Page 55 of Thunder

Rafe says, to the ceiling, "Y'all are gonna make me finish this real fast."

The low back is easier on her, or she's just further in now, floating on the endorphins the way you do once the body gives up fighting the needle.

I stand back for that one so Rafe's got room, and I watch the letters come up one at a time across the small of her back, black and clean and permanent.

Property of Thunder.

My road name.

On a Lyle.

On her.

Inked into her skin where it'll be till she's old and gray, a claim I have no earthly right to and can't for the life of me make myself refuse.

I think about her father.

I won't pretend I don't.

I think about Phantom finding out—because Shiver's right, these things always come to light—and I think about him seeing this, my name on his youngest daughter's body, done behind his back, permanent before he ever got a say.

It's going to make everything worse when it breaks.

It's going to turn a betrayal into a brand he can't scrub off.

And I find I don't care the way I should.

Because she's right. It'll already be our reality.

Whatever he does, however he rages, however hard he tries to protect her right out of the best thing either of us has got, it'll already be inked, already chosen, already ours.

Some things you can't undo once they're done.

I know that better than any man alive.

I've got one buried out past Big Spring.

This one, at least, is a thing done in the dark that I'm glad of.

Rafe wraps her up, both pieces, and gives her the care talk she's not listening to.

I pay him double and grip his hand, and he tells me quietly, just for me, "She's a good one, brother. Don't wreck it."

Like he can read my whole life off my face. Maybe he can.

In the truck she rides pressed against my side the whole way home, careful of the fresh ink, glowing.

"Let me see it again," she says at a stoplight, and pulls the collar of my shirt aside to look at my snake, and then twists to catch her own ribs in the visor mirror.

The two of them matched, hers and mine, and the look on her face is pure fierce joy.

"Now we match," she says.

"Now we match."

"He's gonna lose his mind." She says it almost dreamy, and I know she means her father.

I know she's picturing the day, and it should scare me more than it does.