Page 15 of The Oath We Take

When I finally turn, he’s leaning back against one of the posts in the stable, eyeing me carefully. One booted foot is up on the post as he leans back against it. He’s wearing one of those plaid shirts, missing the sleeves, and his leather cut. His Stetson is tipped low. The man has a perpetual farmer’s tan from being out in the fields and riding his bike.

And suddenly the stable isn’t big enough for the both of us.

The tension between us always struggled to fit in one room. It was always bigger than the sum of us, no matter how hard we tried to ignore it.

But I have to pass him to lead Lemmy out.

“You got something you want to say to me?” he asks.

When we were younger, he was always a straight shooter. He hated dancing around a topic. Once, I told him about a girl at school I thought had taken a dislike to me for no reason at all. He told me I should walk straight up to her and ask her why she was being that way.

No point worrying about something for weeks when you could get an answer in five minutes.

The next day, I did. Turned out, she’d overheard her ex-boyfriend saying I was cute. I told her I had zero control over what he said, but she could have my word that I would never respond if he came on to me.

He did, the following week.

And I stayed true to my word, even though the boy was so handsome and popular, it twisted my teenage heart up for days.

“Stop interfering with me and my life. You have no say in what I do,” I say. The words feel good as they leave my chest. A weight lifts. “And stay out of my bar if all you’re gonna do is pick up co-eds and report back to your boss.”

But before I can untie Lemmy, Atom pushes off the post and walks over to me so slowly, I swear it’s like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. “You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific than that, Ember. Because I wasn’t interfering in your life. I put an end to sexual harassment happening in real time. And as for you, I saw a woman who didn’t look like she was enjoying the attention she was getting. So, I stood up to give her a hand getting rid of the problem. And if you want your bar to just be like any other bar, then single guys like me are going to come to it, have a few beers, and talk to some pretty girls. And, just to punctuate the hypocrisy, why am I not allowed to use your bar to pick people up, when you clearly are?”

Two things strike me:

One, that’s the longest paragraph Atom has said to me in a good long while, and I probably watched his lips the whole goddamn time.

And second, his words make sense, but I still want to fight, even though I’ve got nothing.

“I want women to feel safe in my bar.”

He crosses his arms; the move makes his thick biceps pop. “What have I ever done that has made you or any other woman feel unsafe around me?”

“You started a fight in my place of work. One that could end up with pressed charges, and the police, and you getting arrested.”

“So, this is about me, now, is it?” He raises an eyebrow. “And for the record, I didn’t start a fight, I stepped in to help a girl end it.”

I look up at him. Despite me being tall for a woman, he is still a good seven inches taller than me. I try not to notice how good he smells, or how green his eyes are today, or how the cords of muscle in his neck tense. “Stop trying to tie me up in knots, Atom. You always could, and you know it. And don’t pretend like you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

There’s a twitch in his jaw. “If you made a goddamn kernel of sense, maybe I would understand you. Protection is what I do, Em.”

I hate when he shortens my name to Em.

It’s a lie. I don’t. It feels personal. Like we are still somehow tethered to each other. Maybe that whisper of thread is what keeps us in place to prevent us moving forward.

Or backwards.

Or in any damn direction.

My breath comes in sharp, staccato punches, and I swear my hands tremble.

“I don’t need you to protect me. That’s all you need to know. I don’t need you to protect me from some guy flirting with me, and I don’t need you protecting me by showing up in my bar. I don’t need you running to my dad, telling stories like we’re in kindergarten. Your boundary for protection is the Iron Outlaws, Colorado chapter. You can enforce there all you like. But that’s the boundary. I may be the daughter of the president, but I amnotthe daughter of the club. So, back off.”

His eyes drop to my chest, and he runs his tongue along his lower lip. I wish I’d never learned that it was possible to feel attraction like this for someone else. He’s the reason I can’t find a boyfriend because no one ever tilts my world like he does.

Then his eyes, filled with all-consuming heat, meet mine.

I don’t know what changes.

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