Chapter 8: One Room

"We'll take it," I said, before Wick could offer to sleep in the truck.

He opened his mouth.

"You're not sleeping in a truck in hail," I said. "You're forty-one."

"I'm aware how old I am."

"Your back is aware too. I watched you get off that tailgate."

The clerk handed over the key with a look that said she'd seen everything and this was still interesting.

Room 14 had two queen beds with orange bedspreads, a wall unit that rattled and a painting of a duck.

The hail was hammering the walkway roof outside.

We stood just inside the door, dripping on the carpet.

"Window or door?" he said.

"What?"

"Which bed."

"Window."

"Good. I'll take the door."

"In case Brice tries to come through it with a microphone?"

"In case anybody does."

He said it plainly, and something warm went down my back.

I took the shower first.

I came out in a clean T-shirt and sweatpants, with my hair in a wet braid.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed with the TV on mute and the local news showing the hail.

He'd turned the duck painting around to face the wall.

"It was looking at me," he said.

I laughed so hard I had to sit down.

He went in after me.

I heard the water run, and I made myself look at the TV.

He came out in jeans and nothing else, rubbing a towel over his hair, reaching for the dry shirt on his bag.

He'd forgotten I was there.

Or he'd decided not to care.

His back was to me.

The scars started at the top of his right shoulder and ran down across his shoulder blade and over his ribs.

A wide shiny map of them.

Pink in some places. White in others.

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