Chapter Nine #4
August isn’t the only one in danger of trusting too fast.
“What are you worried about?” I ask.
Derby rubs a hand over his jaw. “That he starts expecting me to be there.”
The room stills.
I swallow. “And you won’t be?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I don’t know.” His voice roughens. “That’s the problem.”
His words echo my own from earlier, and for once, I feel less alone inside the confusion.
“I don’t want him hurt,” Derby says.
“I know.”
His gaze comes back to me. “You don’t know everything.”
“No.”
“I ain’t father material.”
I should agree, or deflect, or remind him no one asked him to be August’s father.
Instead, I think of him crouched over the shoelaces. The fort. The sandwich. The way he told August no monsters were inside.
“Maybe not,” I say. “But you were decent to him when he needed decent.”
Derby looks away.
“That matters,” I add.
“It shouldn’t matter too much.”
“But it does.”
His jaw tightens.
There is something there. Something old and sore. A story he isn’t ready to hand over.
I don’t reach for it.
Not tonight.
Tonight we both have too many open wounds on the table.
“What about us?” I ask before I lose my nerve.
His eyes return to mine.
The room warms.
Or maybe I do.
“There is no us,” he says.
The words should hurt less.
They don’t hurt exactly.
They land.
He sees it and curses softly. “That came out wrong.”
“No. It’s true.”
“It’s not all the truth.”
I wait.
He looks at me like he would rather step into traffic than continue.
“There is fake us,” he says. “For Vale. For the town. For anyone watching. And then there is this.”
“This?”
“You and me sitting here at midnight talking about almost kissing.”
My face heats again.
“Right.”
“I don’t know what this is.”
“Neither do I.”
“But it ain’t fake.”
My heart does something stupid.
Derby’s eyes stay on mine. “That’s what we need to be careful with.”
I nod slowly.
Careful.
I’m tired of that word.
I also understand why it hurts.
“I meant what I said in the alley,” he says. “I don’t kiss you until you know.”
“What if I know and it’s still a bad idea?”
He almost smiles. “Most fun things are.”
“Derby.”
“I know.” His face sobers. “Then you say it anyway. Clear.”
I want to kiss you.
The sentence appears in my head so vivid I almost say it out loud.
I don’t.
But he must see it. Or maybe he feels the shape of the silence it leaves.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
My body answers so fast shame follows right behind it.
I stand abruptly. “I should go to bed.”
He stands too, not moving toward me. “Yeah.”
Neither of us moves.
The hallway waits.
The couch waits.
The house waits.
I pick up my water glass because I need something to do with my hands. “Thank you for tonight.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“Even Cornbread?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
I smile.
So does he.
For a second, it’s almost easy.
Then the almost-kiss returns between us, heavy and hot and unsolved.
I take one step toward the hall.
Derby’s voice stops me.
“Amelia.”
I turn.
He stands by the couch, blanket in one hand, cut draped over the chair behind him, hair messy from the ride, eyes dark in the lamplight.
“You did good tonight,” he says.
My throat tightens.
I want to tell him I’m tired of doing good. I want to tell him I’m tired of surviving. I want to tell him I wanted his mouth because for one second in that alley, wanting felt like something I chose instead of something taken from me.
Instead, I say, “So did you.”
His expression shifts.
Like maybe no one says that to him often.
Or maybe no one says it about things that don’t involve violence, bikes, or blood.
I leave before I do something reckless.
In the bedroom, August is asleep under dinosaur sheets in a biker’s bed, one hand on Blue Rex, mouth open, moon night-light glowing soft over his face. I lock the door, then unlock it, then leave it cracked because Derby is in the living room and because August asked about monsters.
No monsters inside, Derby said.
For tonight, I choose to believe him.
I slide into bed beside my son, still wearing my jeans because changing feels like too much. The sheets are softer than before. They don’t feel like punishment now. They feel like another woman saw what I needed before I had the language to ask.
In the living room, the couch creaks under Derby’s weight.
Then the house goes quiet.
I stare at the cracked door until my eyes blur.
I should be thinking about Jeremy.
Tomorrow.
Blood tests.
Legal trouble.
The woman from Pearly Gates.
The gossip already racing through town.
Instead, I get out of bed and head to the bathroom. After I strip down, I press my fingers to my clit and think of Derby stopping a breath away from my lips.
Then we wait until you do.
The ache that moves through me isn’t fear. That may be the scariest part of all. Clutching the counter with one hand, I pleasure myself with the other. I’ve had sex with my husband, but I haven’t wanted a man in five years. I come hard, quietly, before getting in the shower.