Chapter Twenty-Two
Amelia
August sees Derby before I do.
Or maybe I see him first and my body refuses to believe it.
That’s possible too.
Lonerock has been full of impossible things since I arrived. So maybe my mind sees Derby standing near the campground road and decides he must be another impossible thing.
August doesn’t have that problem.
“Derby!”
His little voice slices across the yard.
I turn in time to see my son run.
Not walk.
Not hesitate.
Run.
Blue Rex is in one hand. Princess Chomp is in the other.
His sneakers kick up dirt as he tears across the campground toward the man I left sleeping in Kentucky.
The man I told not to follow. The man I betrayed because I thought leaving him was the only way to keep him from turning his rage into a body count.
Derby is standing beside Widowmaker, travel-worn, dusty, and darker around the eyes than he was when I left him. His cut is on. His beard is wind-tangled. His head is rough with days of not shaving. He looks like he rode across the country fueled by fury.
When August hits him, Derby catches him awkwardly, like the force of it surprises him.
Then he holds on.
Only for half a second too long.
But I see it.
His hand cups the back of August’s head. His eyes close. His shoulders drop like he has been carrying the whole road across his back and my son just took part of the weight without knowing it.
My breath breaks in my chest.
I can’t move.
Every feeling comes at once, too fast to sort.
Relief because he is here. Anger because I asked him not to come. Guilt because I made him wake up alone after giving him the kind of night a woman should not use as goodbye.
Desire because his mouth is still my last good memory of Kentucky. Well, not just his mouth. Fear because if he is here, then all my reasons for leaving have to stand in front of him and defend themselves.
And love.
No.
I don’t want that word.
Not here. Not with Hot Mama standing somewhere behind him, watching like a woman who knows exactly when a heart stops lying.
Not with the Queens of Anarchy spread around the campground, pretending not to stare and failing because women are only slightly better than men when romance blooms in public.
Not with children running, bikes shining under pine shadows, and my mother’s ghost hanging over this place like smoke.
Love is too big.
Too dangerous. Too much like a door I don’t know how to walk through without checking whether it locks behind me. But the feeling is there anyway.
Derby says something to August. August answers, holding up Princess Chomp like she deserves formal introduction.
Derby looks at the little green dinosaur, then toward Hot Mama.
I can’t hear what he says, but Hot Mama’s mouth curves, and that means someone has either pleased her or given her a reason to sharpen a knife.
Then Derby looks at me. The whole campground disappears. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t storm toward me. He doesn’t demand, curse, grab, accuse, or do any of the things a man like him could do with a hurt like that in his chest.
He stands there with August pressed to his side and asks me with his eyes before his mouth ever moves.
Can I come closer?
That almost drops me to my knees. Because Derby, furious and wounded and cross-country exhausted, still asks.
I take one step.
Then another.
August looks between us, sensing the size of what he is standing inside. He stays tucked against Derby’s leg, one hand fisted in his belt buckle like he isn’t ready to let go. Derby’s hand rests on August’s shoulder, not trapping him, just there.
Mine.
Not mine.
Safe.
Not safe.
Everything in me contradicts itself.
When I reach them, I stop a few feet away. Close enough to see the road dust on Derby’s boots. Far enough that he has to choose distance too.
His eyes move over my face, fast and careful. Looking for bruises. Tears. Hunger. Regret. All of it.
“You safe?” he asks.
My throat burns. “Yes.”
His jaw flexes. “You want me gone?”
The question hurts worse than yelling would have.
I hear Hot Mama somewhere behind him go quiet.
I hear Lottie’s old warning in my head, even though she is already back in Kentucky.
He’ll either come correct or Hot Mama will feed him his own boots.
Derby came correct.
That makes my answer harder.
“No,” I whisper.
Something moves across his face. Pain first. Then relief so raw it looks like rage trying to behave.
August exhales like he has been holding his breath for both of us. “Good. Because Derby brought Widowmaker, and Princess Chomp needs to see her.”
A laugh breaks out of me.
It’s wet and not pretty, but it’s real.
Derby looks down at him. “Princess Chomp ain’t getting on my bike.”
“She won’t scratch it.”
“She’s got one foot missing and a criminal record.”
“She bit a bad dad.”
The words land again. They are too close to everything.
Derby’s face goes still.
I reach for August before the silence gets too heavy. “Why don’t you show Princess Chomp to the sandbox court?”
He hesitates. “Derby coming?”
Derby looks at me first.
My heart twists.
