by AnonYMous
Larry was big and he wasn’t bright, but he’d never struck me as particularly hard or violent. When Wren made her insinuation, however, the air around us shimmered with the change in his mood. It turned out Larry could seethe with volcanic anger when he needed to. And he didn’t twitch a muscle to do it.
Next to me, Wren tensed, but she didn’t spare a glance for Larry. Queens never did.
“Fine,” he said after a moment long enough for us to get the message. “Suck the accountant’s dick. But keep your nose out of club business.”
He stalked off.
Howie came over to us, looking both worried and concerned, probably the latter for Wren and the former for his bar. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Wren said brightly. “We’ll take the mozzarella sticks with extra marinara and the . . . what did you want again?”
“Loaded nachos.”
“Right. And two beers, the Bayern. Please.”
Howie went back to the kitchen to put in our order. I watched her profile for the space of ten heartbeats. The slight upturn of her nose. The sweep of her cheeks. The cup of her ear.
I’d never seen her move so little in my life. I’d never wanted to touch her more.
So I did. I set a hand in the notch of her waist, right before she rounded out to her hips, and I leaned over her. “You okay?”
She hummed an affirmative response, but didn’t otherwise move or speak. She was not remotely okay. She’d come here hoping, even this late in the game, I’d be wrong. Now she knew I wasn’t.
I tipped my head toward her, just so, and let gravity do the rest. Then my cheek was resting against her hair. Jesus, it was even softer than it looked. She smelled like shampoo—real nice, floral shampoo. She pressed back against my cheek like she wanted me there, like she needed the comfort. And my heart walloped against my chest.
I didn’t know if this was real or fake anymore—for her or me. I didn’t begin to know how to find out for either of us. But I didn’t care because I was touching her. I was finally holding her.
My body was numb. I should be terrified, and I was. I should feel manipulated, and I did. And confused. And resentful. And sad. This story, when it unraveled, might unmake Fallow. It might threaten everything I loved.
But above that, before it, I was so damned content the rest didn’t register.
Rationality had taken the night off.
I could feel Larry’s attention on me. Everyone else’s too. We might as well go all in on this plan of hers. By morning, everyone was going to think we were together, but that suited me fine.
Wren started picking at the cuticle on one finger. It looked fine to me, but there was something there she didn’t like.
“I was hoping you were wrong,” she whispered. “I hoped he’d . . . I don’t know. Acquit them in some way.”
“Uh-huh.”
She hadn’t said anything specific, and I wanted to keep it that way.
She shifted, getting closer to me. “I think I feel worse than if he had . . . details . . . you know?”
That was all she could say now, but it was enough. Lone Gun was into something. Something bad. And they knew we were suspicious. We were in the part of Jaws before you saw the shark.
We didn’t talk for a while, just leaned against each other. When Howie brought our food, we ate and we drank. We flirted and we touched.
It was true and fake at once, like standing between two mirrors and seeing your reflection stretch out forever. You waved and the images in the mirror did too, until you didn’t know where you were anymore. It was indistinguishable; the line between real and unreal obliterated. There was no point in speaking of it, so we didn’t.
I drove her home a few hours later. The cold vinyl seats creaked and the radio droned.
I twisted the knob until the music was only a faint hum. “Why did you want Larry to think we were together?”
She drew lines on the window fogged with condensation. “It was a better explanation than we were only having a beer. We’ve never done that before. It seemed suspicious.”
“We’ve never been on a date before, either. And now we have been—” because we had been “—why would he talk to us?”
“Why would he have ever talked to us?” She gave me a wry smile. “Okay, my plan wasn’t good. But I don’t think what we’d had before was going to get the job done.”
“What will?”
“Don’t know.”
She turned the radio back up. The conversation was over.
It didn’t take long to get to her house; Fallow had never been big. Then I sat in front of there, in front of Mike Masters’s house, with my car running as if I might need to make a quick getaway.
She didn’t move. I couldn’t read her expression in the dark, but she was still again. The entire weather report played before she spoke. “I’m not sure what to say about tonight.”
“I am.” I could hear her look at me but I couldn’t see her eyes. “Thank you.” Regardless of whatever came next, I was grateful for a night where we’d at least played at everything I’d ever wanted. “I—”
She reached over and pressed her thumb to my lips. I didn’t know if she was trying to keep words in my mouth or if she was measuring me.
I’ll be the perfect size for whatever you want.
I wasn’t sure if she was going to kiss me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to. Any kiss we might share would be real, would reveal the pretense for what it was.
Which was why I wasn’t sad when she pressed her thumb against my mouth one more time before whispering, “Good night.”
The car door shut, and I watched until she went inside the house. For a while after, too. I wasn’t ready to let go of the delusion.
Chapter 5
Wren
The door leading into the bar behind the garage didn’t make a sound as I pushed it open. Someone had deployed DW-40 recently. I blinked and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The bar didn’t have any windows. It could have been noon or midnight out; it would still be dim in there with Sports Center blaring in the corner. The bar—or technically, the employee’s lounge—was like a man cave on steroids: all rough-hewn wood, dark upholstery, and big-screen TVs.
