It would be pushing toward dinner time by the time she could get there. “You want me to bring food?”
“Nah, we’ll order in when we get home. Thanks, bear.”
“You got it. Love you, Pop.”
“Yeah, you too.” He hung up.
Something that had driven her mom crazy: Pop felt all the emotions, and he felt them deep and wide. He wasn’t demonstrative, but he made his feelings clear in lots of ways. But he could never sayI love youto his wife. Like,ever. To his kids, yes. Occasionally. But not to the woman he’d wanted to spend his life with. And he never, ever said,I love you, too.He simply could not reciprocate in the moment, on demand. The best one could hope for was what he’d just said at the end of their call.
She remembered one fight they’d had, in the brief window of time between the day Mom had said she wanted out and the end of that weekend, when she’d left. Mom had whisper-yelled,Do you even love me?
Pop had full-on yelled back,You know I do!
How would I know? You never tell me!
Of course I do! I just did!
No, you never say the words. I can’t remember if you’veeversaid the words.When Pop responded with silence, Mom had pleaded, her voice shaking,Say the words, Ben. Just say the words. Just once.
Frozen in the hallway, listening to her parents’ marriage crumble, Lyra had thought with all her mightMom! You’re pushing too hard! You know he can’t say it now!
The silence in the master bedroom had been like molten lead, heavy and dense. It had stretched and solidified until it shot through their whole family and broke it in half. The next day, Mom was gone. By the end of the week, she had an apartment near the Strip and all of her things were moved out of the family home.
Lyra shook off that shitty memory and looked around. Michelle was already packing up their stuff. “Duty calls, yeah?” she said.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“No problemo, dude. I’m practically neon already anyway.”
It was true. Despite two applications of sunscreen over the course of the day, Michelle’s skin was a brilliant pinkish red, so bright she almost glowed.
“I will never believe that doesn’t hurt,” Lyra said, repeating a refrain said thousands of times by now.
Michelle shrugged. “It’s my superpower. That and my excellent advice. Which you should follow.”
“I wish your superpower was silence,” Lyra shot back.
By way of reply, Michelle turned on one leg and twerked at her.
Lyra laughed. She had only one close friend, but they were perfect together. Even their arguments were loving.
CHAPTER THREE
While Eight and Dextalked with Wash Dugger, the president of the Silver Dragons MC, Zach sat sidesaddle on his bike and watched the lowering sun. He thought the southwest was the most beautiful area in the country, and unlike anywhere else on the globe. A forest was pretty, sure. But forests were forests wherever you were: trees and ferns, greens and browns. The desert, though? This particular kind of desert? Nothing like it—and every color of the rainbow, every shade in the visible spectrum, was represented somewhere on earth or in sky.