If I stay here any longer than I already have, I might explode.
Her only response to me is a defeated sigh and a bob of her head in understanding.
The way that my brother tells it, Nia’s relationship with her family is a lot more similar to Connor’s than it is the rest of us. She can hate Jeff and Molly all she wants on behalf of Brody, and even on behalf of me, if she wants to, but this is something that you just can’t get unless yougetit.
As she takes her foot off of the brake and the car finally begins its slow crawl forward, my head rolls back to the window at my side. Watching in the mirror as the neighborhood disappears behind us, I let myself breathe.
I’m leaving this place behind.
Again.
The engine of my bike purrs beneath me as it takes me through my too-familiar-too-soon neighborhood. The few kids that livehere are out on their driveways, playing before dinner. Riding their bikes, tossing a ball to one another, shouting and laughing.
Kids being kids.
My own front yard is empty, the light above the garage door shining brightly, with the occasional flicker to remind me that I need to get the bulb changed. I’ll get to it eventually.
Before I’m even halfway up the driveway, the front door flies open and my wife is hauling ass down the concrete. Her body slams into mine as I step off of the bike, and she squeezes my middle tightly before pulling back to land a harsh smack to my chest with the back of her hand.
“You can’t just leave a note like that and not answer your phone for fourteen hours, Tripp,” she reprimands, wearing both anger and worry clear as day on her face. “You terrified us.”
It occurs to me that, as far as she and Connor knew, taking my bike and disappearing could have meant that I was smeared across the highway in an unrecognizable pile of blood and flesh. I got a two-inch patch of road rash in my early days of riding, and Jules was a mess over it for weeks. I should have known that this would make her panic.
Cupping her face in my hands, I stroke my thumbs across her cheeks and drop a kiss to the tip of her nose.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I went to see my— I saw Jeff.”
I won’t lie to her and tell her that I’m okay. I won’t try to pretend that I don’t have any regrets about going; I knew that I would. I signed up for that. Instead, I meet her in a quick peck on the lips before wrapping my arms around her as we walk back into the house together.
Drumstick greets us with a loud yowl and a hard swish of his wiry tail. The bell around his neck jingles as we make our way to the couch, and as Julia settles into my lap with her arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders, I apologize to her again for scaring her the way that I did.
The front door opens no more than twenty minutes after we sit down, with a pissed-off Connor stalking through the house, offering a glare in my direction. He’s got a pizza box in his hand and his gear only half-secured to his body. No gloves.
Dropping the box onto the kitchen table, he moves to the tall cabinet next to the refrigerator and grabs a stack of paper plates.
“You got here quick,” I comment, using my chin to gesture toward the pie.
“I texted as soon as I heard you outside,” Julia tells me.
Her head rests against my shoulder as Connor offers another scowl over his shoulder. Without a word, he brings a plate to the living room and hands it to Jules with a kiss to her lips before heading back into the kitchen.
“Two for me,” I call out, and Connor lets out a scoff, furrowing his brow.
“You scared the shit out of me, you don’t get any pizza,” he growls. “Julia called the goddamned morgue to see if you were there.”
Cupping Julia’s face, I snap to her, my brows pinching together as Connor heads back to the table to load up his own serving of what seems to have turned into an impromptu family dinner.
“My husband takes risks when he’s upset, and he took his motorcycle out in the middle of the night and didn’t come home,” she says with a shrug. “Context clues said…make sure.”
“Baby,” I sigh, pressing my lips to the tip of her nose. “I called B at like, two in the morning and told him I wanted a flight. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“We don’t forgive you,” Connor grumbles. A paper plate lands on my lap, holding two slices of the pie. “Eat your pizza.”
His body drops onto the cushion next to mine, his thigh pressing against my own, and he offers an agitated shake of hishead as he pulls his own slice from his plate. He’s still wearing his riding jacket, half-zipped and completely ineffective.
As he reaches for the remote to power on the TV, I pull a slice of pepperoni from my pizza to drop it into Julia’s mouth. Her lips linger at my fingertip, her soft hand wrapping around my wrist as she offers me a smile through her mascara-coated lashes.
The three of us finish the pizza together with little effort, Connor sneaking Drumstick a piece of cheese when he thinks that I’m not looking. Tucking the box - now stuffed with our used plates and napkins - under my arm, I take them out to the big garbage can that sits against the wall in the back yard.
