Page 85 of Downpour

I laughed. “No. I just…” I sighed. “My parents died. My grandma died. I don’t have a family. I have shitty roommates who kind of scare me, and I wake up every day just hoping to get through the next twenty-four hours so I’m one day closer to accessing my trust and having a life. There’s no good in that. There’s no good in you getting thrown off a bull and having your career end. You don’t have to pretend there’s some greater meaning in it all. Sometimes life just sucks.”

“Is this where you tell me to enjoy the little things and be grateful for what I have left?”

I shrugged. “What you do with what you have is your business. I’m not saying you have to pretend your accident or your diagnosis was good. But I am saying that good things still exist.”

Ray found my hand and squeezed.

I studied the contrast of black ink that danced across his light skin. “Darkness and light exist together in the same moments. We find it in sunrises and sunsets. It’s the clash that people trek across mountains to experience.”

The house was quiet. Too quiet. Ray was jittery. Frankly, so was I.

“Let’s get out of here.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? Where?”

“Who cares where we go? What else do we have to do? You don’t have PT until tomorrow afternoon.”

He blinked for a moment, and I could tell he was mulling it over in his mind. “Pack a bag. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

“Takethe next right and get on the highway.”

The truck engine growled as we sped through town without giving anyone on the ranch a heads-up that we were leaving.

“You gonna tell me where I’m driving us?” I asked as I fiddled with the radio.

Ray swatted my hands away. “Ten and two, Evel Knievel.” He found the station I was looking for and turned up the volume. “And no. You get directions, not a destination. You’d just get lost anyway.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ye of little faith.”

“I’m making educated guesses based on previous patterns of behavior.” He slid his hand down my arm and peeled my hand off the steering wheel when I settled into the right lane on the highway. Ray wrapped his hand around mine. “We’re going east.”

“Alright, Lewis and Clark. What are we going to do outeast?”

The heat in his eyes was positively carnivorous. “Getting out of town for the night.”

I squeezed my thighs together. “How much rope did you bring?”

Ray let out a loud, long laugh. It was a sharp contrast to the haunted man from earlier who had been contemplating the trajectory of his life. “I didn’t bring any. Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not disappointed,” I blurted out.

Oh my god. It was so obvious that I was actually disappointed.

Ray snickered.

“Okay, fine. Maybe I’m a little disappointed.” I briefly took my eyes off the road. “Is a repeat of yesterday on the table?”

He licked his lips. “Eyes on the road, Sunnyside.”

I huffed and focused on driving.

“Is that… something you want? With me, I mean.”

“Sex? Um. Yes, please? I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“It’s not.”

“Obvious?”

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