Blind Side (8 page)

M
y eyes snap
open and instinctively, I reach for my phone. Through the grogginess, and a pounding headache, it takes a while for my eyes to adjust. On my screen is a long list of missed notifications: 18 text messages, 14 missed calls, and 5 voicemails. Most are from my husband, but a few are from Ashley. I’m going to have to talk to my husband eventually, and I’ll probably return Ashley’s calls first, but there’s one voicemail from my sister that will be left alone, unanswered, deleted, and pretended as if it never existed.

Harsh morning light peaks through motel curtains, blinding me when I roll over. I throw my hand over my eyes to block the sun, and see Kemper asleep in the chair, wearing a plain white tee and an innocent, resting face.

He stirs when I set up in bed as if he’s the lightest sleeper in the world. Feeling congested, I let out a cough and he springs to life.

“Good morning, Princess,” he groans as he throws his arms over his head, stretching away the exhaustion of sleeping in a chair meant for sitting. “How do you feel?”

“Hungover, and before you read my mind and finish my sentence, I’m well aware I didn’t have a drink last night.”

“Do you have alcohol problems?”

“What?” I scoff and throw white sheets off my body. “That’s one of those things that’s none of your business.” The truth, of course, is that I don’t have a problem. The beer I threw at my husband’s truck last weekend would have been the first in what seems like forever. “It runs in the blood.”

“I’m sorry to hear.”

“Mom and dad, at different points in their lives, drank themselves to the brink.”

“And your husband?”

“Why are you so inquisitive?”

“I told you.” He lets out an obnoxious yawn, shifting in the chair to accommodate the commotion he’s making with his stretched arms. “I want to know everything about you.”

“You know that’s creepy right?”

“It is what it is.” He twirls his finger at me and kicks his feet over the side of the chair, so that his body is slumped in the ravine of the seat. “Continue.”

“I was in an accident.” I raise my thumb to my mouth and chew on the nail. “He was drinking before I got in his car.”

“I’ve heard stories.”

“You’ve heard lies,” I snap at him, anger vibrating in my tone.

“Enlighten me to the truth?”

I sigh and bow my head. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s why you wanted to kill yourself last night?”

“It’s a part of me, forever and always.”

“You feel guilt?”

I jump to my feet, landing against shaggy carpet. “I need to change out of these clothes,” I say, my sentence finishing the exact moment my eyes spot a fresh pile of clothes lying on the dresser. “Are those—?”

“Yours?” He averts his eyes away from me, his eyes purged with guilt. “I snuck into your house last night after you fell asleep.”

I stare him down for what seems like an hour, but amounts to nothing more than a few seconds. “You are seriously crossing lines—“

“I was petrified that he was going to wake up,” he points out as if there’s nothing inherently wrong with what he’s done.

“Please stop interrupting me,” I scold him.

“It’s a two way street, Teach.”

“Teach?” My brow furrows. “Is that the sexy nickname you’ve chosen for me?”

“Can you get dressed?”

“Why the rush?”

“I don’t know.“ He shoves his hands into his jeans, the same jeans he’s been wearing since yesterday. “It’ll be good for us to go out and get some air.”

“We?” I chuckle at the ridiculous concept. “I can’t be seen in public with you.”

“Is that the way you show gratitude for the guy who saved your life?” He rises to his feet and shakes his head in disbelief. “Not that I’m expecting compensation in any form.”

“Thank you, for everything,” I say softly, because he’s right. I owe him the world.

“Thank me by getting ready.”

“So much for no compensation.”

“Where we’re going, nobody is going to see us.” He plops down on the bed and removes his shoes. “And if they do, they certainly won’t recognize us.”

“Fine,” I huff and swipe the stack of clothes off the dresser.

* * *

S
hower water rains
upon my face, storm clouds of steam rising from the basin of the shower tub. I run my fingers through my hair, pushing it all backward as shampoo is rinsed from my locks.

When I’m clean, my body sanitary and my mind clearer than it’s been since this ordeal began a little under twenty-four hours ago, I turn the knob of the shower. Steam billows around my body as I gather my hair behind my head and squeeze the water out.

