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“What’s so funny?” Cora asks from behind me.
“Nothing.”
I back my bike into the driveway and dismount. Helping Cora off, I stalk toward a smiling Priest, waving at us with the amber bottle in his hand.
“I thought you were supposed to be watching the house.”
He peers up at me over the top of his sunglasses. “I am.”
“I thought the priest only drank the sacrificial wine?”
“Dude, Cora’s dad just keeps giving them to me. It would be rude of me to say no.”
I shake my head. “You really are the worst priest in the history of the church.”
“Damn right I am.” He takes a healthy swallow. “But this priest has a steady supply of beer when I’m on duty at this place, ‘cause Cora’s old man is cool as hell.”
He’s not wrong there.
I look over my shoulder for Cora, who’s fussing with her hair a few feet away, and ask Priest in a low voice, “Any sign of him?”
“Not a fucking peep. This is a pretty quiet street. There’s a nosey old lady across the way that keeps giving me the evil eye from behind the curtains in her front room. I think she likes me.”
“I bet she does.”
Cora’s parents weren’t happy to find Priest stationed outside their house in the middle of the night. A frantic phone call and an explanation later, Jim had finally accepted the help I offered, but I knew he’d have some choice words for me sooner rather than later. And sooner just happened to be today, after they insisted we come here for dinner tonight to talk. Or, as Cora had put it, to be interrogated.
Cora comes up from behind me. “You ready for this?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
We leave Priest to his lawn chair and head inside. Harrison comes barreling down the hallway, slamming headlong into Cora’s legs. She stumbles a bit before finding her balance.
“Momma, I missed you so much,” he murmurs against her thighs. She leans down, bringing her little boy into a hug. She kisses the top of his dark hair as he rattles off words so fast, I barely catch half of what he’s saying.
“I missed you too, baby. Were you good for Nana and Papaw?”
He scrunches up his face. “They wouldn’t let me play outside. Nana said I had to stay in the house.”
She gives him a pouty face. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
He looks up then and peers at me from over her shoulder. “You’re the biker man that helped my momma.”
“I am.”
“His name is Jonas,” Cora tells him, and I have to bite back a smile when Harrison rolls his eyes.
“I know, Mom. He already told me that the first time.”
Cora seems taken aback, but Harrison pays her no mind. “Do you have a motorcycle?”
“Absolutely. It’s just outside.”
Eyes wide, he looks out the front window to get a glimpse of it. “Momma, he has a motorcycle! Did you know that?”
“I did.”
He turns his attention to me. “Can I see it, pleeeease?”
