Page 8 of The One Decent Thing

I could just picture it.Oh, hello officer. Sorry, no license and registration to show you. Yes, I’m a felon — released this morning. Him? Oh, he’s the guy I went to prison for kidnapping when he was a minor. He’s fine. I just drugged him and put him in the passenger seat unconscious so I could drive — wait, why are you pulling your gun?

I chuckled, and then wheezed, and then started full-on laughing like I hadn’t in years. It hurt my abdominal muscles and brought tears to my eyes, but I couldn’t stop; I just clung to Sebastian and laughed until I felt sick, the pill bottle rattling in my hand.

Finally I choked to a stop. Fuck it. We couldn’t sit here on the side of the road, because the longer we did, the more likely it was some helpful or suspicious highway patrol officer would cruise to a stop and enact the scene in my head. I was a good driver, Sebastian’s car was fairly new and the registration tags were hopefully up to date, and if I stayed right at the speed limit and used my turn signals religiously, there was no reason I couldn’t get us to Santa Rafaela without attracting attention. The feeling that I had a giant flashing neon sign over my head was just that, a feeling.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that getting the chance to drive again after four-plus years wasn’t a factor. And maybe a little jolt of recklessness, the giddy feeling of freedom, and the even headier feeling of breaking the rules — which was the stupidest possible thing in my circumstances, but.

Fuck it.

I fumbled the bottle open. “Sebastian. Are you okay? Do you still need one of these?”

“Two.” He hadn’t lifted his head from where he’d burrowed into my chest.

I frowned and examined the label. It had some dosage instructions, including a maximum per day, and unless he’d taken a whole fistful of them before he picked me up, two wouldn’t hurt him. I pried one of his hands away from my shirt and gave him the pills.

He shoved them in his mouth and swallowed them dry. Gross, but they were down the hatch, anyway. I carefully put the bottle away in his backpack, heaved it into the back seat again, and began the process of extracting myself from Sebastian enough to get out of the car, go around, get him out and around, put him in and fasten his seatbelt, and then go back around again and hop into the driver’s seat.

It was just as annoying as it sounded, with Sebastian muttering and stumbling and holding onto my clothes and refusing to open his eyes, and I had sweat running down my back and beading at my hairline before I was done. Every car that approached, I expected to be the CHP. Every moment made it likelier someone would stop, or call it in, or wonder why one guy was half-carrying another guy around the car. I would’ve killed for a cigarette before we got going, but I couldn’t risk it, and I wasn’t enough of a dick to smoke in Sebastian’s car while he was slumped glassy-eyed against the door.

When I’d gotten settled, though, and readjusted the seat and the mirrors, I did take a second to turn and look at him. The pale, vulnerable line of his throat above the neckline of that ridiculous grape-colored shirt drew my eye and held it, like I’d never seen someone’s neck before. His hands were wrapped around the opposite wrists, clutching onto his shirtsleeves, the knuckles white with strain.

It was wanting to protect him that’d gotten me here in the first place. Might as well keep on keeping on, and hope this time I wouldn’t end up in a cell for four years.

I did one last check of the mirrors, eased out into traffic, and headed south.

Chapter Four

Aidan

It was still midafternoon when we passed theSanta Rafaela: next seven exitssign. The sun was hours from setting. It shone bright on the palm trees popping up from every fast food joint’s parking lot and laid their long shadows over the freeway in flickering bars. It was disorienting as hell; I felt like the drive had taken days rather than an easy, traffic-free four hours. I’d only stopped once for gas and to take a much-needed piss. Sebastian’s coffee had been sitting there in the cup holder untouched, and I’d gone for it. Fuck, but it was good. Prison coffee tasted like rocks boiled in turpentine, and this was like ambrosia.

I doubted the coffee chain would’ve wanted me as a spokesman, though. Too bad. I’d have sung their praises.

Luckily, there was no one at the gas station who gave a damn about us, and I’d paid at the pump with the debit card in my pocket, wincing at the amount.

Not like I had a choice, though, since picking Sebastian’s pockets seemed wrong on every level. If I could’ve even worked my hand into his pocket considering how tight those jeans were. And, definitely not going there. Thinking about it made my neck stiffen and my brain try to run the fuck away.

I hadn’t been to Santa Rafaela more than once or twice, and I couldn’t even remember why I’d gone there. It had a university, and a few really wealthy neighborhoods, and a lot of seafood restaurants that catered to tourists. And an IMAX theater, which was, now that I thought of it, why I’d been there as an adolescent. Carterville, my and Sebastian’s hometown, was about thirty miles inland. I was really, really fucking glad I didn’t need to drive through on my way. I never wanted to see that place again.

Sebastian hadn’t spoken or sat up during the drive, though he’d stirred and muttered a few times. We’d already passed two of the town’s freeway exits, and I had no fucking clue where we were going.

“Hey,” I said. And then “Hey!” a little louder, when that got me nothing. “Sebastian. Wake up. Seriously, I need you to open your eyes.” Nothing.

I pulled into the right lane and eased my way off at the next exit. I wasn’t going to drive all the way to the end of town, freaking out about the possibility of getting pulled over, only to drive all the way back once Sebastian deigned to snap out of it.

And yeah, that was a little harsh. But the closer we came to our destination, the edgier I got. I’d spent a quarter of the little money I had on filling the tank. Santa Rafaela wasn’t the kind of place I’d want to be looking for a cheap place to stay, and Sebastian hadn’t said a damn word about what was going to happen when we got here. Were we in Santa Rafaela because that was the easiest place for him to cut me loose, or did he want to put me up for the night? After the way the day had gone, realistically, he’d send me packing, and I’d end up arrested for vagrancy and go right back to jail.

I’d get Sebastian home safe first, though.

I turned right off the ramp and pulled over on a side street, in the shade of a spreading, overhanging tree. A running car was more likely to attract attention, so I turned the key in the ignition. With the engine off, the faint rush of big rigs on the freeway and the creak of the seat as I shifted my weight were the only sounds.

Sebastian’s eyes opened a slit. “Hey,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. “We’re here. You really need to tell me where I’m going.”

He blinked at me, slowly. “Oh.” Another blink. “Here?”

“In Santa Rafaela. Off the…” I couldn’t remember what the hell exit I’d taken. And I doubted it was going to help at this point anyway. “Give me your phone. What’s your address?”

It took a couple of minutes of prodding, and a frustrating few more minutes of getting Sebastian to cough up the passcode for his phone, but then I had a map open and an address typed in, and a comforting little glowing arrow showing me where to go. It might have been easier if he hadn’t had to practically do slow-mo gymnastics to work his phone out of his pocket.

---