Chapter Ten #2
Derby lifts a hand. “I said no such thing. I said I wasn’t getting dragged into ribbon decisions unless there was bourbon.”
“You’re here,” I say.
“Under protest.”
“With bourbon nearby.”
“Which is why the protest remains peaceful.”
Legend looks from Derby to Amelia and back again.
He is trying not to look like a brother.
He fails.
He also fails at not looking like a president calculating how many variables Amelia adds to the day.
The Fire Pit photo gossip has already started.
I know it because two women in town texted Lottie before breakfast, and one of them claimed Amelia and Derby were practically making babies in the alley, which is impressive considering they did not even kiss.
Hell has always been a town with more imagination than discretion.
Amelia feels the attention and tenses.
Legend sees that. His jaw tightens, then he does something that makes my heart hurt.
He steps back.
Gives her room.
Learning.
Good.
“You want coffee?” he asks her gruffly.
Amelia blinks. “What?”
“Coffee. Water. Bourbon. Cornbread has something smoking in the kitchen if you’re brave or tired of living.”
Cornbread raises his hand again. “It’s experimental.”
“No one wants experimental Burgoo,” Janie says.
“August would,” Derby says. “Bottomless pit.”
But August ain’t here. He is at Derby’s house with Lottie’s niece and two prospects outside, because Amelia needed one hour in town without her son being the center of every risk calculation. Still, I see the moment she remembers him. The quick glance toward the door. The guilt.
Derby notices too.
“He’s fine,” he says, low enough that only those close hear. “Got Blue Rex, cereal, and two men outside losing an argument to a five-year-old about whether dinosaurs can eat marshmallows.”
Amelia’s mouth curves. “He says they can.”
“He’s wrong.”
“He’s five.”
“He’s confidently wrong. There’s a difference.”
She smiles.
It’s small, but it lives.
Legend watches that smile land on Derby and doesn’t like how much he likes it. I can see the battle on his face. The brother in him wants Amelia protected. The president in him trusts Derby. The man in him knows wanting can turn dangerous if handled wrong.
I touch his arm.
He looks at me.
I give a tiny shake of my head.
Let them breathe.
He exhales.
Barely.
But he does.
“Sit,” I tell Amelia. “You can help us decide which wedding idea is least likely to end with county intervention.”
She sits beside Brittany, and Derby takes the chair behind her rather than beside her. Guard position. Fake boyfriend position. Emotional coward position.
All three at once.
I let him have it.
For now.
Brittany leans toward Amelia. “Fair warning, every wedding conversation in this club starts with flowers and ends with body disposal logistics.”
Amelia’s eyes widen.
Oaks calls from near the clubhouse bar, “Only because your seating chart has Elijah next to me.”
Brittany doesn’t even look at him. “The seating chart has Elijah near an exit because I’m merciful.”
“You stabbed yourself once and suddenly you think you’re in charge of blade safety.”
Brittany smiles sweetly. “I learned from the best.”
Oaks looks deeply proud and a little worried.
Amelia glances between them, and I can see curiosity overcome nerves. “You’re Oaks’s…”
“Woman,” Brittany says.
Oaks adds, “Soon to be ol’ lady. Maybe. Depending where you put that boy’s seat.”
She blows him a kiss. “Love you too. I’d leave him out, but he’s Sophie’s second cousin once removed.”
Amelia absorbs that with a faint, almost wistful look.
Chosen chaos. That is what she is seeing.
The woman can argue with the man, needle him, contradict him in front of the club, and no punishment waits for her in the car.
I know because I watched Amelia watch me and Derby earlier the same way.
“Okay,” I say, tapping my pen against the notebook. “Wedding problems. Legend wants to get married in Hell’s Kitchen.”
Legend shrugs. “Efficient.”
“I want something meaningful.”
“I’m meaningful in the ring.”
Derby snorts. “Unfortunately true.”
Legend gives him a look.
Derby grins.
Amelia’s mouth twitches.
I point at the notebook. “Ceremony at Paradise Falls or here?”
“Paradise Falls,” Janie says.
“Here,” Lottie says.
“The lake,” Oaks says.
Everyone looks at him.
Brittany’s face says he has lost his mind.
He lifts both hands. “What? It’s scenic.”
“You are not putting my wedding near lake monster rumors,” I say.
Royal tilts his head. “A monster witness at the vows would ensure no one objects.”
“Royal,” Becki says. “Don’t encourage aquatic demons at weddings. Our child can hear you.”
He looks at her belly. “The child is in the womb, my love, not a confessional booth.”
Becki points the pickle at him again. “The child knows your tone.”
Cider looks down at Becki’s stomach, then quickly away.
I see it.
