My shoulders are bare
But I’m coming undone.
Finn flipped the music off abruptly, as if he’d suddenly decided he couldn’t stand the song. Then he looked at me, the dim light from the dash highlighting the angular planes of his face.
“Did you write that song?” he asked.
“I write all my songs. They didn’t trust me on the first full-sized album, the one that came after my Nashville Forever release. Management picked most of the songs and only let me write a couple. The two I wrote out-sold and out-performed their songs in a very big way. My producer decided to let me write a few more on the next album. Same thing happened. On the fourth and fifth albums, I either wrote or co-wrote every song.”
Finn nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t thinking about all my number one hits. “Didn’t anybody wonder about you . . . after they heard that song? Bear, your gran, anyone?”
“It’s a sad song. Heartbreak sells. They all loved it. But most people can relate with heartbreak. What was it Bonnie Parker said in her poem?” I had a head for lyrics, and poetry wasn’t much different. I pulled the lines up easily and spoke them without thought.
“From heart-break some people have suffered
from weariness some people have died.
But take it all in all;
our troubles are small,
‘til we get like Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Til we get like Bonnie and Clyde?” Finn asked. He sounded funny, like the line bothered him.
I looked at him, not sure what he was getting at, waiting for him to tell me. He seemed to be thinking about something and was quiet for several minutes.
“Are we there yet, Bonnie Rae? Are we like Bonnie and Clyde? Desperate? Hunted? Driving on a dark road that just leads to more trouble?”
“I hope so,” I answered instantly, half-teasing.
Finn stared at me, shaking his head. “What in the hell does that mean?”
“They were together. Through it all, they were together.” I wasn’t teasing now.
He looked away immediately, staring out at the road and the lights of Albuquerque twinkling in the distance. His eyes, when he looked back at me, seemed impossibly bright. Brighter than the city lights, and I couldn’t look away.
I shrugged my shoulders, not understanding the intensity of his expression.
“They were doomed from the start,” he said flatly.
“Not doomed. Immortalized,” I said automatically, surprising myself.
“I’m not interested in that kind of immortality, Bonnie Rae. I’d rather grow old and unknown than die young by your side and have the world write books and make movies about my sad, short life. I don’t want to be Bonnie and Clyde!”
I gasped, rejection slapping me in the face and stealing my breath. It was my turn to stare ahead, eyes wet, trying to control my emotions. “Don’t worry, Infinity. Didn’t you tell me infinity plus one is still infinity? Without me, you’ll still be you,” I said finally.
Finn swore and pounded on the horn, an angry blast no one heard.
“I don’t want to be without you, Bonnie! Don’t you get that? I am in love with you! I’ve known you for one week. And I’m in love with you! Crazy, drive-off-a-cliff-if-you-asked-me-to, in love with you. But I don’t want to drive off a cliff! I want to live. I want to live with you! Do you want that? Or do you still think about jumping off bridges and going down in a hail of bullets?”
Finn slammed his hand against the horn again, over and over, cursing as he did. And I realized there were tears on my cheeks. His face was a study in contradictions, fury and despair battling it out across his features. I hadn’t been able to move, to even speak. I was too stunned.
“Finn?” I whispered, reaching out my hand. He pushed me away, like he couldn’t bear to be touched. He rolled down the windows, filling the interior of the car with roaring cold, effectively drowning out any attempts at conversation, but I screamed into the wind anyway. I screamed that I loved him too, but the wind whisked the words away. I never took my eyes from his face, watching him as he gritted his teeth and drove, never looking my way, shaking off my every attempt to reach him.
I stopped screaming and fell into silence with him, wondering what had happened, knowing something had, knowing another bridge had been crossed and not sure we were still on the same side.
Chapter Twenty
FINN PULLED OFF at the first exit, an exit surrounded by businesses closed and dark and locked up tight. The gas station was well lit, boasting twenty-four hour service and the lowest prices in town. Bonnie had stopped trying to touch him and had turned in the passenger seat, averting her face. He knew she was crying, and he swiped at his own face, making sure his own humiliating emotion wasn’t visible.
That damn song. Bonnie singing about coming undone, falling apart. And here was, coming apart too. She seemed so blasé about death, so hell bent on floating away, and he’d lost control. He told himself it was anger, frustration. He told himself it was an anomaly. He never got emotional. Never. Not since Fish died. Not when he’d been sent to prison. Not when he’d been beaten up and marked in his cell, not ever.
Fish was the emotional one. The loose cannon. Not Finn. He was the opposite of Fish. He had been the counter balance to his wild brother. He told himself he needed to be that for Bonnie, too. He needed to be the voice of reason, the ballast. But instead, he found himself completely out of control, passionate, impulsive, and emotional.
He shoved the door open and stepped out, unsure of whether he should risk recognition by paying cash inside or use his card and mark their path if someone was really looking for them. Bonnie seemed to think the frenzy was more media driven than legally instigated, but they didn’t really know anything for sure. That thought had him trudging inside, keeping his head down as he shot a fifty-dollar bill at the clerk, grunting out the pump number and immediately turning away. The clerk repeated the request cheerily, and Finn pushed back out of the doors hating that he had to hide his face and look over his shoulder.