you? Where do you think you are going to go since you have no money and no car?” She had her hands on her hips. “Surely you don’t expect me to support you? I don’t make enough money for that. Actually, I’ve seen your frivolous spending. I’m not sure anyone but a rock star would have the money for that.” She sighed. Part of her wanted to take pity on him, the other part wanted to throttle him. “Do you have any idea how hard I work for every little thing that I have?”
She was completely irritated now, barely rational. As she talked, she had been walking toward her car angrily. She unlocked the door to her Honda Civic. “Get in,” she snarled.
He quietly did as she commanded. At least she was driving him away from here. For a moment he pictured himself as a bum on the streets with his cardboard Sharpie sign: Anywhere but here!
Pulling on his seat belt, he sat with his hands in his lap. He glanced over at the odometer and noticed that the vehicle had well over 100,000 miles. Without speaking, he tested the seat belt while she seethed and simmered. He felt around tentatively for soft spots in the floor. The cherry on top of his birthday was not going to be ending up as road kill or spending even one more minute in the hospital. He heard what he could only describe as a low growl.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” She had barely gritted out the words.
“Is this vehicle even safe?” He tried out his most contrite look. If his luck continued to hold, she would be impervious to that, too.
“It goes. It stops. It always starts. Any more questions?” Cammie was clearly not enjoying his company.
“Just the one…” He paused as her head snapped around to look at him. “Where are we going?” Adam half expected her to snap at him again. Instead, she looked at him and laughed. Laughed. Not a chuckle. Not a giggle. She laughed. Whole, hearty, soft and warm…she laughed.
“Oh, well, I figured before we went on this fool’s errand of yours that I should change. And I could show you how the other half lives.”
“We’re going to your place?” He perked up. While he had jokingly hoped to end the night with her, he never thought he stood a chance. “Was it my charm? Was it my devastatingly good looks?” He leaned over the console toward her. He used those gorgeous blue-green eyes of his, dark like the Caribbean after a storm, and was reduced to nearly nothing when she laughed again. This time, not in a good way. He pounded his fist against his heart. “You are killing me. Maybe I’m rusty?”
“Please, you were never good enough to get me,” she said, throwing her head back and laughing even harder.
Adam sank lower in his seat and stared out the window. This was really turning out to be some birthday. A horrible birthday. The worst birthday ever. He bit down on his finger like he used to when he was young and frustrated.
“Stop that,” she chided. “Everything is going to be okay, Adam. You just have to adapt to a whole lot of changes.” She had pulled his finger out of his mouth, yanked his hand away from his face, and set his hand in his lap. “Really. You are going to be just fine.”
He stared at her. There was something so inviting about her. She was so…real. She was looking at him from under those thick eyelashes. He wanted to know if they were hers, were they real, too. Then there was the bustier. Were the girls real? He knew without really having ever talked to her that she was completely unlike anyone he had ever known. The problem with that, as she had asserted, was that he had no idea how to talk to her even.
“You know…I don’t even know your name…” He said quietly, a little embarrassed at the admission.
“Well, a name tag doesn’t really go with this outfit,” she joked. Then looking at him sideways, her pony tail bouncing playfully behind her, she announced, “Cammie. Call me Cammie.”
They pulled up in front of a narrow building. It was scarcely wider than the double door and skinny sidelight window. Adam gawked at it. “Holy hell! That is one tiny building.” He glanced around, trying to see what the rest of the crowded street looked like. “And where do you live?”