Page 34 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“Nope.”
“You’re awfully talkative this morning,” I huff, and somehow the exasperation helps me find a little more footing in this back-and-forth that has become our norm.
“I’ll look on my laptop. Google it if I have to. I’m not worried about it—I’m pretty good with my hands.”
“Oh . . .” I scrunch my n
ose up, trying to keep my mind on track and not the skill of his hands. “There is no Internet in the house.” Why do I feel so stupid saying that? Admitting that I’d rather be closed off from the world for a bit than have it at my fingertips with a search engine.
“I noticed. I’m going to get that set up while I’m here too. In the meantime if I need it, I’ll just do what you do.”
Huh? “What I do?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs like I should know. “Use your hot spot on your cell.”
“I don’t have Internet on my cell.”
He whips his head up and stares at me like I have three heads, mouth open, surprise he can’t quite figure out how to verbalize fleeting through his eyes. “What do you mean you don’t have Internet?” His voice sounds like his face looks: astounded.
“No biggie.” I repeat his words back to him as I try to scramble to explain and sound credible. I can’t just come out and tell him my cell’s a burner phone so just in case my dad or Ethan tried to track or trace me somehow, they wouldn’t be able to. I’ve already been there and done that with them, learned my lesson.
Besides, it’s not in my budget right now.
“So what happens when you’re driving and you get lost?”
“Who said I wanted to be found?” The quip is off my tongue without thought. Suddenly a wave of memories hits me hard and fast. How do you think I knew where you were today, Gertrude? One little click and the app installed on your phone just like that without you ever knowing. I know everything you do. Everywhere you go. Every move you make. You are mine. Don’t ever forget that.
I push the memory away. Shove the panic down. And am met with Zander’s unforgiving eyes, which reveal that he’s making assumptions I’d rather him not make about my remark. I attempt to save face, change the direction of the questions I know are coming. “That question is ridiculous, really. If I were lost, I’d just pull over and ask for directions.” I force a laugh, but I don’t think he’s buying it.
“No. Let’s go back to the first comment.” He braces his hands on the counter and leans across it so I’m unable to hide from his stare.
“Let’s not.” End of topic, Zander. Let it go.
“Who’d be looking for you, Getty?” His tone—the don’t hide this from me part—makes me want to scream and yell and stomp my feet and tell him he’s crossing those boundaries I don’t want crossed.
Instead, I make sure my voice is implacable when I answer him. “No one.”
“Is that what Ethan would say?”
Everything about me freezes—my mind, my heart, my lungs—at the sound of the name. My past, my fears, the place I never want to see again, rush through my mind like I never left.
“Did he send you here?” My voice is quiet steel when I speak, although my insides are a twisted mess of anxiety.
“Who is he, Getty?” His voice softens, but the determination in his eyes never wavers.
“No one you want to know and none of your business.” I force myself to stop fidgeting with the pad on the counter, my unease clear as day.
“Except for the fact that he’s the reason you’re running.”
“Butt out, Zander.” I begin to round the L-shaped counter so I can exit the tiny kitchen, but he just steps in front of me to block my path.
But unlike with Ethan, I feel no fear of him. I don’t have to scramble to see where I can disappear to. Rather there is the need to protect my secrets, keep my place and identity here limited to only what I want people to know about me.
“If you’re in trouble, Getty . . . please, I can try to help you. All you have to do is ask.”
His words tug on every part of me that’s tired of fighting this alone, tired of being lonely. And yet I know more than anyone that all it takes is one person to know, for that person to comment offhand to someone else, and somehow, someway, Ethan would find out.
“Boundaries.” It takes everything I have to utter that single word. Body tense. Pulse racing.
