TheLittleRockLodge and Inn glowed under the black night, its sign of fancy calligraphy clearly trying hard to sell this place as something it wasn’t.
Dudley Dickhead had been the one to choose our motel for the night. James and he had switched places less than two hours before Derek got ‘too tired’ to keep going. He pulled off to this place while James was still passed out, about four or five hours before we hit James’ target of Tennessee.
The hour and a half of sleep he’d gotten hung below his eyes as we checked into the motel at just past 2 a.m. James scratched at the lengthening scruff on his chin slowly, combing that same hand up over the lines of his tired face and back through his hair. It stuck up in all directions, a thick mess of dark roots sprouting from his head, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to give two shits what condition his hair was in.
He just looked exhausted, like each blink of his eyelids was heavier than the last.
This guy's sleep schedule had been completely fucked since he met me, and even though we were sort of getting along, I was sure he was as ready to get me out of his life as I was ready to get out of my own.
The blonde clerk behind the counter handed James back his credit card between two fingers, gifting him a flirtatious flutter of her sky-blue eyes that fell flat against his lowered stare. He simply shoved his card back into his wallet, grunted out a ‘thanks’, and moved to the side to let Derek check in next.
The blonde let her blue eyes pale, but only for a moment before Derek stepped up to her, and she slapped back on that megawatt smile.
One that was considerably lacking from the one she gave James.
Poor girl.
Any other day, James might have noticed her, but not now. He’d downed the finger width of whiskey he had left from Dallas before settling into the passenger seat for what I’m sure he thought would be at least a few more hours of sleep.
Right before he dozed off, James turned to me, his request exposed in his eyes.
“If I—”
“I’ll wake you up,” I finished for him, handing him a reassuring smile.
He hadn’t had a nightmare, but I stayed up the rest of the ride just in case he did.
At the counter of the Little Rock Lodge and Inn, Derek tapped his credit card against the diamond speckled granite, each rap looking like it chipped away at James’ patience. His jaw flattened, eyes pointed daggers on Derek’s profile as we waited for him to finish paying for his room and harassing the sweet blue-eyed clerk with his less-than-subtle comments.
She was handling herself well, but I was only one more gross implication away from cutting in and saving the poor thing who was just putting on the show society forced all women to star in.
Our role: the polite ‘yes girl’. Our costume: a smile that ached your cheeks with the weight of self-loathing sitting on each one.
The clerk slipped away into the back room to finish up Derek’s payment, and I wanted to high-five her as she made her intelligent escape. She should just fucking run and never come back.
It’s what I would do.
“Hey, since we’re getting two rooms,” Derek swiveled his lackluster olive eyes over to us both, but settled them on James, “how about I stay up and watch the girl and you get some sleep in the other room?”
“No,” James and I cut in at the same time.
Derek jumped back a bit, his cheeks hollowing out as he dropped his jaw like he was actually surprised that trick didn’t work.
“Jeez. Did you guys rehearse that?”
My eyes rolled to touch the back of my head while also taking a step closer to James.
Derek what-the-fuck-ever might have been a shit load of fun to mess with, and it made me giddy to watch his face go beet red whenever I brought up his baby dick, but there was a disturbing something about him that set my hair on edge.
Like a lurking ghost breathing an icy chill down my neck.
The way he leered and held himself, like he was owed everything in this world when he’d earned none of it, put a bitter taste in my mouth. Derek was like chewing tobacco that you could never fucking spit out.
I wasn’t surprised my father would hire someone like him one fucking bit.
Not much in my life was consistent, but at least my father’s association and approval of creeps in positions of power was something I could always rely on.
A warm hand grazed beneath my arm until it wrapped around it completely, and I looked up to find James at my side.