7. Chapter 7 #2
“Depends where the reputation came from.”
Cassie snorts into her drink. Then, because she is committed to escalating whatever can be escalated, she says, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear the setup in that line.”
Holt looks at me over the rim of his beer. “Dance with me once so she doesn’t spend the rest of the night trying to arrange it behind your back.”
It is such a clean, no-pressure ask that it catches me off guard.
I glance at Cassie. She raises both brows in a silent well?
Harmless and totally normal, I tell myself.
That is really what I miss, maybe more than sleep. A conversation that is not already carrying extra voltage.
So I set my bottle down. “Once.”
Holt’s mouth kicks up at one corner. “I’ll try to make it memorable in a non-alarming way.”
“That sounds perfect.”
He offers a hand, and I take it because even that feels blessedly ordinary. His palm is warm and callused. He leads me out onto the floor as the band slides into something with enough swing to make the room lean with it.
Holt knows how to dance without making a production of it. He's got steady timing, and the kind of attention that says he’s trying to make sure I’m having a good time instead of auditioning for the role of Man most likely to be regretted in the morning.
The thought of that alone almost makes me laugh.
“Relax,” he says as we turn. “You’re thinking too hard.”
“Rude.”
“It’s true, though.”
I let him spin me once, my boots whispering over the scarred floor, and the room blurs into motion around us ... belt buckles flashing, plaid turning under the lights. By the time I face him again, the tightness I brought in has eased before I can catch myself holding it.
Holt catches that too. I can tell by the way his hand lightens at the middle of my back, giving me just enough room to keep the whole thing easy.
Maybe that’s why I stay for the full song instead of finding a reason to cut it short. For one song, with Holt steady in front of me and the band driving through the room, my head finally goes quiet enough to remember what ordinary feels like.
And that, more than anything, is what makes it easy to forget Rebel for exactly one song.
Then the song ends, and I see him.
The first thing I notice is how wrong he looks in this room.
He's just inside the door, one hand still on it, the other holding his truck keys low against his thigh.
Belted blue jeans and a black button-down.
No jacket, even though the night air has bite.
Neon cuts blue and red across one side of his face and turns the silver at his temples colder than usual.
He's not scanning the room like a man looking for fun. He's looking for someone specific.
Holt says something that I miss completely.
I am still turning out of the dance when the timing slips.
Holt’s hand is at the middle of my back, my fingers still caught around his, and all of it registers at once with a clarity that was not there a second ago.
Even Cassie sees it from the bar; her expression flickers before she smooths it out.
Rebel sees me.
Not the crowd. Not Holt. Me.
His attention finds me before I am ready for it, then drops once to Holt’s hand at my waist. When he looks back up, his face is so still it takes me a second to understand the stillness is the reaction.
On anyone else, I might have caught surprise or irritation before it got buried. With Rebel, all I get is the shut door.
Holt follows my line of sight a beat later. His expression shifts, the easy amusement draining off it. “Well,” he says under his breath. “That clears up a few things.”
My head turns toward him on instinct. “What things?”
He lifts one shoulder, but his attention stays on Rebel. “The part where a man comes into a place like this already angry and tries to hide it by standing still.”
I could brush it off and say he's reading too much into one look ... but he's not.
Across the room, Rebel says something to the bartender. She points toward the back hall where the office is, and he nods once like he came in on business after all. Before he turns away, his eyes find mine one more time.
Only for a second, but long enough.
Then he disappears toward the back of the bar, leaving the room exactly as it was and nothing in me where it was supposed to be.
I last maybe ten more minutes. Long enough for Cassie to ask twice if I am okay and for me to lie both times. By the end of it, I know I’m not getting the night back.
So I step outside.
The cold takes the heat off my skin in one pass.
My boots scuffle in the dirt as I round the side of the building toward the darker edge of the lot where the trucks are parked.
Out here, the music is only a dull thud through the walls.
Somebody laughs near the front entrance, a truck door slams, and then the sound falls away until it is just the night again.
Then I hear the sound of more footsteps behind mel, followed by the faint knock of keys against metal.
I stop and turn.
Rebel comes through the side door into the weak yellow wash over the service entrance, and the night strips the bar off him. The black shirt sits close across his shoulders, crisp and fit.
He sees me at once, and quickly comments “I wasn’t following you.”
I let out a breath that almost passes for a laugh. “That’s your opening?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Fine. What are you doing here?”
“Meeting somebody about a colt with bad feet and worse paperwork.”
It sounds plausible, which only aggravates me more.
I shove my hands into my jacket pockets. “You could’ve done that and gone home.”
His gaze stays on mine. “That was the plan.”
I take one step closer. Gravel shifts under my boots. “Then stop circling it and say what changed.”
His attention drops to my mouth, stays there a beat too long, then lifts again.
“Tana.”
He says my name like it should be enough to cover the rest, and maybe with somebody else it would be.
“You came outside right after I did and followed me over here,” I say. “Don’t act like I imagined the rest.”
The wind lifts a strand of hair across my cheek. He reaches for it without thinking, then stops halfway through the motion. His hand hangs there for a second before he drops it.
That almost-touch lands harder than a real one would have.
He's trying to hold something in place, and I'm close enough now to feel the effort of it.
When he steps in, he closes the last of the distance until there is almost nothing left between us but breath and cold air. One hand braces against the truck beside my shoulder. The other stays at his side, still and deliberate, as if he has already learned not to trust it.
My pulse starts climbing so fast it feels ridiculous.
He looks at me the way he did in the bar and not like he looks at anyone at Wild Mercy. There is want in him, yes, but that’s not the part that catches me. It's the strain under it, the sense that stopping here is costing him more than stepping in would.
“Rebel,” I say.
My voice comes out lower than I meant it to.
He leans in slowly, enough that the air between us warms. I feel his breath and how his body draws in towards me. My body responds before my pride can get in the way.
And then he holds there, breathing unsteady now, with his forehead nearly touching mine. I can feel the decision in him, not clean or noble, just hard.
He wants this.
When he finally lifts his head, he only gives me inches, but it feels like being pulled back by force.
“You probably should go back inside,” he says, his voice worn rough.
I look at him ... at the hand braced beside my shoulder, at the restraint he is barely holding together ... and the truth comes through clean.
He's not stopping because he does not want me.
He's stopping because wanting me has started to matter.
So I stay where I am.