up at him, eyes narrowed. “Wait a sec . . . That’s it?”
No stranger to this particular conversation, Cain cocked his head to the side and opened his eyes wide, staring at her wordlessly.
She sat up, her gaudy lipstick smeared and cheeks still flushed from sex, looking at him like he’d just confessed to drowning puppies. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”
“About what?”
“You want me to go? Just like that?”
He stared at her—at her angry face and bare breasts, bright pink from the bristles on his unshaven jaw. An hour ago, when he ran into her at the Gas & Sip, she’d seemed wild and edgy with her bright red hair and lipstick. Now she just looked . . . used.
He shrugged.
“You’re an asshole,” she said, grabbing her bra and panties off the dusty concrete floor and standing up to get dressed.
So I’ve heard.
He thought about saying I didn’t force you to come here. In fact, you practically insisted on followin’ me. And from all that racket you just made while I was fuckin’ you doggie style, I think you got as good as I gave. I don’t remember either of us makin’ promises. So what’s the problem?
But Cain knew from personal experience that that particular speech would, at a minimum, get him a slap across the face, so he didn’t say anything—just looked up at her, his face void of emotion, because, well, he didn’t feel anything. In fact, Cain had yet to feel anything significant when he flirted and fucked. He felt the same physical pleasure any normal, hot-blooded eighteen-year-old would feel, of course, but his heart remained unmoved, no matter how many women he bedded, and the list was long and ever growing.
Like my cock, he thought, smirking.
“Are you laughin’ at me?” Cherry what’s-her-name demanded, her voice screeching a little when she said “me.”
He schooled his expression to bored and shook his head no.
“You are a total fuckin’ asshole,” she said, zipping up her jeans and swiping her T-shirt up from the floor. “You know what else? I hope they send you to Iraq. I hope you don’t make it home.”
He flinched, just barely, and she gave him a mean smile before grabbing her shoes from the floor and hurrying toward the stairs.
When the rickety stairwell door slammed behind her, Cain stood up and stretched leisurely, walking to the window to watch her stomp away from the building, through the opening in the fence they’d used to enter, and back to her car. She burned rubber pulling away, and Cain rubbed his jaw, thinking of the red marks on her breasts and thinking he should probably shower and shave before he headed to McHuid’s to say good-bye to his father . . . and to Ginger.
***
An hour later, Cain pulled his motorcycle up the gravel driveway of McHuid Farm, turning right at the first pass, and headed straight to the barn, as he had thousands of times in his life. Today was his last chance to say good-bye to his father before shipping out to Navy boot camp bright and early tomorrow morning.
Since his parents had divorced, two years ago, Cain had been living with his mother in a small apartment on Main Street, while his father, who decided to sell their family home, had moved into the tack room at McHuid’s. In a move completely sanctioned, if not encouraged, by Ranger McHuid, Klaus’s work and life were seamless now, and Cain doubted his father left the farm more than once a week, and only then when he ran out for groceries or beer.
Pulling his fully restored 2001 Yamaha R6 into the gravel lot beside the barn, Cain cut the engine, pushed down the kickstand, and unhooked his helmet. Throwing his leg over the seat, he sauntered toward the barn.
Of all the things he would miss in Apple Valley, this barn was—in a perplexing contradiction—on the very bottom and at the very top of his list. He’d worked here with his father for almost ten years, a minimum of twenty hours a week, and he was grateful for the income it had provided. His parents hadn’t ever been in a position to offer the sort of allowance that Josiah’s parents could give. Working at McHuid’s had made it possible for Cain to buy the parts to fix his motorcycle, for the gym membership that kept his body taut and toned, for the clothes on his back, and the help he gave his mother, who’d refused a cent of his