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I stare toward him, my mouth dropped open far enough that I’m sure there’s a colony of flies setting up shop.What is he saying? Who is this man?
“Do I even know you?”
He laughs. “You had your secrets. I had mine too.”
I narrow my gaze. “What? What secrets? I know everything about you.”
He smiles. “Mostly, but there are a few things I’ve kept to myself for fear that you would think I was a weirdo.”
“So, what, you’re like a cuck or something? You get off on the pain of watching me fuck other men?”
“No,” he laughs. “Well, sort of… but it’s not the pain. I enjoy watching my partner with other men.”
“How many partners have you done this with?”
“Just one, nearly ten years ago now. The relationship wasn’t serious. We fell apart in a few months, but that experience stuck with me.”
“But you’re so confident, smart, and… I didn’t think you’d be into something so…demeaning.”
He laughs. “It’s not demeaning, and I think I’d have to be confident to watch you with another man. I love you, Beth, and I know you love me.”
I sigh, tears welling inside of me. I’m not even sure where they’re coming from. I only knew Dex and Liam for a couple of days, and they were holding me against my will. I shouldn’t be mourning their loss. But somehow, we connected, like I’d known them for years. How do I walk away from that like nothing happened? How do I pretend that I don’t need them in my life?
How do I accept reality when the fact is… they aren’t coming back?
Chapter Thirteen
Liam
Crooked, black trees with water dripping down the bark, sit at the back of the trailer park. Moss hangs off the branches and casts shadows across the night. Slime coats everything, even the back of the trailers. The stench is almost too much to bear. It’s a cross between algae and rotting flesh. I’m sure it’s a mix of the two. Seepage from the swamp has snuck into the park and everything is a soggy mess. I’m not sure why anyone ever thought it would be a good idea to bury anything of value here. One bad flood and you’d think everything would wash away.
“What about gators?” Dex groans beside me.
“There aren’t any alligators.”
“Don’t they have those reality shows in London? The ones where the Florida boys go out at night and wrestle gators out of people’s yards?” He sighs. “The yards look just like this.”
I look toward him, swatting at a mosquito the size of my thumb, remembering why I usually hire people to do this shit. “I don’t see any gators, do you?”
He twists around in a circle, shining the light of the cell phone as he twists. “No, but it’s fuckin’ dark, and they’re predators. They’re not going to wave hello.”
I eye the edge of the trailer and follow the base to a lot of uneven ground. The address was easy to find, as is everything thanks to the internet. “We’re going to be ten minutes. Let’s dig this thing up before we alert the trailer park gang.”
Spinning the light in circles again, Dex nods and hands me the shovel. “I’ll keep watch.”
“You do that,” I grumble, digging into the soggy soil. It doesn’t take long before I hit something solid. For a second, I wonder if I could’ve hit a pipe or some kind of tank, but when the object lifts with little resistance, I know I’ve hit the box I’m looking for. Or… I’ve hit a very square shaped gas tank, and we’re all about to be in trouble.
“I knew she wasn’t lying,” Dex says, taking the shovel from my hand.
I roll my eyes and my sleeves, before reaching down in the soggy earth to grab out the small rectangular box that’s been hidden beneath the surface.
“She wasn’t lying about what? About having a box that she kept her family’s junk in? That’s what liars do, Dex. They tell little truths with their lies to keep you confused.” It’s hard to see in the dark, but it looks like an old military ammo box with hinged clasps on all four sides. Oddly, it’s not swamped with water, and from what I can tell in near darkness, it looks to be in decent condition, except from the silver marks of a shovel scraped on the top and sides like it’s been buried and reburied time and time again.
“Good, now you’ve seen it,” Dex says. “Let’s put it back.”
About an hour from the trailer, he had a change of heart. One where this entire expedition was an invasion of privacy.
When I don’t answer, he changes his focus back to the gators.
