“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.” The corner of my mouth pulls up.
She studies me for another second, trying to read me the way she always does, with that focused blue gaze that is considerably more successful than I like to admit. Then, her chin lifts slightly, and her eyes get that brightness in them, the one that means she’s decided something is worth her attention.
“Do I need anything specific?”
“Jeans. Boots. A jacket.”
She holds my gaze for one more moment. Then she closes the laptop without another word and slides off the stool.
“Give me twenty minutes,” she says, already heading down the hallway.
She is back in fifteen, wearing dark jeans, ankle boots, a white shirt, a jacket thrown over one arm, and her hair is pulled back neatly. She stops in the kitchen doorway, and my eyes move over her slowly, from the neat line of her hair to the white shirt tothe bare feet still on the kitchen floor, and something that has absolutely no right to happen happens anyway.
Magnificent, I think.Entirely and completely magnificent.
The keys come up. “Ready?”
“I still don’t know where we’re going.”
“I know.”
She makes a sound low in her throat, not quite exasperation, not quite a laugh, and follows toward the garage.
Memphis watches from his spot by the sliding door. His ears drop the moment he understands he isn’t coming, that slow flattening that means he knows exactly what is happening and has decided to make sure everyone else knows that he knows.
Sophia points at him. “Don’t give me that face.”
He gives her that face.
“We’ll be back tonight,” she tells him seriously.
He sighs.
She stands there a second longer than necessary, her hand briefly touches the top of his head, and turns away before whatever is happening has time to become something worth examining.
She stops when she sees the bike.
Watching it happen, the moment she comes through the garage door, registers what is waiting, and understands what the jeans, boots, and‘You’ll see’actually mean.
She goes still.
Not surprised exactly. More like arrived as if some part of her had already known.
Crossing over to the bike, she picks up the helmet from the seat and holds it out toward her without a word.
She looks at it. Then at me. Then back at the helmet.
Then she takes it.
“Should I be getting on the back of your bike?” she asks quietly.
Not accusatory, not coy, just honest, the way she always is when something matters.
Giving her a look without answering, the corner of her mouth moves slightly as she reads whatever is on my face. Her fingers tighten briefly around the helmet. Then she puts it on, adjusts the strap with steady hands, and stands there waiting.
Swinging a leg over the bike and settling into the seat, the familiar weight of it settles underneath. She swings up behind a moment later with the ease of someone who has done this before. That weight settles over me, the guilt of a man doing something that once belonged to his brother.