“Later,” Derby says.
August narrows his eyes. “Later means maybe.”
Derby crouches, eye level with him. “This later means yes.”
August studies him.
Then nods like accepting testimony from a witness. “Okay.”
He runs off toward the children, Blue Rex and Princess Chomp bouncing in his hands.
Now there is nothing between Derby and me but the things I did not say.
And all the things I did. The night we had. The morning I left.
Derby looks at my mouth.
Only once. Then he looks away like it costs him.
“I woke up,” he says.
My stomach clenches.
“I know.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
His eyes return to mine. “Did you know what that would do?”
The question is quiet. That makes it worse.
“I thought if I told you, you would stop me.”
“I would have tried.”
“That’s why I didn’t.”
He laughs once, no humor in it. “Honest.”
“I’m trying.”
“A little late.”
“I know.”
He looks over my shoulder toward the bunkhouses, the fire circle, the women watching. “You could’ve told me and still chosen to leave.”
“Could I?”
His jaw tightens.
There it is. The truth neither of us wants to dress up. He knows it. So do I.
“I’m learning,” he says finally.
Costly.
Not an apology exactly, but close enough to make my eyes sting.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He flinches like the words hit wrong.
“Don’t do that unless you mean the right thing.”
“What is the right thing?”
“That you hurt me.”
I suck in a breath.
He holds my gaze. Not cruel. Demanding honesty.
“I hurt you,” I say.
His eyes darken.
“Yeah.”
“I thought I was saving you.”
“From me?”
“From Jeremy. From jail. From blood.”
“My hands were dirty before you.”
“I know. But I didn’t want to be the reason they got dirtier.”
He takes a step closer, then stops himself. Always stopping. Always giving me the last inches.
“That was mine to decide,” he says.
“I know.”
“And leaving was yours.”
I nod, tears blurring him. “Yes.”
“Then we both got something to answer for.”
Before I can speak, Hot Mama cuts in from the side.
“Well, ain’t that romantic. Two wounded fools discovering accountability in dirt.”
Derby turns his head slowly. “You always interrupt?”
“Only when I’m bored or right.”
“You’re both.”
“Careful, Kentucky. I let you past the sign. I can still have Shortie escort you out by your pretty little neck.”
Derby’s mouth tightens. “Little?”
Hot Mama looks him up and down with open amusement. “Emotionally.”
I bite the inside of my cheek because laughing feels dangerous.
Derby catches it anyway.
His eyes flick to mine, and for one second the ache between us warms into something familiar. Hot Mama sees that too. She sees everything and charges people for the privilege of being seen.
“You two can finish bleeding on each other later,” she says. “Kids eat first, and supper’s about to start.”
Derby looks around. “This place always run like a summer camp with parole?”
“Only on weekdays,” Hot Mama says. “Weekends we add crafts.”
A woman near the kitchen yells, “And rage yoga!”
Derby mutters, “Hell.”
Hot Mama grins. “No, baby. Hell is Kentucky. This is Queen’s country.”
The Queens answer with food.
That is the first thing Derby learns.
No one asks if he is hungry. A woman named Baby Doll hands him a paper plate loaded with spaghetti, garlic bread, and something fried that might be okra.
Harlot points him toward a picnic table with a wrench and says if he drips on the bench, he wipes it himself.
Shortie watches him like she is waiting for him to give her a reason to unload the rifle across her knees.
Wildflower flirts with him for exactly three seconds before looking at me and winking.
Derby looks deeply uncomfortable.
I enjoy that more than I should.
August sits between two other kids, telling Derby across the table about the sandbox jail, and Princess Chomp’s legal record.
For the first time since the road out of Kentucky, something in me loosens.
Not happiness exactly. Something rougher.
After supper, the campground turns golden and strange.
String lights blink on over the fire circle and along the front of the garage.
Motorcycles line the edge of the yard like patient beasts.
Someone starts music from a speaker, old rock first, then twangy country with enough grit to make the women sing too loud on purpose.
Kids are herded toward the bunkhouse after sticky hands, quick baths, and a round of complaints that earns three of them dish duty for whining.
August begs for Derby to see the dinosaur court before bed.
Derby goes.
Of course he goes.
He kneels in the dirt near the sandbox, listens to Princess Chomp’s appeal, and somehow ends up arguing that a goat figurine can’t be convicted without proper evidence. August beams like Derby has saved democracy.
I stand near the fire, arms wrapped around myself, watching.
Hot Mama stands beside me.
“He’s got the boy.”