: Chapter 25

He pulls into the garage and hits the brakes. My body lurches into him as I hold him tight, the smile on my face constant ever since we left the docks.

He kills the engine, and I savor the feel of him in my arms one last time before I let him go. Hopping off the bike, I unfasten the helmet and shiver, laughing at how the rain drips off both of us. We’re soaked.

Leading the way up the steps, he hits the button to close the garage door, and my teeth chatter as we pour into the dark kitchen.

I rush to the island and dig out a clean dish towel from a drawer, using it to squeeze the water out of my hair. No lights drift in from the living room, the house silent all around us.

I slip off my shoes and hold the towel to my chest. “Where is everybody?”

He whips off his jacket and hangs it on the back of the chair. “Close, I’m sure.”

He lifts his arms, pulling his T-shirt with him, and I gaze at his taut, tan stomach, the cut of the muscles there flexing, and his ribs cutting through his skin.

In a moment, he’s in front of me, taking the towel and drying off his face and neck. “Why didn’t you tell me you were cold?” he asks.

I grab the towel back, like it’s any substitute for a blanket, and breathe out a laugh. “I didn’t want you to stop.”

He looks down at me. “Yeah, me either.”

It was fun. We went everywhere. A hundred miles down the coast, all day, in and out of neighborhoods and busy shopping districts along the shore. In and out of rain and sun until we turned around and started getting pummeled on the way back home. I almost told him to keep going. I’ve never been to Cape Canaveral. We could’ve gotten a room. He should get out of town for a night once in a while.

“Are your brother and sister here?”

“With my grandparents tonight.” I set the towel down. “Are you hungry?”

When he doesn’t answer, I look up. He stares down at me, his warm eyes burning into me.

I don’t blink. The house is so quiet.

I’m cold. I want my dress off.

“You should get into a warm shower,” he says just above a whisper.

For a moment, there’s an invisible cord pulling at me, pulling him to me. He’s going to touch me. He never really saw me as a kid, did he? I’m not too young for him.

But he grabs his wet T-shirt and leaves, the pain low in my belly almost unnoticeable compared to the cold I feel everywhere else.

Jesus, what’s wrong with me?

We could’ve gotten a room? Did I actually just think that after everything he’s going through?

I head upstairs, seeing him close his door just as I dive through Liv’s. I drop my dress to the floor and peel off my wet underwear. Pulling on a black cropped T-shirt and some sleep shorts, I pick up my dress and head to the bathroom.

Throwing it over the shower rod to dry, I grab my brush from a shelf and start smoothing out the wet strands as I work the hair dryer over them.

Chills break out over my legs, still cold. The temperature was in the seventies all day, but add the rain, the wind, and the bare minimum attire, and I felt it more than Macon, who at least had on jeans and a jacket.

I think he enjoyed himself today, though. He just kept going and going, looking around once in a while and taking in the view, same as me. Trace rarely had me on his bike. He preferred to ride alone.

And Dallas was trying to scare me, going fast and testing me on the way to the Bug Jam.

Does Army have a bike? Iron does. It’s all he drives.

They’re not a gang, but they kind of are. I should get them all patches to put on their jackets as a joke. The idea makes me smile.

But then Macon walks in, and I lose the smile, finishing my hair and turning off the dryer.

I set it down and comb out my hair as he comes to the sink and wets his toothbrush. I glance at him, dropping my gaze to his sleep pants, and then turn away again. I stow the hairbrush and get my own toothbrush ready.

The room fills with the sound of brushing and water running, but he finishes quickly, rinsing out his mouth.

“I told you to get warmed up,” he says, cleaning his toothbrush. I spit. “I’m tired,” I say in a low voice.

I rinse my mouth, and he slips his toothbrush back into the holder. “Get your pillow.”

I watch him in the mirror as he leaves behind me. I don’t know when it became a thing that I sleep with him all the time, but sleeping is now my favorite thing.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and walk out, shutting off the light. Diving into Liv’s room, I grab my pillow.

