Inevitable Detour (31 page)
“Wait,” Justin says, his voice urgent. “My car is around the corner. I have some auto-detailing towels in there. They’re very absorbent.”
I shrug. “Okay, sure.”
As we’re walking to his car, I attempt to make conversation. “So, you keep a car in New York City. That’s crazy.”
“I know, right.” He laughs. “It would be. But I don’t live in the city.”
“Oh, where do you live?” I ask as we turn into an alley.
“Jersey,” he says.
We reach his car. It’s just a simple brown Toyota, a typical student car. Justin reaches for the passenger-door handle.
I take a step closer to the car and notice there’s someone seated in the passenger seat.
“Oh…” I start backing up, but Justin gets behind me, his moves suddenly swift and sure. “What the hell?” I mumble.
“Not so fast,” he says in my ear. His voice is smooth, confident. No more uncertain, nerdy college guy. Who is this Justin? Clearly, he’s not who I thought he was.
My heart begins to pound frantically as he nudges me closer and closer to his car. Within seconds I am trapped between the Toyota and Justin’s body. I have no choice but to look inside.
When I see who’s sitting casually in the passenger seat, I gasp, “Shit. Dawson.”
I try to spin around so I can flee, but Justin holds me in place. No one is around. I am so screwed.
Dawson pops open the door. The man I hoped to never lay eyes on again leans forward.
Pinning me with his cold, hard eyes, he says coldly, “Ah, we meet again, young Essalin. I think I’d like to spend some time with you. Perhaps you should get in the car.”
The story continues in
Inevitable Circumstances
(Inevitability #2), the second and final book of the Inevitability duology ~ Spring 2015.
This is always the hardest part. I never want to leave anyone out. So, let’s give this a try. First, so much gratitude and appreciation goes out to the readers and fans of my novels. Thank you for your continued support. Next, I must express my thanks to the bloggers who work so hard to get my name and novels out to the world. Every time I see a post regarding my books on a blog—or anywhere in social media—I am humbled. Thank you to every single one of you. Your efforts are amazing. Additionally, a huge, heartfelt thanks goes out to my amazing street team—Team S.R. Grey. You ladies are more than a street team to me, you are my dream team. Also, a special thank you goes to author J.B. Morgan (Jenn) for helping me craft a concise and compelling blurb. We sure had fun with those back and forth emails and PMs, didn’t we? And thank you to Ari for a cover that matches my vision of Farren perfectly. You rock, girl!
Finally, love and thanks to Tom.
.
S.R. Grey is an Amazon and Barnes & Noble Top 100 Bestselling author. She is the author of popular New Adult novels I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #1) and Never Doubt Me (Judge Me Not #2). Her newest novel, Inevitable Detour (Inevitability #1), is a wild ride combining the New Adult genre with elements of Romantic Suspense. She is also the author of the Harbour Falls Mystery trilogy. Ms. Grey’s novels have appeared on Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists in multiple categories.
Ms. Grey resides in Pennsylvania. Her background is in business, but her true passion lies in writing. When not writing, Ms. Grey can be found reading, traveling, running, or cheering for her hometown sports teams.
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Read the prologue of
I Stand Before You
, the first novel in S.R. Grey’s other New Adult series Judge Me Not.
Chase
I
lean my head back against the headrest, crank the passenger window down the rest of the way. The June night air rustles through my hair, reminding me I desperately need a trim. I run my fingers through the strands, chasing the path of the breeze.
My grandmother likes to lecture that I shouldn’t have hair sticking out at odd angles, strands curling at the nape of my neck.
“You’re such a handsome young man, Chase,” Grandma Gartner said just this morning,
tsk
ing when I sat down for breakfast. “You look so much like your father did when he was your age. But, you know,
he
always kept
his
hair short and tidy.” And then there was a pause, a long, dramatic sigh. She set down a plate of eggs—over easy—in front of me. “My poor Jack. God rest his soul.” My grandmother crossed herself.
Her poor Jack, my father with the short and tidy hair—dead and gone.
I thought:
I am not my dad
,
Gram.
He failed us, he gave up on us.
But the words never passed my lips. And they never will. Hearing them would only hurt my grandmother’s feelings and she’s too good to hear the angry thoughts poisoning my polluted mind. So I keep all that shit locked deep inside.
This morning was no different. I kept things light, said something like, “The girls like my hair like this, Gram. Got to keep the ladies happy, ya know.”
Then I ducked and waited for the inevitable swat with the dish towel. But it never came. Instead, the lines in my grandmother’s face deepened.
“You don’t need to be concerning yourself with keeping ladies happy, young man. You’re only twenty. Messing with women at your age will only lead to trouble.”
I knew what she meant this morning, and I know it now too. She’s worried I’ll end up getting some girl pregnant. Then I’ll be fucked, well and good. But I’m always careful, take the necessary precautions. Besides, it isn’t my womanizing ways that’s becoming a problem. If only. No, unfortunately, it’s my ever-growing dependency on drugs—something my grandmother would never suspect—that has me worried these days.
