Page 11 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Six

Pretty Boy

I wake before the sun because I always do.

Years of runs and nights on couches train the body to grab rest in fistfuls and get out before the world starts yelling.

The room sits gray-blue. Kristen’s still draped over me like I’m a piece of furniture she trusts.

Her mouth is open a fraction. Her breath is soft and regular.

I don’t move for a while. It’s not out of care, but it is a choice. There’s a kind of quiet you don’t break because it feels like a crime to do so. My arm tingles. I let it.

When I finally shift, I do it slow, easing out from under her and tucking the pillow beneath her cheek so she doesn’t lose the warm shape. She sighs once, frowns in her sleep, then goes smooth again.

Coffee is muscle memory. Grounds. Water. Flip the switch. The machine coughs itself into usefulness. My phone blinks on the counter.

One message from Tripp: You alive or drunk?

Another from Crunch with a picture of takeout and the caption Married life: 10/10 recommend. I type back to Tripp: Alive. Working.

I leave Crunch on read because I am thankful my brother is happy and healthy.

If he wants to celebrate marrying Jennissey every day until his last breath, I’ll take every message.

There was a time I wasn’t sure Crunch would make it.

The drugs had a grip on him in a way none of us could reach him.

Now he’s sober and living a full life with the only woman he’s ever loved.

By the time the smell hits the bedroom, she stirs.

I hear it from the kitchen—the soft huff, the rustle of blanket.

I imagine what her brain is feeling. It’s the coming to with recognition of the moment a mind that’s been running opens an eye and doesn’t immediately start sprinting.

I pour two mugs of coffee. I don’t ask how she takes it, I’m not a short order cook or a waiter.

I set out sugar and milk like a civilized human so my mother’s lessons stuck in my head will leave me alone, but I’m not mixing the damn drink for her.

She appears in the doorway with my shirt hanging off one shoulder and a crease on her cheek from the seam of the pillowcase. She blinks at me like she forgot where she was and doesn’t hate remembering. Then her face does this thing—remembers everything else—and the light flickers.

“Morning,” I greet, neutral.

“Morning.” Her voice is scratchy. “Did I—did I drool on you?”

I laughed. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened in that bed.”

She snorts, surprised, a quick flash of a sound that makes my ribcage feel bigger on the inside.

She crosses to the table, fingers skimming the chair back like she’s testing the world for sharp edges before she sits.

She looks at the mug like it might bite.

“I take…,” then she pauses thinking, “whatever you made, it will be perfect.”

“That works.” I slide the mug toward her. She wraps both hands around it for the heat. She doesn’t drink. She just holds.

“You got people who need to know where you are?” I ask curious about her situation and support system. I keep my tone like I’m asking about the weather.

She shakes her head. “I had… someone. And then I had no one.” The words stumble out but she doesn’t apologize for it.

“I didn’t realize how… well how everything was until it wasn’t.

I don’t even know if that gate code thing was a mistake or if he—” She swallows rolling her eyes.

“No, he did it on purpose. Of course he did.”

“Yeah.” I watch her because watching is sometimes better than talking. “We can go by later in daylight. You don’t want to catch a trespass charge because you got feelings.”

The corner of her mouth twitches. “You say ‘feelings’ like it’s a disease I caught.”

“Might be.”

She sips. Grimaces. “You drink coffee like it owes you money.”

“You want milk?” I nudge the carton toward her with a finger. “Sugar?”

She doctors it until she has completely changed the drink. The color moves asphalt to caramel and only then does she stop adding shit. She takes another sip and nods. “Better.”

“Eat?” I open the cabinet and pull down two packets of oatmeal because it’s what I have, and because when my mother drops off groceries, she buys things that have instructions printed on the side for men who pretend they don’t need them. “Maple or apple.”

“Apple,” she says, like the choice makes her feel human again.

We eat at the table with spoons and quiet. She glances up at the map on the wall. “Where have you been?” she asks, not like a test but like a person imagining a different kind of life.

“Here,” I say, dry, and then add, because she’s earned information, “Coast. Mountains. All over the Carolinas pretty regularly. Down to Georgia steady enough. Been to every state except Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Oregon. Road trips are the thing that calms me. Rooms with bad art are cheap and I don’t ever stay long enough to care about anything other than a bed and a shower. ”

She studies my face like she’s trying to memorize a version of me that isn’t a rumor. “Do you ever get lonely? Or do you travel with the Hellions always?”

