Dogs are fine,” he said, which I already knew, because Coach had texted about the place. “But only got the one room. Two fulls,” he said, shrugging. Again, I knew that. There had been two rooms. But Coach had rented out the other. Because, apparently, Slash wanted me to have a babysitter.
Murphy looked torn, but was practically fucking swaying on her feet right then.
“We’ll take it,” I said. “Any decent take-out nearby?” I asked as I filled out the paperwork and handed over the cash.
“Chinese and pizza ‘bout ten minutes down the street. You can look ‘em up yourself,” the guy said, dismissive, not used to making conversation with the kind of people who rented rooms in a place like this. Which, I imagined, was primarily people meeting to have affairs or guys who’d gotten kicked out by their wives. Likely for having affairs.
“Oh, come on, don’t look so disappointed,” I said, slinging an arm over her shoulders as we walked out of the office. “I am a great sleepover buddy. I paint a mean toenail,” I added. “And I don’t mind a rom-com. I have even been known to wear a face mask or two.” Mainly because Crow’s girl, Morgaine, liked to test her concoctions out on us. “What?” I asked after we’d grabbed the dogs, then made our way outside of the room’s door, giving me a raised brow look. “Skincare is important, or so I hear.”
“Rom-coms? You don’t mind rom-coms?” she asked as if I was admitting I liked watching slasher-porn or some shit.
“What do you like to watch?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Old reruns sometimes. But mostly documentaries,” she said, shrugging, as she stuck the key card in.
“The ‘Officer, I swear I didn’t kill my rich husband’ kind of documentaries? Or history shit?”
