Oaks
Legend doesn’t lock his door. He probably should, but men like him don’t live like they expect to be surprised.
I knock once anyway because I ain’t stupid, then push it open when I don’t get an answer, and I walk straight into Hudson Welles mid-thrust with Sophie pinned against the wall.
She gasps, breathless and annoyed, and Legend turns his head slow like he’s deciding whether to kill me or finish what he started before he does.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, turning halfway around because I ain’t trying to see all that.
Legend exhales like I’m the inconvenience. “You got about five seconds.”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning,” I say first. Then I think again. “Need it now,” I reply, because the picture of that crawl space behind the wall is still sitting in my head like rot.
Sophie laughs, still catching her breath. “Of course you do. Ever think I do too?”
Legend swears, pulls a blanket around her like he’s got manners even when he’s pissed, then steps away enough to give me his full attention. “Make it quick,” he says.
“I don’t know how long I’m staying married,” I tell him, and his eyes sharpen like he already knows what I’m about to say but wants to hear it, anyway.
“That ain’t new,” he says.
“It is if I’m serious.”
He studies me like he’s weighing risk. “You made a choice,” he says. “You made a commitment. For the club.”
“I know.”
“Bethany’s daddy had leverage,” he continues, calm and cold. “Land. Access. Influence. You tied us to it. That wasn’t romance. That was strategy.”
I nod once, because I can’t argue that. “I’m tired of it,” I say.
“That’s different,” he answers, and he’s right. Being tired is a feeling. Being done is a decision.
I force my attention back to why I’m here in the first place.
“We got a problem on this lake,” I tell him.
“Not just the missing girl. Not just the sheriff being useless. Somebody had eyes on Brittany inside that floatel. Built a hidey-hole. Stayed long enough to get comfortable. Then ran when we found it.”
Legend’s face hardens. “You see anything?” he asks.
“I did.”
“Anybody else?”
“Holler. Maybe.”
Legend nods once like he’s filing it away. “And your boat?”
“Shot clean through,” I say. “Somebody wanted me stuck out there, or wanted me dead.”
Legend’s eyes narrow. “That ain’t Bethany.”
“I don’t think it is,” I admit. “But it could be Pearly Gates, or it could be somebody using Pearly Gates as cover.”
That lands. He knows how Hell works. People hide behind bigger monsters because it makes the story simpler.
I take a breath and say the second part even though it makes my skin feel too exposed. “I want to pursue Brittany.”
Legend’s mouth twitches like he expected it sooner or later. “You want my advice?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck her,” he says simply. “Get it out of your system like you do every other woman.”
It hits harder than it should, because I ain’t sure it ain’t true. I’ve had women. Plenty. Easy. Clean. No consequences. And none of them crawled under my skin like this.
“Maybe it’s because you kept her at arm’s length,” he adds, voice cooler now. “You built it up in your head. You think it’s something it ain’t.”
Maybe. Or maybe I’ve never wanted something I couldn’t just take, and the wanting is what’s making me stupid.
Legend steps back toward Sophie like this conversation is over. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he says. “Right now you keep your head. Keep the lake locked down. Keep your hands off her.”
“I hear you,” I say, and I leave.
Back at Holler’s cabin, the lights are low and the night smells like water and smoke.
She’s already in bed on her side with her back to the door.
I stand there a second too long, staring at the space I’m about to step into, then I strip my boots off and slide in on the far edge like I’m trying not to exist. I don’t touch her.
I keep distance. I stare at the ceiling until exhaustion drags me under.
I wake to warmth.
Soft weight across my thigh. A head tucked under my chin.
My eyes open slow.
Brittany is wrapped around me like she belongs there.
Her leg thrown over my hip. Her hand fisted in my shirt.
Her cheek pressed to my chest. I go still because if I move too fast I’ll either shove her away or roll her under me.
I’m hard, of course I am, because my body doesn’t care about rules and strategies and the way I’m still married.
She shifts, barely, and her mouth brushes my collarbone.
Fuck.
For one reckless second I consider it. Just leaning down. Just kissing her. Just seeing what happens.
Her lashes flutter.
And then the door opens and a voice slices through the cabin like a siren.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
Brittany jerks upright. I sit up slower because speed looks like guilt even when nothing happened.
Bethany stands at the foot of the bed. Her hair looks like she fought it into shape and lost, but her lipstick is perfect, anyway.
Her eyes are blazing with a kind of fury that makes the air in the room feel thinner.
She takes in the scene, Brittany in my bed tangled up in my arms like the world made a decision without asking her permission.
My jaw tightens.
“Morning, Beth,” I say flat.
And I know this just turned from messy to war.