Chapter Nine
Amelia
I hold on differently on the ride back.
I know I do.
My arms are around Derby’s waist the same way they were on the way to the Fire Pit, but nothing feels the same now.
Earlier, I held on because I was afraid of the motorcycle.
Afraid of the speed. Afraid of the road.
Afraid of the ugly memory of being thirteen on the back of a drunk pervert’s bike while he laughed every time I gasped.
Now, I hold on because I know what Derby feels like under my hands.
Solid.
Warm.
Dangerous.
Careful.
The last word is the one that ruins me.
I should be thinking about Jeremy. About Ruthanne Peck and her church-lady smile sharpened into a knife.
About the people whispering inside the Fire Pit.
About the fact that half of Hell has now seen me walk into a bourbon bar after getting off of Derby’s bike, wearing lipstick and borrowed leather, letting his hand rest at my back like I belonged there.
Instead, I’m thinking about the alley.
About brick walls and bourbon breath.
About Derby’s hand on my waist.
About how close his mouth came to mine before he stopped.
This part still pretend?
My face burns inside Lottie’s ridiculous Queen Bitch helmet.
I should be grateful he stopped.
I’m grateful.
Mostly.
A decent woman would be nothing but grateful that a man did not kiss her while she was scared, buzzed on one drink, and tangled up in a lie we agreed to tell because my husband understands male possession better than female choice.
A smart woman would put that moment in a box, shut the lid, and remind herself that wanting Derby is just another reaction to fear.
Adrenaline.
Bourbon.
Public humiliation.
A handsome biker standing between me and shame.
Of course my body got confused. Of course I wanted to reach for the nearest strong thing and call it safety. Of course I almost let the line blur because I haven’t had one clean, wanted touch in so long that my skin doesn’t know how to behave.
That would be a reasonable explanation.
I hate reasonable explanations when they are lies.
Because Derby stopping did not make me want him less.
It made me want him more.
I press my cheek against the back of his cut and squeeze my eyes shut as Widowmaker takes a curve smoother than I expect from anything with such a terrible name.
The engine vibrates beneath me, through me, a low thunder that makes the world feel far away.
Wind tugs at my jacket. Kentucky rolls dark on either side of us, fields and fences and trees blurred into one long ribbon of night.
Derby rides carefully.
That makes it worse too.
He isn’t showing off. Not pushing speed to make me hold tighter. Not taking curves hard to prove he can. He rides like he remembers I’m behind him every second.
I don’t know what to do with a man who remembers.
Jeremy remembered things too.
He remembered what I wore when he wanted to accuse me. Remembered what I said when he wanted to twist it. Remembered old hurts and saved them like receipts. Remembered my mother’s shame, my missing father, my mistakes, my fears.
Derby remembers differently.
The thought terrifies me.
I loosen my arms a little because I realize I’m holding him too tightly.
He feels it.
Of course he does.
At the next stop sign, he turns his helmet slightly. “You good?”
No.
“Yes.”
He waits.
I sigh, my breath fogging the edge of the visor. “I’m not going to fall off.”
“Didn’t ask that.”
“What did you ask?”
“If you’re good.”
The answer sits in my throat, messy and inconvenient.
I’m not good.
I’m embarrassed because I almost kissed him.
Turned on because I almost kissed him. Guilty because August is at Derby’s house while I’m out getting warm in the blood over a man who isn’t my husband.
Confused because my husband is the nightmare and Derby is the danger, and somehow my body can tell the difference before my mind trusts it.
“I don’t know,” I say.
Derby’s shoulders shift beneath my hands.
Not tense.
Not relaxed either.
“Fair,” he says.
Then the light changes, and we ride on.
That is another thing I’m learning about him. He doesn’t always fill silence to make himself comfortable. He fills it when he wants to be an ass, sure, but not when it matters. When it matters, he can let silence stand beside us without turning it into punishment.
By the time we turn onto his gravel drive, my stomach is knotted so tight I can barely breathe.
Lights glow from the house.
Not many. Porch light. Kitchen. Living room.
Warm squares against the dark. A strange sight after the Fire Pit’s bourbon glow and the clubhouse’s outlaw noise.
Derby’s house looks less empty now. Someone has hung curtains in the front window.
Badly, but still. There is a paper bag from the groceries on the porch, a pair of August’s little shoes near the door, and something taped crookedly to the window.
A dinosaur coloring page.
My throat closes.
Derby slows beside the porch and cuts Widowmaker’s engine.
