She pulls away before I can deepen the connection, but fuck me dead, that tease was enough. It was everything I needed to confirm what my gut and heart already knew—this will get complicated before it gets easier.
“I’m sorry.” Kyra ducks to grab the basket. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Says who?” This isn’t her talking. It’s her fear of what others will say. Her people-pleasing tendencies.
“Me.” Her eyes have darkened to a rich mahogany. “I’m promising you things I’m not sure I can give you yet.”
“Yet?”
She shakes her head, loose waves slipping over her shoulder. “Never mind. I’m going to go settle these, and then we can move on, okay?”
I don’t think she means to move on physically. More like, let’s drop the subject and forget what we did between these shelves.
Why? Kissing her isn’t shameful. It’s not wrong, theoretically. What she did just now? That was her without her mask, and now she’s shoved that thing firmly back in place while she deals with the shopkeeper who ambles out from the back room.
And it pisses me off.
Because I can guarantee it’s wholly to do with the cut draped over my damn shoulders and the fucking last name of hers that’ll haunt her as long as she keeps it.
I slip outside while she pays and lean up against the store facade to check my phone. There’s general gossip in the groupchat about menial things, such as who has what spare parts they’re willing to sell, and when our next club get-together is. The usual subjects that the general membership chats about when they’re oblivious to what’s going on around them.
Sometimes I envy that ignorance. Wonder what it would have been like had my old man not pushed me hard toward being an officer from the minute I was deemed old enough and experienced enough to hold a role. I got barely five years as a general member before I became privy to the inner workings of the club, and if I said that hasn’t contributed to my messed-up mental state as an adult, I’d be a fucking liar.
Kyra steps out the door, checking right before she turns her head left and spots where I stand. “I thought you might have left.”
“Why?” The conversation is stunted. Awkward. I hate that her fear of retribution made it that way.
“Because of what I said.”
“It was what you didn’t say that annoyed me more.”
Her eyes widen at my brash response, but fuck it, why put my mask on because she feels more comfortable with hers? Did she ever find herself out there, or was it all a lie she told herself to justify the escape?
“Where would you like to go next?”
Her throat bobs. “How about you pick?”
“I picked this place.”
Her nostrils flare, and she glances to the road.Probably be better if we ended it here.However, I’m not ready to give up yet.
“Why do you do it?” I ask.
She frowns. “Do what?”
I pause and wait for a couple to pass by before I answer. “Let him dictate your actions when he’s not even around.”
She stares at me, lips rolling while she formulates an answer.
I didn’t have to say who. It’s fucking obvious. He’s always been the reason she stayed on her sunny side of the tracks, and I faded deeper into the shadows on mine.
“He might not be physically here,” Kyra says carefully. “But he’s all around me. Always. Everywhere I look, he’s there, in the judgmental stares of the people who’ll run right to him with the gossip, in the safer streets incentives I see when I walk through our neighborhood. He’s there in the goddamn town emblem; the same image that’s a part of his uniform and burned into my childhood memories.” She sighs, crossing an arm over herself to grab the other elbow. “Worst of all, he’s there in every interaction I have with my mother, because if it’s not her guarding her answers and curating them for his benefit, I’m reminded simply by the fact I had to come back to advocate for her care because he won’t.”
Her gaze grows glassy with restrained tears, jaw firm. She’s angry, but she also shoves it down to put on a brave face, and that shit ain’t right. Sure, I feel bad that I upset her by questioning why she acts the way she does, but I feel worse for letting her down because even with me, she can’t let go of the deep resentment cradling her trauma and start to heal.
I nod toward the goods in her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to your parents’ place so you can drop that shit off.”
“Why?” Her frown deepens.
