Page 17 of Wasted Memories
Jett had gotten into some trouble back home so Luke persuaded him to move to Oldport. They’d met years before and kept in touch, so naturally Luke offered him a place to stay, but instead of moving in with Luke, Jett bought the house we now lived in together.
They were both drunk, and I remembered Jett telling me that he only smokes when he drinks, which made me feel better about him lighting a cigarette outside the bar. I couldn’t stand the smell of cigarettes. Come to find out, he had at least one drink a day, so you know what that meant.
After we met that night, Jett and I talked nonstop. It was only a week after meeting him that I started staying the night at his house. His place was more peaceful, quieter than mine solely due to the fact that there was no nagging mother judging every move I made or every outfit I wore. It was just me and him under his roof, creating a life together.
A couple weeks later, I moved my stuff into his house, and that was it. We’d been together ever since. I knew from the beginning that he had a drinking problem, but it had only gotten worse over the years. Now, a day didn’t go by that he didn’t have a beer in hand or a glass of whiskey ready to go when he got home from work. We never talked about it because he didn’t like it when I brought up the drinking. He didn’t like that I’d call it what it was - a problem. So I dealt with it. I took care of him when he drank too much because that’s what you do for the people you love.
Besides a few occasions, the drinking didn’t bother me much because up until this point, it rarely affected his daily life. But tonight was different. He promised to stay sober so he could drive us home. Maybe he forgot he was supposed to pick us up, or maybe he had a bad day at work. But now Stella and I were in a strangers truck in the dead of night, and I was sitting here making excuses for him.
What could go wrong?
My knee brushed up against his leg every time we turned or hit a bump, but I kept my gaze forward, not chancing a look at him. I didn’t want him to know I noticed when our legs touched. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long of a drive before we were pulling up at Stella’s house.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” she yelled as she jumped out of the truck. I didn’t miss the wink she sent my way as she slammed the door shut.
“I would take that statement lightly. There is little she wouldn’t do.” I scooted to the passenger seat and buckled myself. I could have stayed in the middle but the more space I put between us, the better.
He pulled off, keeping both hands tight on the steering wheel. “Seems like it. You two seem close.”
Nowhe wanted to make small talk?
My buzz was wearing off and I wasn’t in the mood to talk, but I also didn’t want to come off as rude and keep quiet. “Yeah, we’ve been friends since middle school. She’s like a sister to me.”
I risked a glance at him to find his eyes were trained on the dark road ahead of us. “Those kinds of friendships are hard to come by nowadays.”
“I’m surprised you’re actually forming complete sentences with me,” I joked as I fiddled with the sleeves on his coat I had put back on.
Being in some random guy's truck was the last place I wanted to be right now. Jett would be furious if he found out, which reminded me. “Can you park a couple blocks away from my house?”
“Scared of something, Em?”
I snapped my head toward him. “I’m not scared.”
“You sound nervous. Is it because of that boyfriend of yours, or me?”
I ignored his question, moving my gaze to the passenger window. “You can park on Calaway Lane.”
I saw him shake his head in my peripheral. I was annoyed at the fact that he thought he could ask questions like that. We weren’t friends. Hell, we weren’t even acquaintances. He was thelastperson I’d confide in. He didn’t know me or my situation and it was best that it stayed that way.
I forgot he wasn’t from around here when I caught him putting the street name into the maps app on his phone. “I can tell you where it is if that’s easier.”
He didn’t acknowledge what I said, just kept driving with both hands white knuckled at ten and two. It didn’t look natural for him to be driving like that, like he was a one-hand-on-the-steering-wheel kind of guy. I wondered if he did it to make me feel more comfortable with his hands being in plain sight. He was keeping his hands to himself, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Not that I should have any concern there about Wesley. So far, he seemed like a guy who had a great deal of respect for women.
He pulled up at Calaway and parked against the curb, turning off the truck. We sat there in silence, not looking at each other. I felt restless, like I wanted to spill all my baggage on this man and run away from him at the same time.
“What are you doing?” I blurted. Silence was rarely deafening to me, but I couldn’t take it in this truck with him.
I shouldn’t want to know more about him, but something about him made me curious. He was a mystery to me. Hell, he was a mystery to all of Oldport.
This time, his gaze landed on me. “I’m dropping you off,” he said, but it sounded more like a question.
I faced him in my seat. “No. What are you doing in Oldport?”
“There’s no gate at the town line, Emerson. People can move here without a motive, you know.”
“It doesn’t feel like that’s the case here.” I couldn’t tell if I was talking about the town or this innocent drive home.
“You’re looking further into it than you should.”
