Love and Gravity by Olivia Connery Read Free Book Online Page A

me in prison for three
years. They didn’t have a case against Alex, so they argued that the drugs were
mine, found in my car, etc…”
    “So how did you end up working for
Pop then,” Jack asked?
    “While I was in jail my father was
killed in a car accident. I didn’t even get to attend his funeral. When they
let me out I had just turned twenty. I’d gotten my G.E.D. while I was incarcerated
but even with that I wasn’t able to get a good job anywhere because of my
record. I moved around a lot trying to find a better situation for myself. I
didn’t have any family left or any idea of what to do next. That’s when I
landed in Gravity and Pop saw me living on the street. He offered me a job
tending bar. It was the first job I’d been offered that didn’t involve
stripping, or hooking, or practically no pay.”
    Jack realized then how close she
must have come to losing herself these last few years. He had an awful image of
Margot working the street corner, the same street corner with all those girls
Pop had killed. Pop had already killed far too many girls. He snapped himself
out of this depressing reverie by focusing intently on Margot, on her still
youthful, flushed, freshly showered face. She looked delicate, and thoroughly
alive.
    “So I took the job he offered me.
I worked for him there the last two years. I could see that he was a bad guy
the longer I worked for him, but he gave me free room and board and pretty fair
pay. Let me keep my tips. He never asked me to do anything illegal. My plan was
to save as much money as I could to get out of there. Maybe save enough for
rent while I went back to school for something else. Anyway, it doesn’t matter
now.”
    Margot felt dark while telling him
about this part of her past. It was something she normally dealt with by not
thinking about it. But she felt it was only right to answer him. She grabbed a
plastic cup full of water off the corner table and took a long sip.
    “That’s quite a history. I had no
idea. I can see it’s hard for you to talk about. Thank you for telling me.”
    “Thank you for all of your help. I
probably wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone ever again if it weren’t for you.”
    “I needed a vacation from Gravity
anyway,” he said smiling.
    Margot smiled too, feeling a bit
lighter. She was comforted by his humor. It made her feel more like things were
normal and less like they could be shot at any second.
    “Well, we should think about
turning in,” Jack said. “It’s getting late and I want to be back on the road by
morning. Think you can get some sleep?”
    “Yeah, I think so.”
    Margot knew they would be sleeping
together in the same bed and ordinarily this would have made her question just
how much sleep she would be able to get. This night though, she was too tired
to resist unconsciousness.
    “Alright,” Jack said. He took the
pizza box off the bed.
     Margot got under the covers. The
bed felt like it was made of cardboard, but Margot could feel the siren call of
sleep beckoning her before her head even touched the pillow.
    Jack was still fully clothed as he
got under the covers. He wanted to be ready in case anything happened. He was
willing to let himself sleep because he was a light sleeper, but he kept his gun
ready beside him on the table. He turned off the light after getting beneath
the sheets. He could feel Margot shifting in the bed in the dark, trying to get
comfortable. When she stopped moving and silence pervaded the room he could
hear her gently breathing. He followed the sound of her light, rhythmic breaths
into the thick fog of sleep.
     
    Margot woke to feel a hand shaking
her shoulder in the darkness.
    “Margot, wake up,” Jack whispered,
insistently but quietly into her ear.
    She came back into her body, back
into the bed, back into the hotel room, and a terrible fear followed her there.
She could hear a scratching at the door as someone jiggled the handle.
    “We have to go out the bathroom
window.