Page 32 of The Grief We Hold

Burn sites can get out of control faster than someone can get there on foot and the state needs crazy fuckers like Smoke to jump down into them to dig the gulleys and trenches around the blaze to remove anything that could burn.

But he worries about me too.

I glance at the crappy dresser. “Again, I plead the fifth.”

“Looks like your little ray of sunshine has arrived.”

I turn my head and see Raven walking toward me. With the sun behind her, you can really see the hint of blue in her hair. “She’s not my fucking anything.”

The rumble of Smoke’s chuckle bugs the shit out of me. “You keep telling yourself that. There’s a reason we’re both here guarding a shitty free dresser like it’s an arms shipment instead of you being on your way to kill whoever you were intending to.”

“Fuck you.”

Fen sees me first, and he takes off from Raven in a sprint. “Wraith, I got a doughnut. A glazed one. Momma says I can’t have it until after dinner, so I don’t ruin my appetite. Do you like frogs?”

I look down at the kid whose cheeks are flushed, his breathing heavy. “Not sure I’ve ever really thought about frogs all that much,” I say.

“They come from tadpoles. Little black, squiggly-looking things. I wanna see a frog. I’ve never seen a real one. Do you think they’re slimy?” he asks.

“I know they are, kid.”

“Fen, I told you not to run off like that,” Raven snaps. “Anything could happen.”

Smoke and I both look up and down the traffic-less quiet street.

“Pretty certain nothing was going to happen to your kid,” I say.

“You have to teach children to treat all sidewalks the same. And that if they’re too far away from their parent, they can’t help if there’s a problem,” Raven says.

“But he wasn’t too far,” I say. Pretty fucking obvious, given there were two bikers, one parent, and no fucking cars on the street.

Her eyes narrow, like I just committed some cardinal sin. “Consistency is key in parenting. Something you obviously wouldn’t know anything about.”

Lottie’s little face pops into mind. I wonder whether I’d let her run up the street to a friend. The ugly ball of barbed wire turns in my chest, churning up old feelings.

“Just open the door, Raven.” I feel Smoke’s hand squeeze my shoulder. A silent instruction to be calm.

“It’s fine, I can take it from here,” she says.

“Mom, please.” Fen looks up at her. “It’s heavy. I don’t want to lift it.”

“It’s fine, Raven,” I say. “Will take us two minutes, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

Raven sighs. “Fine. And…thank you.”

She opens the door, and Smoke and I get to work. The whole while, I’m wondering what the hell I’m doing helping this infuriating, tiny slip of a woman who seems to rub me up the wrong way every time we speak. My thoughts always run hot around her, and I’m not sure why.

Must be a purely physical thing. Something about that narrow waist of hers.

The first trip up those narrow, creaking stairs with a drawer, I hear Fen begging for his doughnut and see Raven put it on top of the refrigerator, out of his reach. The second trip, I overhear Fen getting excited about being able to take his shit out of suitcases.

A kid his age shouldn’t be worried about clothing storage or excited by the prospect of it. He should be more interested in…well, frogs.

And the third, I overhear shit I wish I hadn’t as Raven lifts the sweater she’s wearing over her head, the soft T-shirt partly going with it to reveal a smooth expanse of pale skin I just want to bite.

I’m so glued to the sight of it that I almost trip on the final step when Fen reaches his hand to her waist.

“Daddy’s bruises are gone.”

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