She opens her mouth like she’s going to argue, but then slumps instead. She blinks and barely manages to stifle a yawn.
Either she’s too tired to argue, or she’s relenting for Cora’s sake, but either way, she gives in. “Fine. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” We walk outside to the parking lot, and I grab the door to the back seat for her, so she can get Cora settled. Cora goes fussy for all of two seconds, before settling back in and falling asleep again.
I leave Harper to get herself into the passenger seat and get behind the wheel.
With the bar closed and every other business long since locked up for the night, the streets are quiet and empty. Even with the streetlights spaced every so often, it’s dark out, and I’m doubly glad Harper’s not walking alone tonight.
She leans one elbow on the door, her cheek propped up in her hand as she looks out at the town. I half expect her to be too tired or too reluctant to talk, but she surprises me by breaking the silence first.
“Have you lived here your whole life?” she asks.
I blink and then nod. “Yeah. My parents’ house is back that way,” I jerk my thumb the way we came, “and they’ve lived there forever. Everett, Cash, and I grew up together. Been best friends since we were kids.”
“And you all just stayed here?”
“Yeah. Everett and I didn’t really have reasons to leave, but we thought Cash might go somewhere else for his music. Life didn’t work out that way though.”
Harper glances over at me, and I can tell she’s curious about that story. There’s pain behind it, with Cash’s mom getting sickand his dreams being put on hold, but that’s not my story to tell. Even if it was, it’s too late to be getting into all that.
“It seems nice,” she says instead, letting it go. “Growing up somewhere like this. Where people know you and care about you. You’ve got this stability that comes with staying in one place your whole life.”
I look over at her, watching as the light from the street passes over her face. “Didn’t go like that for you, I’m guessing?”
Her snort sounds a little bitter. “Nope. I’ve moved around a lot in my life.” She cuts herself off there, refusing to say more, like she always does when she gets close to real details.
Her eyes are trained on the dark streets again, and I wonder what it’s like for these roads to look unfamiliar. Even in the dark, hell, probably even blindfolded, I’d be able to navigate this whole town. That’s just how well I know it after spending forever here.
Moving around a lot sounds like setting yourself up to be a stranger in a strange place over and over again.
“Are you tired of it?” I ask her. “Moving from place to place all the time?”
I catch sight of her reflection in the window and watch as something shifts in her expression. It looks like the question hit deeper than she expected.
She’s quiet for a long moment, and I can practically see the thoughts turning over in her head. It’s clear that yeah, she is tired of running. Tired of never staying anywhere long enough to matter. In that moment she looks totally exhausted, and it’s not just from the long night of work.
But then she shakes her head and lets out a breath. “I don’t know how to stop.”
We pull into the lot at the Sunset Motel, and fuck. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a reason to come down this way. The motel is technically outside the town limits, straddling the linebetween Silver Falls and the next town over. It’s out of the way, and that means it’s not well looked after, which is clear just from looking at it.
I can’t imagine it looks any better in the daytime, but at night it’s fucking awful. The paint is peeling off in huge flakes, and the lit up sign out front actually says Su s t Mot, since so many of the letters are burned out and haven’t been replaced.
There’s one security light for the whole parking lot. Well, one and a half, if you count the one a few rows down that flickers to life and then out again over and over.
I don’t count that one.
Immediately, it pisses me off to think of Harper staying here. Especially with Cora.
This is the kind of place that rents rooms by the hour and doesn’t care too much for who’s staying in those rooms. There’s broken glass by the entrance, and I would bet money that none of the exterior doors lock properly, even though they’re supposed to.
Maybe Harper can see the look on my face, or maybe she’s just embarrassed to have me see where she’s been staying, but either way, she makes a face of her own.
“The mechanic, Paul, he recommended this place.”
That just pisses me off even more. Paul should know better than to steer a woman—a woman with a kid on top of it—to a shithole like this. There are better options in town, safer places, but probably at twice the cost, if not more. Harper is clearly in a position where she has to count every penny.
“It’s not that bad,” she continues.