9. Orion
Orion
Istand in the door that leads from the garage to the house watching, my stomach tying itself in knots and my heart sinking down into my shoes.
Mars is smiling at Arden like she’s the moon to his stars, the sun to his daisies, and whatever hope I had of coming out here to tell him again that we need to send her home–that she’ll be safer with her actual parents, who must be searching for her–evaporates into thin air.
I don’t have the whole story yet, of how they know each other or even how much contact they’ve had, but it doesn’t take a fucking idiot to see that he’s decided to make her one of his projects. One of his pets.
And that means it’s going to be impossible for him to let her go. Because once he grabs onto something, he doesn’t give it up. No matter how much it hurts him.
I mean look at this garage. It’s full of mechanics, sure, each of them with a job to do and a vehicle to fix.
But it’s also full to bursting of people from the town itself.
A little girl who has a problem with her bike.
Penny the baker, who’s manufactured a reason to come hang out with the bikers.
Wendy, who’s talking at Mars as fast as she can, looking like she’s selling Girl Scout Cookies or something.
I suddenly remember what Mars said about her last night in this very garage and take a careful step back into the shadows. I don’t want her seeing me and getting any ideas.
I’m the last man she needs to try to get her fingers on.
Not that she would. Not that she’d even try it. Because all of these people out here belong to each other. They’ve grown up in the same town, learning each other’s habits and preferences and watching as everyone discovers their roles in the place. Many of these people are lifelong best friends.
Some of them are even related.
But me?
I’m just another one of Mars’ strays, taken under his wing and dragged back to town, then told I can’t leave again because he won’t let me go.
I’m just an outsider shoved into a town that’s too polite to tell me so. Sure, there are days when I feel like I actually belong, but they’re not as common as I’d like. Mostly I feel like I’m here borrowing someone else’s life and pretending to be something I’m not.
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve known who I actually am at any point in my life. I didn’t know what to do or who to be when I was trying to make my father happy, and when I got out of his house I was too busy trying to survive to be anything more than a creature of necessity.
This town has helped to fill in the gaps a little bit, but that doesn’t make me a whole person. Not by a long shot. As far as I know, I could disappear entirely and this town would barely blink.
And Wendy will be much better off ending up with someone who actually means to stay here for the long term rather than someone who’s constantly twitching with the need to get on his bike and run far, far away.
Not that I have any interest in her or who she chooses. I’m not looking for someone to tie me down, and I sure as hell don’t think Wendy has what it would take to change my mind.
Before I swing around to leave, though, my eyes land on Arden. She’s bent over next to Penny, giggling, and with that flushed face and wide smile, the fragility has left her for a moment. Her eyes still look too big, her bones too delicate for what she’s been through. But she looks...
Fuck me, she looks beautiful, like a rose that’s just discovered the sun, and it’s such a far cry from the girl we rescued last night that for a moment, just one moment, I wonder if outsiders really can come here and find a home.
Because she’s an outsider, just like me.
And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone look more at home more quickly than she has.
I don’t like the parallel. I like even less the way I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from her, now that she’s claimed them.
I don’t know the girl, don’t care anything for her, but now that I’ve noticed her, heard her laughter, I don’t want to stop staring.
She’s a magnet, and she’s pulled me into her sphere.
Which is more dangerous than she could ever know.
I force myself to look away, take a deep breath, and retreat through the door behind me. The garage is town business today, and that means I’m not needed here.
But it’s a bright, beautiful day, and my bike is sitting in the driveway, crouched and waiting for an adventure.
And if there’s one place I know I’ll always belong, it’s with my bike, out on the open road where there’s no one telling me what I can or can’t do–or whether it’s a good idea.
I get home just as the sky is dropping down from the bright reds and pinks of a sunset into the dusky purple of evening.
The sky stretches above me, the stars already peeking through the dimming light, and I pull the bike to a stop in the driveway and turn my face up to the freedom of the evening sky.
