I took the most direct route back to the main highway and as soon as I hit the stretch that was unpopulated, mostly trees and brush, I pulled over.
I yanked an oil rag from my saddlebag, and in the light from the headlamp, I emptied the gun, a Glock, letting the ammunition fall onto the rag. I was careful not to touch any of the bullets as I used the rag to toss them into the thick brush.
Then I wiped down the gun as best I could, letting the oily rag take off any prints. I pushed aside a thorny bush and kicked at the dirt to create a shallow hole. Once the Glock was buried and the brush back over it, I breathed out a relieved sigh. That had been too close. Way too close. I’d been in fights before, back when I’d shoot pool in Tijuana and sometimes some punk didn’t want to give up his losses. But this was more. This was another sign that my life was going some other direction.
I got back on the bike and headed toward the border crossing. It wasn’t until the guard checked my ID and waved me back through that I realized how lucky I’d been.
Now it was time to take that luck and make it work on Corabelle. Time to man up and face everything.
Chapter 15: Corabelle
The day had actually gone pretty well.
Austin and I had walked through campus, gotten cheap noodles from a cart vendor, and hung out near the Sun God statue, staring up into its colorful protective face. I suspected he might have skipped a class for me, but I didn’t ask him about it. Fridays were my clear days, catch-up days, but this early in the quarter I could goof off still.
When evening came, he asked if I wanted to walk over to his place. “Don’t worry that I’m trying to get you alone,” he said. “I have six roommates and nobody ever gets anybody alone.”
“Six!” I appreciated, as I had throughout the day, how easy Austin had made everything, as if anticipating my every point of concern.
“If you’re after me for my money, I might as well just give it all to you now.” He pulled a quarter from his pocket and pressed it into my palm.
I swallowed at the contact. Austin had been super hands off, even though I had grabbed him when we hurried out of the building as Jenny stalled Gavin. There was nothing about this guy I hadn’t liked. The world seemed to understand that at this very moment, I needed something like him. I’d doubted fate for so long that it was a relief to actually believe in it again, if just for a day.
He let go and I closed my fingers around the quarter. “So poverty means you live in barracks?”
“It’s a townhouse with three bedrooms. So it’s not too bad.”
We walked along a path through a forest of trees, past the towering library and away from the roof where I spent time with Gavin. I chided myself for thinking about him when the day had been so easy.
“So tell me something,” Austin said, and his change of tone made my heart hammer. Don’t ruin it, I begged. Let it be.
He stuck his hands in his pockets, as if trying to stall for time. My anxiety rose.
“We’ve had a good day, right?” He looked out over the diagonal panels of the sidewalk instead of at me. A few other students were heading out toward the parking lots. We were almost back to the engineering hall, where we’d started.
“Yeah, sure. It’s been good.”
“So why do you seem so sad?”
Back to that. I remembered when he gave me the note. He knocked on the counter, as if knowing he’d done something special by making me smile for a second. Everyone was right, he had been watching me all along.
“Is that too personal?” He stopped walking, still not looking at me.
I came up beside him. “Might be a story for another day.”
“Okay.” He turned finally, gazing at my face. “I guess making you laugh will just have to become my new goal in life.”
I forced a smile, for his sake, even if it wasn’t too convincing.
“See, I’m halfway there.” He reached out and took my hand. “Is this okay?”
I had to smile that he asked permission. “In some countries, I think it means we’re betrothed.”
“A joke!” He slapped a palm against his forehead. “I’m better than I thought!”
I punched him on the arm and he grasped my other hand, facing me like we were about to say wedding vows. His tone got all serious and I swallowed. What would he do now? Try to kiss me in the middle of the quad? I glanced around nervously. Gavin could be on campus somewhere.
Austin let go of my hands. I’d messed up the moment. I’d probably do that a lot.
“Let’s go see what trouble everyone’s into,” he said. “Someone’s bound to have ordered cheap pizza, and then I can feed you.”
“Do you work?”
“No time for a job,” he said. “Engineering kills me. I’m just trying to get done before my loans overrun my earning potential.”
We resumed walking along the mall, past the engineering building. I could picture Gavin on his motorcycle, talking to Jenny. I hadn’t had a single free moment to call or text her and find out what they had discussed. Maybe she’d reneged on her deal and gone off with him. My belly burned.
“Still with us?” Austin asked.
Dang it. He deserved more than my scattered attention. “I am,” I said. “I may be more ditzy headed than you figured.”
He bumped his shoulder against mine. We were almost the same height. “I’d go for deep over ditzy.”
We left campus behind and wandered a few streets into the adjoining neighborhood, a mass of apartment complexes. “You live near campus?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I’m way out.”
“Did you bus in?”
“I have a car.”
“Hoity-toity, are we?” He turned us down a side street.
“I have a job. It helps.” And, of course, three years of school paid by scholarship. My debt would be minimal as long as I was careful.
We walked along a sidewalk to a row of townhouse condos that looked to be mostly rentals, judging by the scraggly lawns and ill-kept hedges, all signs of students who couldn’t care less about curb appeal.
The buildings looked identical to me, but Austin turned us in at one near the middle of the street. “See, not too tiny. We can probably find some little corner to ourselves.”
The wood steps were peeling and scarred. A tower of pizza boxes filled one side of the porch, awkwardly stacked in a way that couldn’t possibly stand on its own.
“The leaning tower of pizza,” Austin explained. “Impaled on a center stake. Our little student engineering joke.” He opened the door and stepped aside to let me through.
The smell of beer and stale bread accosted me as my eyes adjusted. We were approaching full dark now, and only a few small corner lamps lit the living room.
A girl sprawled on a ratty recliner, her face glowing from the light of her laptop. She didn’t look up. “That’s Daryl’s girl,” Austin said in my ear. “I’d introduce you but I can’t remember her name.”
To the left was another large room, wall to wall with sofas. In it, several guys sat around a television, playing a video game. “You want to meet them?” Austin asked. “Or save it for later?”
I suddenly wasn’t up for being friendly to a roomful of strangers. “Show me around first.”
We went straight back to the kitchen, cluttered with paper cups and more pizza boxes. “This is a good day,” he said. “Usually you can’t find the sink.” Off to one side was a dining room with a huge rough-hewn picnic table in it. “Seating for ten,” he said. “For all our grand occasions.”
“I’ll keep it in mind for my next formal banquet.”
He reached for my hand and squeezed. “You want to see my room? Ben might be there, so we’d have a chaperone.”
I swallowed. What if he wasn’t? Being alone with Austin didn’t feel right, not yet. But I was being silly. I was twenty-two and not exactly a virgin.