“If you had to stop going to school, if you all of a sudden couldn’t afford it – could you live with that?”
She thought about it for a fraction of a second. “If I could live five years without you, I think I can live without anything.”
His hand settled on her thigh and squeezed.
The truth tumbled over her, thick and final, like molasses pouring. She didn’t gasp, didn’t reel. The truth brought a certain furious calm to her, a place to focus all her pent-up hatred and rage.
“Dad,” she said, and knew from his face that she’d hit on it, finally, the real reason. “He threatened to cut me off if you stayed.”
His hand squeezed again, and she knew she was right. “I am, and I will always be, a broke-ass mechanic. I can’t give you nice things, like Ronnie can.”
She swallowed hard. “Apparently, you gave me a bachelor’s degree.”
“Ava–”
“What else?” she asked, voice thready. “What else can you give me, Felix?”
He held her gaze a long moment. Then he offered both his massive hands to her, palms-up and silver in the moonlight, lined and rough and achingly familiar, etched deep with violence, empty and waiting to catch her.
She was crying as she went to him, pressed her mouth to his, draped her arms around his neck and settled high in his lap.
He pushed her hair back so he could hold her face. Then lower: her shoulders, the curve of her waist, her hips, crushing her against him as he kissed her.
He eased her back, finally, their breath steaming between them. “We probably shouldn’t, in your dad’s yard.”
“Ugh. Let’s not talk about him.” She dropped her head onto his shoulder, the warm skin of his neck against her forehead.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Don’t you worry about Ghost. That’s my problem, not yours. I can handle it.”
She blinked at her lingering tears, giddy and exhausted, full of a sudden fire. She wanted to snuggle in and sleep. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to do somersaults across the grass. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to pull him down on top of her and feel him drive inside.
Instead she merely existed, breathing in the smell of smoke on his cut, petting the worn leather across his back, wondering at the grace of the universe, that it had brought him back to her.
Thirty-Six
“Your ride’s here!”
“Coming!”
Ava checked her reflection one last time. Skinny jeans, boots, purple V-neck shirt, leather jacket. She ducked into her over-the-shoulder bag, securing the strap across her chest. “Well,” she said with a hitch in her breathing, “I’m back.”
“Ava!”
“Coming!”
Maggie was alone in the kitchen, dressed similarly – because she hadn’t gone off to college and had a dress code identity crisis – pouring coffee in a travel mug. “Your father’s still in the shower. I thought you’d like to leave before–”
“Ah. Yep.” She grabbed a granola bar off the counter, zipped it up in her jacket pocket, and snagged her black matte helmet off the peg by the back door. She’d wrestled the thing out of the depths of her closet last night, once Mercy had decreed her mode of transportation until they could figure out who’d slashed her tires.
“Bye, Mom,” she said, and breezed out the back door, helmet swinging by its strap as her elated, bouncy steps carried her around the side of the house.
She hadn’t been on the back of a bike in years, and the idea was adding to this golden, fizzing sensation that wouldn’t stop building inside her. She had Mercy back, and she wanted, more than anything in the world, to believe him. So that’s what she chose to do. She’d awakened that morning and thought to herself,Stop wondering and asking and worrying. Accept it. Bask in it. You’ve got your man back.
He waited on his ’95 Dyna behind her truck, sans cut, in his plain leather jacket, sunglasses making his face seem narrower, sharper, more sinister.
Littlejohn straddled his own bike alongside Mercy. The question of what Mercy planned to do while she was in class for three hours was answered in part: he was going to prowl around, and Littlejohn would stay with the bikes.
Lord, no one at UT wanted him on the loose on campus.
