Rough and Tumble (21 page)

Bettie Page?

Cash held back his surprise, pushing the food and bottles onto the table where he'd had Molly earlier. He shut the curtains, praying no one had walked by to see this.

“What're you doing, Molly?”

“Waiting for you.”

“Let me rephrase that. What the
fuck
are you doing, Molly?”

He hadn't meant to get emotional, but she had a way of pulling that out of him. Just another reason to get her back home.

She lazily raised her arms over her head, emphasizing her breasts. “I thought I'd make our last night together special.”

“This isn't special.”

“Why? I'm not what you made me yet?”

He was too stunned to even spit out a curse word, and he went to the nightstand, yanking tissues out of their box. He got on the bed, going to wipe the lipstick off her.

She tried to get away from him, pushing at his hands. “I'm living for the moment,
Cash
.”

I am what you made me
.

The words echoed in him as he got ahold of her, scrubbing off the lipstick, accidentally smearing it over her mouth and chin. She scratched at him, and he hunched away, fisting the tissues in his hand.

All he could see was Johanna picking a fight, needing attention, then crying and apologizing.

But . . . hell, Molly was right. She
was
what he'd made her—another version of the woman who'd cruelly left him, forcing him to drive way too many roads with a load of guilt as baggage. Sadly, she was the only kind of woman he could be with. They were all the same in the end.

Even . . . Molly.

He threw the tissues aside, not wanting to look at her anymore because this wasn't the Molly he'd . . .

He'd been about to say “fallen for.” But he hadn't done that. He hadn't done anything for her except bring this affair around to where it'd always been meant to end up.

“Going soft on me?” she asked, still not done with him.

All he heard was Johanna mocking him, and without knowing what he was doing, he eased a hand between her legs, and she arched, taking in a hard breath, grasping his wrist.

“Is this what you want?” He could be every bad thing Molly thought
he
was, too. “Do you want me to treat you like one of them?”

“One of who?”

She was going to force him to say it, so he didn't. He only played with her pussy, wanting her to come so she could stop talking. She only turned her face away, her mouth smudged with that lipstick, the words on her skin glaring at him.

Slut. Whore.

I am what you made me
.

When she made a tiny, frustrated sound, he removed his hand, starting to get off the bed. He didn't like what
he'd
become, either.

She propped herself on an elbow, then struck at him, hitting his arm, and he took a step back, his fingers coated with her.

Mindlessly, he rubbed them together, wishing things were different. Wishing . . .

No. No wishes. He'd already blown all of them with Molly from the word “go.” He couldn't help destroying everybody he came into contact with.

With a tight, regretful laugh, she drew her legs to her, wrapping her arms around them. The sight made his heart shatter, and he walked to the bathroom, getting a washcloth, wetting and soaping it.

When he came back, he gave it to her, avoiding her gaze.

She began to clean the
slut
off her arm. “That was wrong.”

No shit.

She scrubbed harder. “I was angry at you, because whether you want it or not, I know you, Cash. I know how you've been operating, and that story about Johanna only confirmed it. You're always trying to drive away from her, but you can't escape.”

He didn't refute that. How could he when she'd nailed him?

Slut
wasn't coming all the way off her skin, but she kept at it. “Dammit.”

He couldn't bear to watch this, so he took the cloth, gently but firmly wiping her skin, doing his best to get rid of what he'd marked her with.

He could feel her watching him, and that was almost too much also. But he stayed, seeing this through.

For once in his life.

“I've never been one to spill my heart out to anyone,” she said, her voice quavering, “but there were times when . . . when I thought . . .”

“You shouldn't have thought it.”

“But I did. Maybe it's because I haven't had as much sex as you. Maybe it's because I'm inexperienced and not very good at living outside a book, but . . . well, I'm experienced now, and I know what I'm feeling.”

Fuck.
He stopped wiping at her arm—
slut
had only faded and wasn't disappearing as he'd hoped it would.

“What if,” she said, “we started all over again and, instead of running from everything, we faced it?”

He could tell that saying this had taken all she had in her, and he almost broke again.

Yeah. What if?

She seemed to read him. “I know we're totally wrong for each other, but by whose rules? Who says?”

He couldn't stop himself from meeting her gaze—those green-blue eyes that made him feel like he was floating soundlessly in a new place where nothing could get to him, except for her.

