Chapter Twenty-Six
Amelia
The morning after Hot Mama’s message, I make pancakes from a box because I’m trying to prove this trailer is a home and not just another place I ran to.
Derby stands in my tiny kitchen with his arms crossed, watching the pan.
“You’re doing it wrong,” he says.
I glance over my shoulder. “You burn pancakes black enough to file a death certificate.”
“Exactly. I know the danger signs.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m supervising.”
“You’re looming.”
“Supervising tall.”
August sits at the little table in dinosaur pajamas, lining Blue Rex, Princess Chomp, and Throttle in front of his plate. His hair sticks up in three directions, and one cheek still has a pillow crease in it. He looks sleepy, safe, and offended by the delay in breakfast.
“Derby,” he says seriously, “Blue Rex says you’re distracting the cook.”
Derby points at the dinosaur. “Blue Rex ain’t seen what she just did to that batter.”
“I stirred it.”
His mouth curves.
It should not make my stomach flip. Not this early. Not with August at the table and a Queens of Anarchy burner phone sitting in my bedroom drawer like a snake with a battery.
But it does.
Derby in my trailer still feels new. Too big for the rooms. Too dark for the pale walls. Too much leather and muscle and road-scarred male heat standing next to my discount curtains and secondhand toaster. He hasn’t taken over. That is what keeps undoing me.
His cut is hanging on the chair by the door because I told him he could put it there. His toothbrush is in the bathroom because I said yes. His boots are on the mat because he noticed I swept yesterday and did not track mud across my floor.
Small things.
Huge things.
A man learning my door doesn’t belong to him unless I open it.
The pancake bubbles at the edges, and I flip it.
Perfect.
August claps.
Derby narrows his eyes. “Beginner’s luck.”
“Beginner?” I laugh. “You’re jealous.”
“Of boxed pancakes? Never.”
“Of my superior domestic skill.”
“I fixed your sink yesterday.”
“You tightened one pipe and swore at it.”
“It responded to authority.”
I laugh.
That is when the burner phone buzzes from the bedroom.
The sound cuts through the kitchen so cleanly the pancake nearly burns.
Derby hears it.
August does too, but to him it’s just a phone. He returns to arranging dinosaur court because breakfast law waits for no woman.
Derby’s eyes find mine. No command. No immediate no.
Just that look.
Steady.
Dark.
Waiting.
That one look shows me how far we have come and how hard it’s costing him not to move first.
“I should check it.”
His jaw flexes. “Yeah.”
“You want to tell me not to.”
“Bad.”
“But you’re not.”
“Trying this thing where I don’t become the villain before breakfast.”
My mouth trembles into a smile. “How’s it feel?”
“Like swallowing a wrench.”
I cross the kitchen and touch his chest as I pass.
One light touch.
His hand catches mine.
Not stopping.
Holding for one second, warm and rough.
Then he lets go.
I go to the bedroom and pull the burner from the drawer.
The message is from the same unknown number.
Need a favor, sis.
Sighing I put the phone in my back pocket.
Back in the kitchen, Derby starts.
“That patch, my patch, my property patch, if it ever happens,” he says, voice low, “it won’t make you mine because you can’t leave. It’ll make every man with eyes understand you choose to come back to me.”
His forehead rests against mine.
“Amelia.”
The way he says my name makes my eyes open.
He looks wrecked.
Not weak.
Wrecked in the way a man looks when he has decided the truth is worth bleeding for.
“I love you,” he says.
The words hit like a road flare in the dark.
My breath catches.
He doesn’t rush to fill the silence. Doesn’t grab for an answer. Doesn’t make the words into another thing I have to carry before I’m ready.
He only stays there, thumb at my cheek, eyes steady and terrified in a way Derby probably thinks he is hiding.
“Ain’t asking you to say it back over pancakes,” he says, voice rougher. “Ain’t asking you to do anything with it. Just needed you to know what’s already riding with you.”
The tears spill before I can stop them.
The match I have been carrying inside me catches.
Not burning down my choice.
Lighting the road around it.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
His face changes.
We kiss. This kiss isn’t goodbye. Not fear. Not a fake show for a bar full of gossip. Not a desperate night before leaving. It’s a promise. A claim waiting for consent. A road held open.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine again.
“I can wait,” he says.
“Can you?”
“No.”
I laugh.
His mouth curves. “But I will.”
My heart aches so sweetly I almost can’t stand it.
The world is still messy.
Still dark.
Still outlaw.
But Derby’s hand is in mine.
My son is safe enough to complain about breakfast in the morning.
And someday, when I’m ready, when I choose it with my whole spine straight and my crown lifted, I will wear Derby’s patch.
Not because I’m property.
Because I’m a woman who can leave.
And I will keep choosing to ride home to him.
The burner phone buzzes in my back pocket.
Derby feels me stiffen.
I take the phone out.
One new message.
Diva.
The name still feels wrong on my skin.
Not because it doesn’t fit.
Because I’m afraid it does.
Below it, another line pops up.
Tell Kentucky he can listen after I decide he won’t embarrass you.
I snort despite myself.
Derby reads over my shoulder. “I hate her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I profoundly dislike her in a respectful way.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It ain’t.”
“I need to call her.”
“I know.”
“Alone first.”
His jaw works.
“I know.”
“Can you watch August?”
That question lands between us differently than it did before.
Not as escape.
Not as panic.
Trust.
“Always.”
The word is too big.
He knows it.
I know it.
Neither of us takes it back.
I touch his cheek. “I’m coming back.”
I mean it more than back from the porch.
His eyes darken with old hurt.
“Don’t say it unless you mean it.”
“I mean it.”
A breath moves out of him.
Not relief.
Not fully.
“Then go call your murder aunt.”
A laugh bursts out of me.
“She isn’t my murder aunt.”
“She absolutely is.”
“Derby.”
“What? I’m supportive.”
“You are terrible.”
“And still somehow your man.”
My smile softens.
“Yes,” I whisper. “You are.”
He kisses my forehead and lets me go.
That is our romance of it, I think.
It’s the letting go.
It’s the fact that he can, wanting to follow, wanting to protect, wanting to put himself between me and every bad road, and still let my feet move.
I walk toward the porch with the burner phone in my hand and Derby behind me, watching but not chasing.
For the first time in my life, leaving doesn’t feel like running. It feels like taking the road, knowing home will still be there when I come back.