Infinity + One

  HE DIDN’T PULL me to him, didn’t wrap his hand around my body to urge me closer. My mouth hovered above his, waiting. I didn’t dare move. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was worried that Finn would suddenly jolt wide awake, wipe the cobwebs from his head, shake me off, and leave me in the park.

  I wouldn’t blame him if he did. He should hate me. Yet he was looking at me like everything was going to be okay. He was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me again. And I wanted him to kiss me more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. His mouth was so close I could taste his breath on my tongue, and I wanted to lick my lips to savor the sensation.

  Then his lips weren’t close, they were there. And here. Above. Inside. Around. My eyelids fluttered, and my belly plunged, and the heaviness in my limbs made me want to sink into the kiss like an anchor in the sand, digging in, yet strangely weightless. Then both of his hands were in my hair, securing my mouth where he wanted it, holding me still as he tasted my lips and asked me to let him in. And I welcomed him with a sigh that slid into the cold night and drifted away just like my song. It was a new verse, a duet of lips and the merging of mouths. It was rising crescendos and crashing cymbals, and it was unlike any song I’d ever sung. And even as he withdrew, the kiss echoed around me, inviting me to repeat the music of his mouth against mine.

  Clyde’s hands were still framing my face, but he had knifed up from his back as he kissed me, sitting with me straddling his lap, my knees on either side of his thighs. And I wanted to stay there, connected, and press my body against him, but he rolled me off and stood, brushing the playground debris from his jeans. I wished I could crawl up his legs and pull him back to the ground, but he pulled me to my feet instead.

  He searched my face for several long moments, as if composing a tongue lashing of a different sort than he’d just given me, but then he sighed and turned, pulling me along after him.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  We walked hand in hand through the gate and back through the park, winding our way toward the entrance. I followed slightly behind, the sidewalk not quite wide enough for us to walk side by side, so when he stopped short, I ran right into his back and then had to lean around him to see what had caused him to halt.

  “The Blazer’s gone.”

  “What?” I stepped around him and followed his gaze to the place I’d left the Blazer forty-five minutes earlier. Finn was right. The Blazer was gone. A small, dark-colored car was the only car parked along the curb.

  Finn started to jog, to run toward the place the Blazer had been, and I clomped after him, the boots of my heels sounding like applause against the pavement.

  “It’s a tow-away zone!” he yelled, pointing at a sign about a hundred feet beyond where I’d parked his Blazer.

  “But . . . why didn’t they tow that car?” I protested, unable to believe I’d screwed up once again.

  “I’m sure they will if we don’t move it!”

  “This is your car?” I asked.

  “This is my rental car, Bonnie. How do you think I got here?”

  Oh, no. I turned in a circle, as if the Blazer had moved itself somehow, as if maybe we’d gotten turned around inside the park and come out on the wrong side. But we hadn’t. Finn’s rental car was there, and he’d obviously parked it beside the Blazer and come looking for me. I had parked in a tow-away zone, and Finn’s Chevy was gone. I sat down on the curb and rested my head on my knees. My money and my things were in the Blazer. But I could deal with that. I couldn’t deal with his displeasure. Not now. Not when he’d just forgiven me.

  A few minutes later, Finn sat down beside me, a solid presence on my right, stretching his long legs into the street. I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me he never wanted to see me again. And then he laughed. It was quiet at first, just a chuckle, a soft murmur that made me lift my head from my knees. Then he started to shake with it, laughing so hard that he fell back against the grass that butted up to the curb. I turned toward him, stunned, not quite ready to laugh with him.

  “Finn?”

  “Unbelievable,” was all he could say, his hands covering his eyes as if he needed a break from reality. “Unbelievable.”

