Chapter 19
NINETEEN
JINX
I hold Kyra until she relaxes in my arms, her breath evening out as the sun all but disappears behind the horizon, her weight growing heavier against me with each minute that passes.
She doesn’t say much, but I don’t need her to.
I just need her to let go of all the shit she holds on to.
To throw it in the river like the stones I tossed in when we got here, and let the current sweep it all away.
There’s no time limit on healing. I’ll wait with her as long as she needs.
“I guess I should get home soon.” Kyra lifts a hand before us, the outline gray and blurry in the lowlight. “Mom will wonder what’s happened to me.”
“Where did you tell them you’d be?”
She turns in my arms, pulling herself free in the process. “Said I was taking some measurements at the house.”
“Yeah.” I look up at the night sky. “You might struggle to say you were doing that still if you stay out any later.”
“Right?” She hugs herself, rubbing her arms to warm up.
“Do you feel any better, though?”
She glances at the water, the spill of moonlight through the trees tracing her cheekbone and the fine lines of her neck. “I think it did, actually.” She looks back at me. “As heavy as it feels to bring everything up to the surface, I also feel less full, if that makes sense.”
“I think so.”
She reaches up and pushes my tangle of hair away from my eyes. “Who taught you to do that? To sit with your feelings.”
“Chaos.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Huh.”
“He’s full of good advice,” I explain. “Never does any of it himself, though.”
“Typical male.”
The air feels lighter between us. A damn sight better than it was when we left the antique shop. “I’m not ignorant, Kyra.”
She frowns a little, and the moon catches in her eyes as she looks up at me.
“I know if we choose to pursue this, it’ll be hard. And I know you think that’s it’s all one-sided. That it’ll be worse for you because of who I am. But it’s actually just as complicated for me.”
“Because of who my father is.”
I nod. “A lot of people won’t trust you. I won’t sugarcoat it. You’ll be kept at arm’s length, given the side-eye, and excluded from conversations purely because your last name is Green.”
“So, no different to life as it already is, then?”
Never thought of it that way.
I take her hand and lead her toward the bike, testing the darkened path before guiding her safely through. “Why were you so shy in school?”
She’s quiet behind me, yet her hand doesn’t falter in mine.
“I don’t ask to be critical,” I explain. “Curious, is all.”
“I know.” Her words are so soft I almost miss them. Another tense minute passes with me picking my way out to the road and her close behind. “I never knew who I could trust.”
“In what way?”
We break through to the bike, its outline ghostly in the faint light.
“I learned fast that some people wanted to be my friend so they could hear the juicy behind the scenes of what goes in Temperance, and some wanted to be my friend thinking that it gave them a get out of jail free card. Some just thought I’d be handy to keep around since I tended to be a pushover.
And some figured being my friend made them look cooler.
” She lets go of my hand and wanders over to fuss with her helmet.
“I learned fast that it hurt less to be lonely than to be constantly betrayed or disappointed.”
I might not have had the best upbringing, but at least I always had a family—whether related by blood or the patch, it didn’t matter. I had people in my life who were there for me, always, and she had what? An overbearing father and a complicit mother?
It doesn’t seem right.
“I won’t let you down.”
He lifts her head, soft gaze portraying her pain. “You don’t know that.”
“I promise.” She deserves the fucking world, and if I’m the only asshole willing to give her that, then the best I can do is try. “Come on. I’ll get you home before you catch a chill.” I’d offer her something warmer to wear, but my arms are like ice as it is in my short sleeves.
“Thanks.”
We steal away into the night at a quiet idle, taking the direct route back to her parents’ house a little slower so I can reduce the wind chill for her.
So I can steal extra time for myself.
Kyra stays quiet, yet her arms stay firm around me as we travel, her curves pressed against the hard planes of my back and shoulders. As she said, letting your shit out can get heavy. I’d almost put money on her being asleep within minutes of getting to bed.
The church stands sentinel in pale hues when I park the bike, almost as though it judges us, looming over our choices and actions. Kyra hops off and hands me the helmet, tugging her jacket tight after to keep out the night air.
“I’ll walk you there.”
“It’s only a street over.”
“And a lot can happen between here and there.” I won’t take no for an answer.
