Chapter Twelve
Derby
I get Amelia out of the old jail clubhouse before the room can bleed on her.
Not real blood. But there are other kinds, and tonight the place is full of them.
Sophie’s heartbreak is all over the floor.
Legend’s pride is cracked open at the long table.
Becki is crying into Royal’s chest like confession hurt.
Cider sits pale and haunted with that old Pearly Gates photo in her hands.
Whiskey and Deputy Twila Dix are near the front door, both acting like they are not standing too close while the whole damn building burns down around them.
I don’t know what to do with any of it.
That’s a lie.
I know what to do with most things.
Punch. Ride. Drink. Threaten. Fix the engine. Move the body. Guard the door. But I don’t know what to do with love when it gets mean in public.
Legend postponed his wedding.
Sophie looked at him like he had taken a knife to the part of her that still believed he’d always stand on her side of the room.
Then Becki told the truth about the baby she lost with Legend years ago, and the air turned rotten with all the things people bury because grief makes cowards out of the best of us.
Amelia heard every word.
I felt her beside me, going smaller and smaller while she tried not to. Not physically. She stood straight. Chin up. Hands still. But something in her pulled inward. Like she was watching proof that love is only another room where secrets wait to make bruises.
I hate that.
I hate it more than I should.
“Come on,” I tell her, low enough that only she hears.
Her eyes are still on Sophie, who is walking toward the door with her shoulders stiff and her phone gripped in her hand like a weapon.
“I should say something,” Amelia whispers.
“No.”
“But she helped me.”
“She knows.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“No,” I say. “It ain’t. But right now, anything you say gives her one more person to carry.”
Amelia looks at me then.
I don’t know where that came from. Sounds too wise for my mouth. Maybe it ain’t wisdom. Maybe it’s just experience. I know what it looks like when a person is one word away from dropping all the pieces they are holding.
Sophie’s there.
Legend is too, though he would deny it under threat of death and maybe even under actual death, stubborn bastard that he is.
Amelia nods once, but guilt stays on her face.
“I caused this,” she says.
“No.”
“If I hadn’t shown up…”
“That mess was already loaded. You just walked in before somebody lit the fuse.”
Her mouth trembles, but she nods again.
Good enough.
I guide her toward the side door with my hand near her back, not touching until she shifts closer.
Then I let my palm settle where it did at the Fire Pit last night.
She gives me that little breath, the one that says she notices every inch of contact and hates that she needs to decide what it means.
I notice it too.
Every damn time.
Behind us, Legend’s voice cuts through the room, low and dangerous, giving orders. Someone is going to Paradise Falls. Someone is watching the roads. Someone is digging into the message Sophie received. None of that is mine to handle right now.
Mine is the woman beside me.
Mine is the kid at my house.
That thought hits like a boot to the chest.
Mine.
No.
Not mine.
Protected by me. Different thing.
The difference feels thinner every hour.
Outside, the air is damp and heavy, Kentucky holding a storm in its mouth. Amelia’s steps slow when we reach Widowmaker.
“You okay to ride?” I ask.
She looks at the bike, then at me.
No lipstick today. No borrowed helmet with Queen Bitch on it. No bourbon flush. Just tired eyes and a face still carrying too much of other people’s pain.
“I don’t know,” she says.
That answer again.
Honest.
Messy.
Hers.
“We can take the SUV.”
She shakes her head immediately. “No.”
“You sure?”
“No.” She lets out a small breath. “But I want the bike.”
That does something to me.
The first time she got on Widowmaker, fear had her by the throat.
Now she chooses the bike because maybe the road gives her air. Maybe because holding onto me is easier than sitting beside me with all that silence between us. Maybe because she wants to prove last night wasn’t a performance.
I don’t ask which.
I hand her the helmet.
She pulls it on, fingers fumbling only once.
I climb on first and keep the bike steady while she gets on behind me. Her hands land at my waist. Then pause.
I wait.
Her arms slide around me.
Not desperate.
Not terrified.
Intentional.
Hell.
I start Widowmaker because if I sit still much longer, I might turn around and ask questions neither of us can answer in a parking lot full of club eyes.
We ride back through Hell with storm clouds pressing low over the hills and headlights smeared across wet pavement.
Amelia’s hold is different again. Not like last night after the almost-kiss.
Not like this morning when the bike was a test. Tonight her body leans into mine with a quiet weight that says she is tired of holding herself upright alone.