  WITH FINN’S DISPOSABLE phone we called the number for the towing company printed on the sign—the sign that was so small and far enough away from where I had parked to engender some serious righteous indignation on my part. The Blazer was indeed in the impound yard, and it would cost $250 for us to get it out. Added to that, we couldn’t get it out immediately, because it was after hours, and the tow truck driver on duty had been called out on an accident and didn’t know when he would return. He said we could come in the next morning during office hours, which would run us another $100 in storage fees, by the way. Finn said college campuses were notorious magnets for towing, especially during the late night, early morning hours when confrontation was less likely. He said we were lucky they hadn’t had time to get both vehicles. I didn’t dare tell Finn how truly unlucky we were because my/Gran’s wallet was still in the Blazer, along with all my money and his phone.

  Unable to do much more at one-thirty in the morning, Finn drove us to his father’s house. His dad wasn’t home, and wouldn’t be until sometime later the following day, which made me wish I’d just come straight there like Finn had told me to do. If I had, the Blazer wouldn’t be in the impound yard. But if I had, I wouldn’t have been kissed in the park. Once again, I found myself unable to regret the decisions I’d made. The events of our journey seemed unavoidable and pre-destined, almost as if Finn and I were being pulled against our wills toward an inevitable conclusion.

  Finn’s father’s house was a narrow two-story that sat on a cul-de-sac at the end of a busy street littered with cars and similarly small houses. Finn said the neighborhood was filled with students, and most of the houses were split up into rentable rooms. It was a two bedroom, two bath bachelor’s pad with the kitchen, family room, and a half bath on the main level and the master suite and a small bedroom up the stairs. The spare bedroom featured a desk, a plaid sofa too small to sleep on, and a few boxes that Finn’s dad apparently couldn’t part with but hadn’t cared enough about to unpack in the seven years he’d lived in the little house. The rest of the house was equally sparse, the tell-tale signs of a man who works too much and has little life outside his profession.

  Finn pointed me toward the master bedroom, and I stumbled into the small adjoining bath, pleasantly surprised by the tidy space. I stripped and entered the shower, letting the water run over me, streaming over my hair until the tears streamed from my eyes in sheer, exhausted gratitude. I lathered with Irish Spring because it was available and soaped my hair with Mr. Clyde’s anti-dandruff shampoo. I used the razor that was there as well, and promised myself I would replace it the next day. I hit the jackpot when I discovered an unopened toothbrush in the vanity and wrote another mental IOU for that.

  When I finished, I pulled on a T-shirt Clyde had given me from his own things, and reluctantly pulled my red panties with the black skulls back on again. I was back where I’d started from, with only the clothes on my back—the clothes that were now in a heap on the bathroom floor. Actually, I was worse off than when I’d started. I didn’t have a single, solitary dime in my pocket. Amazingly enough, though, the idea didn’t scare me one bit. Finn was with me. And right now, he was the only thing I really wanted anyway.

  I stumbled into the little bedroom off the bath and crawled into the double bed. Finn was already there. He’d been quicker than me, using the bathroom on the ground floor, and he pulled me close and wrapped me up without comment. I could have easily been convinced to do a whole lot more than sleep, but sleep was all we did there in his father’s room, in his father’s bed, saving our words for later, letting the things that needed to be said slide over the side of the mattress and onto the floor, like extra pillows, waiting for the morning when we would be forced to pick them up again.

  NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN the possible kid
napping case of country singer Bonnie Rae Shelby. Sources close to the family say there has been a ransom demand for her safe return. The FBI has been consulted on the case, and authorities have not confirmed an amount or even that there was a demand made, but again, sources close to the family have confirmed that a ransom demand has been made.

  THEY SLEPT LIKE the dead, and when Finn woke and stared blearily at the bedside clock it said 10:30. He hadn’t slept so late or so deeply since he was a teenager. Maybe it was the feel of the girl in his arms, the smell of soft skin and clean hair tickling his nose. He buried his face deeper into the fragrant strands and tried to go back to sleep, not yet wanting to be conscious, because consciousness brought heightened awareness, and he was already far too aware of the slim thigh thrown over his and the arms wrapped around his torso. Bonnie tucked her head when she slept, burrowing in, and he could feel her breath tickling his naked chest. He hadn’t donned a shirt the night before because he’d only had one clean shirt left, and Bonnie was wearing it. She’d seen the tattoos. It wasn’t like he had anything left to hide.

