Chapter 7 Cece #2
But my father surprises me. As he studies Brayden’s face, something shifts in his expression. Not approval, exactly, but… consideration.
“Your aunt speaks highly of you.”
“She’s… generous with her praise,” Brayden answers, choosing his words carefully.
“She mentioned you’ve been helping her with Harold’s medical expenses. The bills from his surgery.”
My chest tightens. I had no idea. Jillian never said a word about money, but that’s her—she’d give away her last dollar before admitting she needed help.
“Family takes care of each other.” Brayden lifts a shoulder in a small shrug, as if it’s no big deal, though the tension in his stance tells me this topic isn’t easy for him. “She and Harold gave me a home when no one else would. Helping with the bills is the least I can do.”
My father studies him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he opens his desk drawer and pulls out a set of keys.
“The van needs gas,” he says, tossing the keys to Brayden, who catches them with one hand. “And the passenger door sticks sometimes. You have to pull up while you open it.”
Mrs. Whitaker makes a strangled sound beside me. “Reverend Montgomery, I must protest! The board will—”
“The board,” my father interrupts, “can take up their concerns with me at the meeting this afternoon. In the meantime, there are families counting on us.” He turns to Brayden. “I expect the van back by five. We have youth group tonight.”
I'm too stunned to speak. My father, the man who lectured me for three days about the company I keep, is handing over church property to a leather-clad biker without so much as a background check.
“Yes, sir,” Brayden says, pocketing the keys. “We'll have it back before then.”
“And Cecelia,” Dad adds, his gaze shifting to me, “remember who you're representing.”
And there it is—the reminder that he’s still pissed at me, and that I’ve backed him into a corner. Well, at least tonight at dinner, he’ll speak more than one word to me. There’s that to look forward to later.
“Like you’d ever let me forget, Dad,” I manage.
Mrs. Whitaker looks like she's swallowed something sour. “I'll be documenting this conversation for the board meeting,” she announces, clutching her clipboard tighter.
“You do that,” Brayden says cheerfully. “Make sure you spell my name right. B-R-A-Y-D-E-N. One 'i,' no 'e' at the end.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Mrs. Whitaker's face turns an impressive shade of purple.
“We should get going,” I say quickly, before she can spontaneously combust. “Thank you, Dad.”
He nods, already turning back to his paperwork in that way that signals the conversation is over. “Drive safely.”
I follow Brayden out of the office, acutely aware of Mrs. Whitaker’s disapproving stare burning between my shoulder blades with pinpoint precision. The hallway suddenly feels endless, every step echoing off the walls with the sharpness of gunfire in a cathedral.
“That went better than expected,” Brayden says once we're out of earshot, his voice carrying that hint of amusement that seems to be his default setting.
“Better than expected?” I stare at him. “Mrs. Whitaker looked ready to start an exorcism, and my father just handed you the keys to church property after lecturing me for three days about my poor judgment.”
“Yeah, but he handed me the keys.” He dangles them from his finger, “That's what matters.”
I shake my head, still processing what just happened.
“You going to stand there all day or….?”
“No, I'm coming,” I say, still a bit dazed as I follow him down the hallway.
The bright morning sun hits my eyes as we step outside, and I squint against the glare.
For a moment, I just stand there, watching Brayden stride toward the church van, moving with an ease that feels almost unreal in this setting.
Seeing him here—his cut, his boots—against the pristine church grounds sends a strange jolt through me.
“You coming, princess?” he calls over his shoulder, already at the driver’s side door.
“You’re driving?” I ask, hurrying to catch up.
“Unless you want to.” He holds the keys out, already knowing my decision.
“No, go ahead.” I reach for the passenger door, remembering too late my father’s warning. It sticks, exactly as Dad said it would. I tug, but it doesn’t budge.
“Up and out,” Brayden says, moving to my side.
He reaches past me, his arm brushing mine as he grips the handle.
“This way.” He pulls up and out in one smooth motion, and the door swings open.
The movement brings him close enough that warmth rolls off him, along with that familiar mix of leather and spice that always unsettles me in the worst—and best—ways.
“Thanks,” I murmur, slipping into the seat before I lose my mind and do something reckless.
He closes the door with a quiet thud and walks back around to his side. I watch him through the windshield, noticing the steady confidence in each step, the certainty in the way he carries himself. It’s a kind of self-assurance I’ve never possessed—not even when I thought I had my life sorted out.
The engine turns over with a rumble that vibrates through the van's worn seats. Brayden adjusts the rearview mirror before he shifts into reverse.