Could they do what she was saying? Could they get past who they were “supposed to be” and “not supposed to be”?

As he kept looking at her, a smile grew on her face. Touched, he leaned forward, putting the washcloth to the sides of her mouth, wiping away the lipstick so he could get the full force of that smile.

The hope, the brightness.

But there were still smears, just like there'd be with everything else—reminders of another life, the one he was meant to live. Dragging her into his crap wouldn't be fair.

He put the washcloth on the bed, getting to his feet. Her smile wavered.

Make it fast
, he thought.
Get out of here before she sucks you in again
.

“There're better things ahead for you than this,” he said.

She looked away from him, staring at the wall, her eyes going glassy. Tears. God, he couldn't handle tears.

But then she climbed off the bed and fled to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, and even though it hadn't been a slam, it still jarred him.

So this was how it'd end. It had to be this way, because if he knocked on that door, she'd think he'd changed his mind. And maybe he would.

That's why Cash wrote the note before he left for good.

Molly held back the tears, listening for the sound of the room's closing door to tell her that Cash had left her alone. After that, she would let her tears go.

He couldn't know how much he'd affected her because this was just a game, right? Games shouldn't make a girl cry.

When the thud of the door finally came, then the faint sound of an engine started up, the dam broke, and she sank to the floor, even if she was in a motel and the tile was probably gross. She sobbed and sobbed, holding her hand over her chest.

First time for everything, even a heartbreak.

She didn't know how long she sat there in a messy, phlegmy heap, asking herself if he was going to come back, knowing he wouldn't, wondering if that gambler Leighton was somewhere out there looking for Cash and if he, along with all the other bad things in Cash's life, was ever going to catch up to him.

Cash
, she kept thinking over and over. He'd let the nickname take him over after Johanna had screwed up his life. Was there any Beau left in him?

More tears, more bawling. Questions with no answers . . .

When she heard a phone ringing through the wall in the room next door, she jerked, swiping the tears from her face. Sofia and Arden. She hadn't called them yet.

Adrenaline pushed her to her feet to open the bathroom door. She stumbled to her purse, wanting to cry all over again like the disaster she was. How could she have forgotten her friends? Damn her . . .

She grabbed her phone, and when she saw that the Mute button on the side of the cell was engaged, she swore some more, then called them. When the hell had she put the phone on Mute? Had Cash done it at some point?

She pulled herself together as someone answered, but nothing came out of her mouth. Was she going to weep again?
Shit
.

“Molly?” Arden's panicked voice. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” she might as well have croaked.

Both of her friends yelled, “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She steadied herself. Everything was going to be okay. She still had Sofia and Arden, still had that interview on Monday.

At the thought of going back to her old life as if Cash had never come into this new one, a lone sob wracked her before she wrestled it back in.

“You're not okay,” Arden said. “Tell us where you are.”

“And what's wrong!” Sofia added.

And so Molly spilled everything, the words tumbling out on a gush of regret: Area 51, ghost towns, the Coyote Moon Lodge . . . Cash.

Finally everything her friends should've always known about her and Cash.

“It wasn't love,” she said, her heart bruised as if she'd been lacerating it with self-inflicted wounds for the last half hour. “But . . .” One last tear escaped from her eye and she let it roll down her face. “But there was
something
there. I'm not sure I'll ever know what it was, though. I didn't get the chance.”

Sofia and Arden didn't speak for a few moments, and Molly even wondered if they thought she deserved this. She'd gone from a good girl to a bad one in a record amount of time, but Molly couldn't regret that. What she regretted was not being around to support Sofia with Arden these past few days.

And if she'd learned one thing with Cash, it was to say what was on her mind. Mostly.

“I've been a terrible friend, and I wouldn't blame you guys if you left me here in this motel.”

Sofia's voice came on. “Molly, it'll take a lot more than a whacked-out adventure like this to make us hate you.”

“Yeah,” said Arden. “Now you just sit tight in that room and we'll be there. We're about halfway to Beatty now.”

They said good-bye, and as Molly carefully put her phone on top of her purse, she realized that she had no clothes on. She felt more naked than ever. Around Cash, she'd gotten used to nudity, but now, she wanted to cover up her skin . . . and all the words that would still be written on it until she could get ahold of some rubbing alcohol.

