I grab her hand and lift it to my lips, pressing a kiss to her open palm. Then I lace our fingers together, holding on tight.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “We will.”
The heaviness lingers for another moment before I decide we both need a break from it. I nod toward the pizza box on the coffee table.
“Come on. Eat your dinner.”
A genuine smile lights up her face as she giggles and reaches for the box. “Yes, Daddy.”
I groan. “Don’t start with that.”
She just laughs again, the sound like magic. It truly has the ability to make it easier to breathe and any situation lighter.
We flip open the pizza box and grab our slices, eating as we put on a movie.
But even as I chew, my mind keeps turning. It combs through everything that’s stacked against us.
Tom and the tension simmering between us ever since he got back. The Peñas and their cartel bullshit breathing down our necks.
Now Wheels and the Road Rebels, crawling out of the woodwork to settle old scores.
The shitshow at the barbecue—Rachel’s accusations, fresh animosity between me and Big Eddie and Moses, judgments from everybody else in the club.
All of it swirling together into one massive storm that’s threatening to swallow me whole.
Through it all, I’ve got to keep Solana safe. Find a way for us to be together despite everyone and everything trying to tear us apart.
I glance over at her—this beautiful, fierce, stubborn young woman who’s somehow become my whole world—and the uncertainty of it all rocks me to my core.
Something’s gotta give.
I just hope to god it isn’t us.
27
SOLANA
I expectedthe fallout from my and Silver’s relationship being exposed to be bad. I didn’t expect it to bethisbad.
It feels like everyone in Pulsboro found out about us overnight. Everywhere I go, whispers follow.
At the local grocery store, women exchange knowing glances when I walk past. On the street, people I’ve known my whole life suddenly can’t meet my eyes.
I’ve become the town scandal—the young, sweet girl who got mixed up with the older, rough-and-tumble biker. The once-acting president of the Steel Kings, no less.
Even the community theater isn’t safe.
Mr. Davies has begun acting increasingly uncomfortable around me, as though he expects to be caught up in a scandal too, as an older man in my orbit. During the practice forMoonshine & Magnolia, he keeps finding ways to mention his wife.
“My wife and I were just discussing this scene last night,” he’ll say, or “Let me call my wife and tell her I’ll be late.”
It’s as if he’s trying to remind me he’s a married man. That he’s not like Silver. He’s off-limits and not interested (and he doesn’t seem to get that neither am I).
When there’s a brief moment we’re alone backstage, he practically trips over himself to find a reason to leave.
“I should go check on the costume department,” he mumbles, then promptly excuses himself.
The rest of the cast is no better.
