Nowhere But Here (Thunder Road #1)(97)

“Your mom and dad miss you,” I cut her off. “That’s not a bad thing.”

She throws herself into me, wrapping her arms around my stomach and burying her face in my chest. I rest my chin on her head and squeeze her into me. I’m going to miss this. Having her in my life day in and day out. “I want to make this work, but we have to play our cards right. Are you with me?”

She pulls back and looks up at me. “I don’t want to be a secret.”

“You won’t be. I promise. Let me get patched in tonight and then I’ll have some footing in the club. Trust me, I’ll need it. Eli won’t be happy with me.”

“But he can’t take back your patch because we’re together, can he?”

It’s what I’m banking on. That and I hope Eli will get his shit together sooner rather than later in understanding that I would die for his daughter. I have no doubt Eli will come to his senses on this, but I can’t risk him taking longer than Olivia has to live. “I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking if we can move slowly.”

“Okay.”

I kiss her forehead and then lead her out of the woods. A foot from the edge of the tree line Emily hesitates. “Is your name really Oz?”

The majority of people in my life think it is. Only a handful of people know my real name. “It’s Jonathan, but Olivia started calling me Oz when I was little and it stuck.”

“Why Oz?”

I watch as a group of guys raise the American flag next to the Terror’s flag on the pole. “Because she said that growing up here, around all this, must be the equivalent of Dorothy being born in Oz.”

Emily smiles and she doesn’t lose the expression when I release her hand, but she does stroll close enough to me that sometimes our hands brush against each other as we walk. We round the cabin and Eli leans against his old pickup and grins when he spots the two of us.

“Eli wants to see you,” I say. “Find me when you’re done and we’ll get some food.”

I wink at Emily and force myself to turn and walk away. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be a full member of the Reign of Terror and one step closer to having her by my side in public.

Emily

DON’T MENTION THAT I know what the stars on his arm mean. Don’t mention that every time I sneak a peek at him, I’m counting again and again, or how I’m freaking frustrated that it always adds up to seventeen.

Eight stars are empty. Nine stars are colored in. Seventeen stars. One for each year of my life. Why the hell would a man who never wanted me mark himself this way?

Don’t go there, Emily. Just don’t. Focus.

Don’t mention to Eli that I’ve fallen in love. Don’t mention to him I spent the night half-naked wrapped up in Oz’s arms. Don’t mention that I’ve never felt this way and that it’s a wonderful feeling and a terrifying feeling and it’s similar to being on the back of a motorcycle.

Don’t mention to Eli that while he’s sitting there all expectant in the passenger side of his truck, I’m thirty seconds away from puking on his steering wheel. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” Eli encourages me. “Foot on the brake, turn the key in the ignition, shift the truck into Drive, then gently tap the gas.”

Nausea bubbles up my throat. The windows are down, but the day was hot enough that any exposed skin left by my shorts and tank top sticks to the plastic seating. I flex my fingers and inhale the scent of cigarette smoke and pleather.

I can do this. I can freaking drive a truck. No. No I can’t. “There are a ton of people around here. Maybe we should wait until everyone’s gone.”

“We’re not NASCAR driving. You’re going to gently tap the gas and if you think we’re moving too fast, you’re going to press the brake.”

The front porch is full of gawkers. Olivia watches us from her Adirondack chair. Cyrus holds her hand as he stands next to her. Razor sits on the porch swing and rocks it in a slow motion. Chevy and Oz each rest a shoulder against opposing beams near the stairs and Violet and her brother, Stone, are planted on the bottom step.

“I want you back in the house by eight tonight,” says Eli. “After that, no one under eighteen can be around the clubhouse.”

I have to focus very hard so I don’t roll my eyes. “I can’t watch Oz patch in?”

Eli gives me this dark expression that tells me the answer is no. Rules are rules I guess, and it’s not my club. It’s a boys’ club. With that thought I’m drawn to Violet. The moment she walked up to the front porch she announced that she was only here to visit me.

This club has hurt her somehow and while we’ve chatted on the phone about clothes and some guys she’s been dating this summer, we never discuss anything important.

Olivia glances in Violet’s direction and Chevy looks like someone shot him in the chest multiple times. Sadness settles in my gut. When I arrived, I was almost as bad as she is now and for that, “I’m sorry.”

I seem to be saying that a lot. Eli peers over at me as if I told him I was pregnant. “What?”

For those years you asked me a million questions and I gave you half-truths. For that—I’m sorry. “I’m sorry I’m being a spaz. It’s just...” I wipe my sweaty palms on my jean shorts. “The first time I drove, I pressed on the gas too hard and then freaked out and accidently pressed on the gas more thinking it was the brake and it obviously wasn’t the brake and well...I wrecked Dad’s car. No one was hurt or anything, but the car was...”