Long Way Home (Thunder Road #3)(99)

“Yeah, he would be proud.” But not for what he thinks. And with that, I leave.





CHEVY

MY BODY IS on fire. The blood pulsating through my veins is liquid fire. Violet is in my arms and she’s soft and warm and smells so damn good I’m about ready to explode. While on my lap, she gives me this smoldering, under-the-eyelash look of seduction as her fingers playfully wander under my shirt.

She’s going to kill me.

I lower my head, lightly brush my lips against hers, and when she gently presses back, my hands curl into her waist. Soft giggles from her and my temptress pulls back once again. “We have company.”

We do and someday I’m going to kick Oz’s and Razor’s asses for not giving us time alone.

“It’s not like you would find privacy anywhere anyhow,” Razor says like he’s reading my mind. “In case you haven’t figured it out, Pigpen and Man O’ War are on a ten-minute rotation of checking in on us. Their instincts are telling them that this is bigger and badder than their wildest guess.”

The local police arrested Eli and Cyrus this afternoon on charges of speeding and resisting arrest. Neither of them broke either of those laws, but it’s the only way Detective Barlow could talk to them without tipping the Riot’s hand of what’s about to go down.

I didn’t know that was going to happen. In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t know. Not sure I could have seen this through thinking my grandfather and uncle would be sitting behind bars with their reputations on the line.

But then Violet shifts and her long, silky hair slides against my arm. I turn my head, nuzzle my nose behind her ear, inhale her sweet scent and brush my lips to her skin. She cuddles closer, which is almost impossible with how she’s sitting on my lap.

Across the yard, the clubhouse is lit up against the black night and pissed-off. Pigpen’s been tearing through the cabin, the yard, the clubhouse like a toddler on the warpath. No one besides me, Razor, Oz and Violet understands why Eli and Cyrus were arrested. Until the Riot make their move against Eli and are thrown in jail, no one can know why.

The four of us are in Violet’s bedroom at the cabin. Oz and Razor sit at opposite ends of the window seat. I’m cradling Violet on the bed. Like a calming pendulum, she brushes her fingertips slowly up and down my arm. It’s a reminder that she’s safe, that we’re alive, that we are together.

We’ve been quiet since Louisville. Violet wore a recorder, she got the information the police needed and now we wait for the Riot to mess up and the police to do their job.

Violet watches the fish Justin gave her swim in slow, methodical circles in the glass vase she placed him in when she returned to the police trailer. It was the only thing she could find in the cabinets that would work.

“Why are you keeping it?” I whisper in her ear, but Oz and Razor glance over. The room is too quiet and we’re all too hypersensitive from today to not hear even the most hushed sound.

Violet lazily lifts one shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“Have you considered it’s bugged?” Oz asks.

She smiles and one by one, including Oz, we all smile, too. It’s been a long day and we’re full of paranoia.

“Forget I asked,” he said.

“Never,” she replies. “I will remember and remind you of that question until the day I die.”

Until the day she dies. I wrap my arms tighter around her and she places her head on my shoulder. There’s no humming anymore, and as long as she’s around, there won’t be. “Seriously, why keep the fish?”

“Justin let me pick it out. There were over a thousand fish and this one spoke to me.”

“That’s a Siamese fighting fish,” Razor says. “Those are highly aggressive. The males will kill one another. Females sometimes will, too. I had a buddy once tell me that if you put a mirror up to the tank that the fish will kill itself trying to fight its reflection.”

From the slight tilt of her lips, she already knows all of this and I kiss her temple. Violet picked the fish that best describes herself.

“It’s a reminder,” she whispers to me, but she’s aware Oz and Razor hear.

“Of what?” I ask.

“That there are some fights worth fighting and some fights that need to be let go. And that sometimes I need to really take a good look in the mirror before I react.”

“I need one of those fish,” Razor mumbles.

She giggles, then sighs. “Our English paper is due tomorrow.”

School. Somehow that feels a thousand miles away. So do football games and pep rallies, dances and homework. “Have you written yours?”

“Nope.”

“You two mean you can’t figure out which path to take?” Razor says teasingly.

I know what path to take, and the way Violet kisses my neck, she knows, too. It’s not the one most travelled. It’s not the one least taken. We don’t need a path when we’re confident enough to set our own course in the thick woods.

“Remember you promised me boring,” she says. “And I think we should start with blueberry pie. I like blueberry pie. I want to eat it until blueberries are running through my blood.”

“I, Chevy, do promise you, Violet, a life that is as boring as we can possibly create.”