But his words come back to me from that day in the shower. My woman is out there …

I think about that a lot. How he wants things and refrains from taking them because he thinks the cycle will end with him.

But he wants me in his bed because he remembers how good warm things feel. He doesn’t want to be alone.

I’m going to let another man have her …

I drop the pillow back to the bed and pull my T-shirt over my head. Slipping my shorts down my legs, I pick up my pillow again and hug it to my naked chest. Underwear still on, I try to slow my breathing as I see his room through the hair hanging in my left eye as I cross the hall.

Stepping inside, I watch him stand at his bedside table, his back to me as he sets his alarm.

I almost can’t talk for a second. “You’re … you’re warm,” I say in a soft voice.

He turns, his gaze dropping to the pillow over my naked skin. “Right?” I swallow. “Like a shower?”

He can warm me. My heart pounds in my ears.

The slight pinch between his brows digs deeper, and I’m not sure what that means. He doesn’t look as if he likes what he sees.

“You’re bold,” he says, arching an eyebrow. “For a teenager.”

Yeah. He’s pissed. He thinks I’m spoon-feeding him. Pitying him.

I whip around to leave, but he’s on my back and shoving the door out of my hand as soon as I start to open it.

“The last Saint on my bed got off without punishment.”

Clay. I breathe hard.

We broke into their house last spring, and she lay on his bed while Callum Ames took her picture.

As a joke.

She was fully dressed, of course. And Macon wasn’t here.

I wet my lips. “I never want to leave your bed,” I whisper. “And I want you to take that woman’s number out of your phone, too.”

His fingers play with locks of my hair at my back. “You want to do for me what she wants to do?”

I nod.

A hard breath hits my ear, and he lifts me up, back against his body, burying his face in my neck. I drop the pillow, moaning as I tilt my head back, close my eyes, and reach my hand around to touch his face.

“Macon …”

His hands slide up my body, covering my breasts, and I shift on my tiptoes, trying to keep contact as his mouth moves over my neck—touching, brushing, biting, breathing …

He rises up straight, taking me with him so my feet leave the floor. “How are you so powerful?” he growls, sliding a hand down the front of my panties. “Goddammit, you make everything worse.”

I smile. My skin fires under the surface, and I feel like everything is vibrating. “I know,” I groan.

His mouth leaves my neck, and I catch his lips with mine, cutting off his breath.

Twisting around in his arms, I let him slip his hands down the back of my underwear, cupping my ass and pressing me into him. His hard ridge digs into me, and my belly floods with heat.

I climb into his arms as he wraps my legs around his body. I hold the back of his neck and hover close, nearly brushing my nose to his. “I wish it had been me that night on your bed. What would you have done if you’d caught me?”

He reaches behind me, and I hear the lock click. “Given you the licks you deserved.” He breathes out.

My heart spins inside my chest, and I love the double meaning behind that. I wish I had been the one on his bed. I wish I’d known how to listen to my instincts, because from the start, it was him I noticed. The first time I saw him up close in the garage during the scavenger hunt. That first time—while everyone else was scared—I just kept thinking how smart he was. That he wasn’t some ruthless nobody who thought small and just liked to cause trouble. That whole time he had Clay in his clutches, I kept thinking that he was stronger than anyone I’d ever known.

He lifts me higher by the backs of my thighs, looking up at me. “You pitying me?” he asks. “Tell me this isn’t about that.”

I hold his face, gazing into his chocolate eyes.

“Tell me you want it,” he begs.

“I wanted it that night in the garage so badly,” I state. “I wanted you to put me in the back seat and do it slow, again and again.” I harden my voice. “And I don’t want anyone else touching you.”

I know the woman he was talking to at Mariette’s yesterday is of little consequence, but she’s around, and she’s available if he needs it.

I don’t like that.

“I take care of you,” I tell him. “Your restaurant, your food, and I’ll ride you early in the morning, and let you take off my panties in the middle of the night if you wake up hard.”

