Page 73 of Need Him Like Oxygen

The doors opened then, and all three of us sucked in a deep breath before grabbing the tote and moving out.

We all acted like our arms weren’t turning to jelly as we made our way out of the building, down the steps, and to the car.

Luckily, the local crew was occupied by some kind of disagreement going on at the corner, so we didn’t have to act like lifting the tote up into the SUV wasn’t killing all of us.

“Christ,” Dav said, slamming the trunk door and huffing out a breath.

As much as I hated to admit it, he’d been shouldering more of the weight than myself and Joel combined.

“Okay. Now, you get your ass back upstairs and pretend tonight never happened, okay? I will come and talk to you when we’re done.”

“Got it,” Joel said, nodding.

“Hey, kid,” I called when he turned to walk away.

“Yeah?” he asked, turning back.

“Thank you. Dunno if I’d be standing here right now if you hadn’t come in,” I admitted, even though it hurt my pride to do it.

“No problem,” he said, shuffling his feet, looking uncomfortable. After a lifetime of getting screamed at, I imagined kindness was foreign and uncomfortable to him.

We watched to make sure he got back in the building before Dav and I silently climbed in the SUV.

“What’s the plan?” I asked. “Probably too cold to dig a grave.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, pulling away from the curb with one hand as he reached to fiddle with some buttons with the other. A second later, the seat started to warm up, chasing the chill out of my bones. “A body of water is likely the best bet this time of year.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “If we anchor it, might never come back up.”

“And even if it did, it would be after a frost and thaw. Not much would be left of it.”

“So I guess the question is… salt or fresh water?” he asked.

“I think anywhere salt will have cameras to worry about.”

“Fresh it is then,” he agreed.

“There’s no fresh water in the city. Central Park aside. And that’s never gonna work.”

“Looks like we’re taking a little road trip, love,” Dav said. “Should we stop for snacks?”

“Coffee maybe,” I said, feeling the exhaustion of the day starting to leech into my bones.

“You could sleep,” Dav said as if he was reading my mind.

“No, not yet,” I said. And when his hand moved out, landing on my thigh, I didn’t push it away.

Just one more night, I would let him be close.

Then, then I had to push him away again.

No matter how hard that would be.

How much it might hurt.

“Mood is getting all sorts of dark in here,” Dav said, glancing over at me.

“We do have a corpse in the trunk,” I reminded him.

---