Chapter Eight #2
She steps closer. I feel the heat of her before she touches me. She puts one hand on my shoulder, careful, and swings onto the back. The bike dips under her weight, not much. Her knees come in on either side of me. Her body hovers, refusing contact.
I give her a second.
Then another.
The driveway gets too quiet.
Her hands rest lightly on my jacket, barely there.
“Amelia,” I say over the engine.
“What?”
“You can hold on. Bike won’t care, and neither will I.”
“I don’t want to squeeze too hard.”
I almost laugh, but there is something in her voice that stops me.
Too hard.
Too much.
Too needy.
Too whatever Jeremy made her think she was.
“You won’t hurt me,” I say.
She hesitates.
Then her arms slide around my waist.
Careful at first.
Then tighter when Widowmaker vibrates beneath us.
Her breasts press against my back.
Every bit of blood in my body gets real stupid, real fast.
I grip the bars and stare down the driveway.
Fake.
This is fake.
This is public strategy.
This ain’t me thinking about her thighs against mine, her hands near my belt, the way she smells like borrowed soap, woman and fear.
“You ready?” I ask.
“No.”
“Good enough.”
I ease Widowmaker down the gravel drive slow.
Not because I ride slow.
Because she is behind me, and I feel the exact moment her breath hitches when the tires roll over loose stone.
Her arms tighten.
Not tight enough to hurt.
Tight enough that something in my chest answers.
By the time we hit pavement, she is pressed close and holding on for real.
I keep the ride smooth.
No showing off. No hard curves. No throttle bullshit.
No making her fear prove something for me.
We take the back road toward Hell, past black fences, wet fields, and horse farms glowing green under the low sun.
Kentucky rolls around us, all hills and hollows, patched barns, white rails, roadside crosses, and trees leaning over the asphalt like they want to gossip too.
Amelia loosens a little after the first mile.
Not much.
Enough.
At a stop sign, she leans closer to my helmet. “I’m not dead.”
I turn my head enough for her to hear me. “Told you.”
“Widowmaker is dramatic.”
“She prefers memorable.”
“She would.”
Her arms stay around me when we pull forward.
By the time the Fire Pit comes into view, she ain’t relaxed, but she is breathing like the wind has done something the clubhouse couldn’t. Maybe there is no safe place for a woman like her right now. Maybe movement feels better than walls.
The Fire Pit sits at the edge of Hell where the road widens and the town pretends it has manners.
Old brick building. Black awnings. Bourbon barrel planters.
A neon sign shaped like a flame in the front window.
The Kings own it, but the Fire Pit is neutral ground in the way a loaded shotgun above a mantle is decorative.
Everybody knows who controls it. Everybody also knows the rules.
No club war inside.
No Pearly Gates preaching unless they plan to drink and tip.
No touching the staff.
No insulting the bourbon.
No blood on the floor unless Legend decides the mop is worth it.
Locals come here because the Kings keep the peace better than the county does.
Horse people from Paradise sit beside mechanics from Hell.
Politicians drink expensive bourbon in corner booths and pretend they don’t see bikers counting their cash.
Church ladies pick up to-go orders from the back kitchen and avoid eye contact with the sinners they secretly envy.
Wrestlers, farmers, rich boys, poor girls, old men, club women, and the occasional lost tourist all end up at the Fire Pit eventually.
Kentucky has two religions.
Horses and bourbon.
The Fire Pit serves one and takes bets on the other.
I pull into the line of bikes out front, and every head on the porch turns.
Of course they do.
Derby doesn’t ride with women on Widowmaker often.
Derby sure as hell doesn’t pull up with a woman in Lottie’s Queen Bitch helmet, red lipstick, Sophie’s jacket, and fear tucked under her chin like she is about to bite it in half.
I cut the engine.
Silence drops heavy.
Amelia’s arms stay around me for one second longer than necessary.
I feel her realize it.
She lets go fast.
Too fast.
I get off first and hold the bike steady. “Take your time.”
“I know how to get off a motorcycle.”
“Didn’t say you didn’t.”
“You thought it.”
“I think many things. Most don’t survive court.”
She swings her leg over and lands steady enough, but her hand catches my arm for balance. Her fingers grip leather. She freezes.
I look down at her hand.
Then at her.
“Allowed,” I say.
Her cheeks color, but she doesn’t pull away immediately.
Then she does.
Progress and retreat.
That seems to be our dance.
I take the helmet from her. Her hair falls loose around her face, wind-tangled and prettier than it has any right to be. The red lipstick survived the ride. Barely. It’s smudged just at one corner, and I have the sudden, violent desire to fix it with my thumb.
Or my mouth.
Bad idea.
