Chapter Seven #2
For a moment, neither of us moves or speaks.
We stand there in the furnace heat with all that unspoken weight between us—the grief, the promise, and the strangeness of this moment.
Two people who had Ryan in common and very little else, standing outside a Vegas airport like this was somehow always the plan.
Then he reaches for my bag. “Long flight?”
“You could say that,” I say, falling into step beside him.
“You eat?”
“A little on the plane.”
He’s already leading me toward the truck, lifting my bag and swinging it into the bed of the truck.
“Hey! Be careful with that, it’s a Louis Vuitton.”
He turns and looks at me with a slight frown. “A Louis what?”
I wave him off. “Don’t worry about it.”
He shakes his head slightly and makes his way around to the driver’s side while I head for the passenger door, only to find him already there, pulling it open before I can reach the handle.
“Well,” I say, raising my eyebrows. “Chivalry lives.”
He gives me a look and walks around to his side.
The moment he starts the engine, the air conditioning hits me like a blessing, cold, immediate, and absolutely perfect. I nearly groan out loud with the relief of it.
“You always dress like that for Vegas in summer?” Tate asks, glancing at my long-sleeved pullover.
“This is my first time here,” I admit.
He stares at me. “Seriously? Everyone comes to Vegas.”
“Well, I hadn’t gotten around to it.”
“Clearly.” He pulls out of the lot and into traffic, the truck’s engine a low, steady rumble beneath us. “It’s summer, in case that wasn’t obvious.”
“It’s very obvious now,” I say, and start wrestling the pullover over my head right there in the passenger seat, emerging slightly disheveled in my white tank top. “Much better.”
Tate’s mouth curves. “Hope you packed more summer clothes than winter ones. Come morning, the desert heat is a whole other thing.”
The drive takes us through the city first, with neon lights blazing on every side, the Strip lit up like something from another world entirely, with color, movement, and noise in every direction.
I watch it through the window as it slowly gives way to wider roads, then quieter roads, then roads with no lights at all, just a dark stretch of highway cutting through open desert with the mountains rising black and jagged in the distance.
The city shrinks behind us.
The desert opens ahead.
Glancing over at Tate, I notice one hand is resting loosely on the steering wheel, and the other arm is stretched along the back of my headrest, completely at ease and in his element.
The dashboard lights catch the line of his jaw, the dark curls of his hair, the mocha skin, and the three-day growth on his face.
He looks like Ryan.
Not exactly, but enough to make my chest ache every time I let myself look at him for more than a second.
It’s the same bone structure underneath, the same quality of stillness, and the same sense of a man who never needed to raise his voice to fill a room.
Wonderful and terrible in equal measure, and I’m not sure yet which one is going to win.
I realize I’ve been staring when he turns his head and catches me.
“Everything okay?”
“Sorry.” I look away quickly, back out into the dark. “I was just… yeah. Fine.”
He doesn’t push it.
The truck turns off the main road and onto a narrower track, then another, the headlights picking out pale dirt and scattered rock on either side. And then lights appear in the distance, warm, low, and steady against all that darkness.
The house comes into view.
I blink, then take it in.
A large horseshoe-shaped driveway sweeps around in front of a home that has absolutely no business being out here in the middle of the Nevada desert, and yet somehow looks like it has grown directly out of it.
Sleek and modern, clean lines and floor-to-ceiling windows glow warmly against the dark, raw stone exterior, catching the light in a way that feels both rugged and intentional.
It’s the kind of house that stops you mid-sentence.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“Figured you’d say that,” Tate says, parking in front of the patio.
Climbing out slowly, my eyes move over the house without quite being able to take it all in at once. “You actually live here?”
“Yeah.” He’s watching me from the other side of the truck with that quiet smile.
“This is not what I expected.”
He laughs, easy and genuine. “What were you expecting?”
“Skulls on the walls. Maybe some barbed wire.”
“Please.” He reaches into the truck bed for my bag, slightly more careful this time, I notice, and gestures toward the front of the house. “Come on.”
Following him up the wide, modern steps to the front patio, something large and dark launches itself out of the shadows directly at us.
A full, genuine, embarrassing scream escapes me, and I grab Tate’s arm with both hands, pressing myself against his side before my brain has even caught up with what’s happening.
“Easy.” His voice is warm with barely suppressed amusement. “That’s Memphis. He’s my dog.”
Slowly loosening my grip, I look down.
A large German Shepherd is sitting at Tate’s feet, ears forward, tongue out, looking thoroughly pleased with the reaction he has gotten. He’s actually beautiful, big, dark-coated, and completely unbothered by the fact that he’d nearly given me a heart attack.
Memphis shifts his attention from Tate to me, sniffs the air once, and then presses the side of his big warm head against my hip like we’re already old friends.
“Oh.” Letting go of Tate’s arm, I crouch down and let Memphis sniff my hand before scratching behind his ears. “Hello, Memphis. You absolute menace.”
His tail sweeps back and forth with enormous satisfaction.
“Down, Memphis,” Tate says.
Memphis sits, still watching me with those warm amber eyes like he’s deciding whether I’m worth keeping around.
“Sorry about that,” Tate says, pushing open the front door. “He’s not used to visitors out here.”
“He’s gorgeous,” I say, giving Memphis one last scratch before following Tate inside.
The interior stops me in the doorway.