I towel myself off and reach to clean the mirror from the steam, but decide against a clean slate. The last thing I want or need right now is to be hounded by my own reflection. I don’t bother applying makeup or fixing my hair. Instead, I opt for simple and quick, with nothing more than a hair tie to bound my hair behind my head in a ponytail.

I exit the bathroom, and the first thing I see is Kemper leaning against the motel door, spinning a key around his finger. He’s changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a blue plaid button down. He eyes me up and down and nods his head in a satisfactory manner.

“I like the clean look.” He smiles a perfect smile and steps toward me. “You look stunning.”

“You’re an idiot,” I scowl. “I’m not even wearing any makeup.”

“You don’t need it.”

“Please don’t stand here and try to tell me what I do or don’t need.”

“No.” His brow arches. “Nothing like that. Wear it or don’t. You’re beautiful either way.”

“Do you think you can compliment your way into my pants?”

“Should I try?” He chuckles to himself as he reaches for a pair of shades and glides them over my eyes. “Nobody is going to recognize you now.”

“I’m warning you,” I say as I pass him and reach for the doorknob, “if anyone spots us, I’m going to scream that I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Oh…” he coos and wags a finger at me. “So, that’s what turns you on?”

I
t’s not too
hot that we need air conditioning. It’s not too cold that we need heat. It’s the perfect day to race down the highway at sixty miles per hour with the windows down.

My hair flaps to the tune of the wind as I sit in the passenger seat with my feet kicked along the dashboard. “Where are we going?” I question without taking my eyes off the painted white lines separating the highway from a never-ending guardrail.

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Are you kidding me?” I cock my head to face him. “What happened to,
oh, where we’re going, nobody will know us there?”

“That’s still in play.” He nods his head, without taking his eyes off the road. He’s a safe driver, I’ll give him that. “I figure the further we drive East, the less chance there’ll be of us running into any of your desperate housewife friends.”

“I can’t be gone for too long.”

“I have school Monday.” He switches his steering hand from right to left and turns to me. “You also have school Monday. And I have football practice after school.”

“Shut up—“

“Yeah.” He laughs. “I joined the football team.”

I am so not getting involved with another Football Player.
That’s one more strike against whatever the fuck this is between Kemper and I. It’s bad enough that I’m married. It’s even worse that he’s a student. Football player, too? This is my absolute worst nightmare.

“You know Coach is my husband, right?” I watch him aptly, because his eyes will tell the truth even if his lips are lying. And he’s a man, so there’s a ninety-four percent change those lips will be spitting lies.

“Do you want the truth, or do you want me to lie?”

“I want you to lie, don’t I?”

“Do you?”

“If you answer my question with another question, I’m going to fail you.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” he says with a playful grin, breaking the spell of twenty questions we’ve been enduring. “Would you?”

I land a playful punch against his arm, but when he flinches away with a verbal
ow,
I recoil with a grimace. “Sorry about that.”

“Jesus Christ, She-hulk,” he yelps and shakes the pain away from his arm.

“I’ve been throwing footballs for years.”

“Coach teach you?”

“You do know.” I point an accusing finger at him.

“It’d be hard not to.” He shrugs and turns the wheel slightly as we barrel around a long corner. “He’s like the idol of this town.” I glare at him, and even though he’s not watching me, I know he knows I want to strangle him. His eyes roll toward me. “Complete douchebag, that guy.” Still, no verbal response from me. “I mean, I would have figured out who he was if I didn’t already know, when I snuck into your house this morning.”

“Don’t do that again.” I turn back to the open window and rest my head against the seat. “It’s a violation.”

* * *

I
wake
up alone in the car alone, and my captor is nowhere to be seen. I shift in my seat and look out each window, but the scenery is all the same. We’re parked in a tiny gravel lot, and surrounded by the forest on all sides.

I reach my head out the window. “Kemper?”

“Don’t look.”

What do I do? I look. He stands in front of the back tire, urinating on the rubber. “I don’t know what I was expecting.” I drop my head against the window and wait for the stream of piss to come to an end. “Where are we?”

“I drove until I got lost.” In the passenger mirror, I see him approach, zipping up his jeans as he paces toward me. “And then I drove a few hundred miles more.”

“You don’t know where we’re at?” I throw the door open. It creaks as Kemper jumps out of the way.

