Chapter Thirteen #2
“The prospects didn’t see anybody, and I checked every window, every lock, the tree line, the garage, everything. Whoever left it knew how to move quiet or got lucky during the shift change.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Wasn’t meant to.”
I look at him sharply.
He lifts both hands. “Right. Comfort. I forgot.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh breaks loose.
It’s awful timing.
Derby’s mouth twitches.
The laugh dies quickly, but the air changes enough for me to breathe again.
I look back at the bulletin. “Families belong to God, not outlaws.”
“My opinion? Families belong to whoever keeps the monsters off the porch.”
I look up.
His face is hard.
Not joking.
Not performing.
That sentence settles somewhere low in my chest.
“Do you regret last night?” I ask.
He blinks.
Clearly not the question he expected.
“The bulletin?” he asks.
“No.”
His eyes darken.
“The kiss,” I say, because apparently I’m brave or stupid now.
Maybe both.
His body goes still in a way that makes the whole kitchen feel smaller.
“No.”
The answer comes fast.
Rough.
Sure.
My pulse jumps.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Are you acting strange because of that or because of this?” I tap the bulletin.
“I act strange for several reasons.”
“Derby.”
His eyes hold mine. “Both.”
That honesty hits harder than a smooth denial would have.
He steps closer, then stops himself with one hand on the back of a chair. “I don’t regret kissing you. I regret wanting to do it again while people are threatening your kid.”
The ache that moves through me is sharp and sweet.
He keeps going, voice lower. “I regret that I woke up thinking about your mouth before I thought about the damn bulletin. I regret that I heard you breathing down the hall and wanted to be in that room for reasons that had nothing to do with guarding the door. I regret that your boy asked if I was still here, and some part of me liked being the answer.”
My throat closes.
He looks almost angry now.
At himself.
At me.
At whatever this is becoming.
“I got plenty to regret, Amelia. The kiss ain’t one of them.”
The kitchen is too quiet.
The pancakes are burning.
Neither one of us moves to save them.
I whisper, “Derby.”
His eyes close for half a second. “Don’t say my name like that if you don’t want me closer.”
“What if I do?”
His eyes open.
Dark.
Hot.
Warned and warning.
“Then say it clear.”
I think of last night. The counter. His hands at my waist. His mouth at my throat. The way he stopped the second August made a sound. The way my body did not feel used afterward. The way I went to bed aching but safe.
I think of this morning. His lie that lasted only until I challenged it. The bulletin he could have hidden but handed over. The word us leaving his mouth before he could cage it.
I think of Jeremy, and for once, the thought doesn’t smother everything else.
It only reminds me what I’m choosing against.
“Come closer,” I say.
Derby’s grip tightens on the chair.
“You sure?”
“No.”
His expression flickers.
“But I’m sure I want you closer while I’m awake, sober, and scared for reasons that are not you.”
The chair creaks under his hand.
Then he moves.
Slow.
One step.
Then another.
He stops in front of me, close enough that I feel the heat of him. He smells like rain, coffee, flour, and man. His shirt clings a little from the damp. I want to touch the wet cotton at his chest and feel the muscle under it.
So I do.
His breath catches when my palm lands over his heart.
That small reaction feeds something in me.
Power, maybe.
Not over him.
Over myself.
I can touch because I want to. I can stop if I want to. I can want and still be safe.
He keeps his hands at his sides. “What do you need?”
It’s the least romantic question in the world.
It almost undoes me.
“Just kiss me once,” I whisper. “While I’m not falling apart.”
His face softens in a way he probably hates.
“You ain’t falling apart.”
“I’m always a little falling apart.”
“Fair.”
The laugh that leaves me is shaky.
Then his hand lifts to my cheek.
Slow enough.
Always slow enough.
His thumb brushes along my jaw, and I lean into it before I can tell myself not to. His eyes search mine. I nod once.
He kisses me.
Not like last night.
Not at first.
This kiss is softer. Daylight instead of storm.
His mouth moves over mine with a restraint that feels more intimate than hunger.
He tastes like coffee. His beard scrapes lightly against my skin.
I grip his shirt, and the sound he makes is barely there, a rough breath that tells me restraint hurts him.
