Page 29 of A Moth to the Flame (Utopia #1)

Neveah’s eyes widen comically before she snaps her attention to Duke once more. She shrieks, “You’re paying him for sex?”

Instead of shutting down her so-very-wrong assumption, Duke glances around like he’s hoping someone heard that.

Sure enough, everyone within hearing distance has abandoned their festival fun to stare at the three-ring circus.

Every time I think I understand just how evil he is, he proves me wrong.

He’s probably hoping to drum up a paying side hustle. Why milk the cow for free under the guise of helping when he could be profiting off no-strings sex?

“Nothing to see here,” I announce in Duke’s booming, confident voice. “Just a little high school reunion. Carry on.”

With a few skeptical glances, the townsfolk continue toward the main event .

Neveah hisses at my body, “I can’t believe you! Why on God’s green earth would you pay that walking STI for sex?”

Why would she ever think that Duke and I are sleeping together? Considering our sordid history, that’s a pretty wild conclusion. Despite the temptation to give Duke a taste of bitter medicine, I don’t want the women he’s been with to worry about their health.

“I don’t have an STI,” I say. Pretty sure I would’ve noticed those symptoms by now. “I’m always safe about the sex I have with completely consensual partners.”

I found the condoms in his nightstand to prove that he takes his sexual health and pregnancy prevention seriously.

My gaze swings toward me as Duke pins me with a shocked expression.

Yeah, yeah. I’m publicly defending him.

Maybe it lends a little more credence to the whole theory about losing my mind, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth to hear him basically be accused of rape.

The five-star reviews of his sexual prowess on The Flame’s bathroom walls prove otherwise.

There wasn’t a single warning to other women to avoid him.

“Explain to me how forcing a woman to pay you for sex is consensual,” Neveah seethes.

“He’s not forcing me,” Duke answers. His delivery is calm enough to be believable. “I’m not paying him for sex, either. He’s helping me fix up the homestead so I can sell it.”

Unfortunately, this completely innocent lie doesn’t smooth Neveah’s ruffled feathers. Her expression changes from angry to hurt. “Why didn’t you ask me to help you?”

The better question is, why she hasn’t been helping me without being asked?

She was so friendly toward me during the wake and the day after.

Miss Ada said that she would send Neveah my way.

That never happened. This is the first time I’ve seen her since we made a wish at the well and then got shitfaced at The Flame together.

Duke shrugs, taking a healthy step away from Neveah. “He has power tools.”

Her expression curdles. It’s hilarious the way her face shows every emotion so plainly. Maybe that’s part of her stage persona. “Please tell me that isn’t a euphemism for what’s in his pants.”

Duke definitely has a rather large tool in his pants, and I wish, wish, wish that I didn’t know that from firsthand experience.

“Ever hear the phrase practice makes perfect? Well, because I’ve been with so many women, I’ve learned exactly what pleases them.”

Those words sound so foul rolling off Duke’s tongue. I barely believe them, and I’m the one who said them. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure why I did.

Neveah shoots Duke a similarly disbelieving look. “Please tell me you didn’t buy in to that shit sales pitch.”

Duke studies me with curiosity. He’s probably confused that I’m going to bat for him, too. “I didn’t. Because I know that every woman is different, and there is no exact thing that pleases any of them. It depends on context and mood, and every time is a chance to learn something new.”

I have no response to that. His mouth hangs open wide enough to catch flies. Not only does that sound very much like something I would say, it also gives me a whole new level of appreciation for Duke’s extracurricular activities.

He makes it sound almost like he genuinely cared about the women he helped.

In ways he never cared about me.

Neveah pats my shoulder. “Of course you know all of that, honey. You’re a woman who’s been mostly disappointed by men like Duke, who are only interested in taking what they can get and giving nothing back.”

Duke sighs. “He’s giving as much as he’s taking these days.

He’s already leveled all the furniture and fixed the squeaky door hinges.

He stopped the leak under the kitchen sink.

The washroom shower has full water pressure again since he dissolved the lime buildup.

Trust me, he’s working hard for what I’m giving him in return. ”

Duke did all of that?

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to gape at him in wonder. I still have a part to play—namely, his. Instead of awe, I glance at him with what I hope is a smug expression. “Delia has been very pleased so far with my…skills.”

The tiniest smirk pulls up the corner of my lips.

He’s obviously tickled pink that I’m acknowledging his help.

If he really did all of that without me having to ask, that is.

All I’ve managed to do around the homestead is discover disturbing artifacts of Granny’s supposed witchcraft.

And read a bunch of boring books that confirmed absolutely nothing.

Neveah shakes her head and crosses her arms. Her eyes haven’t quite gone back to their normal size.

They’re still a little too wide, a lot too disbelieving.

“You’re calling her Delia now? Wow, Duke.

You must really be desperate for a paycheck.

I guess that’s no surprise. From what I’ve seen, you hardly have any customers at your mechanic shop. ”

I can’t blame Neveah for going after Duke like this.

He didn’t necessarily torture her the way he did to me, but he’d cracked a few fat jokes at her expense during our school years.