These days…
Yeah, right. More like these blurry, fucked-up segments of time.
Sighing, I roll the window up just enough to lean my head against the cool glass.
What am I going to do?
I silently ask myself.
What I really need to do is get the hell out of this tiny Ohio farm town I landed back in two years ago. I’m spinning my wheels here in Harmony Creek, hanging with a bad crowd. Problem is I have no plan, no money either. Drugs are my escape and have been for quite a while. My priorities are all fucked up. My life, it’s upside down. Every day it seems like getting high—and staying that way—is my only goal. I want to stop—believe me I do—but I don’t think I know how to anymore.
A lump forms in my throat at this thought, but I swallow it down. “Hey,” I say to Tate, who is driving. “Let’s get out of this town.”
Tate Cody, my friend…and my partner in crime in everything wild and crazy these days—women, drugs, drinking, fighting—you name it, we do it. And if we’re not doing it nowadays, chances are we’ve done it at least once over the past couple of years. We’ve yet to slow down; we live on the edge.
I sometimes wonder when we’ll fall.
“What do you think we’re doing, Chase, my man?”
I take in and process Tate’s reply, while he lifts a bottle of cheap gin to his lips and hits the gas. And for this one long, tortuous drawn-out second, I can’t make a distinction between what I asked Tate and what I was only thinking. I panic, assuming my partner in crime’s response is to let me know it’s finally happening, we’re really falling.
But then Tate adds, “I’m getting us out of here as fast as I can,” and I breathe a little easier. He just means we’re leaving Harmony Creek. Not falling, after all.
Shit, I need to ease up on the drugs
.
I glance out the window, and though it’s dark I can see we’re heading east, nearing the state line. Soon we’ll be out of Ohio completely, and in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. That’s where we’re supposed to hook up with two girls tonight. They’re from New Castle, and we’re meeting at a lake across the state line.
I don’t really care about all that, though. What I’d really rather do is keep on going. Hop on Interstate 80 and clock the miles to Jersey. Better yet, Tate and I could go farther. We could drive our asses straight into New York-fucking-City. Now that would be sweet.
So while Tate barrels down a back road the police rarely patrol—until you get into Pennsylvania, that is—I pretend we’re leaving Harmony Creek for good. No looking back, no regrets, just flying the fuck out of this lame-ass small town.
And speaking of flying, I’m flying a bit now too, feeling fine, baby, fine. I close my eyes so I can savor the s-l-o-w creep of numbness that cocoons me like a warm and fuzzy blanket.
I feel nothing, yet I feel everything.
My skin tingles a little, but when I touch my hand to my face it feels detached, like these parts of my body belong to two different people, neither of them me. That thought makes me happy, escape is exactly what I crave.
Needless to say, I’ve smoked—a lot—and not just weed. But it’s the pills I swallowed a while ago that are starting to wrap me up and spin me the fuck out.
A bottle hits the back of my hand and my eyes fly open. Shit, I forgot I am not alone in this car.
“Drink, fucker,” Tate urges.
I take the gin, despite the fact I can barely see straight.
No
isn’t part of my vocabulary when I’m like this. And, sadly, more often than not, this is exactly how I am. This is who I am becoming: Chase Gartner, burgeoning drug addict.
As per most nights, Tate and I stopped at Kyle’s before embarking on
this
night’s little adventure. Kyle Tanner supplies us with more drugs than we could ever hope for. And the quality is always top notch. Kyle takes a certain kind of pride in dealing only primo product. But you’d never guess such a thing if you saw the rundown shithole he lives in.
Our dealer resides on the
other
side of town, over by the closed-down glass factory, in a clapboard house he shares with his meth-addicted dad. Lately, going there has been a contradiction of emotions for me. I love and hate concurrently when Tate and I cross over the railroad tracks that mark the end of the safe neighborhoods of Harmony Creek. Then, I vacillate between love and hate as I watch the Sparkle Mart grocery store appear…then disappear. I lean a little more towards hate when we reach the run-down apartment building where the junkies hang out, where their emaciated bodies lean lazily against the dirty brick exterior.
I sure as fuck don’t want to end up there, God, no. But maybe I’m powerless to stop my downward spiral. Lord knows, by the time we start down the long dirt road that leads to Kyle’s place, I crave and I want. And love trumps hate by that point. Even the junkies seem less scary. So we go…and we go…and we keep going back.
Tate tells me the road to Kyle’s house is the road to salvation.
Salvation, my ass.
I’d be more inclined to say Tate and I are traveling a path to hell. We’re in the express lane to damnation, and one step closer to burning every time we travel down that fucking dirt road. I know it, he knows it, but do we ever do anything to stop? Do we try to crawl out of the hole we’re wallowing in? No, never.