God, listen to her mushy thoughts. She was losing her mind.
Remi was the only one at the dusty old gas station right now. It was a small one-horse-town, self-serve type of place with a barbecue joint attached to the side. A man in a navy apron was standing next to a billowing smoker, checking the temperature on what looked and smelled like a delicious slab of brisket. When she inhaled deeply, her stomach growled. She’d skipped lunch, and it was about dinner time. She would’ve given just about anything to be sitting in Kamp’s living room right now eating a TV dinner with him, but barbecue was a fair enough substitution.
She replaced the gas cap and jogged across the parking lot. There was a little girl in a pink sundress and rainbow tights scribbling on the sidewalk with blue chalk. She had drawn a sun, flowers, and then a bunch of numbers in a row. 32101023. The numbers that stuck out the most were the middle ones. 1010. She came to a stop, and a smile stretched her face as the little girl looked up.
“Hi,” she said, waving her chalk.
“Hello,” Remi said.
“She’s learning her numbers in pre-school and wanted to practice out here,” the pit boss explained as he closed the metal lid of the old smoker.
“Practice will make perfect,” she said, unable to take her eyes from those numbers. She hadn’t noticed that number in years, not once in the city. Now it was everywhere, on the trailer and here, just as she was headed to find Kamp’s son.
What did it mean? Felt like a good omen.
“You okay, lady?” the man asked, his head canted as he squinted against the sun to look at her.
“Yeah.” She nodded once. “I’m okay. Hungry, but okay.”
He chuckled and twitched his head toward the back. “We have the best barbecue sandwiches in Oregon.”
Her mouth watered just thinking about it. Inside, the hole in the wall restaurant reminded her of a place back in Damon’s Mountains. Moosey’s Bait and BBQ. The similarities made her smile stretch so big her face ached. These mountains were something else.
She ordered a sandwich, chips, and a bottled orange soda. She popped the top with a bear paw bottle opener keychain Weston had given her for her last birthday, and she took a seat at a picnic table in the corner of the room. She opened up her phone to read Kamp’s text again, but there was a new one that dropped her heart right down to her toes. It was from Kagan. It was a picture of a bouquet of roses in a glass vase sitting outside her apartment door.
I brought you a special delivery today but you weren’t home. And Juno said something about you moving on? I think I misunderstood her. We need to talk. I made a mistake. I miss you. Where are you?
She exited the text in a rush and dropped the phone like a hot potato. She stared at the wood grain of the table, her mind racing. She’d wanted him to show up and take it all back so badly. How many times in the last week had she imagined him fixing what he’d done? But instead of rejoicing, that text gave her this sick, empty feeling. Reading his words and seeing the roses he brought made her stomach curl in on itself, so she wrapped her arms around her middle to ease the uncomfortable feeling.
Something inside of her was different—in a good way. Kagan had never brought about a positive change in her. One day with Kamp, and she felt like she was on the right track to finding a part of herself she really missed.
She typed out her response in a rush. I’m more of a tulip girl. You can’t just leave and come back whenever it’s convenient for you. I made a mistake, too. It was you. Please lose my number.
She pushed send before she could change her mind because she didn’t want to be that weak girl she’d been at the end of their relationship. She’d let him step on her too much, change her, just to try to make them work. But that wasn’t love. A man couldn’t stay the same and ask his lady to mold herself into the perfect shape to fit him. They had to just…fit.
Her food came up, but her chest felt all tight and she’d lost her appetite. Her head hurt from all the swirling thoughts and confusion, and with trembling fingers, she texted Kamp back. My ex just sent me a message.
Thirty seconds later, her phone rang.
She picked up on the first ring, a flutter of excitement in her chest.
“You want to talk?” Kamp asked.
“Not really about him. I told him to lose my number. It’s just still a little new. And it was a bad breakup.”
“Want me to kill him?”
She huffed a laugh and then exhaled in relief as the tightness in her chest eased. “I know you’re joking.”
“Am I?” he asked. His voice did sound a little growly.
“Jealous already?”
“Jealous? No. But I’m not a fan of anyone messing with your head. Are you back in the city?”
Pursing her lips, Remi looked around the barbecue joint and answered, “Not yet, but soon.”
“Mmm.” His voice was all deep and rumbly and sexy. “I can’t stop thinking about your pussy.”
Remi nearly choked on air, and her cheeks blazed with fiery heat as she whispered, “Kamp!”
“I’m serious. My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t taste you.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she whispered, her eyes bugging out of her head. This was dirty talk. This was happening. To her. It was happening to her!
“You…would…want to…”
“Bury my face between your thighs and lick you until you scream my name.”
Welp, she was struck dumb. That’s all there was to it. Here she sat staring at a BBQ sandwich with her brain-juice on E. She wished something intelligent would just surprise-plop out of her mouth, but nope, all she could say was, “Hot. Hot…boy.”
“I’d dig my fingers into your legs as I made you come over and over, back all arched on the bed, eyes closed because all you can think about is my tongue sliding inside of you.”
She was getting dumber. All she could do now was blink slow.
“And then when you got too sensitive to go another time, I’d push your knees farther apart, crawl over you, slide my dick inside you, and go at you slow until you came again. I’d leave you on that bed, full of my cum, wondering what the fuck I just did to your body.”
Mayday.
She was done.
Stick a fork in her.
“I wish I could say something sexy back to you right now, but my whole brain is focused on the mental picture you just put in my head. That was glorious.” She cleared her throat. “Well done, dirty boy.”
“Mmmm,” he said, more growl than anything. “I want to make you a dirty girl. Someday, come back.”
“Someday,” she murmured.
“Someday soon. I’m here.”
Me, too. She was still here, an hour away from him. She dropped her gaze to the receipt taped to the side of her BBQ sandwich wrapper fluttering in the breeze from the vent above her. $10.10. Ha. Remi shook her head and huffed a breath. That number…
She was on a secret mission she couldn’t abandon just to be in Kamp’s arms again. Not yet. She had to do this first. As each minute passed, there was something telling her this journey was important.
“Hey, Kamp?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really proud you finished your shift today.”
“Yeah, well, Grim turned into the Reaper in the middle of the day and attacked my machine for half an hour, and Rhett worked maybe two hours before he cussed out a mossy log and disappeared into the woods, so you would be the only one who cares that I did a full day’s work. We’re all going to get fired.”
“Do it again tomorrow. Be the leader your Crew needs until Grim can get strong enough.”
Kamp snorted. “It don’t work like that for us.”
“Then make it work.”
There were three beats of silence, and then he murmured, “Will you call me when you’re safe in the city? Or text me, write a postcard, or send a damn carrier pigeon, anything. I just want to know you get where you’re going safe.”
Okay, her smile must’ve been stupidly big because a mother of two sitting a couple tables over looked concerned and was staring at Remi like she was a nut-job. She would be correct.