“Sometimes I’m with them.” I don’t sugar it. “Sometimes I’m alone. I don’t mind being alone. You?”

She barks a laugh that has something sharp under it.

“Always. Isn’t that funny? House full of things, bank account that never said no, and I was…

alone. You don’t see it until you’re standing on the curb watching a truck carry off your car because someone changed a code you didn’t even know you needed to ask for. ”

I nod once like I’m agreeing with a sermon I didn’t expect to like. “Yeah.”

She pushes the empty bowl back, hands folding in her lap like a woman ready to take a verdict. “What happens now?”

“Now we go get your stuff,” I say. “You need clothes. Phone. Papers. Whatever you can carry that’s not going to put you in handcuffs. You pack it in a bag. If we have to talk to someone, I talk. You don’t. You keep your hands visible and your chin up.”

“Are we… is that legal?”

“Depends on the lock and how you want to define legal.” I meet her eyes so she sees I’m not joking about the important part.

“We don’t break in. We don’t break anything.

You push the call button until somebody answers, and you ask to come get your belongings.

If they say no, we call a cop and ask them to walk you through it.

They don’t like us but they like paperwork less.

They’ll do it if it gets them home sooner. ”

Her shoulders loosen by increments. The plan gives her something to lean on.

Good.

Plans are bridges to walk over panic.

I stand and clear bowls. She starts to stand too.

“Sit,” I say. “I’ll get your dress from last night. It’s dry.”

She does as she’s told, then seems to catch herself and bristle. “I’m not— I mean, thank you, but you don’t have to?—”

“I know what I have to do.” I hang the dress on the back of the bedroom door and step aside while she slips into the bathroom to put it on.

I listen to her zipping, the little curses when the fabric sticks.

I hear the toothbrush package rip, the water run, the bristles scrub. Stupid how good that sounds.

She comes out pulled together—hair combed back, dress skimming her hips like a decision she made on purpose. My shirt and boxers are folded into a neat square she set on the chair. She glances at the bed, then me, a question she doesn’t ask hovering between us.

“You slept,” I say.

She blinks. “I did.”

“Good.” I grab my keys and my cut. The leather falls over my shoulders like a version of myself I don’t have to explain. “Let’s go get whatever’s left of your life.”

She slips on her shoes—ridiculous and mean—and wobbles. I offer a hand without comment. She takes it and rights herself. She doesn’t let go until we’re at the door.

Outside, the day is already brewing something hot. Crickets are warming up their vocals in the pines. The bike sits in a triangle of shade like it slept. Kristen eyes it with a mix of fear and trust I don’t deserve but I’m going to take anyway.

“You good?”

She nods, jaw firming. “I’m good.”

We ride.

Back at the gate, daylight makes everything look more ordinary and reality more cruel. The keypad blinks a fresh code’s steady little heartbeat. The hedges are trimmed within an inch of their lives. You can smell salt if you breathe deep and money if you don’t.

Kristen dismounts, legs unsteady but mind straight. She walks to the call box like it’s a podium. She presses the button. It rings. And rings. And rings.

Nothing.

She presses again. Same nothing. She tries the old code because hope is dumb and stubborn. Red light.

Her chin starts to shake. She clamps her teeth to trap it. I take the panel of the call box between thumb and forefinger and press the button with the same patience I use on a stuck bolt. When the line clicks, I’m ready.

A woman answers this time. Brisk. “Yes?”

“Resident services?” My voice goes flat and official, the tone that makes people assume I belong. “We’re here for a tenant pickup. Miss Mayers. Need the gate opened.”

Silence. Then, “Miss Mayers is not authorized?—”

“She’s authorized to get the clothes on her back and the identification documentation that is her right and her personal property,” I explain, still even.

“You want to tell your HOA how you made a woman stand on the street because a rich boy changed a code and forgot to cancel the dry cleaning? Or you want to buzz us through so we can be gone in ten?”

The pause tells me someone is deciding which problem is smaller. The gate clicks and hums. It slides open with the same lazy confidence as always.

Kristen’s eyes hold in tears until they spill over—just a little, one line down each cheek. She swipes it away with the back of her hand and steps through before the iron decides it changed its mind. I roll the bike in behind her; the gate closes at my back like a mouth.