I increase my pace, my long legs eating up the sidewalk before I cross a street at the same rapid pace and pound down the next stretch of concrete. Houses whip past. I ignore them, and the rest of my surroundings, while also being perfectly aware that they’re there. I’ve pretty much made an art form of it.
“Can you stop for a second?” Fawnie had fallen behind, but she catches up with me. Her breaths puff invisibly up into the velvet sky.
If it was cold out, I’d be able to see them.
They’d probably catch on her thick eyelashes and star them together. Her soft blue eyes would darken. She’d grin at me inexplicably, just because she loves being happy, and her dimples would appear.
I glance up at the dark sky just for somewhere else to look. My hand curls around the strap of my bag until the leather crinkles and bites around my knuckles.
I don’t want to notice Fawnie’s clothing but now I take her in. She might have come to stalk me all in black, but there’s pops of color here and there, like her purple sneakers. It’s like even in the darkness she can’t keep out the sunshine.
How fucking poetic.
She stares at me with absolutely guileless, huge blue eyes while she struggles to keep up with me.
I remember exactly what they looked like backlit with the glow of flames. Huge. Tear filled. Pleading. She’s the one person on this earth who has ever looked at me with true awe. She looked at me like I was something. Like I could be everything. I know it was just amazement, shock, and gratitude.
There’s no fire now. Not behind us. Not in front of us. Not anywhere except in our minds.
She still has that same wide-eyed, sweet look to her.
Hero worship? This is so much more than that. Iknewshe’d want to save me if she ever met me. She’s Preacher’s daughter, even if she doesn’tlooklike him at all. She has that same good spirit. That same tendency to believe that the world is a good place despite all evidence to the contrary of it being one endless hell of a dumpster fire.
Those eyes offer friendship, but they’re already far more dangerous.
They stay locked on my face while she walks, and I know she sees too much. All of me. Everything. She could take me apart, right down to the core of me. Her soul wants to feed the life back into mine, but hers is filled with romance and poetry. There’s no room in my life for that.
She says nothing as the seconds and then the minute tick on. She’s not anxious. She doesn’t need to fill the silence. It’s not weird for her.I’mnot weird to her.
My heart is beating too fast, and not just from the fast pace. I’m a mess.
Truth? I would love to slow down. Turn around and go back home. Maybe even forget this night ever happened. “No.”
Another truth? I have no real idea where I’m going. I packed the bag, knowing that if I had to leave, I’d walk to the bus station and get on the first one that was heading to some place cool. Would I ever be back?
“Shadow!”
When anyone other than my club brothers use that name, and even when they do, I cringe inside. It makes me sound like something I’m not. Mysterious, instead of a miserable fucker. But I guess when handing out club names, Asshat or Fuckface aren’t top of the list, and when Tyrant asked me what I wanted to be called and I said ‘Nothing’, he took me literally. So I’m the shadow that lurks on the fringes. Watching, but never fully a part of the action.
“Can youstop?”
I increase my pace. The bus station is a good six miles away. I’d like to arrive there before midnight, when the last bus leaves.
Her hand lands on my arm.
I stop dead in my tracks. In my mind, I see myself tugging my arm free callously and resuming walking, leaving Fawnie far behind me. For some reason that I can’t fathom, I don’t do it.Her touch scorches through my hoodie, but not like fire. She doesn’t burn me. She’s not destructive. I’ve made it clear that I don’t appreciate any sort of physical closeness, and the people in my life have respected that.
It’s been nice.
And also incredibly lonely.
I do the next stupidest thing I can do, and drop my eyes to that hand. They don’t stop there.
In the streetlight, her blue eyes glisten with near purple flecks. Her cheeks are pink from chasing after me. Her prefect bow lips are open so she can pant and suck in air as she tries to catch her breath.
It’s jarring seeing her without the heavy eye makeup, baggy clothes full of sewn on patches, and all the safety pin jewelry she usually prefers. Her jeans are tight, outlining her long legs. Thank god she’s not turned around. I don’t need to see what they look like from the back.
When she was here visiting Preacher before, I glimpsed her from a distance when I rolled up the clubhouse, not knowing she was there. She was chilling in the kitchen like she was perfectly comfortable being in a place surrounded by rough bikers.
