“Me either.”
She returns her gaze to the ceiling. “You don’t have to. But I do.”
“Why?”
She lets out a sigh. “Well, aside from the fact that I have a life outside not just this room, but this city…I have to sort out Mom’s stuff.” She swallows hard. “I have to figure out what to do with it all. I have to get her house sold, and…her car, and…” She’s blinking hard, swallowing, and then she’s pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. “And I don’t even know where to start. So I’m kind of using you, Ben. I don’t want to go through her shit. I don’t want to feel all that. Here, with you…I can pretend like none of it exists, like this is all there is. You and me, fucking and drinking and going out for food. But…I can’t keep pretending. I’m running out of time.”
I feel the bubble pop, pierced by her words. She feels it, and so do I. I move off the bed, tug on clean underwear and jeans and T-shirt, and then I find her clothes and hand them to her. She sits up, eyes wary, takes her underwear and swings her feet off the bed, slides the thong on without standing up. Next is the bra, and then she’s doing that sexy jump-wiggle-shimmy to get her ass stuffed into her jeans.
As she shrugs into her shirt, she glances at me. “So that’s it, huh?” There’s a note of coldness in her voice.
I just smile at her softly, knowing what she’s assuming. “Yep. That’s it.” I let her think it for a moment longer.
I pull on socks and my cross-trainers while she finds her own shoes, and then she’s hiking her purse over her shoulder, and I find my keys. There’s a strange familiarity to the rhythm of us getting ready like this. I watch as she pauses by the front door, pulling her hair back into a neat, low ponytail.
Her hand on the knob, she glances back at me in confusion as I stuff my wallet into my front pocket and join her at the door. “Where are you going?”
“We are going to your mom’s house. I’m helping you sort her things.”
Echo blinks several times, as if processing. And then she shakes her head. “No, Ben. No. I have to—”
I slide my arm around her waist and pull her back toward me. “What, did you think I was kicking you out, just like that? Like, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am?”
She ducks her head and stares at her feet. “Yeah, kind of.” Her voice goes to a barely audible whisper. “That’s how it usually works.”
I don’t know how to process that. Usually works? She’s used to being…what? Fucked and sent home? There’s a usually to this, for her? It makes me sad and angry and bizarrely jealous and insecure and sick to my stomach.
“Echo…god, you think I’d just—get what I wanted and send you on your way?” I look down at her, try to nudge her chin up, but she resists. “Do I seem like that type of guy? Like that’s all I wanted, was sex?”
She won’t look at me. She pulls away from me and jerks the door open, fleeing. “I’m just gonna catch the bus. I’ll see you later.”
I follow her out the door, pause to lock it behind me, but by now she’s far enough away that I’d have to run to catch her, and running is out of the question. My knee is stiff and locked and throbbing from overusing it already, so I can barely walk, and I forgot my cane inside. She’s running, actually jogging away from me. I have to catch her. I know if I let her go like this, it’s over.
And I don’t want it to be over.
So I hobble to my truck and climb in, start it, and reverse out. My knee screams in protest at even the slight flexing of using the pedals, but there’s no choice for me. Not in this, not with her. I peel out of the parking lot and down the street after Echo. She’s almost to the bus stop; so I floor it and swerve around the bus, squeal to a halt at the curb.
I roll down the passenger window. “Get in, Echo.”
She ignores me, stands at the bus stop sign, clinging to the pole like it’s the only thing keeping her upright. I slam on my flashers and put it in park, hop out and limp around the hood. I jerk open the passenger door and grab Echo’s hand.
“Let go. Leave me alone. I’m not doing this with you, Ben.” Her voice is flat, cold.
“Yes. You are.” I sweep my arms under her knees and around her shoulders, lift her clean off the ground. I deposit her in the passenger seat, teeth clenched at the pain of walking, of carrying her, and determined to not let her see. But she sees anyway.
“Goddamn it, Ben.” She glares at me as I struggle into the driver’s seat. “You’re gonna fuck up your knee even worse.”
“Yeah, probably,” I agree.
“You can’t just kidnap me like this.”
“Yes, I can. And I just did.” I ignore the middle fingers from the traffic skirling around my truck, the blaring horns, the questioning stares. I pull out into traffic and head in the direction of Cheyenne’s studio, knowing she lived near it.
“Fuck, you’re impossible.” She leans her head back against the headrest, eyes closed.
“True enough.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Why are you shutting down like this?” I turn off the radio and glance at her as I stop at a traffic light.
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We had some good sex, and now it’s over. Drop me off and go home.” She delivers this monotone, staccato.
“We can fix the not knowing each other. And yes, we had good sex, but there was more to it.”
She shakes her head. “For you, maybe.”
“Liar.”
She ignores this, points to the right. “Turn at the next intersection.”
“If you thought I was kicking you out,” I tell her, trying a different tactic, “I’m sorry. I should have been clearer.”
She shrugs. “That’s how it works, Ben. We’ve known each other less than three days. You think this is love at first sight or something? You think we, what? Fell in insta-love? Get real, dude.”
I flinch at the venom in her tone. “Jesus, Echo. Bitter, much?”
“Like I said, you don’t know the first fucking thing about me.” This is delivered quietly, with far less venom.
“But you know me, don’t you? I told you—”
“And I didn’t ask you to, did I?” She shouts this, and it’s shocking, the sudden shift from whisper to shout. “You could have just fucked me and I wouldn’t have known any different. But you saddled me with your stupid fucking sob story, and now I’m supposed to stick around and feel sorry for you and teach you all about sex, right? Hang out in your bachelor pad and show you how to fuck like a pro? I could, too. I’ve been around the block a few times. Well, guess what? I have no interest in playing that game with you. We had a moment, sure. But now it’s over. Turn left here.”