TAUT (12 page)

So I just run, because I can.

I’m not sure how far I could run if I never stopped. That run down to Frisco and back is pretty intense. Twenty-four miles and half of it is uphill. But the thought that I’d have to stop before I got home—that has never entered my mind. Because my mind has no room for silly things such as failure when I run.

My mind is free when I run. Free to think about things I normally partition off to the deep recesses of my subconscious.

So that’s what I do now. I run. I pull out an old running outfit from my dad’s closet so I don’t wake Ash and the baby, and I run the fuck out of Vail. The bike trail is out, it’s covered in like six feet of snow. But the streets are clear and it’s the middle of the night so they are empty.

So I run.

And I love every fucking second of it. Because the only sound I hear is myself. Breathing into the frigid night air, a stream of steam coming from my mouth in a controlled regular rhythm. I let my mind wander out of the cage I keep it in, I forget about Rook, and I think about shapes, and equations, and the sound of my feet as they pound the wet pavement.

The freak goes away and the real me emerges.

That’s what running gives me. And when Rook ran with me, she filled a gaping hole in my life. She was my partner. She was mine. I love my team. I can’t picture my life without Ronin and Spencer. We had a falling out a while back and we spent years apart. And even though life went on and I was fine, the minute we were all back together for the Shrike Bikes pilot, our bonds realigned. Like it was meant to be. Like we were charged molecules, pulled together by a force of nature.

But I’d like to be more than one third of a team—one fourth if I include Rook. I’d like to be
half
of something. I’d like that emptiness to go away. And that’s what it felt like to have Rook. She filled me up.

But now that hole is back and it’s deeper than ever. I am just one man, alone.

I get back to the house around five AM and sneak quietly into the shower. I pull on the sweats I’ve been sleeping in so I don’t disturb anyone, and then I go downstairs and crash on the couch, my muscles aching with fatigue, my mind at bay for another day.

The crying baby is what wakes me. And even though she’s upstairs, she is
loud
. I take the steps two at a time and find the screaming infant in her carrier in the middle of the living room. “Ashleigh?” I walk down to my bedroom and peek in, but it’s empty. Bathroom is empty. Parents’ bedroom also empty. “Ashleigh?”

The baby is wailing so hard she’s shaking and it’s starting to freak me out. I walk through the kitchen and open the door to the garage. Ashleigh is sorting through the van looking for something. “What’re you doing?”

Her head pops up in surprise. “What?”

“Can’t you hear that fucking screaming?”

“Sorry, did she wake you?” Ashleigh doesn’t look sorry. She barely notices me in fact. Just keeps searching for something on the floor of the backseat.

“Yes, she did wake me, but I’m more concerned about why she’s fucking screaming her head off and you’re out here doing… what the fuck are you doing?”

“I can’t find that yellow ducky.” She pops up again, her face all blotchy and her eyes red. “Have you seen it?”

“Yeah, I gave it back to you at the motel, remember?”

“I know, but it’s gone!” She dives back down into the van.

I walk over and take her by the arm. “Ashleigh. Stop.” She pulls away and starts to climb over the seat to the third row. I grab her by the waist and haul her out, then push her against the van and hold her there by the shoulders. “What. The fuck. Are you doing?” The tears start to roll and then she just looks down and hides her face from me. “Answer me, dammit.”

She wipes her face and drags her sleeve across her nose. “I just need that ducky, that’s all. I need it.”

OK—I take a deep breath because I know mania when I see it. “You put it in the diaper bag, Ash,” I say softly. “I saw you. Did you take it out?”

She shakes her head.

“OK, then let’s go look inside. It’s cold out here and the baby is crying. Can’t you hear her?”

Ash tilts her head like she’s listening and then she looks up at me with her watery eyes. “I can hear her.”

“Good, you go take care of her and I’ll check the diaper bag. Where is it?”

I pull her inside with me and catch her answer between screams. “The bedroom.”

She picks up the baby and I watch her for a second, just to make sure. But she seems fine as she slides the baby up to her breast and sits on the couch to feed her. The screaming lessens as the baby latches on and then everything goes silent except for Ashleigh’s sniffles.

Fuck. Women and their drama. Over a stupid toy.