I crash down on his mouth, savoring the taste of him before I slowly move over his lips, gripping his hair at the back of his head. He groans, holding me tightly and pushing his tongue in, forcing my teeth to part.

Tingles spread down to my toes. “Oh God …”

The heat of his mouth spreads all over me, and I move faster, not able to get enough. I kiss and nibble, and then I force his head back so I can have his neck. I kiss over his vein and up to his jaw, tasting it with the tip of my tongue. The stubble on his face brushes against my lips, and I don’t know what happens, but I bite his jaw, not even thinking anymore.

“Mine,” I say. “I’m the one who touches you.”

He hugs me tightly, his possessive fingers digging into my ass and waist. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Fucking God, Krisjen, we have to stop. You don’t belong with me. You’re too young.”

I kiss him more and more. “I decide that,” I pant, dragging my nails over the muscles in his back. “And you don’t tell me no. You let me have whatever I want.” I leave small kisses on his cheek, his jaw, and the corner of his mouth. “I belong to you.”

And he covers my mouth with a long, deep kiss, and neither one of us can stop.

He kisses my forehead, my cheek, and I want him to go faster—harder—but I don’t want to be fucked, either. Not our first time. I love the slow agony of anticipation. Of him learning my body and me learning his. When is he going to suck on me? Strip the rest of my clothes off? Spread my thighs apart?

He drops me to my feet, smelling my hair as he takes my hand and guides it inside the hem of my underwear. He presses my fingertips to my clit. “Do that,” he murmurs. “You’re pretty when you do it.”

When did he see me …?

The couch pops in my head, but then I remember. I did it for him in the garage. The hose.

He reaches inside a drawer in his dresser and pulls out a little device. He hands it to me.

I hold the hot pink vibrator, the word “Vibe” written on the side. I glance at him. “This is mine.”

He took this from my bag? When? I search my brain, but I can’t remember the last time I saw it.

He whispers in my ear, “Sorry. I just didn’t want you using it with anyone else.”

I remember making a joke last spring in front of Trace’s family about how I used the vibrator after he would leave me unsatisfied. Macon was in the room when I said it. He didn’t forget. My cheeks heat, and my heart races at the same time.

Taking my hand, he leads me to the bed. I stare up at him as I twist the knob and hear the vibrator buzz to life.

His eyes swallow me whole, and I can’t see anything else but him. I barely even register crawling onto the bed, lying down on my tummy, and sliding the vibrator inside my underwear, against my clit.

His chest heaves in heavy breaths as my thighs immediately grow hot.

Raindrops beat against the windows and walls, but the only sounds filling the room are my moans as I start rubbing myself into the vibrator.

Propping myself up on one elbow, I rock my hips, pinning the toy between the bed and my body as I reach back with my hand and push the underwear below my ass. He watches me, entranced, and I thrust, grind, and slip my hand back down to keep the vibrator in place. Tingles spread low through my belly, and I feel the orgasm start to build. I moan, dropping my forehead to the bed and keeping the toy pinned on my clit.

I dream of days when he’s out working and I just can’t wait, and he comes home to catch me playing on his bed. And then suddenly, I’m all he’s thinking about as he steps in and closes the door to punish me so loud the bed breaks.

I fuck harder, rocking my hips as the heat of his eyes falls on my ass. I glance over for a split second, seeing the long ridge of his cock outlined against his sleep pants as it grows big and hard.

I slide the other hand down between my legs, holding the little vibrator with both hands. The orgasm crests, I suck in a breath, little gasps escaping as I thrust hard once. And then again. And then …

He flips me over, yanks my toy away, and I whimper as he pulls off my panties.

“Macon …” I gasp and then groan. “No.”

I didn’t come.

But in a second, he’s licking one of my nipples and sliding a finger inside of me. And then another one, stretching me and hitting deep.

I dig my nails into his bed. Yeah.

