Leaving her there, I headed for the stairs, trying to be quiet since Granny had already gone up.
“Headin’ up, Babygirl?” Papaw asked from his spot in the recliner.
“Yeah,” I said, pausing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Night, baby girl.” He didn’t look up from the TV, but I caught the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He was happy I was home.
“Night.”
Just as I grabbed hold of the banister to head up, his phone rang.
Fishing it out of the inside pocket of his cut, he glanced at the screen, and frowned. “Yo.”
I stood there listening, knowing I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the way he went rigid had my hackles raised. Something was wrong.
“Where?” Papaw’s voice dropped. “How bad?”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
“Shit,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “Sandman’s out of town, visiting his mama in Georgia. Y’all are gonna have to bring him here.”
Sandman. He was a member of the Kings. He used to be a medic or something in the military.
I can’t tell you how I knew, but I did. Someone was hurt.
“Yeah. Yeah, I got bandages and shit here. Just get over here in one piece.” A pause. “Alright.”
He ended the call and set the phone down on the arm of his recliner, and for a second, he just sat there, staring at the muted television.
“Papaw?” I asked carefully. “Is everything okay?”
He glanced up at me, and something in his expression made my chest go tight. “You should head on up to bed, baby girl.”
“Who’s hurt?”
“That’s club business,” he said, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes when he said it, and that scared me more than anything.
Sondra had roused from the couch, sitting up now with her dark eyes wide and worried, flicking between me and my Papaw.
I swallowed hard. “It’s Weston, isn’t it? He’s the one who got hurt, isn’t he?”
I knew it down to my bones. Something happened to him.
Papaw had his poker face locked down tight, but he’d never been able to hide anything from me. The way his shoulderstensed, the slight tightening around his eyes—it confirmed everything I was thinking.
Oh my God. What if he was dead?
The room felt like it was spinning. No. No, no, no. I gripped the banister to keep myself upright.
What if something terrible had happened? What if he was bleeding out somewhere, and I never got to tell him that I was sorry for being such a bitch to him today? He’d tried to talk to me earlier, and I shut him down completely. Maybe he was trying to extend an olive branch, and I’d been too stubborn and hurt to see it.
I’d loved him since I was thirteen years old, since the day he’d punched Tommy Morrison in the face for pulling my hair and calling me an orphan. He’d been my whole world, my first everything—my first kiss, my first love, the first boy to tell me I was beautiful. And when he’d ended us, it felt like he’d taken half my soul with him.
But standing there, thinking he might be seriously hurt, all that anger and hurt felt so stupid and small. So what if he didn’t love me anymore? We could be friends. We could at least be civil to each other.
What if I never get the chance to find out?
The loud rumble of a motorcycle pulling into the driveway ripped me out of my spiraling thoughts.