“You’re going to kill me eventually.”

“I’ll settle for inflicting pain,” I scowl. “Where are we?”

“I seriously don’t know. I haven’t seen a gas station for an hour and I had to piss, so I pulled over here.”

I reach through the window and grab my phone. Another handful of missed alerts that go ignored as I scroll through my phone to find the GPS app. I type in my home address and wait for a route to pop up.

When it does, my eyes shift to Kemper. “Two hundred and twenty miles?”

“Really?” His brow arches and he shakes an accomplished pout away.

“How long was I sleeping?”

“Somewhere between one hundred and eighty and two hundred and twenty miles.”

“I thought you had a plan.” I throw my phone onto the seat and massage my forehead with my palm. “You don’t have a plan.”

“Life is so much better without plans.” He leans against the trunk. “Look on the bright side, nobody will know us here.”

“This is becoming more and more kidnappy by the minute.” I look to him to see his reaction, a half-assed shrug. Then, I get an idea. I run around to the driver’s side and jump in the front seat.

“Woah!” He rips open the passenger door. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to drive.”

His brow furrows. “Can you drive a stick?”

“It’s been a while.”

He huffs and climbs into the passenger seat. “You wreck it, you buy it.”

“On a Teachers salary?” I roll my eyes. “Besides, isn’t that what insurance is for?”

“On a students salary?”

“You don’t have insurance, do you?”

“It’s on the to-do list.” He pulls the seatbelt over his shoulder and clicks it into place. He drums his hands against the dashboard. “Lets get on the road.”

“Where are we going?” I twist the key in the ignition, but the engine doesn’t turn over. I feel Kemper’s gaze on me, judging me with unblinking eyes.

“Nowhere if you don’t know how to drive.”

“Right,” I say, remembering there’s such a thing as a clutch. I push the leftmost pedal to the floor and turn the key again. The car roars to life, and I let out an embarrassing howl of excitement, but there’s fear in Kemper’s eyes. “What’s wrong, buddy? Never seen a girl drive?” I throw the car into first and we jerk in place. The engine dies. My cheeks flush red. I place my hand to his face. “Don’t say a word.”

* * *

K
emper exhales
a sharp exhale as we approach a stop sign off the side of the main road. I tap on the brakes and aim to shift into neutral, but accidentally throw us into first. The gears grind and the car jerks, the engine dying once we come to a full stop ahead of the stop sign.

“If this car runs by the time we reach our next stop, it’ll be a damn miracle.” He chuckles to himself, but I can’t discern if he’s being funny or grumpy.

I don’t say a word to him. I check for incoming cars on the left and pull out onto the highway, shifting into second gear as we begin to accelerate ahead of approaching cars from behind. Kemper twists his head to watch the incoming cars, coming quick on our ass.

I attempt to shift into third. The gear grinds and we begin to redline.

“Hold the clutch down and shift into third,” he instruct me and places his hand over my hand. “Every time you shift, you must apply pressure to the clutch.” I do as commanded, hitting the middle pedal. Oops. “That’s the brakes.”

“I’m aware.” I press my left foot against the clutch, hold it down, and finally shift into gear just as the cars behind us maneuver into the passing lane to avoid ramming into us.

“Do you want your husband to find out you’re having an affair during a breaking news broadcast?
Coach’s wife killed in horrific, but avoidable car accident, if only she’d learn there are three goddamn pedals.
That
would be the headline.”

“If you don’t shut up,” I turn to him with a death glare, “I’m going to crash into a guardrail on your side of the car.”

“This is why I failed eighth grade,” he mumbles to himself. “A smart person wouldn’t let a suicidal woman drive his car.”

I pretend that I don’t hear him, but the words cut through me like razor sharp glass, the kind of glass that left the scars on my stomach. But he knows. He always knows. “I’m sorry,” he says softly and bows his head against the window. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s okay.” I shrug it off. “It was just a bad joke.”

“It’s not something to joke about.”

“Right.” We pass an arbitrary line where the open-access freeway bleeds into a highway. I throw the shifter into fourth gear as we pass the sixty miles per hour sign, and we’re off into the sunset with no set destination, and somehow Kemp’s clutch is still in tact.

Kemp. I kind of like that.