A phone rings over on the dresser. His. That’s not my ringtone. But he ignores it, and it eventually stops as his hot mouth descends over my stomach and lands between my thighs. Moving his two fingers in and out, he kisses my clit, licking it, and then kisses it again. I tremble, my thighs quivering.

“Please …” I beg.

But the phone rings again, and Macon bites my outer flesh in frustration.

I cry out, grabbing hold of his head to keep him there, but he pulls away. Charging over to his dresser, he looks at his phone and swipes, setting it back down. “Fucking Trace,” he growls, ignoring the call.

I sit up, propping my hands behind me on the blankets. “Come back to bed.”

He turns, and I see sweat glisten on his neck as he gazes at me and doesn’t blink. It only takes a moment, though, and he’s pushing his pants down his legs and fisting his cock.

My eyes flare as I watch him stroke it and walk to me like it’s a threat.

He comes down on the bed, and I fall back, grabbing his hips to guide him in between my legs.

The phone rings again.

“Goddamn that kid.” He breathes out, looking in the direction of the phone still on his dresser.

But I arch up, licking and kissing his jaw. “Don’t kill him.”

He takes my wrists and pushes me back, pinning them above my head. “I won’t, baby,” he tells me, hovering over my mouth. “He brought you home to me.”

God, yes. I love knowing Macon wants me. I like knowing that he liked what he saw months ago and wanted it.

The phone rings again, and Macon shoots off the bed, going for the phone, but everything throbs, and I need him inside of me now.

“Macon …” I whine.

And he turns back, seeing me, thighs spread, wet for him.

He lets the fucking thing ring and comes back, kneeling between my legs, and grabbing my hips, yanking me down. I should just tell him to mute it, but I can’t wait.

“I kind of wish those rumors they say about me were true,” he says. “If you’d been submitted to me at eighteen, I would never have let anyone else have you.”

He presses the head of his cock to my entrance, leans over me, and thrusts. I cry out, tipping my head back as he stretches me and fills, thrusting deeper every time.

“Fuck,” he whispers, pinning my wrists above my head again. “I would’ve kept you for me.”

I roll my hips, searching for his mouth, neither one of us wanting to take it slow anymore as the heat in the room builds and builds.

“Do whatever you want to me,” I whisper. Because I keep what I want, and I want him. God, I want him.

I find his lips, savoring the feel of his skin and the taste of his tongue.

“Wider, Krisjen …” he pleads.

I let my thighs fall wide, while he kisses my mouth, my neck, and sucks a breast into his mouth again. He tugs at a nipple, and I arch up, keeping it in his mouth. God, I love it when he does that. I pull my wrists out of his hold, taking his waist in my hands, and pull him in, burying his cock deep inside me.

I moan, and he growls, propping himself above me to stare down at my body as we fuck.

The phone rings. We ignore it.

“Macon …” I moan.

It rings again. He seethes. But I beg, “Don’t stop.”

I stare up into his eyes, my hand around the back of his neck, but it rings again.

He jerks away. “Goddammit!”

And I cry a little when his heat leaves me and the bed.

He grabs his phone, knocking over things on his dresser in the process, and answers. “Fuck!” he growls, holding the phone to his ear. “What?”

“Saints just crossed the tracks!” I hear Trace shout from here.

Macon breathes hard, turning toward me and walking back for the bed.

I bite my bottom lip and then … I swing around hanging my head over the side of the bed and grabbing him with my mouth as he comes in.

“Oh, fuck,” he groans, just realizing what I’m doing.

He stands next to the bed as I suck him down, and he leans over me a little, burying his cock in my mouth. His hand caresses my breast.

“Yeah, so, um ….” Trace stutters, and I realize Macon just blurted that in his ear. “They took a left. My guess is they’re going to the cemetery.”

“What do I care?” Macon rubs his thumb over my right nipple, pumping his dick into my mouth slowly so he doesn’t hurt me.

He groans again. “Oh God.”

“Are you …” Trace starts to ask but stops. “Never mind.” He pauses, then continues. “What do you want us to do?”

