I stare at the grey sky behind him, remembering the last time I hugged a man. Men in my family don’t hug—according to my actual father, only women and gays hug.
I hugged Devlin goodbye.
The day I let that slip is the last time my father hit me, while I lay in a bed at Faulkner Memorial with my head in a bandage after they’d told me they couldn’t save my eye. That’s when he told them not to bother fixing the rest of my face. I wasn’t worth it. I’d never have told him if I wasn’t drugged up as I tried to recount the last moments I’d seen my cousin so they might find him. Lot of good that did.
Heath lays on the horn, and Father Dante steps back and pats my cheek. “There’s a whole world full of fascinating people out there,” he says. “Don’t limit yourself to family.”
I raise a hand and wave to his ride. “Hey, Heath,” I call.
“What are you supposed to be, anyway?” Heath asks. “A clown or some shit?”
“Just another charity chase,” I say, then turn and give the Father a smug smile. “There. I talked to a stranger. So I’m good until our next chat.”
“Take care of yourself, Preston,” Father Dante says, then pulls his coat around him and hurries around the truck.
I climb into Grandpa’s Aston Martin and dial Harper. “Hey, Miss A,” I say when she answers. “Royal know you’re calling me, or am I about to get jumped?”
“Royal knows we’re friends, and he’s on a plane to New York right now,” she says. “I need to talk to you, though.”
“Okay.”
“Can I come over or something?”
“I’m at Scar’s diner,” I say. “But I’m just leaving.”
“The Downtown Diner?”
“Yeah. But I’ve got an appointment now.”
“Okay,” she says. “I guess we can do it over the phone.”
“Sure,” I say, shifting into gear and gunning the engine as I turn out of the parking lot. “Unless you want to get a tattoo with me.”
“You going to Mav’s?”
“The only tattoo shop in Faulkner.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” she says.
The line goes dead, and I toss my phone and pull up to the seedy little tattoo parlor. Of course Harper’s well acquainted with the guys who run this place. Maverick and his brother are fucking legendary for the amount of pussy they pull in, and Harper’s covered in tats.
I wait in the car until her Escalade pulls up. I’m glad she’s got a car, but I fucking hate that Royal put her in it. The bitter acid of jealousy eats away at me every time I see it, every time I see her. But I can’t seem to cut the ties that grew between us when she was with me. She’s a weed that was felled by a Dolce scythe, and though she was supposed to die as she lay on the ground, she somehow regrew roots from the barest edge of her stem. As I watered her, those roots grew straight down through the barren soil of my life until they met my own roots.
She hugs me hard, clinging to me like she always does, like I’m something worth missing, something worth holding onto. We’re tangled together in some way, holding on with something far below than the surface even though we both know we should cut our losses and walk away. She’s Royal’s, and therefore dangerous to me.
I’m dangerous to her for the same reason.
If we were smart, we’d forget those six month and pretend they meant nothing, pretend we didn’t save each other night by night until enough heat built to thaw the winter that lived on inside us both all through summer.
“Want to go inside?” I ask, rubbing her arms. “It’s cold out here, and you’re not wearing a jacket.”
She nods against my chest, not releasing me for another few seconds. I want to indulge in the same impulse, but I won’t let myself. Some ugly part inside of me clings to her, though, those roots refusing to be torn from hers. We survived something together. The seeds of life in that barren soil cracked open their shells and let us both feel again, and that means something, even if it’s not the same kind of something I had before.
But Dolly left.
Harper’s here.
At last, she steps back, and I hold the door of the shop for her. We step inside, where Mad Dog, Maverick, and a couple Crossbones members lounge on the couches. They all stop talking and just stare at us when we walk in. This is why I don’t go out in public. At least when I’m at home, I’m just myself. I don’t have to remember every second of every fucking day that I’m a freak, a grotesque beast that makes even the toughest gangsters lose the ability to speak.