Page 21 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Trina nods. “A key. He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t let women sleep over.

Ever. And if Lana wants to measure you up she’s picked the wrong one.

Different people, different math. She’s not in your league.

I don’t know what goes on with you two privately.

Not my business. I will tell you, though, Kellum is blunt, brash, and brutal at times.

He respects directness. Don’t play games, don’t get caught up in anything said by anyone but him.

His word is as solid as it comes even when the truth stings he gives it straight.

You want more out of this, talk to him. That’s the best advice I can give you. ”

It helps. Not enough to stop the little gnawing thing inside me that wants to be chosen in a way that sticks, but enough to get me through the rest of the shift without making more of a fool of myself.

The rest of the day drags. Every ring of the phone is a jolt. Every time the door opens, my head jerks up, hoping and dreading. When the clock clicks over to five, my stomach is a knot.

The low thrum of a bike threads through the spa music a minute later. My bones know the sound. I stand, trying not to smooth my hair like a girl caught at a dance without a partner.

Trina catches my eye. “Breathe,” she mouths.

I try.

Kellum fills the doorway a beat later—leather, heat, the kind of presence that makes the air reorganize itself. His eyes skim the room, land on me, and something in his face eases that I didn’t realize was tight until our eyes met.

“Ready?” he asks.

I nod, throat suddenly dry. “Yeah.”

Outside, the evening light makes everything look gentler than it is. He holds out the helmet, like always. I take it, like always. But I don’t meet his eyes, and he notices because he notices everything. His hand hovers at my lower back, then drops.

“You good?” he asks because this is Kellum.

“Fine,” I lie.

He doesn’t push in the parking lot. He waits until we’re moving, until my arms are around him and the wind is our third party, until I’m a little trapped with nowhere to run from the question.

“What’s wrong,” he says into the air.

The knot in my stomach tightens. “Nothing.”

He snorts. “Try again.”

I press my cheek against his back and close my eyes. The words I shouldn’t say line up anyway. “Your ex came in today.” The sentence sounds petty, like a child reporting a playground sighting. “She said some things.”

“My ex, huh,” he retorts.

“Lana.”

“Lana,” he repeats and the fact that he doesn’t pretend otherwise is either comforting or horrible; I can’t decide.

“Yeah.”

He rides in silence for a long beat, choosing a route that keeps him from having to stop at lights. Finally, he seems to regroup. “What’d she say?”

I swallow. The jealousy tastes like copper.

“That you’re the best sex of someone’s life.

” I feel him tense under my hands. The admission makes my face burn even though he can’t see it because there is no doubt in my mind he probably is the best sex to everyone.

Then I drop the weight that is holding me down. “And, that you’ll never commit.”

He breathes out through his nose, slow. “She’d know the first part yes.”

The bluntness stings and soothes at once. “And the second?”

“Not her business,” he says, and turns onto a side road that leads away from town. “And not something I need to share on a ride where I can’t see your face. You want to talk, we talk at home.”

The words settle somewhere between a promise and a warning. I hold on tighter than I need to until the familiar square shape of the house nudges into view and we roll into the drive.

Inside, the door clicks shut and the quiet spreads out. The map on the wall. The chair with the patched tear. The fridge that hums.

Home, somehow.

He sets the helmets in their place and turns to me, leaning his hip against the counter like he’s bracing a motorcycle on a kickstand, steady, deliberate, unhurried.

“Now,” he begins. “Talk.”

The knot that’s been rattling around inside me all day breaks open.

It’s not graceful. “This is so ridiculous.” I open and decide well, I’m here, might as well lay it out there.

“I feel stupid. And jealous. And I hate it. She asked if you were picking me up like it was a TV show she watches. I’m not trying to be your girlfriend,” I stop, because even if I mean it today, the future clicks its tongue.

“I mean, I’m not trying to box you in. I get that you don’t do that.

But then she said,” My hands fly up without permission.

“She said you’re the best sex of someone’s life, and that you won’t commit.

And I felt,” his eyes soften causing me to pause.

“Like you were in line,” he whispers quietly.

“Yes.” Relief streaks through me because he named it.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t make a joke to pop the bubble. He holds the space like a man holds a door in a storm.