“Pull back.”

“But—”

“You heard me,” Macon snaps. “Just leave it.”

“They’re searching for the treasure.”

“It’s not in the cemetery,” Macon says.

My eyes pop open just as he yanks the phone away from his ear and tosses it on the bed.

“Not anymore,” he murmurs to himself.

The treasure? That was one of the rumors I asked him about when we ate in the kitchen that day. It’s true?

I swirl my tongue around his tip, tasting myself on him. Loving that he tastes like this, because he was inside of me.

“I taste good,” I say softly.

He reaches down and lifts me up, onto my knees, and brings me into his body. “Yes, you do,” he whispers over my lips.

He kisses me, sucking me off my own lips and digging his fingers into my ass.

“So the treasure is real?” I ask, remembering what he just said to Trace. “They’ll rip the place apart, you know.”

He holds me tight. “It’ll take more than that to get me to leave this bed tonight.”

We kiss, our arms circling each other tightly, and I can’t tell which limbs are mine and which are his. I love this with him. I love that there’s nothing better than tonight. I love—

A boom hits the air, followed by another one, and we jump, pulling away from each other’s mouths.

Still holding each other, we turn our eyes out the window and toward the bright glow of an explosion somewhere behind Mariette’s. On a road? In the swamp, maybe?

“Oh my God,” he mutters.

The fire burns big, and I stop breathing for a second.

Trace. Dallas, Army …

I look at Macon. “We have to go.”

Ipull the hood of Liv’s raincoat over my head as Macon and I dash out into the street. We climb into one of the trucks, water streaming down his face and onto his black T-shirt as he turns the key.

He spins the wheel to the left, and I grab the dash and the door as he swings around the street and charges down the road, toward the bar and the motel. The door to the firehouse is up, the small truck inside gone. Some of the volunteer fire department must’ve already sped out to the fire.

But instead of veering left, past Mariette’s and toward the explosion, he slips into a muddy parking spot and leaves the engine running. “Come on.”

He jumps out of the truck, and I push open the creaky door, hopping out.

Heading up the steps before me, he opens the door, and I walk in behind him.

People clamor and shout inside the restaurant, and we look around for familiar faces, but all I see are staff, tourists, and a few people from the Bay.

But then I see them. Army, Dallas, and Trace push through the kitchen door and charge through the dining room. I let out a breath, relieved.

Macon dives behind the lunch counter, pulls out a pistol, checks for bullets, and slips it into the back of his jeans. My heart leaps into my throat.

The gun. The one from his nightstand. I haven’t returned it yet. I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t think to grab it before we left the house.

He pulls his T-shirt over the weapon and moves toward the door again, his brothers following.

The others slip out the door, but I move in front of Macon before he can leave. “It’s a diversion,” I tell him.

He just murmurs, “Stay here. I don’t want you at the house alone.”

He doesn’t even look at me as he tries to leave again.

But I repeat, “It’s a diversion.”

Whoever they are, they’re keeping the Jaegers’ attention occupied while something else goes down. They’re not here to start a fight. He doesn’t need the weapon.

He reaches around me to push open the door, and I take his hand in mine, coming for his mouth. “Be careful.”

But he pulls his hand out of mine. “Not here.”

He brushes past me, leaving Mariette’s, and I look after him, watching them all climb into their trucks. They speed off, and I feel the heat of peoples’ eyes on my back, but when I turn around, no one is looking.

Okay, maybe like three are.

I look around to find Jessica smiling at me. Summer looks but doesn’t smile.

I search the room. Where’s Aracely?

Santa Maria. That’s what Trace said. If he’s right, Aracely would be there.

I bolt, running out of the restaurant, down the wooden steps, and into the rain. I splash through puddles, diving down the dark dirt road and into the night. The woods creep in on both sides, and I know there are wetlands behind the trees off to my right. But I stay on the road.

I run, not seeing anyone around. The boys’ trucks are long gone.

