Page 77 of Trigger Happy

“Darlin’,” I say, dragging the word along her cheek. “You can’t fake the way your body clenched around my fingers. Admit it. That was as real as it gets.”

Her cheeks flush, and I can tell she’s thinking about this morning again. I know I am. “No it wasn’t. I faked it.”

I burst out laughing. “Faked it? The way you were moaning my name, you might as well rent a plane and spell out you’re the best orgasm I’ve ever had in the sky.”

She bats my hand away. “I’m not admitting anything when you won’t even correct your mom when she calls me ‘that girl.’ Yes, I heard her loud voice on the phone. It’s not like I need some grand love declaration with a yacht covered in roses, but I’ve spent my whole life pretending, so I’m not interested in hiding whatever’s happening here.”

She snaps her mouth shut like she didn’t mean to say all that, and then spins around, her wet braid whipping me in the face on the way out. I used to not give a damn if Chastain was pissed at me, I even wanted it, but now that disappointed gleam in her eyes is going to stay with me until I make this right.

I pull out my cell and click Walker’s name, listening for his voicemail. “So, I really fucked that up.”

38Sabrina

Nothing’s happened.

I never let myself get that vulnerable with anyone, much less my mortal frenemy who once told me he’d rather fuck a cactus than me, so I’d consider that something. It’s not as if I want Lawton to tell his mother all the dirty details, but is it too much to ask that he say, Yeah, Ma, something’s changed.

Suddenly, I’m ricocheting back through my dating history. To the accountant I told I was an elementary school teacher, all the way to the kayak instructor who thought I was a pedicab driver. I smiled through oysters I hated, laughed at unoriginal jokes, twisted and squeezed myself into an entirely different person just so they wouldn’t notice I kept three vials of arsenic in my tote. But with Lawton, I’ve never once had to fake a shellfish allergy just to get out of a raw bar date early.

And he already knows where I stash my arsenic.

“Nothing’s happened,” I scoff, putting on my running shoes. “Well, nothing’s going to now. I won’t make that mistake again.”

I’ll blame it on a tragic lapse in judgment due to an ongoing dry spell. I don’t need him, or his fingers. I have two hands. Besides, I need to focus on the job.

Lawton’s on his way to Bozeman, and I’ve already sent Bobbi a text that I’ve come down with a highly contagious cold. Stay away!, I begged.

She sprung into action like a coked-up Disney princess and offered me DayQuil, chicken noodle soup, even an IV drip. At first I thought it was sweet—a little unhinged, but sweet. Except, then she told me she was googling DRIPBaR’s near us.

Who goes that out of their way for their BnB guest?

My phone buzzes.

BOBBI

ugh, the nearest DRIPBaR’s in Vegas anything else you need?

Running the perimeter will be easier if she’s gone, so I send her off hunting for some extra-spicy Tom Yum soup, which “happens” to only be sold at Thai Me Up.

And that restaurant “happens” to be an hour away.

Then I’ll “happen” to be napping when she drops it off.

When her location finally pulls out of the driveway, I pack a bag with the essentials and start jogging at an eight-minute mile toward the windmill, weaving through pine trees. Every crackle and snap of a twig makes my shoulders bunch. I can’t stop glancing back, bracing myself for a shadow following me, but there’s only a squirrel nibbling on a stick.

My chest is burning by the time I reach the windmill, and every puff of air makes a little cloud outside my mouth. I tilt my head to listen for the babbling brook. It’s easier than I thought it would be to follow the stream downhill until I reach the shack.

Though when it comes into view, I realize shack might not be the best description.

There’s no peeling paint or moldy floorboards waiting to give you tetanus. If anything, the tiny studio looks cared for. Someone planted fresh yellow marigolds in the flower beds, and the entire area’s been mulched.

I push open the wooden door. It doesn’t even creak through the forest, which means someone must have oiled the hinges. I brace myself for another body, or at the very least something severed, but there are only candles.

Hundreds of candles.

There’s a table in the center filled with little mason jars, all with handwritten labels. Eucalyptus. Lavender. Cedarwood. I sniff the air, expecting it to smell like a spa, but my nostrils burn on the inhale.

Bleach.