Did I even have one anymore?
Even worse, Reno was taking me home to a trailer he’d filled up with his own hard-earned money—all for a girl who’d stolen from his family. I hadn’t just embarrassed myself in that room; I’d seen the judgmental stares Reno’s brothers had given him. I gazed out the truck window and suddenly didn’t want to go home. Anywhere but there. The vehicle bounced over a bump and we slowed at a light in a familiar part of town. Just a few blocks away, Trevor was probably crashing on a friend’s sofa. I knew his go-to people and was certain that’s where he was hiding out.
I also knew that I could run remarkably fast—walking to work had built up my endurance. While Reno fumbled with texting a message on his phone, I quietly unbuckled my seatbelt and threw open the door, flying down the street at a breakneck speed before he could put the truck in park. My lungs were about to burst as I gasped for oxygen. It felt so good to run that hard, and maybe if I ran fast enough, I’d leave my problems behind and they’d never catch up with me.
I turned down an alley and scaled a chain-link fence. My face heated as I cut through a stretch of land behind an auto repair shop. I no longer heard Reno’s footsteps behind me and when I reached the apartment complex, I pounded my fist on one of the doors, gasping for breath.
An overweight guy with a mustache answered.
“John, is Trevor here?” I panted.
“Jesus. Did you run here from the hood?” he said with a hard laugh. “Get inside. Trevor’s takin’ a piss. Been a long time since I seen you, Apricot.”
“Don’t call me that, Long Johns,” I said with a smile in my voice. But no smile crossed my face as I entered his living room and set my purse on his musty leather sofa. John used to work with Trevor in a landscaping business and they’d remained friends over the years. He’d always had connections in getting Trevor good tickets to rock concerts. I think he knew a DJ at one of the radio stations.
I wiped my face, still breathing heavily. John plopped down indifferently in the recliner propped in front of the TV and turned up the volume.
Trevor appeared in the doorway to my right, surrounded by a halo of light from the hall behind him. His face hardened and he crossed the room with a menacing stride.
“Trevor, please don’t kick me out. I—”
He cradled my head in his hands and something dark flickered in his eyes. “What’s wrong, April? Did that man come after you?”
I blinked a few times and couldn’t speak.
“Trevor, I thought you were dead.” Then I couldn’t see him anymore because tears flooded my eyes and all I could see was the misshapen blur of his face.
He kissed my forehead. “Shhh, I’m fine. Looked worse than it really was because I’d been drinking and passed out. I’m sorry for what I said, babe. I didn’t mean a word of it. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
John leaned around. “Can you two take that shit elsewhere? I’m trying to watch—”
“Shut up, John,” Trevor said in a voice so thick that it cut through the room like steel. John turned back around and Trevor led me upstairs where the bedrooms were.
After giving me a glass of water, he sat me down on a computer chair and knelt before me. “What’s going on with you? What kind of trouble are you in?”
“None.”
His eyes narrowed skeptically and he leaned on my knees. “You’re an expert bullshitter, April. You should have gotten a degree in it.”
“It’s not bullshit. You won’t have to worry about that guy who beat you up, because I took care of him.”
His mouth wrinkled. “What do you mean… took care of?”
I rubbed my face and sighed. “He’s a loan shark. Not the one who attacked you—that guy works for him and picks up the collections. My grandma ran up a bunch of debt and I thought I’d paid it all off years ago. But he came back and said I didn’t pay the interest, so I had to come up with the money. I paid him off, so he won’t be coming back.”
He shot up to his feet and stared down his nose at me. “Your grandma was a real piece of work. Holy hell. That bitch—”
“Trevor, don’t. She’s dead, and—”
“And you could have been lying in the cemetery beside her. That asshole was going to do something a hell of a lot worse to you if I wasn’t there. He kept asking where you were, but I didn’t tell him jack. He looked like a stalker, but now I see the big picture. Do you know what guys like him do to girls like you?”
“Cut off our pinkies.”
He blanched and gave me a puzzled look. Trevor’s bruises were faded and not nearly as serious as I remembered.
“Is your arm okay?” I asked.
“Is my arm okay? You show up here looking like the Terminator is hunting you down and then tell me all this business about a loan shark,” he shouted. “And you want to know about my arm?”
I sprang to my feet.