Never Have I Ever(62)

He must have heard the urgency and stress locked in my voice.

“Motherfuck!” He slapped his hands down on the breakfast bar. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Because I told a story to get laid?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s not you. It’s her. She collects stories from every human that she meets, looking for one she can use. You told that story probably more times than I want to know about. No one ever took it and used it like this. She’s the bad person here.”

“How did she get you on tape?” he asked, and I could see he had a million other questions rising behind that one.

I checked my watch. Time was zooming, and I had to get home. I could not be late. Davis and Char would ask questions, and I was still trying to keep my lies to people I loved at a minimum. I also couldn’t risk tipping off Roux. Not when I finally had a little leverage. A lot, actually, if I could use it smart. If Tig would back me. If I could keep Roux believing that jail was the thing I feared most.

So I nutshelled it for him, telling him everything as quick and dirty as I could. I only left out the part where Roux pretended to be Lolly Shipley. I didn’t want him to know what had happened with Lolly, after. That was mine to carry. But I told him everything else.

It felt good, not to be alone inside this mess.

Maybe a little too good. Was it disloyal? I wished I were telling Davis instead. This story felt too intimate to share with a man I’d come within six inches of kissing.

At the same time, I was glad that Davis was fifty safe miles distant from it. He felt clean and good, like a faraway home that I wanted only to go back to. If I could get there, I wanted to find him whole and just the same. I wanted the life I’d built exactly as it was, and I could have it. But only if I beat Roux.

When I finished explaining to Tig, I crossed my arms protectively over my body and asked, “Would you tell her that it was you? Driving? It wasn’t, Tig, I swear, but I want to bluff her.” His eyebrows knit together as he thought, and I hurried to add, “It won’t cost you anything. You already did the time. I know if I confessed, it could clear your name. But does that matter? Your records are sealed, because you were a kid. So it’s not like you have to put it on job applications or . . .” I petered out. It was baldly self-serving, even cold, asking for this, but I was desperate.

He thought about it for less than three seconds.

“I don’t ever have to fill out job applications. Because you saved this place. I got’dam love Restoration, Smiff. What you’re asking for, it’s nothing. Give me your phone,” he said. I fished it out of my back pocket, brushing my thumb on the print pad to unlock it, and passed it over. “Turn on that light?”

I saw the switch by the coffeemaker and hit it. The overheads flicked on, harsh and fluorescent, making me blink. Tig turned my camera on, pointing it toward himself.

“This is Tig Simms. Tighler Simms. Amy was too drunk to remember, but I was driving. I’ll say so in court.” He glanced at me to see if it was enough, and I nodded, giving him a grateful smile. He looked back into the camera anyway. “So you can fuck right off, Ange,” he added, and then stopped it recording.

He didn’t hand it back, though. Not immediately. He bent his head over it, navigating to the keypad.

“This is my cell number,” he said, tapping away at it. “I’m going to text myself on your phone right now, so I have yours. If you need anything else, hit me up. You got it already. Understand me? Whatever you need.”

I felt a lump rise in my throat as he slid it back to me. There was a lot I wanted to say to that, but I was out of time. It was a good thing, to be out of time. I didn’t want to stay in this small room with him, feeling this grateful for his profanity-laden knight-in-shining-armor act. It charged the very air between us, warming me. I needed some distance. I hoped fifty-something miles was far enough.

“I have to go,” I told Tig. “I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”

He shook his head, looking away. “No. I should thank you. I—”

“Stop!” I said, and it made me laugh, how neither of us could stand to be thanked by the other. “It’s not even, but let’s call it even. For the sake of both our sanities.”

“Okay. It’s not. But we can call it that,” he said. He pretended to spit on his palm, puffing air at it, and then reached across the counter. I laughed and took it, his hand warm and firm in mine. He did not shake, and he did not let go. “We’ll stop apologizing. We won’t argue about who did what a thousand years ago. We’ll just be friends. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. It was the first lie I had told him.

I took my hand back. I had to go. I loved my husband, and there was too much history here. Because I loved my husband, I left it behind me. I could not be friends with Tig Simms. I hurried to my car. I would not be texting him. Not if I could help it.

I raced back toward Pensacola, going nine miles over the speed limit, hoping any speed traps would give me a pass. I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Not by miles, but I had a move. I could use this. I could lay these cards down and pretend it was my whole hand. Roux believed that her main hold over me was jail. With Tig’s video I could take jail off the table. I could force her to negotiate, as long as she did not see through me. As long as she did not see under.