But I don’t go toward the explosion. Jetting down a small path on my left, I let my hood fall off, seeing the grooves of tires that have recently come through. The road is tiny, but BMWs and Audis fit just fine without even scraping any branches on their way.

I push my hair out of my eyes, feeling water soak my toes through my sneakers. Headstones appear up ahead, and I leap through a thin row of trees. Stumbling into the graveyard, I quickly look around for cars, flashlights, or people, but I don’t see anything yet.

I know Aracely is here. She jumped at the chance earlier this year to get in a Saint’s face. She’s not missing this. I hunch over, staying low, and step through the overgrown weeds and ivy that climb the old burial markers.

Names engraved hundreds of years ago sit on granite half-buried in the soil after centuries of sinking into the land, while others are so faded and eroded from weather that you can’t read anything. I’ve been here once, with Liv and Clay, because hiding things in graves was actually one story that was true. There are cases of liquor in one of the crypts. Macon buys it illegally and supplies it to the bar because sometimes St. Carmen likes to fuck with his supplier, so he needed a stash. Liv knows where it’s at. One night last summer, we raided.

But a treasure? I didn’t think that was true. I’m still not buying it. If it were significant, Macon could quite possibly be the most powerful person south of Washington, DC. Why would he not use it?

I spot two flashlights dancing in the dark ahead, and then headlights pop on. I stop short.

But before they can see me, someone grabs me and yanks me down to the ground. I lock eyes with Aracely, seeing her sister and a few others in her regular pack all lying on top of graves, hiding behind headstones.

I scoot in with her, tucking myself behind a marker.

“You on our side or theirs?” she asks me.

I shoot her a look. “What do you think?”

She stuffs something in my hand, and I look down, the moonlight peering through the clouds to show me a pair of steel knuckles. With spikes on the outside.

I gape. “Are you serious?”

She shrugs, picking up a baseball bat and flipping onto her side to look around the corner.

I slip on the knuckles in case I have to poke someone, but I’m not interested in making anyone bleed.

“You know, Macon wouldn’t approve of this,” I tell her.

She flashes me a dirty look. “The only thing I need a man to protect me from is a life sentence. He can clean up the evidence when I’m done.”

Heh. I’m actually fine with that. As long as we can get rid of them before he and his brothers show up. Iron doesn’t need company in jail.

Flashlights bob a hundred yards away, moving around graves, searching.

“How would they even know what grave to dig up?” I ask Aracely.

She sits up on one knee and zips up her fitted jacket. “When you’re not stupid, and you have an endless amount of resources available to you, anything is possible.” She wipes her muddy hands on her jeans and pulls a beanie over her head. “You inventory the graves, find the conquistadors, and then you discover one had a mistress, and the love letters between them are sitting in the St. Carmen Museum today. When a woman in those days bears you three sons and shares your bed for twenty-eight years, you trust her, even in death.”

Oh my God. “You think the treasure is real?” I ask her.

“He didn’t tell you it wasn’t.” She pins me with a look. “Did he?”

My face falls. Jesus.

Have they always had it? Or did they just recently find it? Does everyone over here know it’s real? Has she actually seen it? I have so many questions.

She pulls the hat down, and I realize it’s a mask that covers everything except for her eyes. Her friends follow suit, everyone getting their feet underneath them. I hop up onto mine, ready to follow.

I glance at Aracely. “You’re not slashing their tires, are you?”

“No, I want them to leave.”

Wise.

“So, what are we doing, then?” I ask.

She looks at me, grins, and then …

She leaps to her feet, the others following, all of them holding their hands in the air, howling from the top of their lungs.

What the hell? I crane my neck to see them sprint at top speed across the burial grounds. Toward the invaders.

The beams from the flashlights jerk in our direction, and I catch site of a blond ponytail whipping as some girl runs.

I shoot off, racing after Aracely and sucking in breath after breath. This is dumb. Someone’s going to get hurt. Or arrested.

