He hasn’t been around. Hasn’t answered a textinmonths. Not the one that saidAre you okay?Not the one that saidDid I say something wrong?Not even the one that was just a simple, stupidHey.
I tell myself good men get busy. I tell myself men who go to church sometimes put their phones down. I tell myself a lot of things, because believing them hurts less than the other option.
After my shift at the diner, I head straight to the pawn shop, still smelling like grease and coffee and too many eyes. Lottie’s already there, Mason dragging his toy tractor across the tile like he’s plowing a field. He looks up when I come in and grins like I’m sunshine instead of a mess.
“Brit,” Lottie says the second she sees my face. “You look like you lost a fight.”
“Feels like it,” I mutter, and I don’t even have the energy to pretend I’m fine.
Becki’s at the counter today, eyeliner sharp, mood sharper. She’s no longer locked up at the Kings of Anarchy MC clubhouse. No longer their prisoner. Quite the opposite. She’s Property of Royal all the sudden. No more pining over their Prez.
Hell, Kentucky sure give’s me whiplash.
She watches me the way she always does now, like she’s waiting for something to snap, like she’s counting the days until Hell proves her right, and someone snatches me.
The afternoon drags. A man tries to pawn a rifle with the serial number filed off. A woman argues about the value of hergrandmother’s necklace like it’s a moral failing on our part. The bell over the door rings too often, and every time it does my stomach jumps like it’s expecting someone to step through and end this whole slow-burn nightmare.
Elijah doesn’t come by.
Oaks doesn’t either.
That shouldn’t matter. It does anyway, because my brain is traitorous and my body keeps remembering what it felt like to be watched like I mattered, even when I hated it.
By the time we're home, Lottie tells me they’ve got an emergency meeting at the clubhouse and asks if I can keep Mason for the night, I’m too tired to argue.
“Of course,” I say. “We’ll build a fort.”
Mason cheers like I just handed him a winning lottery ticket. He runs in circles while I set up couch cushions and a blanket like it’s the most important construction project in the county.
After Lottie leaves, the house settles into quiet. I feed him chicken nuggets, read him a book about a bear who doesn’t want to hibernate, and let him fall asleep on my chest while I scroll my phone with one hand.
Still nothing from Elijah.
I type out another message, delete it, type again, delete again. The cursor blinks like it’s laughing at me. Eventually I give up, carry Mason to his bed, and tuck him in the way I wish somebody had tucked me in the last few weeks.
Then I head downstairs to the finished basement that’s been mine since Daddy called from Missouri and told me he’dmet someone and sold the house and didn’t see the point in dragging things out.
Didn’t see the point.
I lie down on the pull-out couch, staring at the ceiling, and for a second I let myself imagine what it would feel like if someone fought for me the way Oaks did for a bit.
Then I hate myself for it. I told him to stop. He did. End of story.
Sleep takes me like a fall.
When I wake up, the air smells wrong.
Not like Lottie’s lavender detergent. Not like Mason’s baby shampoo.
Wood.
Old wood.
And something damp, like fishy.
I sit up too fast and my head spins. I blink hard, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing, because it can’t be real, and my body starts panicking before my brain catches up.
This ain’t the basement.
