Luckily, I had three months to prepare. Plenty of time.
I was eager to get back to the loft, grab some food, and change into pajamas before setting up shop with my computer, but when I turned the key to the Honda, the car wouldn’t start.
I tried again. The engine tried to turn over, but it never quite made it, and I waited a few minutes before trying a third time, not wanting to flood the engine.
Still nothing.
Normally I’d call my dad, but I didn’t want to invite questions after our conversation about the apricot galette. He’d ask about work and Bailey. I’d feel guilty not mentioning the fact that my living situation had changed, and it wasn’t like I could tell him I was temporality shacking up with three monstrous tattooed guys from Southside (I didn’t actually know if the Butchers were from Southside, but it seemed like a safe assumption).
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I could call Bailey, but that didn’t seem fair either, not when I’d bailed on her to live with the Butchers.
Finally, I sighed and pulled out my phone.
Goddammit.
33
MAEVE
I was leaningagainst my car, the parking lot almost empty, when Poe rode into the parking lot on a red Ducati. I’d seen the bike parked between the Hummer and an orange sports car in the lot outside the loft, but seeing it in motion was an entirely different experience.
The bike was red and gunmetal gray, with tires that looked like they’d be just as good at navigating off-road terrain as they were at eating up asphalt. Poe was almost one with the machine, his head covered by a helmet as he bent over the handlebars, his muscular arms holding on with ease, big thighs straddling the seat in a way that sent an increasingly familiar bolt of lust through my body.
The sun had almost set behind the mountains, and Poe parked the bike next to June’s Honda under the glow of a light that had come on just minutes before.
He turned off the bike, and the ensuing silence was almost as deafening as the roar of the bike had been when he pulled in.
He lifted one leg over the bike’s seat with ease, pulled off his helmet, and strode toward me looking like an A-list actor rightout of an action movie, complete with the leather jacket and ripped jeans.
“Got here as fast as I could.”
“The tow truck said it would be an hour, and that was forty-five minutes ago.”
It was better than saying what I was thinking, which was,How hard would it be to fuck on your motorcycle?
“Let me take a look.” He approached the front of the car. “Pop the hood.”
I got in the car and pulled the hood latch.
“Try turning it over,” he said from under the hood.
The car did the same thing it did before, the engine trying to turn over to no avail.
He closed the hood. “Sounds like your starter.”
“Great,” I said, stepping out of the car.
He studied it. “How old is this thing?”
“Maybe ten years? I’m not sure. It was used when my sister bought it.”
“It belonged to your sister?” There were obvious questions behind his surprise, the most obvious being,Why are you driving your dead sister’s car?
“Yeah.”
He nodded then, like he understood, which of course he couldn’t. No one could.
“Might as well make ourselves comfortable.” I followed him to the front of the car where he sat on the hood. The car dipped under his weight. “Unless you don’t want me sitting on it?”
