Chapter Eight #3
She looks like trouble.
My kind.
That should scare me more.
It doesn’t scare me enough.
A woman at a high table near the wall whispers, “That’s Mike Welles’s girl.”
Another answers, louder than she means to, “Looks like Derby’s now.”
Amelia hears.
Her smile falters.
My hand stays steady at her back. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Like you’re stealing air from a bank.”
Her mouth twitches again.
Cornbread lifts his chin at us. “What you drinking, Panty Lady?”
I close my eyes. “You are going to die today.”
Amelia says, “What do you recommend?”
Cornbread looks deeply moved by the question. “Bourbon.”
I open my eyes. “Specific as always.”
He ignores me. “But if you ain’t a regular drinker, I’ll make you a Firestarter. Bourbon, peach, lemon, little honey, little sin. Goes down sweet, stands up mean.”
Amelia hesitates.
I lean in. “You don’t have to drink.”
“I know.”
“Mean it.”
“I said I know.” She looks at Cornbread. “I’ll try one.”
Cornbread grins. “One Firestarter.”
“For me, too,” I say.
He looks offended. “You drink that sweet thing?”
“Tonight I do.”
Amelia glances at me. “Why?”
“So you ain’t the only one coughing on bourbon in front of witnesses.”
Her expression changes.
Soft again.
Damn it.
Cornbread makes the drinks with surprising skill for a man who once tried to open a wine bottle with a pocketknife and prayer. He slides hers across first. She picks it up carefully. The glass is cold, amber-pink, with a lemon peel hooked on the rim.
She sniffs it.
“Don’t inhale it like medicine,” I say.
She gives me a look and takes a sip.
Her eyes water immediately.
Cornbread roars with laughter.
I glare at him.
She coughs once, presses a hand to her chest, and says, “That isn’t sweet. That is a trap in a glass.”
Cornbread looks proud. “Best review I got all week.”
She tries it again.
This time, she doesn’t cough.
This time, her shoulders drop a little.
That little bit of surrender does something to me. Not sexual exactly, though that is there too. It’s deeper. Harder to name. Like watching a door unlatch from the inside.
I take my drink and turn to the room.
People are still watching.
Let them.
I guide Amelia toward a booth along the side wall. Not the darkest one. Not the most exposed either. A good vantage point. My back doesn’t go to the door because I ain’t stupid. Hers doesn’t either because I ain’t cruel.
Before she sits, I lean close. “Still okay?”
“With your hand?”
“Yeah.”
She nods. “Yes.”
I slide my hand away before sitting across from her.
She notices that too.
The booth is curved, scarred wood, old leather, private enough for conversation, public enough for performance. Amelia sets her drink down and looks around like she is trying to catalog everything before it jumps at her.
“This is the neutral place?” she asks.
“Yep.”
“It feels like a bar fight waiting for permission.”
“That’s neutrality in Hell.”
She looks at the photos on the wall. Her gaze catches on one of Legendary Mike from years back, standing in the Fire Pit with a bourbon raised, a young Legend beside him looking mean and half-grown. I know the photo. I avoid looking at it most days.
Amelia doesn’t.
Her face goes quiet.
“That’s him,” she says.
I follow her gaze. “Yeah.”
“He looks happy.”
“He was drinking and being admired. That was his preferred climate.”
Her lips press together.
I immediately regret saying it.
“Sorry.”
“No.” She looks back at the photo. “My mother said he was impossible not to look at when he wanted attention.”
“That was true.”
“You knew him?”
“Yeah.”
“How well?”
I take a drink. The Firestarter is too sweet for me. Cornbread will pay for this emotionally.
“Well enough to owe him. Not well enough to forgive him for everything.”
Her eyes return to mine. “What did he do for you?”
That question is too clean for the mess behind it.
I lean back. “Gave me my name.”
“Derby?”
“Yeah.”
Her gaze sharpens with interest. “I was going to ask about that.”
“Figured.”
“Because we are in Kentucky, and you are called Derby, and if the answer is something filthy, I want warning.”
I grin. “Could make something up.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
That lands.
Truth, then.
Some of it.
“I was a hangaround first,” I say. “Young. Stupid. Meaner than I needed to be, not as mean as I pretended. I wanted in with the Kings because the Kings looked like the first thing in my life that didn’t ask me to repent.”
She listens closely.
Too closely.
Makes me want to stop.
I don’t.
“Derby weekend, years back, there was an illegal run. Backroads, county lines, checkpoints at bars, cash bets, bourbon everywhere, cops busy with rich folks and horses. I wasn’t supposed to ride. I rode anyway.”
Her mouth curves. “Of course you did.”
“Borrowed a bike with a bad clutch. Outran two patched brothers, scared a horse clean through a fence, dumped myself in a hayfield, got back on, and still crossed first with mud in my teeth and half the club threatening to kill me.”
