Every Last Fear(87)

From behind him, a car tapped two fast beeps of the horn. Matt turned and looked at the vehicle, which was trailing him. The windshield was speckled with rain, and he couldn’t see who was driving. He was in no mood to talk to a reporter. The vehicle crawled up beside him, the window humming down.

“Um, you know there’s a tornado warning, right?” Jessica Wheeler looked at him from inside the car, a tiny smile on her lips. She was dressed in black, her hair pulled up, a strand of pearls around her neck. She must’ve seen Matt slip out of the church and followed after him. “Where’re you headed?”

“Nowhere.”

“You and me both,” she said. The car kept the slow pace of his walk.

Matt stopped and the car came to a halt as well. He looked inside.

Jessica pointed her chin at the passenger seat.

Matt really wanted to be alone—at least, he thought he did.

Jessica just sat quietly, waiting for him to decide.

His feet did hurt, he supposed. He climbed inside, and was met with the smell of Jessica’s perfume, a pleasing, spicy fragrance.

She shoved the stick shift into gear and they drove.

The rain was still coming down in tiny drops, not yet a downpour. The windshield wipers wisped back and forth, an arc of brown from dirt and drizzle.

“Wanna talk about it?” Jessica finally asked.

“Not particularly.”

“Okay. Wanna drink about it?”

“That sounds more enticing.”

She nodded, looked in her rearview, then made a sharp U-turn right in the middle of the road.

It wasn’t long before Jessica was unlocking the front door to Pipe Layers. The place didn’t open for a few hours and it was dark, quiet. Jessica slapped on the lights, threw her keys on the bar, and went to the jukebox.

Matt took a seat on one of the stools and watched her in the reflection of the mirror behind the bar. With her conservative black dress she looked out of place bent over, peering into the jukebox. Music filled the room.

Jessica walked over and ducked behind the bar.

“Bon Jovi?” Matt said.

Jessica stood in front of Matt now. “My uncle handpicked the jukebox selection thirty years ago, and I haven’t had the heart to change it. And who doesn’t love some Jon Bon Jovi?” She gestured to the liquor bottles lining the wall. “What’ll you have?”

“A beer would be great.”

“Ah, come on,” she said, disappointed in him. “Wait, I know.” She pulled out a glass, plopped an oversize single ice cube into it, and started mixing some concoction. She slid the glass to him.

He held the drink at eye level, the clear cube bathed in brown liquid with a citrus rind. “What is it?”

“An old-fashioned.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is this just some Don Draper fantasy of yours or—”

“Shut up. Try it!”

He took a sip. It was actually quite good. Smoky, with a hint of sweet. “I didn’t peg myself as an old-fashioned guy, but it’s good.”

She nodded, then poured herself a beer—smiling as she did so, silently acknowledging that she’d just given him shit for wanting something as pedestrian as a beer. She took a sip, foam covering her top lip.

They didn’t speak for some time. He’d finish a drink, she’d make him another. She’d finish hers and pour another, as if it were a competition.

It wasn’t long until both were feeling the booze.

Matt’s phone shivered repeatedly in his pocket, but he never checked it.

“The funeral was nice,” Jessica said.

“You mean until the blaring sirens and the surviving son took off?”

She made a face. “Your grandpa looked well. I haven’t seen him around town in forever.”

Matt held the old-fashioned in his hand, contemplating it. “You don’t know how much I appreciate this, but really, there’s no need for small talk.” He drained his glass.

“No?” she said. “All right.” She leaned over the bar, grabbed Matt by the lapels of his suit, and pulled him into a kiss. He wasn’t expecting it, which gave the adrenaline slamming through him even more of a kick. Not moving her mouth from his, Jessica scaled the bar, knocking over glasses and bar tools, until she was on the other side. When she finally pulled away, both were breathing heavily, Jessica’s hair falling from the pins that held it in place.

“There’s a room upstairs,” she said.

He nodded, following her to a door in the back. She fumbled for her keys, kissing him again as she unlocked the door to a narrow stairwell. She took his hand.

His head was swimming. From the booze, from the hunger for her, from the surrealness of the day. Jessica walked unsteadily up the stairs.

Matt started to have second thoughts. He beat them back, but they kept leaping into his head. He’d thought of this girl for seven years, and was this how he wanted it to go? Sloppy, in a room above a bar—on the day of his family’s funeral, no less? But he did want her, and he needed something to make him feel good right now. Finish the unfinished business, as Kala had said. But the thought of Kala only intensified his feeling that this was a mistake.

At the top of the stairs was a small room with a twin bed, a nightstand, and a television. Jessica tugged off Matt’s suit jacket, pulled the loosened tie over his head, and unbuttoned his shirt, then his pants. Then she stopped and said, “Wait here, I’ll be right back.” She skipped to the bathroom connected to the room.