I go into the bedroom and it’s a total catastrophe. Clothes are everywhere, diapers are spilling out of the package, a few toys are scattered around. And that diaper bag is upside down in the middle of the floor. I kneel down and shuffle through it, but there’s no yellow duck. I don’t know how the fuck she can find anything in here, and now that I think of it, I’m wondering if she’s not having some trouble holding things together. She’s a single mom for whatever reason. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but it’s got to be tough to handle an infant alone. Plus she’s stuck here in a strange place with a guy who’s been fucking with her head. And all those post-baby making hormones are probably still in her system.

It’s a miracle she’s not batshit crazy already.

I stuff all the clothes on the floor into the hamper in the closet, then pick up all the diapers and stack them on the dresser. I sort through her diaper bag and nope, that duck is not in there. So I fill that up with baby toys and straighten out the bed a little. That’s a huge improvement. I pick up her winter coat and the yellow duck is lying underneath. I hang the coat up on the hook near the bedroom door. I walk back to the living room holding out the duck as I come towards her.

She bursts into tears and takes it from me.

Oh, fuck. Manic tears I can handle, but I don’t do
I’m crazy-depressed-sad-happy-worried
tears. I really don’t. But I’m pretty good at making girls shut up when they’re crying. So I try that route. “Ashleigh,” I say firmly. She looks up, muttering out some
thank yous
. “You’re not allowed to cry around me, I hate it. It bugs the shit out of me. If you don’t stop, I’ll bend you over my knee and smack your ass so I can give you a good reason to cry. At least then I’ll get some pleasure out of it.”

She stares up at me, speechless. Then she blinks. “What?”

I laugh. “That got your attention.”

Her chest hitches a few times as she takes a deep breath. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

I take a seat on the couch and watch her watch me as she feeds the baby. “Where were you headed, Ashleigh? When you broke down?” She makes a face and shakes her head. “What? Why are you shaking your head at me?”

She ignores me.

“Ashleigh, where are you going? And for that matter, where the hell did you come from?” I wish I had looked at her car closer, to see the plates. But either I was too distracted by my own circumstances or the snow was covering it up, so I never noticed.

She cuddles the baby and whispers in her ear for a few seconds and then she looks up at me with that smile she smiles when she’s being overly polite. “Look, I understand you might be freaked out about my little… emotional display… but I’m fine. OK? I’m fine. I’m just…” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Exhausted. I’m tired. I’m running on no sleep, I’m stressed, I’m hungry, I’m desperately in need of a shower, I smell like spit-up, and that stupid toy means a lot to me. OK?” She stares at me, calm but frowning.

I wait for her to look away before I speak and bring her attention back to me. “Got it. Now, answer my questions.”

“Or what?” she challenges.

“Or nothing. You can choose not to answer, it’s your decision. But if you refuse, I’m going to call Jason, get your plate number, hack into every fucking DMV in the US, and figure out who the fuck you are.”

She snorts out a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll let that pass, since you don’t know who I am. And I would have to go back to Denver and grab my own laptop to make sure the connection is secure. I’ll take you with me, by the way. So if you think I’m gonna leave you here alone, you’re wrong. And then I’ll fucking get that data right in front of you. Or I can just call up Mrs. fucking Pearson and have her tell you some more stories about how I fucked with the virtual lives of anyone who crossed me as a teenager.” I wait a few beats as she tries to decide if I’m telling the truth. “But either way, it’s a two-hour drive to Denver, tops. I’ll know who you are in three hours or less, because I already have code written for the DMV search. I can do that shit with my eyes closed.”

Now she gets angry and plucks the baby from her breast, making her squeal, as clearly five minutes of feeding is not enough. She starts to get up and I grab her by the waist and force her to stay. “Let go,” she snarls over the baby’s wails.

“No.” I say calmly. “Feed her, Ashleigh. And tell me which way you’d like to do this. Answer my question, or I call Jason and figure out who you are myself.”

“Fine,” she says as she positions the baby over her breast again. “I’m coming from Texas and going to LA.”

She said she was a Stars fan, so that makes sense. But then again… “That makes no sense. Why not just go across New Mexico and into Arizona? Why come north?”

She bites her lip and scrunches up her face as she thinks. Is this a lying pause? Ronin would know, but I’m not as good at this lie-detector shit as he is, so I’m not sure. “I just needed more time. That’s all.” She looks me in the eye and repeats it. “I just wasn’t ready to face things yet, I just wanted a little more time, so I took the scenic route.”