As she went to her bags of clothing—God, more souvenirs that would only remind her of Cash—she happened to glance at the table by the door. There was something on it.

When she saw what it was, she almost lost her footing.

Three hundred-dollar bills?

If she'd been floored when Cash had bluntly told her that this was where the party ended, she was a thousand times to the stunned now.

Had he . . .
paid
her for her time with him?

Tears threatened again until she saw a piece of paper with printed writing next to the money. She could barely read it through her blurred sight.

This should be enough to see you home, even though

I suspect your friends will come get you. I'll be

asking the motel clerk to check in on you, just to

make sure.

And that was all he wrote. A couple of sentences, so final, so calm and cool. They were the closest thing to an apology Cash would probably offer, but wasn't this how he usually solved situations with people? By spending his winnings on them?

Dazed, Molly took the bills off the table and put them on the bed for the maid, knowing that Cash had never considered her to be so different from everyone else after all.

***

Sofia and Arden arrived at the Coyote Moon Lodge's bar to see a thicket of bikes parked all the way around the adobe building. Men with
Duck Dynasty
beards and leather jackets hung around outside the door with narrow-eyed women who stared at Sofia's Prius, laughing at it while taking drags off their cigarettes.

Sofia drove right on by the nasty place while Arden held up her phone, checking the screen.

“You sure the GPS was right?” Sofia asked. “This is where Molly's at?”

“Yup.” Arden pointed to a sign that squatted on a one-story, craggy, southwestern-influenced building toward the back of the parking lot;
Coyote Moon Lodge
was hardly readable in the darkness because of the dying neon.

After stepping on the gas to get as far away from the bar as possible, Sofia slowed down at the motel, cruising by the doors and peering at the numbers until they got to room 7. A light suffused the closed curtains, showing life among the other dark windows.

Arden was out the car door before Sofia even came to a complete stop. As Sofia got out, too, music from the nearby bar clashed with the air: outlaw band rock ‘n' roll, the sound of breaking bottles and yelling voices mixing with the live notes.

She and Arden banged on the door, and when Molly answered, Sofia nearly took a step back.

Her friend's eyes were puffy like she'd been crying, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail. The sparkly eyed Molly from the other day was gone.

It only took one look at her to make Sofia's irritation from the past couple of days burn off like smoke, and she rushed over to take Molly into her arms, hugging her tight. Arden embraced them both.

“We didn't know what happened to you,” Sofia said.

“I know.” Molly's voice was wavering. “I listened to all eight of your messages. I must've been . . . busy when you called.”

Busy having sex with Cash. Slightly understandable.

“God,” Molly said. “I'm so, so sorry. I'll never make you worry like that again.”

Sofia lifted her head, looking into Molly's eyes as Arden let them both go.

“I hate to see you cry,” Sofia said. “If Cash were here, I'd—”

“It's not his fault.” Molly used the heel of her hand to wipe at her face. She didn't have any makeup on, and she looked like she'd been dragged around all day and deposited in this sad little room. “I knew what was in store when I hopped in Cash's car.”

As if to fight more tears, Molly flapped her hands, shaking her head, then turned around toward a small pile of bags on a chair that seemed to hold every possession she'd accumulated on the trip.

That's when Sofia saw a chunk of hair missing near Molly's nape . . . and a bunch of words on her friend's arms and legs.

Bad words.

“Holy crap, Molly,” Sofia said.

Arden was just standing there with her mouth open as Molly picked up her bags and sighed wearily, as if she knew where Sofia and Arden were looking.

“Souvenirs,” she said. “I didn't get to tell you about my temporary lust tattoos before.” Then with a smile that reeked of false cheer, she offered a white plastic bag to them. “As appealing as the keepsakes I have are, I bought a few for you guys along the way. I didn't totally forget you.”

“Right,” Sofia said. “The alien underwear.”

“And doodads from a ghost town gift shop.”

Arden took the bag but didn't peek inside. “Molly, are you . . .”

“Okay?” She gave a wobbly laugh. “No. And yes.”

She blew out a breath and vacantly smiled again, walking past them, toward the car. Arden sent a what-the-hell? glance to Sofia before they followed Molly.

She'd already dumped her junk in the backseat, and she held up the motel key.

“Gotta lock up and turn it in.”

As she went about doing both, leaving Arden and Sofia alone with the rattle of music as their only company, Sofia shook her head.