When dad had upgraded the old break room and then punched through the wall to add two rooms in the back, I’d laughed. When Lone Gun had gone from a group of guys who rode together on weekends into something more formal, I’d laughed harder.
I wasn’t laughing any more.
Last night hadn’t precisely gone as planned, but I’d gotten the information I needed: this was real. Now I needed to plumb for more details. I didn’t know how but I knew I had to do it on my own. I appreciated Brad wanting to help, but this wasn’t his world. I wasn’t even sure it was mine.
Right now, Ed was behind the bar sipping some kind of liquor. He waved.
“Is my dad around?”
“Nah, I haven’t seen him. Want some?” He held up the bottle.
“It’s ten.”
“Yeah.”
“In the morning.” He nodded in response. “No, I don’t want any.”
Before I could leave and look for dad elsewhere, Zack came out of the pool room. “You.” He pointed at me. “We need to talk.” He looked at Ed and gestured to the back. My not-cousin sauntered off.
During this entire exchange, my ex had been stalking across the room. I returned his gaze but didn’t move. I didn’t want him to think he bothered me. Helpfully, he didn’t.
Two feet from me, he stopped. He rested his fingers on the neckline of my shirt. I brushed his hand off.
“What is it, Z?”
“You’re seeing Brad now?”
I scoffed and glared at him. That hadn’t been my finest hour. I had walked into Cups and realized how pointless the entire mission was. Larry was dense, but he wasn’t stupid. Nothing we could say was going to crack him. We were going to have to get lucky.
I’d felt frustrated and alone in a mostly full bar. So I’d
taken something from the only person in the room who understood. Snuggling against him, flirting with him, had been selfish. When I got up the nerve to see him—I knew he was in the office right now—I was going to apologize.
But I also wasn’t going to take it back, certainly not to Zack and maybe not to Brad. I hadn’t decided yet.
“Yeah.”
Zack popped his jaw and looked away. He was legitimately annoyed by the thought of me with another man. He pursed his lips, which emphasized his jawline. He was pretty in a tall, muscular way. Tanned skin. Good cheek bones.
But he didn’t think of anyone but himself and he never had. Even now, he was searching for the right words to get me back because us being together would be easier for him. He wasn’t any more invested in what we’d had than I was.
Then he moved all of a sudden, took my face between his hands, and kissed me. His lips were dry and he tasted like whisky. When he shoved it in my mouth, his tongue was too large, but for half a second, I wanted to kiss him back.
I knew how to do this, to turn my brain off with Zack. Taking him back, forgiving him yet another time, would be like riding a bike after a long winter. I could fall back into his bed and pretend Brad had never shaken me awake, had never shown me the truth.
But he had. Zack tasted wrong, his lips were bruising, and I never wanted to touch him again.
Zack moaned and pulled me against his body.
Or at least he tried to.
I rammed my fists into him. If he hadn’t stumbled away, I would have bitten him.
“Don’t ever do that again. Don’t ever fucking touch me again.” He gave me bedroom eyes, and I shook my finger at him. “I’m not coming back to you. Ever.”
“I thought we had a good thing going.” This was closer to a whine than he probably wanted it to be.
“I’d say you threw what we had away, but that’s not right. We never had much of anything. I want . . . more.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was true.
Zack’s expression heated. “Now you know I have lots—”
“Shut up. This isn’t about your cock.”
His brows arched. He was offended anything might be unrelated to his cock.
“I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk to you at all,” I told him. “I need to ask my dad about the parts for the Weymouth engine rebuild.”
“He’s not here.”
Then all of this had truly been a waste of time. Well, except for the part where I’d realized I never wanted to kiss Zack again. Beyond that, I wasn’t doing well with either my real job or my unofficial prying. I rolled my eyes and started to go.
“Birdie, Brad’s not one of us,” Zack said to my back.
I looked at him over my shoulder. “What does that mean?”
“He’s not Lone Gun.”
“Neither am I.”
Zack’s mouth pinched into a hard line, and he folded his arms over his chest. “You should talk to your dad.”
Everyone seemed to be urging me to talk to my dad, or threatening to do so: from stoned kids in grocery store parking lots, to Larry last night, to my delusional ex now. But in every conversation I had with my dad, he seemed normal. Except of course when he was telling me not to ask about drugs in Fallow.
I could feel my heartbeat in my feet, in my hands, suddenly insistent and ragged. Brad and I might not have done well with Larry, but maybe I could do better with Zack.
I kept my tone light and joking. “Is something going on? Or did he start selling Amway products and you think I might be interested?”
Zack watched me, and I could see him weighing things in his head. I hoped he opted to spill.
“Lone Gun and Masters . . . they’re the future.”
“You wanna be any more specific?”
“We have plans . . . well, it’s bigger than the Weymouth engine rebuild.”
I walked back to him. “How big?”
I tried to load my question with innuendo, but it didn’t quite work. Whether it was everything I’d said to him earlier about us being over or rejecting his proposition, I wasn’t sure. But the words weren’t suggestive when at almost any other time in our relationship, they would have been.
