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“Jeanie, we were swarmed by reporters shouting my name and asking things no random stranger could’ve possibly known.” I drag my lower lip through my teeth, still tasting him there nearly two days later. “Would you have given him the benefit of the doubt?”
“I don’t know.” She lets out a long sigh. “But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. He already had your trust. You’d already told him everything. So why risk losing the exclusive by blabbing to anyone else?”
Swirls of doubt float through my vision like black smoke, clouding my thoughts. “He didn’t want me to know he was selling me out?”
“And how well did that work out for him?” I can almost hear her arched eyebrow. “You really just hopped on a bus and left him there?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s some stone-cold shit, little sis.”
I groan and shift in my seat. “Why are you suddenly trying to convince me Dash is a good guy?”
“Because not one of those pictures showed up online or anywhere else. And if a guy’s gonna go to that much trouble to sell you out, he’s not doing it for nothing.”
A nagging wisp of doubt spirals around me, gripping my throat until my voice comes out in a faint whisper. “It’s only been a few days.”
“Be real, Zo. It takes less than thirty seconds to post a picture on social media.”
“Maybe.” A flash of something resembling hope punches me in the gut, and it takes me a whole second to catch my breath. “Or maybe they’re waiting to drop a bomb.”
“Zoey, listen—”
“You’re wasting your breath.” I refuse to get sucked into Jeanie’s unsubstantiated theories and allow the hairline cracks in my heart to split wide open.
Jeanie growls. “You can be so stupid sometimes.”
“I’m not stupid!” Her words sting, but I refuse to let her hurt my feelings. She just doesn’t get it.
“You really jumped off a train trestle?”
“I really did.” My lips curve into a smile. “Are you bummed you didn’t come? We could’ve jumped together.”
“Screw that!” She laughs. “I’ve had my fill of falling from heights for the rest of my damn life.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Oh, I do.” Her tone softens. “But it’s okay. This was your turn to be first.”
“Thank you,” I murmur. “For letting me go.”
“Don’t mention it, sis. So where to next?”
“My next official destination is Santa Monica. I’ll probably stop somewhere to sleep, but other than that, I’m driving straight through.”
“That’s one hell of a long haul. You can’t tell me Mom and G-Lo didn’t stop anywhere between Kansas and California.”
“They did the typical touristy stuff: Dodge City, Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Barstow. Nowhere worth revisiting as far as I’m concerned. It’s not like I’m planning to spread her ashes in any of those places.”
“Did you say Flagstaff?” Jeanie’s voice vibrates with excitement.
“Yeah, why?”
“I was flipping through G-Lo’s Groupie magazine, and apparently there’s some big Bowie tribute concert in Flagstaff Saturday night.”
“That’s like”—I check the date on my phone—“tomorrow night, Jeanie.”
“I know. You should totally go.”