“So,” he says as we pull out of the church parking lot, “warehouse club it is. You ever been to one of those places?”
“Once. With Ethan.” The name slips out before I can stop it, and I immediately wish I could take it back. The last thing I want is to bring up my ex-husband while sitting in a church van with a man who makes my pulse race. “It was...overwhelming.”
“Yeah, they're designed to make you buy shit you don't need in quantities that could feed a small army.” He glances at me sideways. “Good thing we actually need to feed a small army.”
I laugh despite myself. “Four hundred families definitely qualifies.”
We drive in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the familiar streets of San Salona giving way to rural highway. I find myself stealing glances at Brayden as he drives.
His hands rest easily on the wheel, those same hands that helped me with my helmet by the lake, that have probably done things I can't even imagine.
“You're staring,” he says without looking at me, the corner of his mouth lifting in that almost-smile I'm starting to recognize.
Heat creeps up my neck. “Sorry.”
“I didn't say stop.”
That pulls a laugh from me. “Do you practice these lines, or do they just come naturally?”
“Both.” Now he does glance at me, that half-smile playing at his lips.
I turn to look out the window, watching pine trees blur past. “You never told me what you did. After, I mean. When you left San Salona.”
“You really want to know?”
“I wouldn't ask if I didn't.”
He’s quiet for a moment, deciding how much truth to give me. “Bounced around for a while. Construction work, bar security, whatever paid cash. Got into some trouble. Got out of it. Found the club when I was twenty-three.”
“And that changed things?”
“Everything.” The word carries weight—almost a prayer, almost a promise. “For the first time in my life, I belonged somewhere.”
I nod, understanding more than he probably realizes. That hunger to belong, to find your place—I've felt it my whole life, even when surrounded by a community that claimed to embrace me.
“Your turn.”
“What do you want to know exactly?”
“Who are you really, Cece Montgomery? The real you, not the woman you pretend to be.”
I stare out the windshield, watching the white lines of the highway blur past. Who am I really?
“I don't know,” I admit, the honesty surprising even me.
“Bullshit.”
The blunt response makes me turn to look at him. “Excuse me?”
“I said bullshit.” He keeps his eyes on the road, but I can see the intensity in his profile. “The woman who told off the mayor in a crowded coffee shop knows exactly who she is. She's just scared to let her out.”
“I'm not scared—”
“Then why are you sitting there pretending you don't know who you are?” He glances at me briefly. “You want to know what I see when I look at you?”
My heart does something complicated in my chest. “What?”
“Fire. You've got this fire burning underneath all that politeness and propriety.
It's what made you divorce your cheating husband when half the women in this town would have just looked the other way.
It's what made you stand up to your ex-father-in-law.
And it's what made you get on the back of my bike even though every rational part of your brain was screaming at you to run the opposite direction.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple. You just make it complicated.” He takes the exit for the warehouse club, the van's turn signal clicking rhythmically. “When's the last time you did something just because you wanted to, without worrying about what everyone else would think?”
I start to open my mouth, but I snap it shut when I realize I don't have a good answer.
Even sitting here with him, helping with the food boxes, I'm telling myself it's for charity, for the families.
But the truth is, I wanted to see him again.
I wanted to feel that spark of something real in a life that's felt like performance art for too long.
“Getting on your bike,” I admit.
“How'd that feel?”
Like flying. Like drowning. Like coming alive for the first time in years.
“Terrifying,” I say instead, because it's safer than the truth.
“Good terrifying or bad terrifying?”
I consider this as we pull into the massive parking lot of the warehouse store. Good terrifying, definitely. The kind that makes your blood sing and your skin tingle with anticipation. The kind that makes you wonder what other parts of yourself you've been keeping locked away.
“Good.”
He parks in a spot near the back of the lot, away from the clusters of minivans and SUVs closer to the entrance.
“Good,” he repeats. “Because I've been thinking about that ride a lot.”
My breath catches. “Have you?”
“Yeah.” He turns to face me, one arm draped over the back of his seat. “Been thinking about a lot of things, actually.”
The space between us in the van's cab suddenly feels both too wide and not nearly wide enough. I'm hyperaware of everything— the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears, the fact that we're sitting in a church van having a conversation that feels anything but appropriate.
“Brayden—”
“We should go in,” he says abruptly, like he's cutting himself off before he says something he can't take back. “Figure out what we need.”
I nod, though part of me wants to stay right here, suspended in this moment.