“Sweetheart,” Banks, says softly, then tugs me close, wraps his arms around me, and shields me. No one’s here. No one can see us, and yet he knows without me saying it that I don’t want anyone to see me cry.
I nestle against his chest as a few rebel tears stream down my cheeks till I wipe them away. I feel lighter. I feel like I let go of something I was holding on to for too long. Something that maybe has held me back.
Deep breath.Then I pull back. He runs a hand down my hair. “I get it. I do.”
“Why I don’t love having my picture taken without knowing it’s happening?” I ask in a broken voice.
“Yes, but also, why you love it here. You all look out for each other.”
“We do,” I say.
I set my head on his shoulder. We sit quietly for a while, and it’s nice not to say a word but still feel so connected.
Later, we visit The Sweet Spot, and I buy banana bread from Katrina, who’s dolled up again today. As she hands me the bread, her smile grows bigger with hope. “Would you take some cookies to Chris?”
“I’m not sure I’ll see him,” I admit.
“Or maybe the whole crew,” she says, then reaches under the counter and thrusts a white box of a dozen cookies at me.
Banks takes it before I can, saying a heartfelt, “Thank you.”
I don’t think he’s thanking her for the baked goods.
We leave the shop and continue our ride. When we reach Prohibition Spirit, I stop and point it out to Banks. “I love that place. I go there with Chloe and Bridget, and Haven when she’s in town. That’s the place that my ex wants,” I say, nodding to the expanded section with thefor-leasesign in the window. “For a restaurant.”
Banks growls. “He won’t get it.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll stop him,” he says.
I’m not sure he can, but I love that he wants to. His possessiveness makes my chest flip. “How would you do that?” I ask.
It feels a little like foreplay, this question.
His eyes travel up and down me, heating me up. “However I need to do it, Ripley.”
I can’t stop playing this game. “Why?”
“Don’t want him near you.At all.”
I nibble the corner of my lips. “Then I hope you stop him.”
“Me fucking too,” he says, and I blink off the fog of lust as I push my sneakered feet on the pedals, riding again.
Once we’re past Prohibition Spirit, Banks says into the faint breeze blowing past us, “I like that place, but I like Mister Fox too.”
“You’ve been there?”
“A couple of times. That’s where I met Monroe last year.”
“You’ve been holding out on me.”
“I was there the other night, debating what to do about you.”
At the stop sign, I give him a coy look. “And what did you decide?”
“That you’re impossible to resist.”
