A woman comes around the corner pushing a baby carriage and briefly interrupts us as we separate to let her pass.
“The feds,” Babydoll repeats once she’s past. “They get to you or something?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Ry-Ryan and I had to escape. Billy turned on us, you know. That’s all I know.”
She studies me for a moment, then shakes her head, looks at me almost pityingly. Another shopper passes between us, lingering to compare jars of pasta sauce.
“Hey,” she says. “You got a bit of time? Wanna go somewhere and talk?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “I’d like that.”
I follow Babydoll’s car down Main Street to the Bean & Barrel, a squat brick building with a painted coffee bean on the sign, and park beside her. Inside, there’s a chalkboard menu over the counter, mismatched mugs hanging from hooks, old rodeo posters framed on the walls. The floor is scuffed wood and the tables are all different sizes with different colored chairs.
We take a table by the window. I order a latte, and Babydoll gets a glass of wine.
“It’s happy hour somewhere,” she says with a shrug.
The server leaves us, and for a moment we just look at each other over the empty table, searching for where to begin.
“So,” Babydoll says finally. “Start talking, cockroach. What happened that night?”
That night. The collar. The stage. The blue pills. Seeing Ryder after all that time.
I wrap my hands around the warm mug when it arrives, buying myself a few seconds.
“Billy lost it,” I finally say. “More than usual. You know how paranoid he was getting. He decided Ryan wasn’t loyal enough. Decided I wasn’t either.”
“Yeah, I got that part,” she says.
“Ryan had…an opportunity. A way out.”
“What kind of ‘way out’?” she asks, eyes narrowing.
“People owed him,” I say. It’s not technically a lie. “He’d been lining things up, I guess. All I know is, one minute I was on the stage out on the airfield and the next minute everything went sideways. When I woke up, we were gone.”
Babydoll snorts softly. “It was wild, man. Someone yelled that there was a fire on the stage and then suddenly Billy hit a bad line on the bike.” She twirls her finger to mimic a spinout. “Crowd thought it was for show until the fucking gas tank blew. Big fireball, half the raceway lights cut out, people started screaming. Total chaos, everyone’s freaking out. Medics tookoff, couldn’t be found anywhere…Cops roll in, find fucking Silas dead, and then it’s the whole cavalry after that. ATF. Sirens, spotlights, everyone face-down on the concrete.” She sighs, like just the memory of it is exhausting to her, and takes a sip of her wine. “Zipped up the bodies, took pictures, asked questions, and then everyone cleared out but a few of us. Haven’t seen anyone since.”
She tilts her head at me questioningly.
“We didn’t even know you and Ryan were gone for a couple of days. You must’ve left in the middle of it.”
“Uh…yeah, we just missed it,” I say, hoping it doesn’t sound as unconvincing as it feels. “We went to a motel first, somewhere out of state. Then nowhere.” I lift one shoulder. “We’ve been keeping our heads down. I’m done with Billy’s world. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
Her gaze softens, just a touch. “You with Ryan still?” she asks.
I think of Wyatt with his ribs wrapped, looking exhausted. I think of everything he’s done for me that she’ll never know about.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Still together.”
“And the suits?” she asks. “You sure you’re not with them?”
“I’m definitely not with any suits,” I say.
She rolls the stem of her glass between her fingers, thinking. “So, you’d already heard about Billy and Silas, eh?” she checks.
I nod. “Ryan heard—from someone he knows.”
“Did you hear about Senator Hargrove, too?”
