Fuel (Best Laid Plans Book 1) by Nathan Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

look. “I've already made my choice. Besides, I'm not ditching my car even if I don't ever use it.”
    Trev wasn't surprised his friend was sticking to his guns. Speaking of which . . . he pulled out Nelson's 9mm, ignoring the way Matt jumped in alarm at the sight of it, and offered it grip-first, careful not to muzzle himself as he did so.
    His friend's dark brown eyes stared at the weapon cautiously, but he didn't reach out to take it. “What is this?”
    “This is a Glock 17,” Trev answered evenly. “It belonged to Nelson DeWitt, who just tried to rob me with it.”
    “What?” Matt demanded in shock. He started looking around frantically. “Are you okay? Where is he? What did you do to him? Have you called the police?”
    “I kicked him in the stomach hard enough to make him rethink his life choices. He's probably whimpering in a corner somewhere. I didn't call the police about it because they already have enough to deal with and I didn't want to waste any more time up here. Although I suppose you could spread word around the dorm about what he did in case he tries to rob someone else.” Trev shook the gun slightly. “Come on, I'd feel better knowing you had this in case you need to protect yourself.”
    His friend still wouldn't take the gun. “Is it loaded?”
    Trev started to answer, then hesitated. He'd only assumed there wasn't a chamber in the round. Flipping it back around to hold pointed at the pavement, he ejected the magazine and quickly did a mag and chamber check. To his relief there wasn't a chamber in the round, which would've made his heroics against Nelson much more horrifying after the fact. He offered the gun and the full magazine separately to his friend. “Nope. Come on, man, don't act like it's made of acid. You've gone to the range with me and Lewis plenty of times to shoot, and with your dad too.”
    “I know,” Matt said, abruptly taking the gun and mag and shoving them into different pockets, staring down at them as if wondering how they'd got there. “It's just that having a gun down in a small place like Aspen Hill feels different than carrying one around the university dorm.”
    They stood awkwardly for a few seconds, then Trev offered his hand to shake again. “Well, Lewis is climbing the walls waiting for me to get down there. He had to listen to my entire standoff with Nelson. Take care and be safe, man. Hopefully I'll see you soon.”
    Matt shook his hand absently, still staring down at the gun in his pocket. “Yeah. Uh, thanks for this.”
    Trev nodded and climbed into his car. Then, finally, he started the engine and turned himself in the direction of home, leaving Matt waving in his rearview mirror.
     

 
    Chapter Three
    Mistakes
     
    Trev was finally on his way, although that meant he was immediately bogged down by traffic once more. He wanted to shout at these idiots to get off the road and stop wasting gas, but then again he was one of them.
    Although he supposed the streets couldn't stay this congested for long since eventually each and every one of these vehicles would run out of gas and have no way to refuel. Which wouldn't matter much to him because he'd already be long gone.
    As he drove he turned on his radio, something he hadn't done for a long time since he preferred to plug in his phone and listen to playlists. Unsurprisingly all the stations were broadcasting news or talk show host commentary or rebroadcasting the President's speech, with music few and far between. Trev flipped around a bit looking for something he was interested in.
    For the moment all the news was either grim discussion about the Gulf refineries attack and speculation on who'd carried it out, or hopeful stories about people all over the nation calling in to express their love of their country and commit to helping out their communities any way they could.
    Trev appreciated the sentiment, but none of what he heard sounded very practical. He was far more interested in one talk show host