bought them for her “just because.” What would it be this time? How much will he spend to alleviate his guilt?
Assuming he feels any guilt at all. He’s not like Marin, where guilt is her default setting, coloring everything she thinks, and feels, and does. She feels the rage coming back, seeping through her pores. She welcomes it. Rage cuts through all the bullshit and confusion. Rage untangles her, making everything clear.
She reaches for her phone and calls Sal. When he answers, it takes a second for the Bluetooth to connect, which is how she knows he’s in the car.
“Hey,” she says. “You on the road?”
“I am. What’s up?” he says, and in those four short words, it already feels different between them. It’s like he’s bracing himself for what she’s going to say about what they did, but she can’t get into that yet.
“I want to meet your guy,” she says. “Assuming you were serious.”
His response is almost immediate, and it’s not, Mar, I was kidding, as she’s half-expecting. Instead it’s “No need. I can talk to him for you.”
“No.” She walks to the bedroom window and looks outside. The sun has set, and the trees are just shadows in the backyard. “I need to meet him face-to-face. I’m not doing this if I can’t meet him in person. It’s not right.”
Silence. She knows he heard her because she can still tell he’s on speaker phone.
“Okay, I’ll set it up,” he finally says. “I’m planning to drive back around six tomorrow night, so I should be back a little after nine. I’ll arrange for him to meet us—”
“Not us, me. I need to do this by myself, Sal. As soon as possible, before I lose my nerve.”
She hears what she just said to him, and it occurs to her then that maybe she should wait until tomorrow. Maybe the possibility of losing her nerve is a good thing, because what she’s considering doing is absolutely over-the-top insane.
Seconds pass, with Sal not saying anything. She knows he’s there. She can hear the whirring of the car in motion, like soft white noise, and the slight echo of the Bluetooth connection. She wonders if he’s regretting opening this door, leading her down this path. Sal’s always been a little outside the box, antiauthoritarian, a bit of an outlaw, while Marin’s been straight as an arrow.
“I’ll get back to you,” he says, and after a brief goodbye, full of words unspoken, they disconnect.
An hour later, he sends a text. Midnight tonight. Frankenstein. Sober up.
Chapter 10
McKenzie Li’s credit card isn’t working. Again. Embarrassed, she glances over her shoulder. Derek is seated in a booth, catching up on emails on his iPhone, and he doesn’t sense her looking. He never senses her looking. They’re not in sync that way.
“Try it again.” Kenzie turns back to the counter, working hard to keep the urgency out of her voice. It was her idea to come here, to let him know that she’s not high-maintenance. She wanted to remind him what it is about her that he was attracted to in the first place. However, she can’t bring herself to go back to the table without their food. She can’t tell him she doesn’t have any money. Usually when she goes to order, he hands her some cash before she can think about it. But he’s distracted tonight, and she can never bring herself to ask. He has to offer.
The McDonald’s cashier, who can’t be more than fifteen, gives her a dubious look under his visor. He runs her Visa again, and once again the screen reads Transaction Not Approved. “Sorry, ma’am. Declined. Do you have another one I can try?”
First of all, he can shove it up his ass that she’s a ma’am. She’s only twenty-four, for fuck’s sake. Second, no, she does not. All her other credit cards are maxed out, and this is the second of the two she thought might work, the one with the low limit and high interest rate that she applied for only a month ago. She can’t have used it that much, but maybe she has. She’d probably have a better idea if she’d bothered to open the first statement, which is still sitting on the kitchen counter on top of all the other bills she hasn’t opened yet.
The lady behind her with the two hyperactive grandkids sighs with impatience, tapping one foot on the tiled floor as she snaps at them to stay still or you’re going back