Page 26 of The Fire We Crave

“What’s that?”

She shrugs. “You can’t go do whatever it is you’re about to do”—she glances at the gun she can see in its holster beneath my cut—“without some food in your stomach.”

I peek into the parcel, and it’s the toast she was putting peanut butter on, only now there’s jelly too. It’s still warm.

Gratitude seeps through my cold veneer.

“Feels like my first day of school. Thanks for doing this for me.”

Quinn’s cheeks flush with pink. I wonder if it’s just this morning or if she always responds that way to a little praise.

“Be safe,” Quinn says, but she doesn’t wait for a reply before heading in the direction of the kitchen.

And I watch every swish of her hips as she walks.

The honk of the horn makes me jump, and I open the front door.

Thankfully, no one is in the front seat yet, so I grab it. “Morning.”

Wraith looks at the parcel, confused. “She sent you out with a packed breakfast?”

I open it up and take a bite. Peanut butter, jelly, and fresh bread tastes good on the best of days. “One of the perks of having a baker in your house. She makes the bread too.”

“’Course she fucking does,” Wraith says. “Gimme a piece.”

The two slices of bread have been cut into triangles, so I give him one, and we both take a bite at the same time.

“Fuck that’s good,” Wraith says.

“Right?”

He glances at me. “Almost a good enough reason to keep her around.”

I shake my head. “That isn’t happening.”

Liar.

I think about the dream. This time in the image, I have my hand around her throat, and there’s still a shit ton of trust there. “She doesn’t trust me.”

And she has every right not to. After all, I lied to the police about that night. But I didn’t have anything to do with Melody’s disappearance.

Wraith shrugs. “You know how weird that sounds given your missing ex’s sister, who hasn’t spoken to you in fuck knows how long, has suddenly moved into your house and taken up residence? And now you’re sitting in my truck talking about how good her bread tastes. Is bread a euphemism for pussy?”

I almost choke on the toast. “Fuck no.”

“Care to explain?”

“Also fuck no.”

But I think about how Melody and I met. She’d come by the clubhouse because someone told her we could get her fake identification. She wasn’t wrong, but she flirted with me while she waited for the brother who could help her out. And I’d responded to a pretty smile and a great rack. When I asked her how old she was, she told me she’d be eighteen in a few days. I told her if she came back when she was, I’d kiss her.

I was such a fucking charmer back then. Just shy of twenty-one and thinking the whole world was my oyster.

And she did.

Surprised the fuck out of me by showing up to the gate three days later for a birthday kiss.

My reminiscing stops when we pick up Atom, who bitches about sitting in the back. Then, we grab Grudge, who bitches about not being on bikes before remembering why and apologizing. And by the time we get to the Denver neighborhood that Vex, the New Jersey outlaw the wizard, and Calista, hishacker old lady, identified, we’re all ready to get the fuck out of this cage.

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