Becki sees it too, because for all her sharp edges, pregnancy has made her aware of pain in the room. She reaches over and nudges Cider’s arm with the pickle jar.
“You want one?”
Cider hesitates.
Then takes a pickle.
“Thank you,” she says.
Royal watches his sister accept food like it’s holy.
His face gives away nothing.
His eyes give away too much.
Amelia watches that too.
This room is full of women rescued from different versions of dark. Some of us know what happened to us. Some don’t. Some have names for the monsters. Some only remember smells and hands and hymns.
Wedding planning in Hell, Kentucky.
God help us. No one can be serious for five seconds.
Cornbread drops a basket of cornbread triangles onto the long table with a flourish. “Regular, jalapeno, honey butter, bourbon bacon, and experimental.”
“What is experimental?” I ask.
He beams. “I put the burgoo in it.”
Derby stares. “That ain’t cornbread. That’s a casserole.”
Amelia laughs.
Cornbread points at her. “Panty La…”
Derby’s chair scrapes.
Cornbread changes course mid-word with impressive survival instinct. “Amelia. Miss Amelia. Woman with excellent underwear.”
The room loses it.
Even Legend laughs under his breath.
Amelia covers her face. “This is my life now.”
Brittany pats her arm. “Honey, around here, if they tease you, they like you. If they stop teasing, run.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“No. Nothing is comfortable.”
I push the cornbread toward Amelia. “Try one. Then vote.”
She picks honey butter because she has sense. Derby reaches over and takes bourbon bacon. Their hands brush near the basket.
Both pause.
Not long.
Long enough.
Becki sees.
Her eyes sharpen.
Lottie sees.
Janie sees.
Brittany sees.
Legend sees and immediately looks irritated with the entire concept of male hands.
I clear my throat because if this room turns into matchmaking, Derby may leap through a window.
“Amelia,” I say, “opinion. Is a mechanical bull at a wedding festive or grounds for annulment before vows?”
She lowers the cornbread, grateful for the question. “Depends who rides it.”
“Oaks,” Brittany says immediately.
“No,” I say.
“Derby,” Lottie says.
“Hell no,” Derby says.
“Legend,” Janie says.
Legend gives me a slow look.
The room cheers before he says a word.
I hold up both hands. “There will be no mechanical bull at my wedding.”
Cornbread looks heartbroken. “Not even in the parking lot?”
“No.”
Legend leans close to me. “You sure? I could make it meaningful.”
“You make everything sound like a threat.”
“To be fair, it usually is.”
I look up at him, and for one brief second, the noise around us fades.
This man. This impossible, dangerous man.
He would marry me in a parking lot, at Paradise Falls, in the clubhouse, on a battlefield, or at the edge of the lake with monster rumors rippling in the dark, because to him the place ain’t the vow.
I am.
That kind of love should make me steady.
Today, it makes me ache.
Because I’m hiding something from him.
My smile wavers.
Legend sees it. Of course he does.
“What?” he asks quietly.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrow.
He knows that word too well.
Before he can push, Amelia’s voice pulls my attention.
“What are your vows going to be?”
The table quiets in a strange way.
Not fully.
But enough.
Amelia looks embarrassed the second she asks. “Sorry. That’s personal.”
“No,” I say. “It’s a good question.”
Legend’s hand finds the back of my chair.
I don’t look at him.
Vows.
The word moves through Amelia like cold water. I see her face change. She asked the question and immediately regretted opening that door. Her hand drifts to where her ring used to be, then stops.
I wonder what Jeremy promised her.
I wonder what part of those promises he broke first.
“I don’t know yet,” I say. “I want them to be honest.”
Derby mutters, “Dangerous concept.”
Amelia looks at him.
He shrugs. “Most vows sound like lies with flowers.”
“That is depressing,” Janie says.
“That is Derby,” Lottie says.
Amelia’s face goes quiet.
I close the notebook. “Come with me a minute.”
Her eyes flick to Derby.
Then to Legend.
Then back to me.
“I’m not in trouble, am I?”
The question slips out before she can soften it.
The whole table hears.
Derby’s face goes dark.
Legend’s does too.
I keep my voice gentle. “No. You are being rescued from cornbread politics.”
Cornbread says, “That’s a real issue.”
I stand and lead Amelia toward the back hallway, away from the table, away from the men, away from the wedding notebook and everyone’s eyes. We pass the old cell doors, the iron hinges, the scratches worn into brick by people who had once wanted out of this building more than anything in the world.
I hate that those scratches feel relevant.
We step into the old booking office off the clubhouse hall. It’s small, square, and windowless except for one barred interior window that looks back toward the hall. Filing cabinets line one wall. A scarred desk sits near the corner. There is a couch that has probably seen both naps and threats.
I leave the door open.
She notices.
Good.