I sit back and laugh. “The scenic route? Through the fucking Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter? Are you crazy?”

“I didn’t know it was so…”

“Cold? Dangerous? Wild? It’s the fucking mountains!”

“I get it now, obviously. But I’m more of a beach person, so I didn’t understand it might be dangerous.”

“What part of LA are you going to?” She might actually be from Texas, but I think her destination is a lie. She heard me tell my mother I was driving to LA on the phone. I think she’s just telling me what I want to hear.

“Westwood. I’m going to Westwood. Satisfied?” she asks with a sneer.

“Hardly. Why are you going there? What’s in LA?”

She takes a deep breath like she’s about to say something important, and then she looks me in the eye. “Tell me why you’re going to LA and then I’ll tell you why I’m going.”

I smile. “You think that’s cute?”

“I think you’re running away. At least I’m running
to
something.”

Ouch. “Tell me why right now, or I get the car warmed up for a nice drive to Denver.”

She shakes her head and tries to stop the tears, but they roll down her face anyway. A few seconds later I realize she’s holding her breath to stop the sobs, but it starts coming out in ugly gasps.

I sigh and lean back into the uncomfortable modern piece-of-shit couch. “OK, stop. Please.” She doesn’t stop and the baby starts fussing. “Ashleigh—”

“I need to talk to him one more time, OK?” She looks up at me and she is a fucking mess—her eyes are wild and bloodshot, her face is all contorted as she tries to hold it together but simply fails, her skin is pale like she hasn’t slept in weeks, and that coupled with the crying baby makes her look like some poor teen mom from a bad MTV reality show. “Is that a good enough answer for you? I just need to talk to him one more time.” And then she gets up and bolts towards the bedroom before I can grab her.

Chapter Fifteen

I sit in the living room listening to Ashleigh as she concentrates on the baby in the bedroom. She calms her down pretty fast, but her own loud erratic breathing is hard to miss. I lean over and hold my head in my hands as I think this through.

She’s probably insane. Total nutjob. She might be stalking her ex, who knows.

I sit like this for a while, just thinking, and then I hear her playing games in there. “Peek-a-boo.”

The baby squeals, but not in a bad way. She’s laughing.

Ashleigh says it again. More squealing laughter—and then Ash is laughing too. Hell, even I smile.

OK, maybe she’s not nuts. She’s just sad. She has a new baby. The father—for whatever reason—is gone. That’s gotta hurt. She’s got herself into some whackjob of a road trip and maybe she really is going to LA. Maybe she can save whatever it is she’s missing right now. If I were her, wouldn’t I try?

I definitely would. Yeah. I’d give it a shot.

I scrub my hands down my face, get up, and get to the open bedroom door just in time to see the baby laugh. That’s a cure for just about anything. Ashleigh looks a thousand times better already, just because she’s smiling. They’re lying down on the bed. She leans over the baby, her long hair falling over to cover her face. And then they giggle like girls. I reach into my pocket and take a phone picture of them because it’s sorta cute.

The shutter sound gives me away and Ash sits up real fast. “Look,” she says with a hitch in her breath from crying. “I’m sorry, I’m just hormonal, OK? I can’t help it. I miss him.” She has to stop and pull it together here, but she manages and that makes me feel better. She’s just sad.

“I understand, Ashleigh, I do. But if you really are going to LA and not lying to me, then I’m gonna have to take you with me. I’ll have your car delivered to wherever you want when it’s done. But I can’t leave you here alone. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

I half expect a little fight over my perceived opinion of her state of mind, but she just nods. “That is where I’m going, Ford. So thank you. And for what it’s worth, I realize it’s over. That life is over. I get it.” She stops to wait for a response, so I give her a nod. “It’s over,” she says again, trying to talk herself into it. “It’s over. And I just have to accept it.” For a second I think she’s about to cry again but she swallows hard and wipes the tears. “And once I talk to him, I swear, I’ll let it go.” It takes her a few seconds to meet my gaze, but she does it. “I’ll let him go, I just have so much to say.” Her chin starts quivering and shit, it sorta tugs at my heart, all this sadness from her.