Chapter 19: Room 9

I followed her taillights for five hours.

Her father's truck rattled down the dark highway at exactly the speed limit.

She never once sped up to lose me.

We reached the motel a little after three in the morning.

The sign over the office was buzzing and flickering the way it always did.

Deirdre cut the engine, took the card out of the window, and put it in her pocket.

"Rule four's still broken," she said. "I'd like to keep it that way tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Come with me."

She did not take me to room one.

She walked past it, past rooms two and three, all the way down the row to nine.

She unlocked it with a key from her own ring.

"Nobody sleeps in nine," she said. "It's the one my parents had on their anniversary. I never rent it."

Inside, the bed was made.

A lamp was on.

There was a bottle of cheap red on the dresser with two mismatched glasses.

"You planned this."

"I did it this afternoon, crying, right before I put the card in the window," she said. "I wasn't sure I'd use it."

I shut the door behind us.

She leaned back against it, and I braced a hand beside her head.

"Guests don't touch the owner," I said.

"You're a bad guest."

"I'm a worse one than you think."

"Prove it."

I kissed her.

It was slow for about a breath.

Then she dragged me in by the front of my shirt and it was not slow at all.

Her mouth was hot and tasted like bad coffee, and she bit my lower lip hard enough to make me groan.

"Take this off," she said, pulling at the buttons.

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