Page 101 of The Complete Truth Duet
She nodded, I nodded, and then we rode the first three hours back to Chicago in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
The fourth hour was spent not in silence after she had what I could only explain as a vocal seizure when I snatched her phone mid-text and threw it out the window south of Ann Arbor. I told her I’d replace it. She glanced around the car, no doubt remembering the money I’d left Cora, and then demanded the latest and greatest iPhone. I laughed and told her she was funny.
She’d fumed for a solid hour, but then she’d fallen asleep and slept for the last two.
Those were my favorite of the trip because, for those two hours, it had been easy to forget how bad everything had gotten.
Cora and River were safe with Drew.
Savannah was safe with me.
And for one more night, as the headlights illuminated that seemingly endless highway, I pretended I was still drowning and not already at the bottom of the ocean.
Now, watching Savannah out of the corner of my eye as she slurped her coffee, I felt that same sense of contentment slithering through me. If only Cora had been there too.
Cora.
Cora.
Cora.
My mind’s favorite distraction.
And torture.
I sucked in a deep breath, holding it until my lungs ached. On an exhale, I answered, “No. We’re not following him.”
“Why not? He’s so close.”
I turned into traffic the opposite direction than Thomas had wandered off. “Because you’re with me. I don’t want you involved in this. I shouldn’t have brought you down here to get coffee today. Speaking of…” I snapped my finger and put my hand out palm up. “Change. I gave you a fifty.”
“Oh, come on! It’s, like, thirty bucks. What if I need something? I don’t even have money to catch a cab back to your apartment.”
“A cab?” I flashed her a glare. “I’m not sure if you realize this, but the thing you’re sitting in right now, it’s more than just a beautiful piece of German machinery. It’s actually a car too.”
My gaze was aimed at the road, but I didn’t have to see her to know she was rolling her eyes.
“I mean, if we’re not together, Penn. You still haven’t replaced my phone.” She pouted her bottom lip and batted her painted-black lashes at me. “I’d be all alone out there with no way to get back to you, Papa.”
“You call me Papa again and I’m gonna ground you for the rest of your life.”
She laughed, throwing her head back against the seat. “Daddy? Is that any better?”
“God. No.”
“Okay, cool. You’re right. We’ll keep it simple and stick with dad.”
I slowed at a stoplight and angled to look at her. Her wild, red hair was up in one of those messy piles on the top of her head that River so often sported. But do not be mistaken; it had taken her at least twenty minutes in front of the mirror to get that thing messy without being too messy.
I’d forgotten what it was like to live with a woman. Cora was as low maintenance as it got. If her blond curls weren’t cascading down her back, they were pulled back in a rubber band she permanently wore around her wrist. This styling action was usually performed while she was walking, talking, or, on occasion, riding my…
Shit. I had to stop thinking about her.
Savannah. That’s what I needed to focus on.
The day after we’d gotten home from Cleveland, I’d taken her shopping. What this really meant is I’d taken her to the mall where we’d argued over clothes, she’d ended up storming out, and I’d ultimately thrown a pile of what I’d deemed to be age-appropriate attire—even though she’d deemed it all “hideous”—beside the cash register along with my credit card. She’d only started speaking to me again when I’d handed her my card and agreed to stand outside as she hit Victoria’s Secret. I didn’t give a fuck what she wore under her clothes as long as they weren’t visible.
“How about we stick with you calling me Penn, and then you actually give me back my change? We agreed no money, no phone, no nothing until we get you into some kind of drug program.”
“No. You agreed to that.” She dug into the pocket of her entirely-too-short cut-off jeans—the severed legs more than likely sitting on the floor in my guest bedroom—and slapped a wadded ball of cash and coins onto my hand. “I told you I don’t need a program. I’ve been clean for months.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Truth?”
Her lips thinned before she turned away from me to peer out the window, muttering, “Not including the shit Dante gave me.”
“I’m not talking about that. Once you got out of the hospital, you haven’t touched anything. No weed. No coke. No nothing. Truth, Savannah?” The light turned green and I dumped the cash into a cup holder before easing on the gas.
