Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
She reaches across the table and finds my hand. Her palm is warm and comforting. “I’m thankful for the women they’ve fallen in love with. Thankful down to the bone. It’s not a small thing, what y’all do. You make the noise stop for men who don’t know how to turn the engine off by themselves.”
The laugh that slips out of me is more like a breath. “He says that. That I gave him a place to put the quiet.”
“You did,” she says. “And he gave you one back.” Her thumb strokes along my knuckles, a mother’s comfort even if I didn’t grow up in her house. “I want to tell you something before you go on this ride.” Her voice gentles, but it doesn’t soften the truth. “It isn’t easy to love a Hellion. It’s simple, but it isn’t easy. There are late calls and long runs and rules you didn’t write but have to live under. There’ll be folks who love to say the word outlaw like it’s a stain. Let them. We know what it means. We know the cost and the promise.”
I nod, throat thick.
“You’re family,” she says, the word wrapped in iron and blessing. “Do you hear me? Not on loan, not on trial. Family. And that isn’t about Pretty Boy, it’s about Kellum, the man bringing you in the fold and we accept you fully. If you need soup, I bring soup. If you need a spare key, I have one. If the world gets loud, you come sit in my living room and I’ll make it quiet with a blanket and the worst daytime TV I can find.”
I laugh, then don’t, because I’m suddenly crying and didn’t know it was coming. She doesn’t flinch. She stands, circles the table, and tucks me under her arm like I’ve always belonged there.
“You aren’t alone anymore, Kristen,” she whispers into my hair. “Not for a second.”
I breathe it like medicine. “I know,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
The back door taps again and a whip of perfume and sarcasm slides in ahead Dia. She’s in boots and a denim jacket, hair a storm of blonde curls, smile already sharp.
“Well, look at you,” she says, giving me a head-to-toe like a runway judge who also carries a knife. “Braids tight, boots right, eyes soft. That road ain’t ready.”
I sniff-laugh, wiping my face. “I didn’t plan on crying.”
“You think you can love a man like a Hellion and not leak sometimes?” she snorts, dropping a kiss on my cheek anyway. She points at the tote. “Did Mama Sass give you the neck thing?” I nod. “Good. She made me one when I finally got to take this ride with Toon and I still wear it when the mountain decides to be rude and forget we are from the coast and like warmth.”
Sass leans back against the counter, crossing her ankles, arms folding in what I’ve learned is her I’m about to say a lot without blinking stance. “It’s not easy,” she begins where she left off before Dia joined us. “It’s worth it. But it’s work. People will ask you to explain the difference between a man who lives by a code and a man who runs from one. Don’t waste your breath. Show them your life. Show them your peace by living in it. Trust your man to give you that.” She tips her chin toward the window where Kellum straightens and checks on nothing specific, smiling to himself. “He’s your peace, and you’re his. That’s the only thing that matters and fuck anyone who doesn’t understand it.”
Sass reaches into her jacket and pulls out a tiny zippered pouch. “Also,” she says, “because I’m practical, here.” She drops it in my palm. Inside: a few bandages, packets of electrolyte powder, two safety pins, a spare hair tie, and a folded twenty. “Mini kit. I call it the bitch’s bag. Keep it in your inner pocket.”
I laugh, real and grateful. “You’re a feisty one for sure.”
Dia laughs, “yeah, when she’s with my mom they are hell on wheels even as they keep aging. Pure menaces.”
“I’m a resource,” she corrects, then softens her eyes in a way her son’s react to. “Listen. There’s a reason the women stand together at runs and parties. Not because we can’t stand alone. Because we don’t have to.” She points between herself and Dia. “You need anything, you call. If he’s out and your head gets loud, you come sit with us and we’ll make fun of him for tying his boots too tight.”
“He does tie them too tight,” I admit, and all three of us crack up because love is sometimes a man you can joke about.
The back door opens without knocking this time because the person coming in doesn’t knock in his own house. Kellum fills the frame—cut off, old tee, grease on one forearm, smile slow. He clocks the women, clocks my face, and his mouth does that soft thing it only does for me.