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  "Well, she's a real gem," I mutter after she's out of hearing range.

  "She wasn't like that when I was dating her," Jax explains as we head toward his vehicle again. "But I'm not surprised she ended up where she has."

  I feel a little better knowing Bev wasn't that way when Jax dated her, but the last thing he said is unsettling. "Why aren't you surprised she turned into a junkie?"

  "Because that's just the way things work in The Subs." Jax stuffs his hand into his pocket to retrieve the car keys. "The people born there generally get sucked into the environment."

  "The Subs?" I ask as he unlocks the passenger door.

  "It's the nickname people around here gave to the area south of the highway." He motions to the left of us. "Basically, it's the shitty area of town where more than half the residents do drugs or sell drugs or sell themselves for drugs."

  "And it's where you grew up? And Bev?" I move around him to get into the car, but stop before I hop in. "You say the people that live there generally get stuck in the environment, but you and Avery didn't."

  "Yeah, well, we're kind of unique cases. Avery escaped this life, but not without a lot of bumps in the road first and me... And me, well, I was sick of having complications in my life, so I fucking ran and never looked back. I just wanted to live for once, you know."

  "Yeah, I know," I say hoarsely, thinking about how I used to have the same attitude. 'Live life in the moment' was my motto. I had plans to travel after I graduated. Plans to do something amazing with my life. So many plans and none of them happened.

  "What's wrong?" he asks, noting the croak in my voice.

  "Nothing." I clear my throat. "And you're not just a unique case. You're a special case, Jax. You've completely turned your life around."

  He places a hand on the car just to the side of my head and angles his body toward me until only a few inches are between us. "If I didn't know any better, I'd guess you just gave me a compliment."

  "It's a good thing you know better," I retort, but my voice is unsteady as his body heat seeps into my skin.

  "I guess so." He eyes me over for an unbearable amount of time before he pushes back. "It looks like we're hitting up the Dirty Tiger after the diner."

  I pull a repulsed face as I slide my butt into the seat. "The name sounds so gross, like an advertisement for STD's. Come on in to the Dirty Tiger, where you walk in with a smile on your face and leave with herpes between your legs."

  Laughter bursts from his lips. "You know, as funny as that is, it's actually pretty close to the truth."

  "So disgusting." I stick out my tongue and gag.

  "Relax. Just don't use the toilets or let any dicks into your pussy, and you'll be fine."

  My lips part in shock, and I reach out to swat him. "You're so vile."

  He skitters out of my reach, laughing his ass off. "You're the one who brought up herpes."

  Okay, he has me there. "Fine, I'll hold my bladder and try my best to stay away from all penises."

  "Good idea. Although, I'm not sure if the penises will be able to stay away from you." When I glare at him, he adds, "I'm kidding... but not really." His finger traces below my eye, causing my eyelashes to flutter. "You're too beautiful and are going to stand out like a sore thumb in a place like the Dirty Tiger." His mouth tugs to a lopsided grin, and then he heads around the car to get inside.

  I shut the door, release a weighted breath, and briefly close my eyes. My heart is pounding from his touch, and my skin tingles everywhere.

  Flirting. Smiles. Laughs. Hand holding. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  On our way home, I'll set boundaries again, I tell myself, ignoring the fact that I keep bending the rules the more time I spend with Jax.

  At the rate things are going, this will end in a disaster like it did with Mack. Jax will run the other way when he discovers the truth about my life. Like he said himself, he doesn't want complications in his life. And my life is one big, messy, stressful complication.

  Chapter Nine

  Jax

  After we get some hamburgers at the retro diner, we make the short drive to the outskirts of town. A very, very cheap strip/dance club located on the side of the freeway, the Dirty Tiger has a fitting name.

  Clara shudders as she assesses the metal building lit up by neon signs promising a good time. The windows are grimy, blocking the view to the inside but that's probably for the better.

  "Wow, it's worse than I imagined," she mumbles as she stares at the corner of the building where a man is leaning back, and a woman is down on her knees. Despite being partially hidden in the shadows, it's pretty clear what they're doing.

  "Maybe I should take you back to the motel then come back by myself," I suggest, unbuckling my seatbelt.

  As terrified as Clara looks, she shakes her head. "No, I'm going in there with you."

  "Are you sure? Because it's going to be way worse inside. I don't want to be the reason you're subjected to the hard shit in life."

  "My father died right in front of me... I already know about the hard shit in life," she mutters then pushes open the door and jumps out before I can say anything.

  Jesus, I knew her father died, but not in front of her.

  I hurry after her. It feels like I should say something, but I can't figure out what. We make it halfway across the gravel parking lot before I speak again.

  "I didn't know that about your father. That must have been hard." I splay my fingers across the small of her back as we near the entrance of the club.

  People are loitering around, drinking, and chatting. I can feel Clara's tension through her knotted muscles.