Now she smiles. “That sounds like you.”
“You knew me one day.”
“I know enough.”
The words echo.
She realizes it at the same time I do.
Her cheeks warm.
I keep talking because that road leads somewhere I ain’t ready to ride.
“Mike laughed so hard he almost fell off a picnic table. Said I rode like the damn Derby if the horses were drunk, mean, and trying to die. Then he called me Derby in front of everybody.”
“And it stuck.”
“Names usually do when enough assholes repeat them.”
She glances at the old photo again. “So my maybe-father named you.”
“Yeah.”
“Does that make this weirder?”
“Darlin’, we crossed weird before breakfast.”
She laughs softly and takes another drink.
The bourbon is starting to warm her. Not drunk.
Not even close. Just loosening the tight edges enough for the woman underneath to peek out.
She slips off the leather jacket, and my eyes betray me by dropping to the curve of her shoulder, the line of her throat, the way the orange top shows more cleavage when she breathes.
She catches me.
Again.
“You keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Looking at me like that.”
I should deny it.
I don’t.
“You look pretty.”
Her face changes so fast it hurts.
Not pleased first.
Suspicious.
Then pained.
Then almost angry.
I hate Jeremy Vale more with every breath.
“You don’t have to say that for the act,” she says.
“I ain’t.”
She looks down at her drink. “I don’t know what to do with compliments.”
“Most people say thank you.”
“That feels like agreeing.”
“You can agree.”
Her eyes lift. “Can I?”
The question ain’t playful.
Not really.
“Yeah,” I say. “You can.”
She swallows.
Then, very softly, “Thank you.”
The room shifts around us. Or maybe I do.
One of the waitresses, Massie struts over, and Amelia only orders fries. I order the special, which will be the only dinner they're offering tonight, figuring maybe I can get her to eat more.
“I’ve caught you looking too, you know,” I say, catching her off guard as she devours her fries.
“Oh,” she answers with her mouth full.
“Catching print. Think that’s what the young folks call it these days.”
She turns five shades of red before she about chokes on her food.
“Have not,” she answers once she can. “I haven’t been looking there.”
“Where?” I ask.
She gives me a look.
“Must like my belt buckle then.”
“There’s a naked woman on it,” she whispers.
I laugh. “Can hardly tell unless you look real hard,” I tease her.
She kicks me under the table.
“It was one of Mikes, you know,” I say. “Legend didn’t want it. Said it was indecent, though he has all the rest. You can have it if you want.”
“No, thanks.”
She sets the glass down and reaches for a fry like it might save her.
August is safe with Sophie and whatever dinosaur nonsense he has decided is law today.
That should make Amelia relax some. It doesn’t.
She sits across from me in the booth like she is braced for the whole damn building to turn on her.
I push the fries closer. “Eat. You look nervous.”
“I am nervous.”
“Good. Means you ain’t stupid.”
“That’s comforting in the worst possible way.”
“Basic facts then,” I say. “If we’re fake dating, you need to know things.”
“Fine.” She picks up a fry. “Favorite color?”
“Black.”
“Predictable.”
“Practical.”
“Favorite food?”
“Steak. Fried potatoes.”
“Good.”
She tries not to smile and loses. That little crack in her fear does something to me I don’t appreciate.
“Birthday?” she asks.
“September.”
“That is a month, not a birthday.”
“Progress.”
“You are terrible at this.”
“Darlin’, I’m excellent at several things. This just ain’t one of them.”
The word slips out easy. Too easy. It lands on her, too. I see it in the way her fingers tighten around her glass before she takes another careful sip of Firestarter.
I notice.
I notice too damn much with her.
“Your turn,” I say. “Favorite color.”
“Green.”
“Fancy green or regular green?”
“What does that mean?”
“Some women say green and mean money, emeralds, or whatever color rich curtains are.”
She picks up another fry. “Tree green. After rain.”
I file that away before I can stop myself.
Tree green. After rain.
“Favorite food?” I ask.
“Right now? Anything I don’t have to cook.”
“That include fries?”
“Especially fries.”
I push the basket closer.
She takes one.
“Birthday?” I ask.
“April.”
“That’s a month, not a birthday.”
“Progress.”
I laugh before I can catch it. She looks pleased for half a second before she hides it behind another fry.
“Favorite music?” she asks.
“Old country. Southern rock. Anything with enough guitar.”
“That is painfully on brand.”
“What about you?”
“Depends who I am trying to disappoint.”
I grin. “That answer I like.”
“I used to like pop music in the car,” she says. “Loud enough to make August laugh.”
“You sing?”
“Badly.”
“Good. Bad singing is honest.”
“What about you?”
“I ain’t singing unless someone has a gun on me.”
“This place looks like someone probably does.”
“Then I especially ain’t singing.”