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Duncan faced him directly, ready for an array of reactions. “I’m a member of the Brazen Bulls.”
At first, Vin didn’t react at all. He met Duncan’s gaze steadily, then shifted his attention to Phoebe. She smiled, and Vin finally nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “So you think you can work a deal for a cheap engine? One that’ll be solid?”
“I do, yeah.” Duncan turned to Phoebe. “And like I said, installation’s on me.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she protested halfheartedly.
“I know—I want to. I kinda feel invested in the situation.”
That made her smile. The rosy chill had faded from her cheeks, but something warmer pinked them up now. “Thank you. I don’t want to impose, but I won’t turn down good help. Looks like you’re still rescuing me.”
“Knight in shining armor, at your service,” he said with a smirk he hoped was intimate and gently teasing. Their first private joke.
Vin cleared his throat loudly and rhetorically. “Anybody want more bacon?”
Duncan and Phoebe both took more bacon, and the trio got back to breakfast. Duncan was about to ask Phoebe if she’d show him around the place when his phone buzzed in his jeans. He pulled it out and tapped the preview of a text from his dad.
Eight wants us in the chapel at 11.
Might be some changes to the plan for
the run. We all need to talk it out.
The run was coming up awfully soon for big changes to be made in their first-tier plan. Duncan had a suspicion this was about Dex’s idea to leave the Young Guns home.
He checked the time: quarter to ten. If he was going to be in his seat in the chapel at eleven, he needed to be rolling in the next few minutes.
“I’m real sorry about this, but I gotta get moving.” Fuck. Goddammit, Dex. What was the guy’s damage?
The answer to that question was long, dark, and bloody as fuck.
Phoebe’s expression showed surprise and disappointment. But then she smiled and said, a little too brightly, “Of course. You gotta get back to your life.”
Standing, Dex said, “I really am sorry to stuff my face and bail. Vin”—he offered his hand to the seated man, who clasped it with the same strength as earlier—“this breakfast slapped. Thank you. Phoebe, will you walk out to my truck with me?”
She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and stood.
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~oOo~
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They got their coats on, Phoebe slipped into her beat-up cowboy boots, and they headed out of the house without talking. On the walk to his truck, Duncan wanted to take her hand, but the impulse was stilled by her silence. There was a new distance between them, one that hadn’t been there even last night, when they were strangers to each other.
At his truck, though, he couldn’t take it anymore. He caught her arm, put her against the fender and leaned in. As she looked up at him, her eyes round with wondering, he said, “I want to see you again.”
She smiled. “You’re helping me with my truck, right? It’ll be hard to do that without coming into contact again. Plus, I still owe you pie.”
“You know what I mean. I want more of you. Thoughts?”
Her hands came up and grabbed the plackets of his coat. “I don’t think I’d hate that.”
“If you were trying to be encouraging, you should try a little harder.”
She pulled harder on his coat, until he bent down and kissed her.