  "It was in the beginning, but I'm okay now. I mean, it still hurts and everything when I think about it, but it doesn't eat away at me every day or anything." She hovers close to me when a guy wearing leather pants walks by us, checking her out. "Look, I'm sorry I brought that up. I don't even know why I said it." She halts a few feet from the door and looks at me in desperation. "I'm just so confused being here with you, seeing your world... learning so much about you. It's starting to feel so wrong that I know so much about you, and you hardly know anything about me."

  "So, then tell me."

  She casts a wary glance at the club. "Here?"

  I shake my head. "Not here, but maybe when we get back to the motel or on the way back home to North Carolina."

  "I don't think that's a wise idea," she utters quietly.

  "Why not?" I question. What is she so afraid of? I wish I knew. Wish she'd open up to me so I could help her get past her fear.

  Her eyes fill with panic. "This trip is about helping you find your mother, not about my problems. I swear I didn't mean for that to slip out. It's just that when I'm with you... I get confused."

  "About what?"

  "Stuff."

  She's being evasive, which I guess is normal for her, except she finally brought up her family, only to drop the subject immediately.

  "First of all, you can always tell me anything, anytime, day or night," I explain, hoping she won't shut down. "And second, this trip isn't just about me. Yeah, we're here to find out where my mother is, but I wanted you to come with me so I could spend time with you. We hardly ever get to spend time together, even when we were friends."

  "We're still friends, though. Right?"

  "Right." I sound as confused as she looks. I want to push her for more details about her life, have her spill her soul to me, but this is hardly the fucking place to do that. "Let's go inside and get this over with. Then we can talk some more when we get back to the room. How does that sound?"

  Without responding, she steps back so I can open the door. Grabbing her hand, we enter the club. Her fingers constrict as the hazy atmosphere swallows us. Classic rock plays from the stereo and vibrates the floor littered with cigarette butts. The smoky air smells like severely bad body odor mixed with cheap beer and a hint of dirty sex. The room is filled mostly with men, but a few women are hanging out by the tab
les and dancing around a stained pole onstage.

  "I feel like I need to take a shower just from walking in here!" she hollers over the music.

  "Agreed!" I nod toward the bar area. "Let's make this quick!"

  We push our way through the crowd and up to the counter where it's a little bit quieter. I lift my hand to flag the bartender down. When he turns around, I recognize the middle-aged, stocky guy. I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed about that fact.

  "Since when do you work here?" I ask Joe, my old little league coach. I haven't seen him since I tried out for sports in an attempt to get away from the house more. Turns out, though, I sucked at athletic stuff.

  A shocked grin spreads across his face when he realizes who I am. "Holy shit, Jax Hensley. I haven't seen you since..."

  "Since baseball season when I was eleven," I finish for him, feeling a little more at ease.

  "How the hell have you been? It's been forever." He glances at Clara who's practically clutching my side.

  "Good. I'm living in North Carolina now and go to college." I nod my head in Clara's direction. "This is Clara, one of my friends from there."

  Clara nervously waves at him. "It's nice to meet you."

  "The pleasure's all mine." His attention lands back on me, and he shakes his head in awe. "Wow, I can't believe you got out of here and made it to college. That's fucking fantastic, Jax. Seriously. Really great."

  "Thanks." The music shifts to an upbeat pop song and the lights on the stage wildly flash. "So, do you work here now?"

  Joe sighs as he places two shot glasses on the counter. "Unfortunately, yes."

  Clara inches closer to me when an older guy shoots her a toothless grin from across the bar. "Jax, please hurry up," she whispers softly enough only I can hear. "I'm freaking out. I think the guy over there might be plotting a herpes attack on me."

  I choke on a cough then clear my throat. "How'd that happened?" I ask Joe as I slip my arm around Clara's back and draw her closer. "The last time I saw you, you were working at the sporting goods store."

  He selects a bottle of tequila from the shelf behind him and untwists the cap. "Yeah, this is what happens when you're stupid enough to have an affair with your boss. Divorce is ugly, my friend. And so is getting fired." He fills up the shot glass with the golden liquid and returns the bottle back to the shelf. "First shots are on me."

  "Thanks." I glance at Clara. "You want a drink? It might help you relax."

  She looks like she could use ten drinks. She promptly snatches up the shot, throws her head back, and devours the liquid. "Thanks," she says to Joe as she places the glass on the counter.

  "Anytime." He collects the shot glasses and sets then with the rest of the dirty glasses.

  A guy walks up to the counter and orders two beers, and Joe heads to the tap.

  "So, I actually came here for a reason," I say to Joe while Clara grabs my shot and downs it too. "I'm looking for my mom. Have you seen her?"

  He aligns a tall glass under the beer tap and begins filling it up. "I saw her hanging around the backstage area about a week ago, but she was only here for about five minutes."

  "Does she work here?" I glance over my shoulder at the stage. A woman who is twirling around upside down on the bar looks close to my mother's age, so the possibility seems plausible.

