Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
When dawn tried the edges of the blinds, I woke before the room did. Melody was still there, breathing slow, her lips parted a little, hair half out of its braid and fanned across my arm. She looked like a person who’d finally stopped bracing. I didn’t move. Didn’t want to give the morning any reason to think it had to start yet.
The part of my brain that kept inventory made a note: you let her stay at your house. You have stayed with her a few times. It didn’t add a warning to cut this shit out. It didn’t add a joke. It just wrote it down and underlined it once. She could stay.
No, she should stay.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Tiny asking to meet later. For what, he didn’t say.
Melody stirred, blinked up at me like she wasn’t sure which version of her own life she was waking into, saw my face, and let the question go.
“Hey,” she roused, morning voice rough.
“Hey.” I brushed a thumb over her temple. “You hungry?”
“For coffee,” she said, and smiled like she was telling me a secret.
“I can do that.” I wasn’t going to make her move yet. Then I saw in her eyes she was one of those coffee before conversation people.
So I got up and got my woman some coffee. When I came back she sat up in the bed, phone in hand.
“Tiny asked me to go tomorrow,” she said after a minute, eyes on the ceiling. “Ring shopping.”
“You’ll tell him what she’d like,” I encouraged. “It will be good for you both.”
“And what she wouldn’t,” she added, mouth quirking.
We let morning crawl up the blinds without chasing it. Eventually we got up and she sat on my counter swinging her heels while I made breakfast. Casual and comfortable we worked together.
Later, I’d call church and let Tiny explain about Lyric to the club. Later, I’d think through names in a phone and favors owed that might come in handy if anyone tried to pull paper out of an old drawer and wave it around like law from Montana. Later, I would sort out Melody and Lyric’s past to make sure it doesn’t touch their futures in any way.
Right then, I handed her another mug, took my own leaned my hip into the counter beside her knee, and let myself have this moment of us.
She bumped her knee into my thigh. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, and then because I’m built wrong for lying to the right person, I added, “Everything.”
She nodded like that made sense. Maybe it did.
When she finally left, hours later, I didn’t watch her go from the window like a fool. I just stood in my doorway and waited for the sound of Tiny’s truck to fade and the quiet to come back and sit. When it did, it wasn’t empty. It was full of promise of what this could become. I let it be.
On my way to the clubhouse, I thought about the way Tiny had said it: I wanna marry Lyric. Men say a lot of words before they say the ones that count. He’d picked the ones that counted and said them straight.
I hoped he’d like the ring Melody picked. I hoped Lyric’s hand would. I hoped the men back at their old home lit their own paper on fire and choked on the smoke. And if they didn’t—well. We’d be the fucking match.
I rolled into the lot and killed the engine. Heat rose off the asphalt. Someone inside was laughing too loud. I smiled to myself, shit was good.
Too good, I should have known better.
17
THRASHER
The morning had been perfect. Clear blue skies, the sun not yet bearing down with that Carolina summer heat, engines rumbling like a thunder chorus as we lined up for the poker run. It was a charity gig, proceeds going to a kids’ burn center. Something worth showing up for.
Since this was for charity, we didn’t line up like we usually did. I fell in behind Tiny, who had Lyric perched on the back of his Harley, her hair whipping like a banner in the wind. Melody rode with me, her arms snug around my waist, head tilted slightly against my cut as though the rhythm of the bike soothed her. Couldn’t lie—it did something to me, knowing she settled in behind me so well.
We’d put in about thirty miles already, weaving through backroads, taking in the smell of pine and asphalt heating under our tires. The kind of ride that made a man feel alive.
At the front of the pack, Tiny threw up a hand, pointing two fingers before taking the left lane, signaling he was slowing for the next light. I followed, instinctively matching his movements. The intersection ahead changed to green before we came to a complete stop. We had right of way, clean as day.