I ride smooth.
I ride careful.
I hate that careful has become my love language with a woman I ain’t supposed to love.
At my driveway, the prospects wave us through from their shadowed post. I clock the road, the trees, the porch, the garage. Nothing out of place.
Still, I circle once before parking.
Amelia notices.
“You saw something?” she asks when I cut the engine.
“No.”
“Then why did you circle?”
“Because no is only useful after you check.”
She absorbs that, then nods.
Inside the house, the living room is dim except for the moon night-light glowing down the hall and a lamp near the couch.
The pillow fort still stands, though barely.
A dinosaur courthouse has been built inside it out of blocks, cereal boxes, and one of my motorcycle magazines folded into a ramp.
Blue Rex sits in the judge’s seat, which is actually my upside-down boot.
I stare at it.
“My boot is part of the government now.”
Amelia looks over my shoulder and laughs softly.
That sound goes through me cleaner than bourbon.
From the bedroom, August snores.
Not loud. Tiny. Peaceful.
Amelia heads toward the hall immediately, and I let her. After sending Lottie’s niece Orlena home, I lock the front door, then check the back. When I return, Amelia’s standing in the bedroom doorway, one hand on the frame, watching her son sleep.
I stop behind her, leaving space.
The kid is sprawled diagonally across my bed under dinosaur sheets, one arm over Blue Rex, mouth open. The moonlight makes his hair silver at the edges. He looks safe.
A five-year-old should always look safe.
The world should have rules about that.
“He was fine,” I say.
“I know.”
“You checked anyway.”
“I’ll always check.”
“Good.”
She turns her head and looks up at me. “Did you check on people when you were little?”
The question hits too close.
I look away. “What?”
“You always check doors. Windows. Roads. Rooms.” Her voice is quiet. “You checked the hallway before you sat down last night. You checked the Fire Pit before you let me sit. You checked the driveway before you parked. You check like something taught you not to trust quiet.”
I should make a joke.
I have at least ten ready.
Instead, the house feels too small for one more lie.
“Yeah,” I say.
Her eyes stay on me.
She doesn’t push.
That is worse.
I step away from the bedroom. “Let him sleep.”
She looks at August one more time, then pulls the door half-closed. Not locked. Not wide open. A compromise with fear.
We end up in the kitchen because kitchens are where people go when they are trying not to talk in bedrooms.
I turn on the small light over the stove. It throws everything into ugly yellow shadow. Dirty plates in the sink from dinner. Cereal boxes lined on the counter. A juice box straw wrapper stuck to my boot. My house looks like it has been invaded by motherhood and emotional damage.
I should hate it.
I don’t hate it enough.
Amelia leans against the counter. “Sophie looked broken.”
“She’ll heal.”
“You sound sure.”
“I know her.”
“She loves him.”
“Yeah.”
“And he loves her.”
“Yeah.”
“Then why does it still look like that?”
I open the fridge because staring into cold air is easier than answering. “Love don’t make people honest. Sometimes it just gives them more to lose when they lie.”
She says nothing.
I pull out two beers and hand her one.
She takes it but doesn’t open it. “Do you have secrets?”
There it is.
The question I have felt coming since the Fire Pit.
I twist the cap off my beer. “Everybody does.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is if you lower your standards.”
“Derby.”
My name in her mouth ain’t soft this time.
It’s tired.
Serious.
Scared.
I set my bottle down. “Yes.”
Her face changes, though she tries to hide it. “Secrets that can explode like that?”
“Probably.”
She wraps her arms around herself. “I can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stand in another room while everyone knows pieces of a man I don’t. Watch the past come in and humiliate me because I was stupid enough to believe I was being told the truth.”
“You ain’t stupid.”
“I felt stupid tonight for Sophie. I know that look. I know what it feels like when a man’s silence makes you the last person in the room to understand your own life.”
The words scrape.
Not because of me.
Because of Jeremy.
Because of every quiet thing he kept, every truth he used when it suited him, every way he made her feel like she was late to the story of her own marriage.
“I’m not him,” I say.
“I know.” She looks at me. “But I need to know where the locked doors are.”
Damn.
I understand that.
I hate that I understand it.
I turn and grip the edge of the sink. The metal is cold under my hands. Outside, thunder rolls somewhere far off, low over the hills.
“What do you want to know?”
She is quiet for long enough that I look back at her.
Her eyes are on my hands.
Not my face.
My hands.