“No, not at all. I’ll still be on shift, though, so I may have to take a call.”
“That’s fine,” I said. In a town like Pelican Bay, I highly doubted there’d be a lot of calls that time of night. The snow had started to fall again, so most residents knew enough to stay home and wait until the plows made their way around town, and that wouldn’t happen until morning.
At least Isaac and little Newt weren’t going anywhere.
I cursed myself for letting the weird-looking and utterly annoying Isaac back in my head, even for a moment.
“I’ll see you then,” I said to Alex, then hung up. My legs burned as I trudged through the thickening snow, but I welcomed the discomfort. It would have been easier to walk along the road, but I wasn’t looking for easy. I had a lot of shit rolling around in my head and right now, I didn’t want to deal with any of it. If the only way to escape it was to push other parts of my body to their limit, so be it. And if I did have to think about something, it sure as shit couldn’t be how deeply I’d betrayed my brother or the unexpected feelings his cute little new houseguest had stirred in me.
At least with Dallas, I could do what I should have done all along–have his back. But with Isaac… well, that just needed to die a quick death. Despite the innate need to know what troubles Isaac was dealing with, I was starting to wonder if I hadn’t made a serious mistake in manipulating the situation so he was forced to stick around. In truth, part of me really, really wanted him gone by morning. It was a coward’s move, but I sent my eyes heavenward and willed the snow to stop so it would be one less obstacle for Isaac if he did manage to figure out the thing with his car and headed out at first light.
But the snow grew heavier, not lighter, and I couldn’t help but laugh that fate wasn’t going to give me a break on this one.
Yeah, so what else is new?
Chapter Four
Isaac
Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whispered to myself as I covered my face with my hands in the hopes the move would somehow stave off the tears that were threatening. I was pretty good about not swearing, even when Newt wasn’t around, but when things were really bad, my brain didn’t try to mince words, even the curses.
And things were pretty fucking bad.
I was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat of my car with my feet flat on the ground, staring at the expansive property laid out before me. I could see dozens and dozens of enclosures, but none were close enough for me to make out what was in them, despite the snow having stopped a couple of hours earlier.
I’d been ecstatic to wake up this morning to only a few flurries here and there, but my hopes for making a speedy escape before Nolan and Dallas could get up had died a quick death when I’d rushed out to the car to get it started so it would be nice and warm by the time I got Newt dressed and our few belongings packed up. But as soon as I’d turned the key over, the car had sputtered several times, but never actually started.
I’d tried over and over, feeling my stomach sink with every desperate turn of the key, but it had been the same thing each time. When I’d returned to the house, Dallas had offered to take a look at the car. I’d still held out hope he could work some magic, even if it was with something as simple as duct tape and a toothpick, anything to get us to the next big city… but when I’d come downstairs, he’d merely shook his head and typed out a message that he’d need to take a more in-depth look at it. His comment had been followed by an invitation for me and Newt to stay with him and Nolan as long as we needed to until he could get the car fixed.
Newt had been ecstatic and had begged to see all the animals and ride the elephants. I’d barely managed to thank the man and accept his generous offer, because inside I’d wanted to die.
It was just par for the course, I supposed.
Nothing had gone right since we’d left San Francisco.
Although, if I was being honest, things hadn’t exactly been going right before then, either.
Long before then.
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, then began mentally counting up how much money I had left. There was no way I’d have enough to pay to fix the car. I pulled out my phone and pulled up the local online ads using one of the bigger-name general classified ads sites that included a section for guys looking for “dates.” I felt a mix of relief and dread when I saw that although most of the ads were looking for guys closer to one of the larger cities, a handful mentioned towns I’d seen on our way to Pelican Bay. Which meant I could post my own ad offering my “services” and hopefully find someone local. If I was really lucky, I could find a place nearby that I could walk to, since I wasn’t willing to get into a car with a date.