“You’re beautiful,” Clay said unexpectedly with a nervous expulsion of air.
“Oh. Oh, thank you.”
“Thanks for inviting me over. Haven’t had a home-cooked meal in…” He swallowed. Years, he wanted to say, although it wasn’t quite true. Jayda and Tyler had invited him over before he’d taken off. Once. Only once, because he’d seen the look on Jayda’s face when the kids had checked him out, limp and tats and inappropriate vocabulary and all. He’d noticed that night that he couldn’t get a sentence out without an f-bomb or two, which was part of what had kept him alive these past few years. But now that he was out of the MC, well…he was just some cussing, inked-up asshole you couldn’t even have over to dinner.
“It’s been a while,” he finished, and George nodded.
“So. Welcome.” She cleared her throat, held up her glass, and knocked it gently against his bottle. “I’m happy to be able to offer you that.”
He nodded and shoveled in a bite of fish, which, even cold, was delicious. “It’s good.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
“Why’re you so nice to me, George Hadley?”
“Nice? I’m just normal.”
“You shouldn’t even be talking to me.”
“I shouldn’t?”
Clay shook his head. “No. You really shouldn’t.”
“Why not? You said you weren’t going to hurt me.”
“I’m not,” he said, although for the first time he wondered if that were actually true. “But I could, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, having me around isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
She shrugged, indicating the room. “As you can see, there’s nobody here to complain. Except maybe Leonard, but he’d bitch at Mother Teresa. Although, apparently you pass muster.”
“Oh yeah?” Clay glanced down at the cat, which, as if understanding their words, curled into a tighter ball on his lap and let out a funny, little birdlike trill. “Seems friendly enough.”
“Yeah, right. You can push him off.”
Clay let the cat stay, a vibrating heater. They were quiet as they ate, serenaded by the animal’s engine-like rumbling and the incessant song of the crickets outside.
“What is that noise?”
George cocked her head. “What noise?”
“That… Like crickets, except…loud.” Unbearably fucking never-endingly loud enough to make a person go completely insane.
“It’s the cicadas. They’ve graced us with their presence.”
“This is a good thing?”
“Every seventeen years. That’s how often they get to come out of hiding. And here they are, finally. Alive again!”
“Wow. When you put it that way…”
“Come on,” she said, standing up and heading for the porch, where it was overwhelming—ultra surround sound, with the added ominous rumble of distant thunder—and then down three steps into the backyard, which was bathed in pale moonlight. George took a central path, leading to the far end of the yard and the woods beyond. It was a jungle out here—plants barely held back by metal structures, poles spilling onto the walkway with abandon. The moonlight turned everything the same shade of gray or green, but alive, so damned alive with the buzzing, ticking, humming energy of unseen fauna and rampant flora that Clay had to stop, breathe, get his bearings, gather himself before following her.
Close to the back of the yard, she stopped and turned to look at him, and although the colors were washed out, he could see the excitement on her face, could feel it in currents as electrified as the far-off flash of lightning.
The noise. He couldn’t take the fucking noise. The deep, constant background sounds drove him a little crazier every day. And this woman loved it? They were worlds apart, weren’t they?
