Re: [The Motel: Cat & Reece]
For anyone, even like, Hulk Hogan, who Reece imagined was a blunt kind of person, the question was direct. It wasn't just Cat. 'Why stay?' was the kind of question that came like a slap in the face no matter who asked it, where or when. The man tried not to let it send him reeling with its 5 million implications, its infinite interpretations, its really fucking poor timing. He sighed and just watched the road as it belted beneath the car, whipping asphalt and smearing painted lines into a streamer of white. Apparently, the average driver thought the dashes between lanes were two feet long, when they really were ten. Perspective was sure wild, wasn't it?
Reece shuffled through some songs on his eye's interface. One began playing over Bluetooth, hi-tech crisp and bass-bump loud. He let the music drown out everything, even his thoughts for a long few minutes. He was going well above the speed limit, but no one was out yet. The roads were clear, untethered black, and small towns smeared by in bright wipes of their bars' neon lights. The car drove smoothly, enough that it felt like floating, like they were out at sea, out in space, alone and uninterrupted. And Reece didn't talk. It was about a twenty-five minute drive when one obeyed the speed limit, which meant they got there in about fifteen.—By the time they pulled up to the hotel, a different song was playing.
He let the song come to its natural finish, slow and lonely, and he killed the engine with a press of metal finger to the button. Reece looked over at Cat then, at the boy in his passenger seat. "That's a low blow," is what he finally said. And it was. After everything, after all of the things he'd been through with her, after all of it, and she asked that. "And I know you want reassurance and reasons—why I stay, but I'm really tired, Cat. And I'm not in the place where I can defend myself either." Reece got out of the car. He circled the vehicle and he opened the passenger door to help his passenger out with an offered hand. "Stop trying to push me away for five minutes, okay? And let's get in bed. And then you can ask me again. Okay?"