“I know how dumb it sounds,” I push on. “We haven’t even slept together.

You’ve been careful with me. Kind. Which is honestly the wildest thing of all.

” I tell him sharply, with a humorless laugh.

“It made me feel wanted in a way that wasn’t just body.

And then she waltzes in and tells me a story about you that sounded like I’m an idiot for believing any of it. ”

He rubs his jaw, thumb scraping along day-old stubble. “That what you think? That you’re an idiot.”

Tears burn my eyes, hot and frantic. “I don’t know what I think.

I’m proud of the parts of me I’ve been building.

The job. The address. The bank account. Even the stupid sneakers.

” I kick one toe against the other like it will make the point.

“But in here?” I tap my chest. “I feel like someone nobody wants. Not my ex, obviously. Not you, if you won’t even,” My voice breaks.

“What’s wrong with me that no one wants me? Not my ex, and not you.”

Silence. The kind that makes you want to grab it and shake it until it speaks.

Kellum doesn’t look away. He steps in like he’s closing a distance people don’t see until they trip over it. His eyes lock to mine. “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

I laugh, sharp and mean at myself. “That’s what people say when they don’t want to do the work of telling you the truth.”

“That is the truth.” His tone edges toward steel. Not at me. At the thought. “Your ex is a man who wanted a puppet. It suited him because shadows don’t talk on their own. He knew underneath he couldn’t keep you trapped down for much longer.”

I flinch. The image is too clean. When I avoid his gaze, he cups my chin lifting my face to look at him.

“As for me,” he goes on, voice steady and low, “I didn’t take you to bed because I’m not gonna make your body get twisted up in your heart.

I want you, Kristen.” The bluntness of it steals my breath.

“Don’t mistake any of it. I want you. I’m a grown damn man.

But I’m not gonna be the new bad habit you can’t break.

I want you when your head’s clear and your list’s shorter and you can look me in the eye in the middle of the day and say yes without trembling unless it’s to come. ”

The tears spill over, fast and hot. I scrub them away, angry at them for showing up. “But what if I can’t? What if I’m always a little shaky?”

“Then we ride it like we have been,” he says, like it’s the simplest answer in the world. “We don’t build on a wobble, that’s when you crash out. We build when it’s steady. You hear me?” His hand is a warm weight on my shoulder now, not pushing, not dragging. Placing.

My lower lip trembles somehow still needing more from him. “So Lana?”

He huffs. “Lana’s right about some things.

I don’t commit to lies. I don’t play house to make someone feel like I might change.

I’m not a porch and talking about growing old man.

” He steps closer, close enough that the heat off his body sinks into mine like a remedy.

“But she doesn’t know anything about this.

You. Me. The fact that you sleep in my bed with a key I want you to keep.

Or that you ate cereal out of my ugly bowl this morning and I liked it.

” One corner of his mouth tips. “She never met this version of me. She never had me because that’s not what I was to her and she was to me. ”

The world lurches into focus like he just adjusted some knob I didn’t know existed. “This version?”

“The one who’s trying.” His eyes don’t flinch from mine.

“The one who doesn’t bail when the restlessness hits and a woman looks at him like he’s an anchor in a storm.

The one who tells you to make a list and then sits at the table while you do it.

The one who wants you in daylight as much as in the sheets. ”

My heart does something reckless. In this very moment, I fall inside. My heart swells into something I can’t put into words. “Kellum.”

He lifts a hand and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, the gesture so careful it undoes me.

“You’re not wrong to be jealous,” he adds, surprising me.

“You’re not wrong to be scared. You got burned.

You’re still smoldering from your life going up in a blaze.

You still think it’s you. It’s not. It’s just what happens after a fire. You air out. It takes time.”

I’m crying again, quieter this time. The tears slide down without drama. “You sound like someone who knows.”

He half-smiles, the kind that doesn’t reach his eyes because the story behind it isn’t funny. “I know.”

“What if you can’t commit?” The word feels too big in my mouth and too small for what it means. “What if you never want that? Because Kellum, I know myself even burned I still want that in life. A partner, a lover, a best friend.”