Terrible idea.
I turn away and hang the helmet on the bike.
“Rules,” I say.
She looks toward the Fire Pit, where people are absolutely pretending not to stare. “More rules?”
“Neutral ground. No one starts shit inside.”
“What if they do?”
“They answer to the Kings.”
“That’s comforting in a criminal way.”
“Best kind.”
She breathes out, trying to steady herself.
From inside, music thumps low. Not club loud, not Saturday-night wild, but enough to put bass in the windows. Someone laughs. A glass breaks and immediately Cornbread’s voice booms, “That better be from the cheap shelf, you goat-brained son of a biscuit.”
Amelia blinks.
I sigh. “That’s Cornbread.”
“Cornbread?”
“Big bastard behind the bar.”
“That is his name?”
“Road name.”
“Why?”
“Because Biscuit was taken.”
She stares at me.
I grin. “No, not really. Don’t ask him unless you got fifteen minutes and a high tolerance for nonsense.”
Her eyes drift to the door.
The staring is getting to her.
I see it in the shoulders. The chin. The way her hand moves toward her own wrist, then stops because the bruise is covered.
I step closer, but not too close.
“Hand at your back?” I ask.
Her eyes lift to mine.
That question hits her harder in public than it did in my hallway.
“People are watching,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“If I say no?”
“Then no.”
Her throat works.
The porch has gone quieter. Someone lights a cigarette. A woman whispers. A man near the door says, “That her?” and gets elbowed hard by someone with more survival instinct.
Amelia hears it.
Her face changes.
Not fear now.
Pride.
“Hand at my back,” she says.
So I put my hand there.
Low enough to look like I mean it.
High enough not to take more than she gave.
Her body tenses for half a breath. Then she stays.
Every man on that porch sees it.
Good.
Every woman sees that I asked first.
Better.
Amelia notices that too. I can tell by the way her eyes flick up at me, startled and soft and annoyed that she is either.
I lean closer. “Ready?”
“No.”
“Good. Nobody interesting ever is.”
We walk in together.
The Fire Pit swallows us in bourbon light and Kentucky noise.
Inside, the bar glows amber and dark. Scorched wood walls.
Bourbon barrels cut into high tables. Old photos of horses, wrestling matches, and Kings parties that probably should not be displayed in a place with a liquor license.
A horseshoe hangs over the bar, welded to a motorcycle chain.
The back wall has shelves of bourbon that go from respectable to the kind of bottle a man buys when he wants to prove his divorce is going fine.
The room smells like charred oak, fried catfish, cornbread, leather, perfume, and trouble.
Home, basically.
Cornbread stands behind the bar wiping a glass with a towel that looks too small in his hand.
He is built like a grain silo learned to deadlift.
Big belly, bigger shoulders, shaved head, beard the color of actual cornbread, and hands wide enough to palm a ham.
He wears a black Fire Pit shirt stretched across his chest and a leather vest that makes him look less like a bartender and more like a bouncer who got distracted by mixology.
His eyes land on me.
Then Amelia.
Then my hand at her back.
A slow grin spreads over his face.
Oh no.
“Derby!” he bellows.
Every head turns if it had not already.
I point at him. “Cornbread.”
He leans both hands on the bar. “That the panty lady?”
The room dies.
Amelia goes still under my hand.
I consider murder.
Not later. Not theoretically. Right now. With the bar towel.
“Cornbread,” I say carefully, “you got three seconds to remember you like breathing.”
He looks confused. “What? Everybody heard.”
“That’s the problem, you dense refrigerator.”
Cornbread’s brow furrows. “I ain’t a refrigerator.”
A man at the bar mutters, “More like a chest freezer.”
Cornbread points at him. “Watch it, Earl. Your tab’s held together by hope and lies.”
Amelia is still motionless.
I start to move my hand away in case she wants space.
Then she laughs.
Not a polite laugh.
Not a nervous laugh.
A real one, sharp and sudden, like it surprises the hell out of her too.
Cornbread beams.
I stare at her.
She looks up at me, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with embarrassment and something wilder. “Panty lady?”
I grimace. “I was trying to keep that quiet.”
“You told the whole club.”
“The club is different than Cornbread announcing it like a horse race.”
Cornbread says, “Could’ve been worse.”
“No,” I say. “It couldn’t.”
Amelia looks at him. “Did they also tell you the panties won the fight?”
The bar erupts.
Cornbread slaps the counter so hard glasses jump. “I like her.”
I lean toward Amelia. “You did not need to encourage him.”
She smiles, and for one reckless second, she doesn’t look like Jeremy’s wife, Mike’s possible daughter, Legend’s sudden problem, or August’s frightened mother.