  He shakes his head as he puts two beers down on counter in front of the guy who ordered them. "No, she just hangs around sometimes." He collects the cash from the guy and stuffs the tip into a jar. "But Larry, the owner finally threw her out last week because she was harassing the clients."

  "What exactly do you mean by harassing?"

  He opens the register and stuffs the dollar bills inside. "She was asking people for money and kept yammering about how, if they didn't help her, she was going to be a dead woman."

  Clara's arms tighten around my waist, and she presses against my side. She starts tracing circles on my back, like she's trying to soothe me.

  As I think of the message my mother left me five days ago, it feels like the wind is knocked out of me. "You haven't seen her since she got kicked out?"

  Joe shakes his head as he rests his arms on the counter. "Look, Jax, I'm not sure why you came back here, but if you're smart you'll walk out that door and drive back to North Carolina. You don't want to get involved in the shit your mother's involved in."

  "I need to know she's okay before I can leave." I stand my ground. "So, if you know where she is, just tell me."

  Pity fills his eyes. "All I know is that she was in trouble with a guy named Marcus Dalemaring."

  "Marcus Dalemaring?" The Marcus my mother mentioned on the voice mail. "I don't know who that is."

  "You wouldn't. He showed up here about a year ago and has gotten a pretty good rep for selling drugs and hiring out prostitution." Joe pushes back from the counter. "From what I understand, your mother was helping him with his business."

  "You mean she was one of his prostitutes?" I shake my head. Things never change with her. "Or was it drugs this time?"

  "I think she brought in new clients for him," he explains as he picks up a rag. "And from what I understand, that involved her in a lot of money transactions, so I'm pretty sure you can piece together what happened."

  "Who the hell would trust her with money?"

  "A pimp and a drug dealer," he explains as he scrubs down the dirty counters. "Especially one who hasn't lived here long enough to know your mother's reputation for fucking over people."

  "So, she screwed him over, and he threatened to kill her," I mumble, realizing how right my aunt was when she said my mother was probably dead in a ditch somewhere. The harsh reality painfully sinks in. She really might be dead this time. I knew it could be a possibility, but I'm suddenly realizing how likely of an outcome it could be.

  "That's just what I heard, but who knows exactly what happened."

  "Do you have any idea where I can find this Marcus Dalemaring guy?"

  "No." He drapes the rag over his shoulder. "And, even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Get in your car and go home, Jax." With that, he turns his back to me and walks off toward the storage area.

  "Now what do we do?" Clara stares up at me with concern.

  "Now we go." I gently nudge her toward the door.

  "But what about your mom?" she asks as she tucks in her elbows and squeezes past people.

  "We'll keep looking for her tomorrow, but right now, I need to get you back to the hotel. It's already way past dark." I steer her through the crowd and out the door.

  We both inhale the fresh air the moment we step outside.

  "I'm going to have to do a body inspection when I get home," Clara says as I usher her past gawkers. "Make sure I didn't contract something solely from the air. It smelled like I was breathing STD's."

  "Yeah..." I'm distracted by my thoughts as I try to figure out what to do next.

  Keep asking around until I find this Marcus guy? Go home like Joe insisted I should?

  "All right." Clara grinds to a halt and stops me with her. "Tell me what you're thinking because I know you have to be thinking about something important for you to pass up commenting on my body inspection remark."

  "I'm just trying to figure out what to do next. If I should go home or not."

  "Do you want to go home?"

  "I don't know. What do you think?"

  "You really want to know?" she asks and I nod. "I think we drove a long way out here to find out what happened to her, because it was eating up at you not knowing. I think, if we go back now without figuring out where she is, it'll drive you crazy."

  She's right. If I went back home right now, what happened to my mother would haunt me, maybe even for the rest of my life.

  "You're right. I think we should stay." I lace our fingers together and head for the car again. "But on one condition."

  She's staring down at our interlocked hands, looking puzzled as hell. "And what's that?"

  "That when we get back
to the motel, you'll let me help you with your body inspection."

  She looks up at me and rolls her eyes, but doesn't comment or try to swat me. In fact, she seems like she briefly considers letting me.

  I bite back a smile. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you might want that to happen."

  Now she moves in for the swat, but I capture her hand and jerk her against my body. I've had such a shitty night and all I want to do is not feel shitty. Being with Clara does that for me. I want her, even though it's not Friday. I want her in my car, in the motel room, everywhere. All the time. Every day.

  Even though I know she'll get upset, I lean down and let my mouth linger on hers, waiting for her to pull back and end the kiss. Instead, she parts her lips. I don't know why she does it. Perhaps she feels bad for me. I don't care what the reason is.

  I slide my arms around her, press her body against mine, and kiss her deeply. Our mouths move slowly and I savor each breathless whimper she makes. She tastes like tequila with a hint of French fries and the feel of her body heat nearly smothers me in the best way possible. I don't come up for air until she moans out my name and I have to stop; otherwise, I'm going to rip off her clothes right here in the parking lot.