We charge through the rain, Aracely throwing her arms behind her head, getting ready to smash someone’s face in.

Some teenager—I think he still goes to Marymount, actually—scurries backward, holding out his hands. “No, no, no, no!”

Aracely swings the bat down, and I watch in horror as she smashes down on the hood of the dude’s Tesla. A dent sits like a crater in the middle.

“Oh my God!” Emaline Truax drops a shovel, coated in the dirt they disturbed. She swings the sledgehammer they brought with them, but I’m on her before she attacks. I shove her, the hammer dropping into a puddle, but then I hear someone growl and spin around. A guy is behind Aracely, trying to pry the bat out of her hands. I race over, leaping onto his back.

“Ah!” he growls.

I wrap my body around him, putting him in a headlock, which is pretty much all I know from wrestling with my siblings.

He throws me off, and I crash to the ground, the spikes of my knuckles sinking into the mud.

Car doors slam, headlights glow bright, and tires spin as the intruders escape. A truck, and then another one, speeds in as they peel off.

Aracely looks over at me. I smile, watching them turn tail and run. She grins, too. Liv and Clay would be proud of me.

Trace jumps out of his truck. “You got rid of them?” he asks Aracely.

I rise to my feet, about to walk over, but Aracely pulls me out of the way. “Careful.”

I look down, seeing the pathetic start of a hole they tried to dig. I read the headstone. El … des … a … fio? El desafio. Challenge? Dare? Duel? I should ask Paisleigh. She knows more Spanish than me now.

“Thanks,” I tell Aracely.

But someone takes my shoulders and twists me forward. “Are you okay?”

I look up, meeting Army’s eyes.

But Aracely speaks up. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she tells him, starting to walk away. “In case you ever wonder. Ever.”

I watch her pick up her bat and start to leave the cemetery, the spark of pain on her face clear as day. He didn’t see it, though. The twitch in her eyes when he brushed past her like she wasn’t here.

I don’t have a chance to go after her. Macon strolls up, his jaw clenched and his eyes hard on me. “I told you to stay at Mariette’s. What did you think you would accomplish?”

Army drops his hands, but I don’t think Macon even noticed him. He’s looking at me like he looks at Trace sometimes.

I swallow. “Getting rid of them before you showed up.”

“Am I in the habit of doing stupid things that I need to be protected from myself?” he chastises. “They could’ve hurt you. Taken you. I can suffer a few lost headstones—some holes in the ground—” He gestures to the earth underneath us. “Because it’s all about the long game, and not a single person in my fucking house understands that!”

I startle, his growl piercing my ear. I don’t think my parents have yelled at me like that. Ever.

I don’t think it would hurt like it does with him, though.

“I wanted to help,” I explain. “I just—”

“When I need your help, I will ask for it,” he snaps. “I don’t need someone else to babysit. You understand?”

I recoil, a feeling like I want to hide washing over me. He’s looking at me like I’m stupid.

He likes me in his kitchen and in his room. Not anywhere else.

“Take her home,” he orders.

Santos, who I didn’t see arrive, steps up.

I can’t look at Macon. “I have a car,” I say, and start to walk past him.

“And make sure she doesn’t leave,” he calls out.

Santos takes my wrist, but before I can pull away, I hear a voice. “Don’t touch her,” someone else says.

I look up at Trace. Eyes hard, he stands tall—taller than I’ve ever seen him—and everything goes quiet. Even the rain.

Santos releases me.

Trace takes a few steps closer to his brother. Macon turns to face him.

“You can talk to us like that,” Trace says. “Because sometimes we deserve it, but she’s not your property.”

My eyes sting. Macon stands toe to toe with his brother, getting in his face.

Trace stays rooted. “I won’t hit back,” he tells him, “but I’m not gonna back up anymore.”

I almost smile.

“With her,” he says to Macon, “you have to be gentle.”

“You taking her back?” Macon dares him.

Taking me back. Like I’m an object who doesn’t speak.

