Page 52 of Nowhere Good

His lead, his victims, his responsibility.

It was strange how things could blow up so massively, yet fall right back into normalcy, like a familiar song on a poorly tuned guitar.

Claire found herself at work that evening, like she did almost every other evening; another boring Wednesday night. Her dad was in the back, doing whatever it was he did back there. His biker friends hadn’t been back for any poker games since Sunday. Clementine must not have told him about Claire sneaking into his room—if she had, this night would look a lot different.

She swapped between leaning against the bar on her phone, looking for new books to read, listening to the soft rock on the juke, serving customers, wiping up spills that weren’t even there, and staring at the damn wall. Anything to pass the time easier. Winslow crept into her mind a few times. The way he’d looked at her last night was probably all in her head, but she liked the way it made her feel all the same. She hadn’t felt the touch of a man in months. Even then, she hadn’t liked the way Dillon had touched her in a long time. Years. Like she was something to be used and tossed aside.

Hell no, she didn’t miss that.

But she still had needs.

And call it presumptuous, but Winslow seemed like the giving type.

Stop that. Claire grumbled, flustered with herself. She tried to busy her hands by reorganizing some glasses. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a crime to think of him that way, but not at work. The last thing she needed was one of these old guys picking up on her daydreams.

And daydreams, they were. Nothing more.

Around dinnertime, Dillon came out from his hiding hole in the kitchen, where he worked as the “cook”—AKA a glorified deep-fryer. He came right up to her with his phone.

“You see this?”

On the screen was an article published minutes ago.

SUSPECT ID’D IN LOCAL ARREST.

Claire peeled herself from the article. “The Mr. Giggles guy?”

“Guess so,” Dillon replied.

“Wow. We all used to have birthday parties there.”

“Yeah, everyone with parents,” he grumbled. “But this is him, right? This is the guy who killed Eliza and Kelsey.”

Dillon’s eyes were strangely pleading, the left side of his face still bruised from the punch her dad gave him. Claire almost felt like he was looking to her for some sort of companionship.

“How would I know?” she asked, turning away. How dare he?

“Can you at least act like you care?” Dillon muttered, and Claire shot him a glare that could freeze lava.

“Really, Dillon? You want me to comfort you about your damn affair partners?” She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “I’m the one who actually saw Kelsey’s body—you think I don’t care about what happened to her? You never even asked how I felt.”

That shut him up. She expected him to screw off, but he lingered, glancing at the back room. When he rested his elbows on the counter beside her, she had no idea what to expect. Dillon didn’t hang out with her at work.

“What are we gonna do, Claire? You were right before. We hate each other.”

“Like you said, we can’t break up.” She paused, an idea blooming in her. “But how about this. You can go off and screw whoever you want, and I won’t say a word to my dad, long as you don’t tell him what I get up to either.”

“What, do you have someone now?”

Claire laughed pathetically. “Sure don’t, but I don’t wanna feel like I’m being monitored either.”

Dillon went quiet, considering it. “But he expects things of us. He wants us to have a kid.”

“Then we’ll say we’re trying. I don’t think he’s at the point of installing a camera in our bedroom yet. You have a better idea?” She glanced at the back room too, then leaned in close and whispered, “’Cause you and me having sex is absolutely not an option.”

Dillon nodded. For the first time in a long time, they were on the same page. “Okay. If you won’t say anything, I won’t either.”

“Good. Then we don’t gotta act like we’re friends in the meantime.”