Inside, I do my best to disappear.
Chapter 9
Brittany
I learn real fast that in Hell, Kentucky, a man can ruin you without ever touching you. All he has to do is look at you once in front of the right people, then pretend you don’t exist.
A week passes like I’m walking through fog. I keep my head down. I do my classwork at the kitchen table with a lamp that flickers when the air conditioner kicks on. Because Daddy still hasn’t come home and the electric bill still ain’t getting paid by prayer, I go to work and ring up chainsaws and pawned wedding bands and gold necklaces that smell like somebody else’s perfume. I babysit Mason, wipe his sticky hands on my jeans, and laugh when he calls the toy truck vroom like he invented the word.
I tell myself I’m okay.
I tell myself the glove was a prank.
I tell myself the Pearly Gates boy staring at me outside the diner was just nosy and not something else.
Two weeks pass, and I tell myself I don’t care that Oaks hasn’t shown his face again.
Not at the pawn shop. Not at the gas station. Not at the diner. Not even one of those drive-by Harley rumbles that make the windows shake and my stomach flip like I’m the one being called out.
He warned me and then he vanished.
Which is exactly what a grown, married biker ought to do.
It still pisses me off.
Because I didn’t ask him to line my boots up by a door like he was some gentleman in a world full of wolves. I didn’t ask him to write me a note like he knew my name mattered. I didn’t ask him to stand between me and the dark.
But he did.
Then he took it away.
Now my whole stupid body misses the sight of him like it got used to being protected without permission.
I hate that about me.
I hate that I’m the kind of girl who can get attached to a man off a warning and a note.
I’m halfway through a chapter for my online class when Lottie calls and tells me to swing by Hollar Dollar for Mason’s snacks, because she’s stuck at the pawn shop dealing with some fool trying to pawn a generator that’s still got mud from a construction site on it.
“Grab him gummy bears,” she says. “The ones shaped like worms. Don’t ask why he likes ’em. He tried a real worm this week.”
“Yes ma’am,” I say, smiling until I hang up and remember where I’m going.
Hollar Dollar sits right beside the pawn shop, right on the line between Official and Hell, that strip of mall where everything smells like exhaust and fried food. No yellow sign, it’s local and doesn’t belong to Holler though folks always asks.It’s the kind of place you stop at when you’re about broke and desperate or just tired of fighting the crowds at Walmart a county over.
Becki’s working the register when I walk in.
Of course she is.
Becki Crowley looks like somebody who survived a storm and kept the lightning. Dark hair pulled back, winged eyes tired but sharp, mouth set like she’s got secrets clenched between her teeth. She’s wearing that neon green Hollar Dollar shirt like it’s punishment, tapping her matching nails against the counter like she’s counting down to something.
She looks up when the bell jingles and her eyes narrow. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say, forcing lightness.
Becki doesn’t smile. She never smiles like she means it. “You still breathing?”
“Last I checked.”
