“Why?”
Even if she could have convinced me she would listen without judgment, I couldn’t have told her.
“I’m not going to tell you,” I said bluntly. “That’s part of the shit you’d have to deal with.”
She stared at me for a good long time, then reached out and pulled me back to the couch beside her. She slid her hand up my arm and reached out to touch my face.
“You don’t see yourself very clearly, Liam,” she told me, “but it doesn’t matter, not right now, at least.”
“What does that mean?”
“You tell me,” she said. She focused on my eyes and didn’t waver. “Do you want to try to do this?”
“What if I fuck it up?” I asked.
“How about we deal with the present first and worry about shit that might happen later?”
I licked my lips and tasted her on them.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Very convincing.”
“I told you I don’t know how to do this shit.”
“I’m not so sure I know how to do ‘this shit,’ either,” Tria said, “but I’m willing to try. Are you?”
I nodded.
“And as much as I would like to spend the next few days figuring it out with you, I have to figure out how to get home. Nikki needs me there.”
“First things first, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“So, when is all this shit supposed to go down?” I asked.
“The day after tomorrow,” she said. “Actually…um…there is a bit of a problem.”
“What? Just one?” I said with a halfhearted laugh.
“Well, one big one,” she said. “The bus fare.”
“What about it?”
“Um…I don’t have it,” she replied quietly.
“Oh…um…shit.” I lay back on the couch cushions.
“I’ve got about four dollars at the moment,” Tria clarified.
“I don’t have much more than that,” I admitted. “I had to get an advance from Dordy yesterday to cover rent. I ended up bringing in about fifty bucks last night.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“The ticket to get here was a hundred and seventy-five dollars.”