Then they are gone.
The door closes.
The silence that follows is strange.
Not empty.
Not peaceful exactly.
Just smaller.
For the first time since I got to Hell, Kentucky, there is no room full of bikers around me. No Sophie at my side. No women fussing in the kitchen. No Legend asking questions. No Whiskey digging up danger. No Royal haunting corners. No Cornbread yelling across a bar.
Just me.
Derby.
August.
And a crooked blanket fort in the living room of a biker’s house that now smells like fried chicken, laundry soap, motor oil, and cereal.
I don’t know what to do with that.
August does.
“Come in the fort,” he says.
Derby looks at the opening. “I ain’t fitting in that.”
“You can try.”
“I know my limits.”
“You’re scared.”
Derby looks offended. “Of a fort?”
“Of getting stuck.”
“That’s a reasonable damn concern.”
August turns to me. “Mama fits.”
“I’m not crawling into a fort in these jeans.”
August sighs. “Nobody wants fun.”
Derby looks at me. “He gets that from you?”
“I used to be fun.”
The words leave my mouth before I can soften them.
Derby hears the used to.
His eyes come to mine.
For a second, the whole house changes around us again. The fort, the groceries, the jokes, the teasing women, all of it falls away, and there is the alley again. Him asking if it’s pretend. Me saying I don’t know. Him stopping.