“More money than we’ve ever seen before,” he answered.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My lips tingled with it, and I wet them, needing to know I could still move.
“That’s why it matters who we’re close to.” He said this carefully and then he nodded to punctuate it. This was his final word—at least right now.
“Hm. Well, I trust Brad.” And I did. Absolutely.
“Your dad doesn’t.”
“My dad’s opinion doesn’t determine who I fuck.”
Zack huffed out a laugh. “Fair enough.”
Without waiting for a reply, I left.
I walked around the garage, past the bays where Larry and Collin were working and into the car lot, which was free of people. For a while, I strolled the rows, listening to my boots crunch the gravel and watching the sky overhead. There weren’t any clouds, just a washed out blue dome.
This was it. This place was all I had. I’d never wanted to leave. And now I didn’t know if I could stay.
I turned down another row. Brad’s car—a sand-colored, late-model Honda—sat by the office. He hadn’t left yet. He was probably waiting to see me. But what could I say after last night? After the conversation I’d had?
Everything I thought I had is gone and a lie, and I’m sorry I used you for warmth.
I was blunt. Stupidly so. But even I wasn’t that blunt.
I looked back into the sky. I wanted the wind in my hair and the texture of the pavement under me. Those things were easy enough to get. But the catch was, today at least, I didn’t want to be alone.
I marched to the office and pushed the door open.
Brad was focused on the computer. He was drumming on the desk with an unsharpened pencil, rocking a bit in his chair to the beat only he could hear. He didn’t turn when I opened the door.
“I’m going for a ride.”
He looked over, and I felt his gaze go through me. Every part of me shivered.
Okay, I might have been looking for more than warmth last night. I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere. I might have started something inevitable.
My breath was coming short and shallow. Brad’s eyes were on the place where my T-shirt was struggling to contain my breasts. Tits. Breasts. Jeez, I couldn’t decide how he was looking at me and how it made me feel. But he wasn’t even trying not to look anymore. That was my fault—and I didn’t regret it.
“Mornin’,” I started over. “We need to talk. We can’t do it here. Come with me.”
He finally made eye contact. “Like on your bike?”
“Yes.”
“I . . . I don’t know how.”
“You mean you’ve never been on a motorcycle?”
“If you mean a donor-cycle, then, no. I haven’t.”
I held the door open. “Put on your coat.”
He didn’t move; he just watched me. The half-smile on his face made me think he was amused. His hands clenched on his chair made me think he was wary. The lust in his face made me think he was interested.
So I waited and let his little struggle play out.
Eventually he grabbed his coat and brushed past me. The air between us still felt thick, charged with what we hadn’t said. I ignored this and locked the door. I started back toward Masters and he followed me. He was putting on his coat and muttering. I was trying to decide which of the five things I had to tell him I should lead with.
I pointed to my V Star parked near the entrance to the garage. “That’s what I’m going on. Are you in?”
“I don’t know.”
The best part of this was that I suddenly felt less flustered. Brad had gone as pale as the white pages. All the bedroom had drained right out of his eyes.
I tried not to laugh. “You work at—”
/>
“I’m aware.”
“You’re not curious what all the fuss is about?”
His lips quirked. He was curious. Or he wanted to touch me. I didn’t care which it was.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“No, I choose life.”
I pressed my hands to my face. Dear Lord, this man was driving me crazy.
I pulled my hair up into a ponytail so I could stuff it under my helmet. “Most accidents happen because riders are being stupid, and I’m not stupid. Or they happen because cars aren’t careful. Share the road and whatnot. But there’s no one on the road in Fallow.”
Brad watched me through half-closed eyes. He’d already decided. He was getting on my bike and we both knew it.
“Aw, are you afraid to come with me?” I offered this in a singsong tone.
He swallowed in response. I could see his Adam’s apple bob and catch. I wanted to put my hand there, to feel it move under my fingers. I didn’t, though; I just stood with my hands on my hips and a dare in my expression.
“Should I get you a helmet?” I finally asked.
He muttered a curse. He looked skyward—as if anyone up there might be interested in helping with the predicament we were facing. Then with a disbelieving shake of his head he finally said, “Yes.”
“We wouldn’t want to ride without protection.”
He flipped me off as I sashayed into the garage. I just swung my ass with a bit more flash, and he laughed. I didn’t say anything to Larry or Collin as I shuffled through some stuff on a workbench until I found something that would fit Brad.
I went out to where he was staring warily at my bike. “Micro, right?”
He chuckled and fumbled with the helmet. Having decided to trust me, he had relaxed.
Once he had it on, I said, “Okay, one more safety tip. Those—” I pointed at the chrome tubes “—are the drag pipes. The exhaust. They’re going to get hot. Don’t touch them.”
“Where can I touch?”
I licked my lips, and his gaze went to my face. This ended with us in bed. I knew it did. I’d seen this film but I couldn’t remember quite how to get there. Part of me wanted to scream Fuck me so we could get to the end, to the good part. But the simple truth was that Brad scared me.