“She's doing it again.”

“What?” Arden asked. “Totally shutting us out? I noticed. But when hasn't Molly done that lately?”

“Do you think he hurt her?”

“Physically? No. It looks like they were just messing around with those pen marks on her, getting kinky, you know.”

Sofia didn't know. She wasn't into bedroom games. Yeesh, she even doubted she'd ever have sex again with all the time she was spending on saving Arden and Molly.

Arden continued. “Molly's emotions clearly took a hit. She looks like shit, Sof, and I never thought I'd say that about her. She didn't even cry after the thing with Genhaven and her job.”

The motel office door opened up, and Molly came out, her chin raised, back to her usual ice princess.

“Thanks for waiting,” she said again, going straight to the car and dumping herself in the backseat.

Speechless, Sofia and Arden took their own places. After starting the engine, Sofia put pedal to the metal until they passed the bar, praying that she wouldn't hit a bike and have to stop. That went double for the hope that Arden wouldn't jump out in search of another poker game or Molly wouldn't flash her boobs out the window at all the bad boys.

But that wasn't fair, Sofia thought. Now that they were back on the road to Normal, USA, anger was replacing all the fear and concern she'd lived with the past few days, and it was slowly rising to the top, her thoughts simmering in a stockpot, steaming.

A mile down the highway, no one had said anything, so Arden turned on the stereo, hooking it up to her phone to access an audiobook they'd started listening to earlier—Tina Fey snarking and joking around about her life. The book had given them a few laughs when they'd needed it, but what about now? Sofia had two situations sitting in her car: one a gambling addict, one . . . jeez, she didn't know what to call Molly. A wigged-out, brokenhearted jumble who stared out the window at the desert night?

As Arden had suggested, Sofia had been working on letting things go—like Roberto, whose number and e-mail she'd blocked on her phone. And she let the silence go, too, until they passed Vegas, when the anger reached a hiss in her ears. She reached over to turn off the stereo.

“Hey,” Arden said.

“So who wants to start?” Sofia said firmly.

Both girls sank in their seats, but Sofia decided that, since Arden was in much better shape than Molly, they'd go with her X-File first.

“Molly, just so you know,” Sofia said, “I looked on my iPad earlier and I found information about Gamblers Anonymous for Arden.”

Molly seemed to blink back to the moment in the backseat, clearly relieved that this conversation wasn't going to be about her. Meanwhile, Arden leaned her elbow against the door, head in hand, her fingers bunched in her short red hair.

“Great, Sof. You saved this GA news for our ride home, when you both could pounce on me?” she asked. “That's cool.”

Temper, steaming
and
whistling now. “Are you saying there isn't a problem, Arden?”

“I'm saying that I can take care of any gambling issue I might have on my own.”

Sofia didn't hold back. “Why is it that you got in so deep here in Vegas? Did you ever put up ridiculously expensive bets in your poker games at home? Was this trip the first time that happened?”

“Don't worry about it.” Arden's voice was flat. “I've always been able to pay what I owe.”

Sofia couldn't believe what she was hearing. “So this
has
happened before?”

Arden didn't answer, but Sofia couldn't talk to her anyway. This was worse than she'd expected—and things had been pretty bad up until now, too.

“Ard,” Molly said softly, “if this trip was any indication, then you need help. Admitting it would do us all a world of good.”

“And
you
don't need help?”

Crap.
The last thing they needed was a catfight in the car.

In the rearview mirror, Sofia could see Molly's ten-mile stare, the way she trained her gaze out the window again, disengaging.

Arden put the stereo back on and, God bless Tina Fey, but that was how it stayed until Arden fell asleep and Molly pretended to do the same during the rest of the endless ride home.

***

“Are you goddamn insane for being here?” Kat asked, throwing a dishrag in Cash's face from behind the bar as he took a seat.

Down the way, Hooper and the afternoon crowd of chopper enthusiasts stopped chattering with the latest crowd of tourists long enough to stare at Cash.

Even now, the day after he'd left the Coyote Moon Lodge, Cash wasn't feeling any less in need of a stiff afternoon drink. He'd thrown back a decent amount last night after he'd finished driving and returned to Boomer's place to house squat. His out-of-town PI friend had left Cash messages last night after finally hearing about the scuffle with Leighton, and Cash had let him know that everything was good.