That kind of thing scars. She has no reason to give him an inch of breathing room, especially when she thinks she’s protecting me from falling into his clutches.

My posture immediately turns defensive. Duke responds in what he likely thinks is a casual tone, “That’s because he already fixed all their vehicles, so there’s no reason for them to come back very often. He didn’t swindle anyone the way the mechanics in the bigger towns do.”

I have questions, but I can’t ask them. Not looking like Duke anyway.

Thankfully, Neveah’s curiosity rivals mine. “What is that supposed to mean? How do the big city mechanics swindle their customers?”

Ah, shit. She looks at me expectantly, but I can’t answer her. I have no idea how any type of auto mechanic works. For as much as I used to read, I’ve never in my life picked up a vehicle manual.

“In Charleston, they’d tell people all these things were wrong with their cars, and the customers would blindly believe them,” he says with my voice.

“They didn’t know anything about the vehicles they drove, so they forked over money they didn’t need to spend on fake repairs.

The worst part is that mechanics at the big chains are taught to loosen a few bolts here and there, so the customers have to come back for more repairs they never needed in the first place. ”

Neveah’s looking at him with so much shock that she hopefully doesn’t notice that I’m doing the same.

“How did you find out that’s what they do?” she finally asks.

Duke blinks rapidly, like he’s just now realized that I wouldn’t know. He frowns then says, “I must’ve learned it from a guy I dated. He didn’t want me to take my car to those kinds of shops.”

Neveah’s expression softens. “He sounds like a catch. Why’d you throw him back into the river?”

My expression scrunches into what closely resembles bewildered confusion as Duke says, “He wasn’t the right fish for me.”

That’s the absolute truth, but there’s no way Duke knows it.

After escaping the mountains, I dated plenty once I proved to myself that I wasn’t untouchable.

Granny insisted there was no shame in hunting for my happily ever after, so I did, with wild abandon.

If I couldn’t have the kind of family I wished for growing up, then I could build my own.

Even those dreams crashed and burned after I spent the better part of a decade being singed by guys who weren’t interested in the same thing.

I was good enough for a single roll in the hay and nothing more.

It was almost like after they tasted me, they realized they had a craving for something different.

They were more like Duke—without the learning to please part.

Another thought occurs to me as Luke’s words from the other day replay in my mind.

I murmur, “My mama died in a car accident. I became a mechanic to make sure no one else would have to suffer the pain of losing a loved one that way.”

Neveah gasps softly, and her mouth falls open.

Duke latches onto my elbow, playing the part of the damsel to his knight in shining armor. He offers a tight smile to Neveah. “As you can see, I’m in good hands. We’re grown adults, perfectly capable of putting the past behind us and becoming friends.”

There’s a hint of challenge in my voice, almost like he’s running another test to see how Neveah will react .

“Come on,” he says to me with an undercurrent of panic. “I promised to feed you before we get back to work on the homestead today, so let’s go find some food.”

He tugs me away from Neveah, who’s staring at my body like there will be consequences for choosing Duke over her.

“How did you know that?” he murmurs. “About me. About why I became a mechanic. Even if you snooped through every inch of my house, you wouldn’t find any proof of that.”

“I—I don’t know,” I stammer. My mind feels hazy in a way that leaves me unmoored and a little nauseated. At least I didn’t have another disturbing vision.

Duke nods with a pensive expression on my face. He also doesn’t release my elbow. He doesn’t retaliate after I accidentally revealed his soft underbelly. He mutters, “I’m telling you, Cordie. Something weird is going on. Something way more than our swapped bodies.”

He can’t be right. He can’t .

Just to prove it to myself, I reach out and touch the first person who passes.

It’s another old classmate, Staci Jo. She’s got a line of kids behind her.

Reality melts away to be replaced with a scene of Staci Jo and Duke in the backseat of the old beater he drove in high school.

Naked, sweaty skin. Writhing bodies. Arousal so potent that it burns.

This time, I’m not witnessing events as a third party.

I’m still trapped in his body. She orgasms. He doesn’t.

He lies about it. She knows. He drives her home with shame and confusion competing with pain like I’ve never felt, not even during my worst period.

It’s a miracle that he doesn’t ram the car into a tree to end it all.

The only thing that stops him is how unfair that would be to her, to the life she still has to live, even though he’s convinced that his is ending.

As he trudges up the front steps of his childhood home, one thought burns crystal clear in his mind.

She did this to me. It’s all her fucking fault .

I gasp when Staci Jo pries Duke’s hand off her arm.

The real world returns swiftly. My world remains shifted.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you,” she whispers with a fake smile plastered on her face. “But I’ll be damned before I let you rehash the past in front of my kids.”

She steers her ducklings away without another word.

It takes another few sluggish heartbeats to realize that my body is the only thing keeping Duke’s upright.

“Cordie,” he murmurs, squeezing his waist with my arm. “Cordie? Can you hear me?”

I open his mouth, but no words escape.

“Talk to me, Gingersnap,” he begs.

I startle from the delighted-sounding laugh to our left.

It’s Wallace.

He smiles. “You look like you could use a drink, love.”