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“So, did you take the Blue Ridge Parkway?” Libby asks in between crunching. “It’s supposed to be so pretty.”
Dex tilts his head and smiles like his road captain heart is pleased she knows that little nugget of information. “We were able to see some of it on the last leg of our ride down there.” He glances at me. “It’s definitely something I’d like to do in the future. On a longer trip.”
His eyes simmer with questions that I know exactly how to answer. “I’d love to do that with you one day.”
He hugs me a little tighter as if that was the response he wanted.
“I definitely want to do that,” Libby says. She shifts her gaze to me. “If I can ever get my license.”
I let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Whoa, wait a second,” Dex says to Libby. “Come here.”
She places the candy behind her back and slowly saunters over.
“Let me see your hands,” he says, lifting an eyebrow.
She slowly raises her arms, jazz hands style, rattling the bag of candy. “Notice anything?” she asks.
“You got your cast off. Finally. Congratulations.” He lifts his chin. “How does it feel?”
“It hurt at first,” Libby admits, staring down at her arm. “I thought I was gonna barf, it looked so gross.” She flexes her fingers. “It still feels kinda weak.”
“They said that was normal,” I add.
Dex frowns at me. “Are you sure? Should she get a second opinion?” So much concern bleeds into his questions that my heart squeezes.
What he told me about his wife’s death returns to me, so I’m not insulted by his questions. “I asked Serena and also read up about it. I think she’s okay.”
“It doesn’t hurt as much now,” Libby adds. “Still a little itchy, but Emily bought me this fancy lotion and that’s helping.”
The tension in Dex’s shoulders seems to release. “Good.”
“So, how was your trip?” I ask.
Dex blinks as if so many things happened he can’t pinpoint one particular event. “Exhausting,” he finally says.
“Funerals usually are. Plus, you had the long ride.”
“Did anyone else drive as far as you did?” Libby asks.
“Sure,” Dex answers slowly. “We had brothers ride in from as far as Washington State.”
“Wow.” Libby rubs her butt. “That must hurt.”
He chuckles. “It’s not for everyone.”
“You were gone a while, though,” Libby continues. “How long was the funeral?”
“Uh, we actually cut it short. There was a nice memorial service.” He hesitates for a second. “It’s a long ride, there and back, though.”
Dex is awfully short on details about this trip.
I can only imagine what an MC’s idea of celebrating a biker’s life must be. Is that why he’s choosing his words so carefully?
As if he senses my thoughts include strippers and lewd acts, he squeezes me again. “Couldn’t wait to get home to my girl.”
“Did you ride home all by yourself?” Libby asks.
“Nope. Some of our brothers split and went to visit our Virginia charter. Jigsaw, Sparky, Stash, and Murphy rode most of the way back with me. Jiggy and Murphy split from us around Philadelphia to visit Jiggy’s sister.”
“Travel in pairs? Safety first?” Libby jokes.
Dex cracks a smile. “You know it.”
Libby clutches her bag of candy to her chest. “I’m going to be upstairs. Let me know when the pizza gets here.”
“Who said anything about pizza?” I ask.
“We have to celebrate Dex’s return,” Libby teasingly scolds. “Sheesh.”
Dex rumbles with laughter as he watches her flounce out of the living room.
“How’d Sparky do?” I ask. Dex mentioned before the trip Sparky wasn’t happy about going.
He stares at me for a few beats, as if he’s surprised I remembered. “He did okay. Still jumped at the chance to leave early with us, though.”
“Funerals are hard for some people. Even if they weren’t close to the person.”
He nods slowly. “I think it had more to do with the meeting our national president called while ‘he had us all there.’” Dex rolls his eyes. “It was…eventful.”
I don’t ask him to explain. If he’s allowed to share more information, I’m sure he will.
“Actually, the whole thing was a shitshow from start to finish.”
I hold my breath, waiting to see if he shares more details. He flicks his gaze toward the staircase. “The place we were supposed to have the memorial at canceled our permit.”
“Woah, really? What a way to incur bad karma. Why?”
His jaw tightens and he rolls his lip like he’s trying to calculate how much each word out of his mouth will cost him. “Not sure if you watch the national news or not but there’s some turf wars going on in the south and southwest. Not anywhere we were riding,” he quickly adds. “But there were a few shootings where civilians got hurt. Law enforcement decided they didn’t want a big group of mourning bikers in such a public place.”
I blink and my jaw drops as I process his words. “Could you have been hurt?”
