Page 68 of Kings Don't Break

“Yeah, in front of everybody in Pulsboro. You afraid to be seen by ’em?” He raises a brow as if in offense. “You’re divorced. A free woman who can do as she pleases.”

“I’m only separated. I’m not divorced. Not yet. I’ve only filed?—”

“You plan on going back to him?”

Disgust spreads onto my face. “Of course not. I’m done. For real this time.”

“Then, what’s the big deal? You’d be going with a friend to browse the booths. That’s allowed, Kori.”

“It’s not that it’s not allowed,” I say, my hesitation slowing down the words out of my mouth. An uneven breath shakes its way from my lungs, and I run my fingers through the few inches of short, messy hair on my head. “It’s that anybody who’s lived in town longer than five minutes knows our history.”

He releases a husky laugh of surprise, almost spilling coffee down his front. Slamming his mug down on the coffee table, he stares at me like he can’t believe what he’s heard. “So this is about us—you’re worried what people’ll think?”

“Blake…” I say, my speech still slow. My shoulders tensing up. “We have a past.”

“We were teenagers.”

I let out my own small laugh. Mine infused with equal disbelief. “Did you forget what happened between us? How…attached we were?”

“You mean like how everybody in town thought we’d get married and have a dozen babies someday? How we’d live out our days in some nice house with a perfect white picket fence?”

“We shouldn’t have this conversation. It’s too awkward and it’s not the right time.” I push away the blanket that’s been covering me. Up on my feet, I turn in the direction of the bathroom.

Blake’s not one to quit once in the middle of addressing a situation. I make it only two steps before he’s talking again like the conversation isn’t over.

“What’re you really afraid of, Kori? Your dickweed of an ex-husband seeing you?” he asks. “Or is it that you’re afraid of what could happen if we really be friends again?”

My heart aches hearing the accusations. The hole that’s been in my heart all these years has never felt more gaping. Combined with the X-rated dream I had mere minutes ago, it’s way too much—it’s too damn confusing.

I stop short, my shoulders sagging, my head bowing. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Tell me we’re still good. You’re still my best friend.”

The strain in his voice makes me look over my shoulder at him. Blake’s never been good at relationships and matters of the heart, but he has his tells. He has his ways where he demonstrates just how much he cares. Meeting his gaze from halfway across the room, I can see the desperation etched in his deep blue eyes.

He misses our bond. He wants it to be like before, where we’d spend whole days together like it was second nature to us.

“You’ll always be my best friend.”

I flee the scene before he can respond. Considering the trailer’s only nine hundred square feet, there aren’t many places to escape to. I crack the bedroom door open to check on Mama, then tiptoe inside to grab a few things. Quiet as I try to be, she stirs anyway.

“Morning, baby,” she murmurs, squinting. “What time is it? I’ve been sleeping real good in this big ol’ bed of Blake’s. I try not to think about all the ladies he must’ve had come through.”

My tepid smile humors Mama as I busy myself with rummaging through my duffle bag of things. A few more paychecks, and I’ll have enough to get us an apartment. Blake’s offered money up to make it happen now—so has Mason and the MC—but I’ve declined.

I want to earn it myself. Through my hard work at the bike shop.

Mama picks up on my lack of response at her joke about Blake and the many women he’s likely bedded. “Baby, everything okay?”

“Do you want breakfast, Mama? Blake made some coffee.”

“I want to know what’s up with my daughter. You think I don’t know when you’re upset? Baby, I carried you for nine long months. I can feel your every emotion.”

The smile on my lips transforms from tepid to bittersweet as I give a shake of my head. “It’s just stuff between me and Blake. No big deal.”

“Ahhh, I see,” she says in a sage tone. Three short words that tell me she knows more than I do about my own situation. “You two have always been peas in a pod. From the time you were small.”

“Well, we’re grown now.”