AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So, she did come through here,” I muse.
The woman opens her mouth but closes it again quickly, looking flustered.
“I’m not trying to cause any problems, I swear.” I sigh and run my hand through my hair as I see Slade heading back this way. When he spots me, he heads over.
“The woman I’m looking for, her name is Astrid.” I decide honesty might be the best policy here. “My friend and I—” I point at Slade as he steps up beside me. “We messed up. We hurt her feelings by jumping to conclusions about something. She didn’t deserve that. What she does deserve is an apology.”
“You’re probably right. If you call her up and she says it’s okay to give you the information you want, then that’s fine. Don’t worry, I can wait,” she tells me before popping her gum.
I look at Slade, who shrugs and subtly shakes his head.
I’m sure the woman is thinking Astrid won’t answer, and she’d be right. But, like fuck am I going to admit it’s because we never bothered to get her number.
“I’m sure you know she won’t answer. My girl knows how to hold a grudge, and honestly, she should. Please, I’m not asking you to do anything other than point me in the right direction. If she turns me away when we find her, then I’ll back off. But I have to at least try.”
She sighs, and I’m doubting this is all because of company policy and Astrid and has more to do with her own experience. Some guy fucked up and hurt her, so now we’re all in the doghouse. I can’t blame her. Haven’t we been treating Astrid the same way? We drew on our collective experiences instead of opening our fucking eyes and seeing what was right in front of us.
“Look, even if I wanted to help, I can’t. The lady was a smart cookie and bought three separate tickets, I’m guessing in case this, right here, happened and I crumbled under your man’s smolder there.” She nods at Slade, who is glaring at her. I have to bite back my grin as Slade looks at me.
“Smolder?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re doing. The only reason there are no panties on the floor here is because that baby mama over there is asleep, and the other girl is distracted by the tongue down her throat. As for me, I’m immune to bullshit.”
She crosses her arms over her chest as Slade leans forward and lowers his voice a notch. “I get it. I’m sorry we bothered you. We’re men.” He shrugs. “We fuck up. That’s what we do. It’s in our DNA. You know that, right?” he asks, obviously getting the same impression as me. We were fucked before we opened our mouths, thanks to our appendages.
“The difference between us and the others is that we’re man enough to own it. Man enough to get on our fucking knees and beg for forgiveness. And if we’re lucky enough that she can forgive us, we’ll spend the rest of our lives worshiping her like the goddess she is.”
“Took it a little far at the end there,” I tell him out of the corner of my mouth.
He looks at me before smirking. “Go big or go home.”
I turn back to the woman and notice her cheeks are flushed as she looks at Slade a little starry-eyed. She shakes her head and coughs to clear her throat.
“I’m sorry. Like I said, I can’t tell you where she went. What I can say is that only three buses have left here since she bought her tickets, and one of them was heading to Washington, which was not one of the destinations your girl may have been heading to.”
“Thank you,” Slade tells her with a wink, tapping the desk lightly before we both turn and leave.
I pull my cell phone out and call Evander, who answers after two rings, like he’s waiting for my call, which he probably is.
“You find her?”
“No, but I’m hoping you can. We know she bought three tickets at the bus station. Three buses left in the time frame that she was here. Discounting the one to Washington, can you find out where the other two were heading?”
I can hear him typing as we exit the building.
“Okay, the other two buses were heading to California and New Mexico. Running a cross-check brings up properties for Astrid in both those states. Let me just hack into the bus station cameras.”
“We’re on our way back now, so text us if you find—”
He cuts me off. “Found her.”
I’ve said it before, the man is a machine.
“She took the bus destined for California. I’ll see if I can follow the bus using street cams, but I’m not making any promises.”
He hangs up, so I relay the info to Slade.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, and he looks at me as we climb into the truck.