  He had thought that once Bonnie got her ID and credit cards, the two of them could go their separate ways. But it was too late for that now. Too much had happened, and even if Finn wanted to let her go, which he didn’t, they were inextricably tied, and he was as afraid for her as he was for himself. She obviously wasn’t afraid, so he had to be. The girl was trouble, but she was also in trouble, and Finn knew he couldn’t walk away. Maybe it was Bonnie’s penchant for disaster. She’d apparently used up every bit of luck she was ever going to get in this life on the lottery of superstardom, because she was an accident waiting to happen. Everywhere they turned, everything she touched seemed to go south in a hurry. And yet he was here, beside her, trying to figure out what to do, what was best for her, and whether or not she’d be the death of him . . . or worse, be the reason he lost his freedom again.

  But consciousness reawakened the nagging worry that last night’s fiasco was a bigger deal than just an impounded vehicle and hefty fees. If the police were actually looking for him, then he wouldn’t be getting his Blazer back. Every tow company called in license plate and VIN numbers when they towed a vehicle. He knew that much. The cops could be crawling all over his Blazer at that very moment for all he knew. And Bonnie’s bags were inside. The noose kept tightening around his neck. It wouldn’t take much for them to discover his dad lived in the area. And then they would come calling.

  The thought had him untangling his limbs from Bonnie’s and sliding from the bed. He pulled on his jeans and headed down the stairs, eager for coffee and needing reassurance that a SWAT team wasn’t, at that very second, assembling outside the house. He yanked the front door open and found himself face to face with a giant with a raised fist. Apparently, the man had been about to knock. That, or Finn was about to get popped between the eyes.

  The man was huge, not fat so much as wide. His skin glistened it was so black, the whites of his eyes the only color in his face, and Finn only saw the whites of his eyes when the man shoved the black Ray-Bans up on his forehead and glared with a cold, flat, venom that made Finn quickly readjust his opinion of the neighborhood his dad was living in. This guy wasn’t a door-to-door salesman, and he wasn’t a cop. He didn’t know what he was—but he was scary. The huge, sharply-dressed black man looked a little too old to be a student and too slick to be in a gang, although the big diamonds in his ears did shout drug dealer, in Finn’s opinion.

  “Are you Finn Clyde?” the voice was higher-pitched than Finn would have expected, coming from the chest cavity of the bear-sized man on his father’s front porch. As soon as the comparison with the bear crossed his mind, Finn knew who the man was.

  “Are you Bear?”

  “I am. And you better move your white trash ass aside and get Bonnie in front of me real fast or you will find out why my mama named me Bear. It ain’t ’cause I’m cuddly.”

  Finn figured he deserved the white trash assessment, standing there with his bare chest marked with offensive tattoos and his blond hair loose around his shoulders, so he let the comment slide and stepped aside.

  “Come in.”

  Finn stepped back, and Bear stepped forward into the small living room, filling the space with malevolence, his eyes taking in everything at once.

  “Bonnie’s upstairs. She was asleep the last time I checked. If you’ll excuse me for a second, I’ll pull on a shirt and tell her you’re here. Bear’s eyes widened at the mention of Bonnie still being asleep at almost eleven o’clock in the morning, as if that detail was too intimate for Finn to be privy to, but he folded his arms across his massive chest and spread his legs in a stance that said “hurry” as he watched Finn climb the stairs.

  Finn raided his dad’s closet for a T-shirt. His dad was a tall, thin man who spent his time in dress shirts, sweaters, and the occasional golf shirt, so finding a T-shirt was harder than you would think. Finn found a pale blue T-shirt at the back of the closet that had a corny slogan only a math teacher would find funny. It had a beer can and the limit definition of the derivative on the front of it. On the back it said Never Drink and Derive. It was stretchy enough to fit, unlike the dress shirts and the polos, but snug enough to make Finn feel like he’d borrowed his brainy little brother’s T-shirt. He ran a brush through his hair and pulled it back in a smooth tail, hoping that made him look a little less trailer park and a little more Steven Segal. He would need all the help he could get with the grizzly downstairs. Somehow, he didn’t think Steven Segal was much of a mathlete, however. The ponytail was completely undermined by his stupid T-shirt.