I look away, but I see Trace turn to me out of the corner of my eye. I meet his gaze.

“Can I have you back?” he asks.

I open my mouth, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want to start up with Trace again, but I also love that he’s asking. It feels like something has changed inside of him.

He steps over, takes my hand, and says, “I’ll give you a ride home.”

He starts to lead me away, but I pull him back and hug him tight. My chest fills up with something, and I don’t know what it is, but it feels good. I wish we’d started like this. As friends. “I love you, too,” I whisper.

I take off Liv’s raincoat and turn to Macon, stepping closer. “You weren’t going to keep me, were you?”

He stares.

I force down the lump in my throat. “If I make love to you …”

I lower my voice. “I don’t think I’m ever going to want anyone else.” I gaze at him, desperate for everyone else to disappear so he’ll let me touch him. “Will you keep me?”

His chest falls hard.

I want him to keep me, but something is holding him back. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe he thinks his health will be a burden on me.

Maybe it’s something else.

But I can’t sleep in his bed tonight.

“Aracely,” I call out over my shoulder. “Would you take me home?”

I leave, catching up to her. Both of us jump into her car, and I lock my door because I don’t trust myself if he tries to pry me back.

Trace was right. I need him to be gentle.

We take off, the radio playing music, and I almost tell her to stop a hundred times. He’s prideful. He won’t come for me. He would rather suffer for twenty years than admit he needs me with him. He won’t come to St. Carmen.

He would never cross the tracks for a woman.

Soon, we’re out of the Bay and climbing up into my neighborhood, the rain a steady but light fall.

Aracely hasn’t said anything.

I finally speak up. “You’re in love … with Army.” I look over at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

She holds the wheel with both hands, keeping her eyes trained out the front windshield. “You weren’t supposed to. He certainly doesn’t.”

“And you certainly don’t beat around the bush with me,” I muse. “So why have you with him? Why don’t you tell him?”

“I did,” she replies flatly. “When I was fifteen.”

Oh.

“He was nineteen at the time and laughed in my face. I told him again when I was eighteen and when I was twenty.”

“Didn’t you go out with Iron and Dallas during that time?”

She dated them both somewhere in there.

But she just plucks a cigarette out of her pack in the console. “Yeah, well … that was never about love. For them, either.”

I watch her, and I’m more and more curious about her as time goes on. She didn’t want to stay close to the family. She wanted to stay close to Army. Any way she could. Cleaning their house, working their restaurant, dating Iron and Dallas …

Maybe Army would find out he misses her if there came a time when she wasn’t around. She strikes me as the type who, unlike me, knows exactly what she wants to do with her life.

We pull onto my street, and she says, “I can do better anyway. Clay’s dad is single, right?”

I burst into a laugh. We swing up to my gate, and I see through the bars that the house is dark. Paisleigh and Mars are at my grandparents’, and if the gate is closed, my mom is still gone. “Five-five-eight-three-oh-two.” I tell Aracely the code.

She looks at me, lifting her eyebrows for a second like she didn’t expect me to tell her. All my friends have the code.

She punches in the numbers and waits for the gate to open before she speeds through. Winding around my driveway, she stops in front of my door.

I’m about to ask if she wants to come in and make margaritas, but she speaks before I do. “What was he like?” she asks, staring at the steering wheel. “Army?”

I drop my eyes. “Please don’t ask me that.”

But she argues, “You owe me. Was it good?”

I unfasten my seat belt, but I don’t leave.

“Is he big?” she whispers, sounding so small all of a sudden. “Where does he touch?”

My chest aches, not because of the questions, but her tone. She wants to know because she wants to know how he’d be with her.

“You’re going to get everything you want.” I meet her eyes. “I wouldn’t say that to everyone, but I don’t think you’ll fail.”

I climb out of the car and dip down, peeking back inside through the window. “He won’t be able to stand it,” I tell her. “When he falls for you.”

A smile peeks out at the corner of her lips, and I slam the door, heading inside.