Good.
Not because I want him hurting.
Because I want proof that I’m not the only one fighting this.
I kiss him back.
The softness doesn’t last.
It warms.
Deepens.
Turns heavy.
His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. My body remembers the counter and wants to climb. I press closer. His other hand catches my hip, and he groans into my mouth like I have broken something useful in him.
I like that too much.
The thought should scare me.
It does.
It also makes me kiss him harder.
The pan on the stove smokes.
Derby breaks away first, eyes closing as if he is praying to a God he isn’t on speaking terms with.
“Pancakes,” he says hoarsely.
“What?”
“Pancakes are dying.”
I blink.
Then smell the smoke.
“Oh my God.”
He reaches past me and turns the burner off, tossing the blackened pancake into the trash with the others. Smoke curls up from the pan in dramatic accusation.
From the hallway, August yells, “Is breakfast dying?”
Derby drops his head.
I burst out laughing.
I can’t help it. It comes out of me bright and helpless, and Derby looks at me like I have caused him physical harm.
“You think this is funny?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“My kitchen is a battlefield.”
“You killed the pancakes.”
“They knew the risks.”
August appears in the hallway, hair sticking up, Blue Rex tucked under his arm. He sniffs the air and frowns. “It smells like camping.”
Derby points at him. “That is generous, and I appreciate it.”
“Can we have cereal?”
“Yes,” Derby and I say together.
August grins. “Good. Pancakes are weird.”
Derby looks offended. “My pancakes have character.”
“They’re black.”
“That’s the character.”
August climbs into a chair and spots the bulletin on the counter before I can move it.
“What’s that?”
My blood goes cold.
Derby steps closer, blocking part of the counter with his body. Not hiding. Shielding. There is a difference, though it’s thin.
“Grown-up paper,” he says.
August frowns. “Bills?”
“Worse. Church.”
August looks at me. “Do we go to church now?”
“No,” I say too fast.
Derby opens the cereal cabinet. “Not unless the cereal gets a lot more sinful.”
August seems satisfied by that and starts negotiating for the marshmallow cereal.
My heart is still pounding.
Derby glances at me over the cabinet door.
A silent question.
You okay?
I nod, though okay is generous.
He pours August a bowl of cereal with too many marshmallows. I don’t correct him because my knees still feel loose from the kiss and the paper and the way he said us. August eats happily at the table, Blue Rex propped beside the bowl like a breakfast witness.
For a few minutes, we are almost normal.
Derby drinks coffee.
I make toast because something in this house should survive heat.
August tells us about the dream he had where Blue Rex was a judge and sentenced Jeremy to live in a volcano.
Derby says, “Fair ruling.”
I say, “August.”
August says, “It was only dream court.”
Derby mutters, “Still counts.”
I should probably correct both of them.
I don’t.
After breakfast, August asks Derby to inspect the dinosaur courthouse because there was apparently a night collapse involving my pillow and a box of cereal. Derby pretends annoyance, but gets on the floor anyway, and there it is again.
The thing that hooks under my ribs.
A dangerous man on my son’s level, treating his imaginary world like it deserves engineering.
I stand in the kitchen doorway with the Pearly Gates bulletin folded in my hand and try not to want a future.
That is the worst part.
Not the kiss.
Not the danger.
The future.
Because for a second, it appears without permission. Derby on the floor. August bossing him around. Coffee in my hand. Rain against the windows. A motorcycle in the drive. My truck repaired somewhere outside. A house changed by cereal, curtains, and little shoes near the door.
I once thought Jeremy was a future.
That memory is a fist around my throat.
It makes me step back.
Derby looks up immediately. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes sharpen.
I wince.
He stands. “Don’t nothing me either.”
The words should irritate me.
They do, a little.
Mostly, they make me want to cry.
“I saw it,” I say.
“Saw what?”
“This.” I gesture around the living room, the fort, August, him. “And for one second, I wanted it.”
August is busy making dinosaur court rulings, thank God.
Derby’s face changes.
No joke.
No smirk.
Just him.
“And then?” he asks.
“And then I remembered I wanted Jeremy once too.”
The honesty hangs between us.
