Page 80 of Snake

As if the answer could be found here at the groundbreaking, Autumn slipped her wrist from his hold and looked around. Cox looked, too. Her boss’s tantrum had cut the ceremony itself short and subdued the crowd for a minute or two, but no more than that. The event was shifting into party mode—people had wandered away from the dais to stand in line for a beer, or to lead their kids to the play area, or were gathered in small, friendly groups to chat—and likely to gossip.

“I honestly don’t know,” Autumn eventually said. Her voice took on a dreamy softness as she continued, like she was thinking aloud more than conversing with him. “Part of me thinks I should get to the airport as fast as I can and try to talk to him, but most of me feels exhausted at that thought. Chase has never been mad at me like that, and I cannot begin to guess what mischief he will wreak while I’m away—but I know him well enough to know he will be trying to wreak mischief. I’ve seen him when he feels he’s been disrespected, and it’s not pretty. I just don’t know if it’s too late to stop him.” Her next sigh was thick with weariness. “Right now, I just feel ... over it.”

“Then stay.”

As soon as those two words were out of his mouth, Cox slammed his lips closed. They sounded like an invitation so much bigger than he’d meant. He’d meant today, tomorrow, not forever. This was why he didn’t like to talk: a measly two words could hold far more meaning than he could control.

Autumn clearly heard the echo of that vast invitation. She tipped her head to one side and squinted up at him. “Stay?”

He took the chance to clarify. “I mean, you’re booked at the inn for two more nights, yeah?”

She took a beat to process the correction; he watched as she did. Her head came up straight again, and a small, wry smirk played at a corner of her pretty mouth. “Yeah—assuming I still have the reservation. I never checked in last night.”

“Shannon knows why. You’ve still got your room.”

Again, she looked down the road as if she expected her boss to pull his head out his ass and return. The only traffic, however, was the usual scattered passage of country vehicles into and out of their little town.

“Good thing I got my bags out this morning to change my clothes and freshen up.”

Cox glanced down at her ‘City Girl in the Country’ outfit: a pair of mossy-green jeans that stopped about six inches from her ankles, little tan suede shoes with a not-ridiculous heel, and a dusty pink blouse with a floral scarf. He wondered if she dressed like she’d just stepped out of a magazine every day of her life. Did she own a t-shirt? Sneakers? Those stretchy black pants women wore everywhere?

“Yeah, good thing,” he said aloud.

“Okay.” She dragged her hair to one side and set her hands on her slim hips. “Okay. You know what?”

She looked at him like she expected an answer. Cox tipped his own head to one side, lifted his eyebrows, and let that stand for one.

“Fuck it,” she said. “I’m staying.”

Apparently she did cuss, under particular conditions.

She slipped her hand into his. Cox looked down at her slender, soft fingers, tipped in pearly pink. Because it felt right to do it, he wove his thick, rough fingers with hers.

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~oOo~

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With the groundbreaking unceremoniously ended, what was left was a dress-rehearsal version of a town event. Cox wasn’t on the clock anymore, and he hated being at these things when he didn’t have anything specific to do. He felt doubly awkward following Autumn around, especially after she’d dropped his hand so she could shake Martha Broward’s hand and had kept it free as they moved through the crowd, so she could shake all the hands she encountered.

She was in work mode, mingling and schmoozing, which Cox of course hated. Yet he was impressed to see how quickly and completely she’d cast off the scene with her boss; she wasn’t showing any kind of embarrassment at being yelled at in front of everybody. For a while, he thought she really didn’t care about her boss’s antics and wasn’t burdened with worry for what awaited her in Indianapolis.

Then she said she needed the bathroom and headed to the Porta-Potties they’d set up at the back. Not knowing what else to do, Cox waited for her nearby. Because he was hovering there, he saw her come out, saw the flash of a moment before that schmoozy mask of outgoing friendliness fell back into place.

She was tired, and worried, and generally upset. She was simply a master of hiding it.

Cox had no such skill, and he tended to be suspicious of those who did. He didn’t like an expression to be a lie. It was why clowns had always freaked him the fuck out, that painted-on face obscuring what was really happening beneath. He and Billy had watched the TV miniseries It on DVD when they were kids, and Cox had tried to bail during the first episode, until Billy had shamed him for being a pussy. So he’d watched every episode without hiding his eyes.

He'd had nightmares nightly, waking screaming and terrified, for almost a year. Billy felt awful for teasing him and tried to help, but Cox had had to weather that trauma on his own.

He’d experienced far greater traumas since, his scale for horror had been forcefully reset, but even so, Cox didn’t fuck with clowns.

Autumn was walking toward him, smiling brightly. But now he saw the tension around her eyes—and were they a little red?

You know what? Fuck this. Cox walked toward her and caught both her hands when they met.

“Let’s get out of here.”

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