She sighs, and then does the least expected thing—sticks her arm out to offer me her hand. It’s intimate in a softer way than I’m used to, and it takes me a couple of seconds to get past the ingrained habit of rejecting physical touch when it’s offered to me rather than given by me.
“You surprise me and yet at the same time you don’t,” Kyra muses as we walk.
“How so?”
“I’m not surprised at how thoughtful you were today.” She offers a shy smile, dappled by the streetlight. “You always struck me as being a bit of a softie.”
“Careful.”
She grins. “But you surprised me by showing it.”
I surprised myself. Ask any one of my brothers how I’ve been over the past few years, and they’d probably say the same thing: bitter and grumpy.
And they wouldn’t be wrong. I wake up and stare in the mirror most mornings while I brush my teeth, wondering where the fuck I’m headed. What point is there to any of this?
People work to retire, and they retire to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
Me? I work to survive, and I hope that I get to retire, simultaneously afraid that if I do, I’ll be depressed as fuck when I no longer have purpose.
Like my old man.
“I guess you draw it out of me.”
She makes an intrigued type of hum and lets the conversation lie for a while before asking, “If you could have one thing in life, anything at all, what would it be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.” She gives my hand a little squeeze.
“No, I don’t.” I squeeze hers back.
“What did you want to be when you were little?”
“My dad.”
Her brow furrows. “What do you want to be now?”
“Anything but my dad.”
She sighs out her button nose. “You’re complicated in your simplicity.”
“I know.”
Kyra leans her head against my shoulder as we walk. “I’ll unravel you,” she murmurs. “Even if it takes a whole damn year.”
“Only a year?”
“A decade, then. A lifetime. I’m putting it at the top of my bucket list: figure out the puzzle that is Matthew McGuire.”
My chest warms. “I like it when you say that.”
“Say what?” She tilts her head to look up at me.
“My name. My real name.”
“Why?” Her question is soft, confused.
“Because it reminds me I can be something else.”
“You really don’t like being a biker, do you?”
“I like being a biker.” I love my family. “I don’t like what I have to do to protect that way of life, though.”
“That’s a bit of a contradiction, don’t you think?” She wraps my hand in both of hers.
“The worst.” Not being able to escape one because you’re addicted to the other.
“That was an edge piece,” Kyra mutters.
“Pardon?” We round the corner into her parents’ street.
“It felt foundational,” she explains. “Like several other parts of you are going to hinge off that.”
“I guess.” I stop walking, making her halt too. “I should leave you here. I can see that you’ll get back safe, but they won’t see me.”
Her mood grows heavy, smile fading. “You’re right.”
“Wouldn’t want to risk you getting in trouble with the parentals, would we?” I tease.
She smirks. “Like, no way.”
“Imagine if they saw us.”
She feigns shock, throwing a hand over her mouth.
“Imagine if they saw me do this.” I grab her hips and pull her to me.
Her giggles spur me on.
“Or this.” I cradle her face, tracing the edges of her smile with my thumbs.
“Jinx.”
“Kyra.”
“What are you trying to prove here, huh?”
I exhale sharply, searching her gaze. “That nothing will put me off doing this again.” I press my mouth to hers, savoring the feel of her soft lips caressing mine, and deepen the connection this time.
Her hands clutch at my chest, and she presses up on her toes to get closer when I put every ounce of my truth into the kiss: I don’t care if this destroys both our lives as we know them—we can start again together.
How we’re supposed to be.
She breaks away first again, yet this time, there’s no urgency to escape me. Instead, she looks me dead in the eye with the kind of heavy-lidded bliss that I’ve seen between other couples, never directed at me, and then presses up one last time to kiss my throat.
“You’re trouble, you know that?”
“Exactly why you love me.”
She flinches at my choice of words and takes a step back. “When’s our next date?”
“Depends,” I tease. “Are you brave enough to lie about where you are and sneak out again?”
“You going to meet me beneath my bedroom window?”
I tuck a finger under her chin to tilt her head back. “I’d climb in your bedroom window if you’d let me.”
She shivers a little and ducks free of my touch. “Goodnight, Matthew.”
“Night, darlin’.”
Kyra spins to walk backward, a sly smile on her lips.
Yeah, that’s right. We’re intimately familiar now, so you bet your ass I’ll call her darlin’ from here on out.
It wouldn’t be right not to.