Derby’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t get offended. He doesn’t make my fear about his pride.
Progress. Or proof.
Maybe both.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’ll mess with your head.”
I laugh once, watery. “That’s all you have?”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m nothing like him?”
“Yes.”
“I’m nothing like him.”
I stare at him.
He shrugs. “You asked.”
A laugh breaks through my tears.
Derby steps closer, stopping a few feet away. “You don’t have to decide what this is today.”
“What if this is another bad decision?”
“It might be.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“Comfort lies too much. Truth is cleaner.”
I wipe under one eye. “The truth is I don’t know if I can trust myself.”
“Then borrow mine for a while.”
My breath catches.
He looks startled by his own words, but he doesn’t take them back.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means I know I want you. I know I like the kid. I know Pearly Gates left a threat on my bike. I know your husband is still breathing, unfortunately. I know none of that makes you ready.” His voice roughens. “So we go slow enough that your fear can catch up and tell us what’s real.”
I stare at him.
“You say things like that,” I whisper.
“Accidentally.”
“And then you expect me not to want you.”
His mouth curves, but the smile is dark. “I expect nothing. Keeps disappointment polite.”
Before I can answer, a horn sounds outside.
My whole body jerks.
Derby turns instantly, already moving toward the window. August freezes in the fort.
“Stay there,” Derby says.
It’s an order.
This time, I don’t resent it.
He looks through the curtain. His shoulders lower a fraction.
“Wildcat,” he says.
I exhale.
August pops up. “My truck?”
I look toward Derby.
Derby opens the door and steps onto the porch. I follow, holding August’s hand.
Wildcat pulls into the driveway in my truck.
My truck.
It looks the same and different. Still old. Still faded. Still dented on the passenger side. But it has a new tire, the front end sits better, and when he cuts the engine, it doesn’t cough like it’s dying out of spite.
My throat closes.
Wildcat hops out and tosses the keys once in his hand. “Took her on a test run. She ain’t pretty, but she’ll run.”
I step off the porch. “You fixed it?”
“Fixed enough. Changed the tire. Patched a leak. Tightened belts. Battery’s holding. Engine still complains, but so does Derby, and we keep him around.”
Derby grunts. “Barely.”
Wildcat gives me the keys.
I reach for them, but Derby takes them first.
My heart drops before I can stop it.
There it is.
That old instinct.
A man taking the keys.
A man deciding when I can leave.
Derby sees my face.
His changes immediately.
He looks down at the keys in his hand like they have burned him.
Then he steps in front of me and places them directly in my palm.
Not tossed.
Not held out for me to take while he keeps half-control.
Placed.
Firm.
Mine.
“You said you needed a way out,” he says.
I stare at the keys.
The metal is warm from his hand.
“And you’re giving it to me?” I ask.
His eyes meet mine.
“Only way staying means anything.”
Everything in me goes quiet.
The rain. The porch. Wildcat. August. The truck. The bulletin in my pocket. Jeremy’s shadow. Pearly Gates. All of it pulls back for one clean second.
Only way staying means anything.
Jeremy hid my keys once.
Not forever. Not dramatic enough for a police report. Just one afternoon after an argument, when I said I needed air. He moved them. Let me search. Let me panic. Then found them in his jacket like I was silly, forgetful, emotional.
He told me I could leave whenever I wanted.
He just made sure I understood leaving depended on him giving me the means.
Derby puts the means in my hand.
And it scares me worse.
Because a cage, at least, tells you what it is.
Choice opens the door and asks who you are without walls.
My fingers close around the keys.
August jumps beside me. “We can drive?”
“Not right now,” I say, voice thick.
Derby looks at me. “But you can.”
I lift my eyes.
He means it.
God help me, he means it.
Behind him, Widowmaker sits black and wet in the drive. Behind me, his house holds cereal, dinosaur sheets, and the smell of burnt pancakes. My son’s hand is in mine. My truck keys are in my palm. A dangerous man stands in front of me, giving me an exit instead of asking me to prove I won’t use it.
Jeremy locked every door and called it love.
Derby puts the keys in my hand and scares me worse.
Because for the first time, staying might be my choice.