Page 47 of Small Town Hunter

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

She’s so short, she barely reaches up to my chest. Her hair is wet. I guess she must have showered while I was out.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the room?”Easy.It’s not Trina’s fault I’m stressed out.

“No,” Trina corrects. “You said not to let anybody in the room. Which I did not.” She frowns at the machine. “Should I get chips or cookies?”

“Neither. Eat some real food.”

I wonder if Sarah Jane is right about me– if that “savior complex” is the only reason I agreed to help Trina.

The machine groans and Trina bends over to get the cookies.

Yeah. The only reason.

She’s pretty. Give her that. She has more hair than a woman ought to have, curly as all-get-out, flying all over her face and back. I could take handfuls of it and still have extra. Her skin is so dark, like the surface of a river at night. Her eyes are slanted, but when she looks up at me– and she always has to look up at me– I see two moons. These fool notions jump in my head at the worst moments, like when she so innocently offered to rub my back earlier and I had to stand under a freezing shower to get my head right.

“We need to talk,” I tell her.

“About what?”

“About me taking you to California.”

I follow her back to the room.

“What about it?” she says cautiously as I shut the door.

“Look,” I tell her, feeling like a scumbag, “Something serious is going on back home. I need to head back to Virginia sooner than I thought.”

“What about your job? Thatthingyou’re doing out here.”

“I...I’m not sure.”

“Okay,” she says tensely.

Fuck.

I know I don’t owe Trina a damned thing. She might be beautiful but she’s a stranger. Her situation is nothing of my doing. For crying out loud I just met the girl two days ago.

And she doesn’t have an address for this grandmother, which is the cherry on top. Not even a name. I can’t go trawling the streets of L.A. for some old lady that might no longer live on this earth — in every sense. What was that about being a hippie? Say the old lady’s mad as a fruit bat, getting high as a kite on some four-syllable drug. And then what? Leave Trina to join her? I can’t allow that.

So then what?

“Trina,” I tell her, “I’m gonna need a way to find your grandmother. A name. Something I can go on.”

Her face falls. “But I really don’t have anything, Crash.”

“Trina, listen. My wife–”Fuck. Don’t say it like that.

“It’s complicated,” I finish lamely.

Her eyes widen. “I don’t want to hurt your marriage. That was never my intention.”

I can’t with this chick. Her sweetness isn’t a put-on at all, which makes this even more painful.

My stomach suddenly growls, giving me the perfect excuse to delay this.

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