He flicked ash, not meeting her eye. “If I hadn’t, they would’ve gone after you.” He studied her for a moment. “That’s the kind of shit you’re in for if you stick around. Probably don’t teach that at the university.”
She looked at the ground, then up at the stars, which were just starting to pry open the sky. “I can handle myself.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “I know.” He wanted to tell her that watching her smash a glass into some tweaker’s skull was the highlight of his month. He wanted to say she was the onlyperson he’d ever seen keep her cool when the world was on fire. Instead, he said: “You want to ride?”
She blinked at him, surprised. “Where to?”
He shrugged, the movement making the bruise on his ribs bark in protest. “Anywhere. Nowhere. Just… clear your head.”
She smiled, the expression slow and creeping, like a knife sliding out of a sheath. “I’d like that.”
They both mounted up, helmets snapped and boots grinding gravel. He revved the engine, feeling the vibrations run up his arms, into his chest, into the stubborn fist of his heart. Carly held tight, and for a moment the only sound in the world was the clamor of V-twins drowning out everything ugly and unfinished. They tore out of the lot and hit the open stretch of desert highway like they were running from the devil or racing each other to see who would get there first.
When they crested the first ridge, the city was a spray of lights below them, distant and safe. He pulled over at a turnout, gravel pinging under his tires, and killed the engine. The sudden silence was a punch.
She shook her head, but she was smiling too. “You scare me, Damron.”
He thought about lying, saying something that would make her feel better. But he didn’t lie. Not to her. “I scare me too,” he said.
She let that hang in the air. Then, softer: “I meant it. It was kind of… hot.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he took her hand, the one with the fresh cut, and pressed it to his chest. “You’re still shaking.”
She laughed. “So are you.”
He looked at their hands, blood and dirt and sweat mixing in the crease of their palms. “We make a good team,” he said.
She stepped closer, pressed her forehead to his. “We’re a disaster.”
“Disasters get shit done,” he said.
She kissed him, hard, her hands gripping the leather of his cut. He kissed back, tasting the leftover fear and the surge of want that neither of them could—or wanted to—smother. When she pulled away, she was breathless. “Let’s go,” she said. “Before we start something we can’t finish.”
They tore off down the mountain, engines howling, headlamps slashing the dark like searchlights. And if the stars above looked down and wondered what these two wounded animals were running from—or running to—they didn’t say a word about it.
They took the mountain road past midnight, chasing the thin, cold moon into the hills. The desert had a different flavor up here—juniper and dust, no neon, no sirens, just the distant click of bugs and the snap of gravel under their boots when they pulled off at the overlook. Damron killed the engine. She was the first to break the silence, hopping off the Harley and stretching like a cat, arms over her head, shirt pulling tight over the ridges of her ribs. She caught him staring, and instead of making a joke, she just stared back.
“You miss it?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“Miss what?”
“The way you used to be. The shit you did when nobody was watching.”
He considered it. “I miss the honesty,” he said. “Nothing fake about violence. You know where you stand, or you don’t stand at all.”
She nodded, her eyes reflecting the moonlight. “You ever wish you’d just left it all?”
He shrugged. “You can’t leave what you are. Only what you pretend to be.” He took a drink, the whiskey biting at his tongue. “What about you? You happy playing school girl?”
She smiled, but it was an old, tired smile. “I don’t know if I’m playing anymore. It’s just what I do. What’s left, I guess.”
He looked at her, really looked. “You could be anything.”
She barked a laugh. “No, St. James. I can’t. I burned all my bridges, same as you.”
For a long time, they sat in silence. The wind cut through the pines, sharp as glass, but neither of them felt cold. He wanted to say something that would make her believe him, make her see herself like he did—a loaded weapon, a survivor, a fucking miracle. But words were never his thing.
So he reached into his cut, fished out a cheap black velvet box, and snapped it open. Inside was a ring: black metal, nothing fancy, nothing soft.
