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THERON
Four months later
AtearrollsdownSkye’s cheek as I pull the truck up the driveway to Boone and Marta’s house and everyone’s standing outside waving. Boone and Marta. Maya and Mom. Ash and Penny. Parker and Blake cradling their baby girl.
“Quite a welcome home party, huh?” I say giving her back her hand that I’ve been holding for the last six hours a little squeeze. I may have taken her permission to hold on a little too literally. But she never seems to mind. She never pulls away.
“Someone must have told them we were coming,” she teases wiping her tears with her free hand.
I tease back, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I’ve been back and forth the last four months, between living here during the week in Skye’s old room and living with Skye on the weekend until her exhibit ended.
It’s been hell on my old truck and I’m sure Marta's sick of me by now but we’re about to put all of that behind us.
After pulling the truck to a stop, I kiss the back of Skye’s hand and let her go. My heart doubles in size watching her run into my mom’s and sister’s arms. It grows even more as I hang back letting her catch up with everyone, waiting my turn again to take her on a new adventure.
One by one they all pile into the house and listen while Skye tells them all about her time at the gallery. What a great experience it was and how excited she is about her next exhibit.
Mina fell in love with Skye. Her art sold even better than expected and she couldn’t stop gushing about how nice it was to have an artist around she could actually be honest with and not worry about damaging their fragile ego.
That’s my city girl. Tough as shit and ready for anything.
After an hour or so, people take their leave starting with Blake and Parker when Kinsley starts fussing. Followed by Ash. Then Penny, Maya, and Mom.
“It’s getting dark,” Marta says like I hadn’t noticed. And I have to refrain from kicking her shin under the table for almost spoiling the surprise when Skye scrunches her face, confused about why that would matter.
“So, city girl. How about a ride through the woods? Been a while.”
“It has. I’ve missed it, for sure.”
“Come on. Let’s go.”
Skye gives Marta and Boone each a hug and thanks them again for putting up with both of us through everything. I shoot eye daggers at Marta warning her not to say a fucking word when Skye mentions she’ll find a place of her own before the end of the week.
SKYE
I don’t know what but something is definitely up. I’ve spent enough time with Theron now to see right through him and he’s up to something.
If I wasn’t genuinely excited to take a ride through the woods with him, I’d demand he tell me. But it has been too long since we took a ride out into the middle of nowhere to be alone in the quiet. No screaming neighbors or honking horns. Just us, able to enjoy each other.
As always, he grabs his bag of holding out of his truck, ties it to the rack on the ATV and I climb on behind him, hold him tight as he drives like a bat out of hell down the driveway, across the gravel road to jump the ditch and cross the tree line into the woods.
Unlike the first time we did this, nothing is holding me back from letting my hands roam. I slip them under his shirt and over the ridged plane of his stomach.
“Easy, city girl,” he warns but I know it’s an empty threat. He loves my hands all over him as much as I love his hands all over me. But as I’m about to challenge his threat and get him to pull the ATV over and fuck me in the underbrush where he only kissed me before, he veers out of the trees and onto a gravel path that shouldn’t be here.
I look back and see that it doesn’t start here. It weaves back along the tree line toward the road.
As I watch the path unfold before us, I notice there are tire tracks already pressed into the rock.
This isn’t just a path.
It’s a road.
My head spins trying to make sense of it. Figure out exactly where we are.
Just as the land becomes more familiar, Theron stops the ATV and my hands snap to cover my mouth as I gasp at the old abandoned barn that looks brand new except for the mural on the broad side facing us.