I can still feel the wind in my hair, the sun on my face, and I hold to that for several long moments, unwilling to let the real world take me back.
My favorite part of owning a bike has always been the freedom it brings with it.
Just me and the bike on the open road, me and the engine I built with my own two hands roaring through the world, the two of us aligned like we were born to it.
I’ve never found a person who can match that feeling, and for all I knew, I never will.
But I can’t sit here writing sonnets to my bike while real life is beckoning, and I know it. I’m in charge of too much of Mars’ garage, and the Iron Saints and their sudden appearance in town is weighing on me. I don’t know what they’re up to or why, and that doesn’t sit right.
I don’t trust the unknown, and that means I don’t trust the Iron Saints.
My instincts are desperate to figure out what they’re doing in town–and what they were doing with Arden locked in that cottage.
I park my bike, give it one last sweeping touch, and then head for the house.
It’s late enough that I’m sure I’ve missed dinner, but there are always leftovers, and if I know Mars, he’s already prepared a plate and put it in the microwave for me.
Probably nothing fancy–he likes to throw everything he can find into one pot and call it soup–but his recipes always turn out better than I expect.
I walk into the house on that thought and take a deep breath, breathing in the scent of meat, broth, and bread.
Perfect.
When I walk into the kitchen, though, I don’t see Mars sitting alone at the table, a plate of food waiting for me and a lecture prepared about how I took off in the middle of the day without saying anything to him.
Instead, I find Mars and Arden hip to hip in front of the sink doing dishes.
They’re not talking to each other but their proximity tells me they’ve spent enough time together today to get comfortable around each other, and he’s moving more easily than he was.
Her shoulders are more relaxed, her hair coming down from the bun on her head, and they look so domestic that it stops me in my tracks.
They look like they belong together. Like they’re reestablishing some long-lost relationship.
And they’re doing it without me.
Not that I care, I think with a sharp shake. I don’t give a single fuck about the girl. She’s nothing to me, and as far as I’m concerned we need to send her right back to New York and her family. She has no place here.
Even if she did, it wouldn’t be with me. I’m not the one she’s seeking out.
I’m not the one she’s doing dishes with.
It shocks me when she spins and pins me with a look, like she knew I was standing here thinking about her. She looks me up and down once, and when her eyes come to a stop on my own, they look speculative. Like she’s looking at a puzzle she’s trying to put together.
A box she’s trying to unlock.
I meet her stare and don’t flinch, because I’m thinking the same about her.
I don’t understand here or what she’s doing here–how she came to be in that cottage–and suddenly I want to know so badly I can hardly stand it.
What was a girl like Arden Rossi doing in that trafficking ring, and how’d they found her?
Does she know the men who kidnapped her? Why hasn’t her family rescued her yet?
How did she end up here, in Hawke’s Wood?
The heat between us grows the longer we stare, and soon I feel like there must be sparks igniting between us. My body is vibrating with tension and the need to... move. Take her in my hands and shake her and demand to know who she is and what she’s doing here.
I want to know how she feels under my fingertips.
Taste the velvet of her skin and discover whether she’s as sweet, as soft, as she looks.
I’m nearly shaking with the need to touch her, explore those bones and make her tip her head and laugh at something I say.
Something is happening inside my chest and I–
I yank myself back several steps and break the contact, tearing it apart before it can do any more damage. And when I look at her again she has a crease between her eyebrows and streaks of color across the top of her cheeks.
Like she felt every ounce of that heat, too.
I turn and walk away before she can draw me in again, my mind racing and my heart matching it as I try to figure out what the fuck just happened and what to do about it.
I don’t know that girl, I remind myself. She’s nothing to me. And we’re sending her home as soon as we can, no matter how attached Mars has gotten to her. It’s the only safe option. The only smart option.
And I would be stupid to let myself want something that’s going to be gone tomorrow. The day after.
Stupid to let myself feel anything for a girl who isn’t mine, and never will be.