“Wow! And here I thought you were the only one who went to that place,” Damien interjected loudly. “Why do you go there, Yvette? Don’t mind me saying, but you don’t really seem the type.”
“I write, actually. I’m hoping to get away from the city and get some inspiration.”
The expression on Jace’s face terrified her suddenly. He was grimacing, and she could see his jaw tensing, as though he was clenching his teeth. “You some kind of journalist or some shit?”
She could feel her heart racing in her chest. “No. I write novels.”
A silence passed, and she could feel the tension rising in the air between them. This guy was not to be messed with. Fred failed to mention that part. There was a good chance his distaste for journalists was the reason the others had bailed.
“That’s really cool.”
Yvette turned to Damien, happy to have someone to ease the situation between them. Still, Jace appeared apprehensive. She smiled graciously at Damien, then returned her gaze to Jace, “Do you hate books or something?”
Jace shook his head and threw back the last of his beer. “Not really. Don’t like journalists, though. They piss me the hell off.”
“Well, I should go. Maybe I’ll see you around, Jace.”
The look on his face made it clear that he wasn’t looking to see her around. His flags had been raised, and there was no way she could gain his trust throughout the evening. She’d screwed up, and the thought of her being a journalist was implanted in his mind, not going anywhere so long as he had a beer in his hand. In fact, he’d likely only get worse as the night wore on.
“See ya,” he said, without so much as a smile or a goodbye.
She gave a small wave to Damien, who didn’t share Jace’s hate for journalists, or writers, for that matter. She’d have to come up with something to get back on his good side. Luckily for her, she had a two day drive to prepare for their next encounter.
Chapter Five
Jace
His head felt as though it’d been put through a brick wall. He rolled over in bed and slammed his fist against his alarm clock, nearly crushing it. He hated the sound of alarms. Never had to use them when he was deployed. Hell, they woke up at the same time every day. Easy to build a routine around that. Now that he was back, he was finding it hard to even get out of bed or fall asleep. The beer helped.
He stretched his arms out and lifted himself up from beneath the blanket. He could hear the neighbor’s TV from the other side of the wall. No point in banging his fist against it to get him to turn it down. His neighbor was practically deaf and wouldn’t hear Jace banging on the wall anyway. A smile crossed his face at the thought. His family would crawl into a hole before they’d allow themselves to rent out a place like what he’d gotten when he’d returned. A shithole place above a Korean restaurant in Brooklyn.
The only issue with the place he had was being in Brooklyn. There were some decent tattoo parlors, and he had a decent group of people he knew in the area, but, otherwise, it was infested with guys that wore fedoras and plaid pants that were too short. If he saw one more jackass with a typewriter in a cafe window, he was going to break it over the guy’s head. There was something about the way they said they loved older things, like a good razor shave, but had no idea what they were doing. Hell, even their beards were prissy. It was the fact that they did all those things for recognition from each other, each of them striving to be something they weren’t. It was all just so false. They wouldn’t last a day in training. If only they knew how hard it was to even just finish boot camp.
He brought his mind to his phone, which he lifted off the bedside table. There was no reason to start the morning off riling himself up. There was just something to not having the constant worry of being deployed that left him feeling hopeless. It was already six in the morning. Time for a workout, then get to packing. He’d already set aside the essentials, as to be expected. He didn’t need much when he travelled; he always went light.
The biggest thing was raiding the grocery store in Tallulah once he got there. Two day drive. He loved the landscape as it changed whenever he was driving. It brought him a sense of peace that was hard to find since returning.
Then there was that girl. What was her name? Claudette? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was a journalist. He’d been trying to shake them off since he got to New York. Sure, she was hot, but getting involved with a possible journalist was not on his list of things to do. Part of the reason he was leaving the state was to get away from them. If he got one more call from his family’s publicist telling him about a new book deal or interview request, he’d break his own phone. The fact was, he knew the reason for it all. Those people only wanted to interview him because of his name.
“Fuck ‘em all,” he murmured, and brushed the sleep from his eyes.
Time to get to working out. His body was stiff from the drinks the previous night. If there was one thing he and Damien were good at, it was slamming back enough beer to put a bar out of business. He couldn’t remember how many he’d had. He cracked his neck and smacked his hand across his own face, feeling the pang of pain against his skin.
He always started his workout with a light skip-rope, which was a little difficult to do in his small apartment. He wrapped the black rope around his hands and moved his old brown couch out of the way to make enough space to start. He never counted. His rule was that he worked out until he couldn’t anymore. When his body was screaming in pain, that’s when he’d stop. He forced himself to do burpees, jump rope, and boxing with the nearly split-open black punching bag he had hanging in the corner. If he didn’t feel sick, he wasn’t ready to stop.
Sometimes it took over two hours. He had the time - he was in no rush to get to Tallulah. So long as he left in the early afternoon, he’d be set. Sleep in the car along the way, and just keep driving until he started recognizing the forests around him. It was, after all, the place he loved going between deployments.
Chapter Six
Yvette
She was grateful for the good weather. The rental car was nice, too. She was glad, for once, that she’d had the opportunity to work on a headline piece. After all, she’d never again have the opportunity to drive a brand new black Jeep with an all leather interior and a roof that lowered. She was enjoying the feeling of the air against her skin and the strands of hair that flicked across her face. It almost made her feel as though she was flying.
She’d checked her destination over five times that morning and had entered it into the Jeep’s GPS system, praying that it was taking her the right way. Ever since she was young she’d been terrible at directions. She was directionally challenged. If it weren’t for the invention of Google Maps and GPS she’d likely have found herself on an abandoned road with a bear eating away at her tires so she couldn’t drive anywhere and die of malnutrition. Or, at least, she’d always thought so when she was younger. Her greatest fear had been her mother letting go of her hand and leaving her someplace, because she knew she’d never find her way home on her own. She was always too busy thinking about something or staring at something that caught her eye. She never paid attention to where she was heading, she was always just along for the ride.