  Bonnie was awake, but just barely. Her eyelids were at half-mast and her hair, wet when she went to bed, looked as if she’d spent a wild night doing all the things he wished they’d done.

  “Bonnie Rae, you’ve got a visitor downstairs. And if you don’t show your face right away, he’s going to kill me. And it won’t be a quick death. It will be a mauling. Do you understand?”

  “Huh?”

  “Bear’s here, and he’s loaded for . . . well, bear.”

  “Bear’s here?” she shot straight up in bed, immediately awake, and made for the door, bare legs flying, oversized T-shirt slipping off her slim shoulders.

  “Bonnie!” She halted and turned in question. “If you want me to live, pull on some pants and do something with your hair. Please.”

  A sheepish grin lifted the corners of her mouth, and she ran for the bathroom where her discarded jeans still lay in a heap. Within minutes, she was out again, teeth brushed and hair slicked down a la Hank Shelby. She was still wearing Finn’s T-shirt, but she’d thankfully added her jeans for modesty’s sake. Finn followed her downstairs and was just reaching the bottom step when Bonnie launched herself into Bear’s arms.

  To the big man’s credit, he didn’t immediately throw her over his shoulder and leave. Instead, he held the slim girl to his chest, her feet dangling a foot off the floor, his arms wrapped around her. He had lowered his glasses back over his eyes, but his big, lower lip trembled suspiciously as they both took a minute to communicate their devotion.

  “Baby Rae. What in the hell is going on, baby girl?”

  Baby Rae. Finn tried not to smile. It seemed he wasn’t the only one with a nickname. He turned to leave the room to give them a little privacy, but Bonnie called after him.

  “Clyde. Wait. Don’t go. I want you to meet Bear.”

  “We met,” Bear said, and he didn’t sound pleased.

  Bonnie turned on him fiercely. “Bear. Don’t use that tone with Finn. He hasn’t done anything but help me. And believe me, I haven’t made it easy for him.”

  Bear set “Baby Rae” on the ground and stared into her face. She glared back, her chin jutting forward and her expression stony.

  “I’m going to make some coffee,” Finn grunted, not comfortable being the topic of a thorny confrontation.

  “Sit!” Bear barked, and Finn stiffened, turning back toward him.
r />   “Bonnie loves you,” Finn said, keeping his voice mild. “And you obviously love her. That’s all that counts in my book. But if you think that gives you the right to come in here and tell me what to do, you’re going to have a fight on your hands. I was in prison for five years, and I don’t fight pretty.” He turned and walked into the kitchen, and the silence behind him convinced him that his comments had momentarily stunned the pair. But not for long.

  Bear stalked after him, and Bonnie was right on Bear’s heels.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” Bear was practically breathing down his back.

  “I’m nobody,” Finn said, opening cupboards until he found his father’s coffee can. Same brand as he used to drink.

  “You got that right, man. And what makes you think I’m going to let Bonnie Rae spend another minute with a piece of shit like you?”

  “Bear!” Bonnie stepped between the two men, sensing both were about to explode. But Finn held himself in check. He didn’t blame the guy. He couldn’t blame him. He knew exactly how it must look, and he knew how he felt. And Bonnie’s feelings were written all over her face. She liked him. He didn’t know why, but she did. And if Finn could see it, Bear could too.

  “He’s an ex-con with a swastika on his chest and prison tats all over his back, Rae! What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking you need to sit down, Bear. You need to back off. Now.” Bonnie pointed at one of the kitchen chairs, and Bear growled but did as she commanded. He was a well-trained Bear, apparently. Bonnie remained standing close enough to Finn to touch him, and her proximity reassured him more than anything she could have said. Her nearness said she didn’t think he was nobody.

  “You’re in trouble Bonnie. Your gran is going crazy, and after seeing this guy, I don’t blame her!” Bear started in again.