The sudden silence feels intimate.
Too intimate.
I let go of him quickly and nearly overbalance getting off. His hand comes up, not grabbing me, just there if I need it.
I do.
I hate that I do.
My fingers touch his palm for half a second before my boots hit gravel.
“Thanks,” I say, too fast.
“Yep.”
He takes the helmet from me. Our fingers brush. Both of us notice. Both of us pretend not to, which is somehow worse than acknowledging it.
The front door flies open.
“Mama!”
August barrels out like the house has launched him. His socks slide on the porch, and my heart jumps into my mouth.
“Careful,” I call, already moving.
He hits me full force at the bottom of the steps, arms around my waist, cheek pressed into my stomach. I fold over him on instinct, holding him hard enough that he wriggles.
“I made a fort,” he says into my shirt.
“You did?”
“With Sophie and Lottie and Brittany and Oaks, but Oaks said his knees are too old for floor work.”
Derby mutters, “Accurate.”
August turns his head. “I saved you a spot.”
The words hit me straight in the chest.
I have spent the last two hours trying to remember I’m still a woman.
One sentence from my child makes me mother again so completely it hurts.
The alley vanishes.
Derby’s almost-kiss vanishes.
The heat in my body turns into guilt before I can stop it.
I was dancing while my son made a fort in a strange house.
I was laughing while he waited for me.
I was standing in an alley close enough to another man to feel his breath while August wondered if I would come back.
I press a kiss to his hair. “I missed you.”
He pulls back and looks up at me. “I wasn’t scared.”
The lie is brave.
I smile through the ache. “Good.”
“I was a little scared when Lottie said chicken strips were long nuggets because that is lying.”
A laugh breaks out of me before I can stop it.
From the porch, Sophie stands with one hand on the doorframe, watching us.
Her face is soft, but her eyes are sharp.
She sees everything. My flushed face. Derby’s too-careful silence.
The way I can’t quite look at him now. The way he is pretending to be busy with the helmets like they require deep mechanical concentration.
Her mouth curves slightly.
Oh no.
She knows something happened.
Not all of it maybe.
But enough.
“Good ride?” she asks.
I have never hated an innocent question more.
“Yes,” I say.
Derby answers at the same time. “Fine.”
Sophie looks between us.
“Fine,” she repeats.
Derby points at her. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking.”
“I often do.”
“It’s rude.”
She smiles wider.
August tugs my hand. “Come see the fort.”
I let him pull me up the porch steps because it saves me from Sophie and the heat crawling up my neck. Inside, Derby’s house has changed so much in two hours that I stop just past the doorway.
There are curtains now.
Actual curtains.
Dark blue ones in the living room, uneven on the left because someone did not measure.
A soft throw covers the taped rip in the couch.
A small stack of children’s books sits on the coffee table beside Derby’s motorcycle magazines.
Blue Rex is staged dramatically on top of a pillow fort that has swallowed half the living room floor.
A grocery bag full of cereal boxes sits in the kitchen.
Two juice boxes are lined up on the counter.
Dinosaur sheets are folded on the recliner.
A night-light shaped like a moon is plugged into the hallway outlet.
Derby stands behind me and goes still.
“This ain’t my house,” he says.
Sophie folds her arms. “It’s now improved.”
“There’s a moon glowing in my hallway.”
“For August.”
“There are curtains.”
“You were warned.”
“My couch has a blanket.”
“Your couch had a wound.”
“It had character.”
“It had tape.”
“Same thing.”
August pulls me toward the fort. “Look. This is the cave. Blue Rex guards it. Oaks said the roof would collapse, but it didn’t.”
Derby crouches, inspecting the blankets draped from the coffee table to two chairs. “Oaks was right. This is structurally unsound.”
August’s face falls.
I open my mouth, but Derby keeps going.
“See, your load-bearing pillow is soft. Amateur mistake. You need couch cushions on the sides and the blanket tucked under the table leg. Otherwise, one sneeze and your whole cave caves in.”
August stares at him, fascinated.
“You know forts?”
“I know bad construction when I see it.”
“Can you fix it?”
Derby glances at me.
I try not to smile.
He scowls. “Maybe.”
August points at him. “Maybe means probably no unless grown-ups feel bad.”
Derby sighs. “Your mama needs to stop teaching you emotional blackmail.”
“I didn’t,” I say.
“He came with it?”
“Apparently.”
Derby sets the helmets on the table, rolls his shoulders like he is about to fight a man, then lowers himself to the floor to fix the fort.