“For August.”
“Yeah.”
“For me too.”
I look at her then.
She reaches for my hand.
The one with the scabbed knuckles.
Holds it between both of hers.
“I didn’t want you to have blood on your hands for me.”
My chest goes tight.
“My hands were already dirty.”
“I know,” she says.
“No, Amelia. You don’t. Not all the way. I’m not a clean man. I won’t become one because you need gentle.”
“I don’t need clean.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
That honest no lands better than a yes would have.
Her fingers thread through mine.
“Then let me be the thing you don’t dirty them for.”
The words stop the whole morning.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Amelia
Kentucky looks different after Oregon.
Not because the hills changed. They are still green and rolling, stitched with black fences, sometimes white and horse farms that pretend money can keep ugliness from crawling under the gate. The sky still hangs low and humid. The roads still twist past old barns, roadside churches, gas stations with hand-painted signs, and fields that look peaceful if you don’t know what men can bury near tree lines.
But I changed.
That is the problem with leaving.
You come back and expect the old place to swallow you in the same shape, only to find your edges don’t fit the mouth anymore.
Derby rides beside our borrowed ride on Widowmaker like a dark promise with pipes loud enough to wake county grudges. August sleeps in the back seat with Blue Rex tucked under one arm and Princess Chomp under the other. Every few minutes, I look at him in the rearview mirror to make sure he is still there. Breathing. Safe. Sticky from gas station candy and sunburned across the nose from Oregon wind.
Behind my left ear, the little crown burns.
Not from infection. Hot Mama’s woman, Sagebrush, gave me enough aftercare instructions to make the tattoo seem like a newborn and a legal liability. It burns because I know it’s there. Because Derby knows it’s there now too.
Now we are back.