“Or the club? Because of my history with Catch. Is that why you’re—”
I shook my head and moved towards her, my hand reaching out and drifting across the soft skin of her upper chest, so pale next to mine. So delicate. Unmarred.
Her eyes fluttered for a moment. “If you want to keep this a secret, that’s fine with me.”
“Secrets are poison.”
Becca’s singsong shouts rang out, and the bump and crash of thick plastic echoed from the living room.
I removed my hand from her silky throat and stepped away from her. “She threw her sippy cup now, huh? Guess she wants a refill.”
“She’s not the only one,” Jill mumbled.
“I gotta get moving anyhow.”
Her eyes flashed. “You do that.”
“Jesus, Jill.” I turned and swung open the screen door, hustling down the narrow steps.
Behind me, the door crashed.
“JUST ONE MORE BLOCK, and we’ll be home, sweets.” I guided Becca’s stroller down the last block before Rae’s street.
This sleepy neighborhood, in a quiet almost nondescript small town on the edges of the Black Hills, really had become our home in the past four months that we had been here. I was glad I’d jumped on Tania’s offer to come to Meager with her. It was so crazy impulsive of me—oh, what else is new?—but without a doubt, it was the best impulse I’d had in years, if not ever.
Dusky orange, startling pink, and faded blue illuminated the thin blanket of bumpy clouds in the vast sky over us, yet just as quickly as the colors had surged to life, the brilliant glow began to fade into the sunless, murky shadows of early evening.
I pushed the stroller past the row of boxy houses that were all the same shape and size. It wasn’t a very exciting neighborhood really, but there was comfort in the familiar lines, a gracious pleasantness in the clean, well-cared-for exteriors, an ease in the spinning whir of water sprinklers filling the air. Each house sported a manicured lawn, trimmed with a variety of flowers and potted plants, and seasonal banners hung by a number of front doors. Only the ding ding of an ice cream truck was missing.
“I love our sunset walks, Becca. It’s so much nicer here than where we lived before. We’re so lucky to be living with Grandma.”
My heart squeezed at the thought that I was finally able to give this simple goodness, this kind of no-need-to-freak-out-about-tomorrow contentment to my daughter. Not freaking out about my tomorrows was very unusual for me. I’d been a pro for years now.
But I was freaking out about one thing, one person.
Boner and I hadn’t spoken to or seen each other since last week when he’d come over with Rae’s prescriptions, and we’d fooled around in the kitchen. No, fooled around was a ridiculous phrase. It had been more than that—something positively violent. At least for me.
He’d only touched me, barely entered me with his fingers. He hadn’t even had the chance to make me come—well, almost, but that didn’t matter. It was a beautiful, glorious, hot, and crazy moment, and I couldn’t stop daydreaming about it. I couldn’t stop fantasizing about what it would be like to have his naked body against mine, demanding surrender and abandon.
But he always stopped it.
I hadn’t heard from him or seen him since our finger-fuck that never was. He probably had shut it out of his mind, hitting the Delete key in his memory chip, and that was that.
Boner still saw me as that vulnerable, needy teenager he had shooed off club property a lifetime ago.
I shouldn’t have to convince him to pursue anything. He wanted to fuck me, but I was a loaded issue. I wasn’t some chick he could just do and dump. No, I was a part of his inner circle now.
The kitchen event was strike two, wasn’t it? I really didn’t want to suffer the humiliation of a strike three.
Time for me to hit that Delete key, too.
I let out an exhale as I pushed the stroller around a bump in the road where a tree’s roots had broken through the asphalt, creating an ugly ruptured mound. We turned the last corner and my breath snagged, my eyes widened.
The alien invasion had landed.
The angry black monster trimmed in dark orange and midnight blue skulked in the driveway behind my car.
That Harley.
His Harley.
My illusion of liberation. The bike I’d ridden on for years, thinking I’d found the man of my dreams. The bike I’d ridden on, feeling the anxiety of not belonging, the tension of being wrong and trying to make it right.
I gulped in a breath, and my heart jumped back to life.
“Becca, your daddy’s here.”
I gripped the handlebar and guided the stroller up the street toward Rae’s driveway. I unlocked the front door, pushed it open, and steered the stroller into the house.
Rae sat in her padded lounge chair, her face drawn, her big dark eyes deceptively calm. “There they are,” she said, her voice straining to inject cheer into the room.