“How well?”
I take a drink. The Firestarter is too sweet for me. Cornbread will pay for this emotionally.
“Well enough to owe him. Not well enough to forgive him for everything.”
Her eyes return to mine. “What did he do for you?”
That question is too clean for the mess behind it.
I lean back. “Gave me my name.”
“Derby?”
“Yeah.”
Her gaze sharpens with interest. “I was going to ask about that.”
“Figured.”
“Because we are in Kentucky, and you are called Derby, and if the answer is something filthy, I want warning.”
I grin. “Could make something up.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
That lands.
Truth, then.
Some of it.
“I was a hangaround first,” I say. “Young. Stupid. Meaner than I needed to be, not as mean as I pretended. I wanted in with the Kings because the Kings looked like the first thing in my life that didn’t ask me to repent.”
She listens closely.
Too closely.
Makes me want to stop.
I don’t.
“Derby weekend, years back, there was an illegal run. Backroads, county lines, checkpoints at bars, cash bets, bourbon everywhere, cops busy with rich folks and horses. I wasn’t supposed to ride. I rode anyway.”
Her mouth curves. “Of course you did.”
“Borrowed a bike with a bad clutch. Outran two patched brothers, scared a horse clean through a fence, dumped myself in a hayfield, got back on, and still crossed first with mud in my teeth and half the club threatening to kill me.”
Now she smiles. “That sounds like you.”
“You knew me one day.”
“I know enough.”
The words echo.
She realizes it at the same time I do.
Her cheeks warm.