Page 42 of Lone Star

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Axelle drove back to her place and packed a bag. She’d become ruthlessly efficient about it over the years. Only the barest essentials – with a little makeup, and, okay, some underwear that verged more toward fancy than functional. By the time she headed back to pick up Eden, her stomach was doing somersaults.

They’d talked a few times via text – benign stuff.How was your day? What’s up? Isn’t this dog cute?But she hadn’t seen him in person since their date. Which hadn’t endedbadly…

But.

Axelle had grown up around a certain kind of guy. She’d known Albie was different – was better – from the first, even when she’d still been trying to hate him and everything his club patches stood for. But she still didn’t know how to behave around him; didn’t know the automatic reactions to the things he said, to the glances he gave her. He was dancing to one beat, and she to another, and it was driving her nuts.

When she climbed out of her car in front of the clubhouse, someone got up from one of the picnic tables under the pavilion and walked out into the sun, toward them. It was Albie, she saw, stomach tightening with a mix of gladness and nerves.

He walked around the nose of the GTO to meet her, frowning a little. Walked right up to her – but stopped a fraction farther back than was intimate. A respectful distance, but not a personal one. “Hey. Fox said you were coming.” His gaze moved over her in an assessing way; she wanted it to feel heated, like he was checking her out, but really he was just cataloguing her boots, and jacket, and judging her readiness to leave. Probably thinking of saying something stupid likedon’t goorit’s too dangerous.

“Yeah,” she said. “Eden decided the cheating husbands and missing cats could wait a week or so.”

“Probably can.” He nodded, and then met her gaze, his head tilting, measuring. “And what about you?”

“She’s not dragging me along, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t – it’s just that–”

“Do you wish I wasn’t coming?” she asked, already shriveling inside.

“No! No, I mean, I’m glad you are – but it’ll be–”

“Dangerous?”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

“Can’t be as bad as London,” she pointed out, and he nodded in an agreeing way.

“Hopefully not.”

That was when she noticed what she’d detected in him from the first, but been unable to label. Just beneath his calm exterior, an energy buzzed; one that turned his eyes electric, and betrayed itself in the way he kept taking short little breaths. His fingers, when she checked, curled and uncurled. As she watched, he lifted both hands and cracked his knuckles, making a face when it tugged at the nerves in his newly healed wrist.

“Albie,” she said, careful not to sound judgmental – or too eager herself. “Are you excited about this trip?”

“What?” He was glancing back toward the clubhouse, where Fox was coming out, Ten and Reese in tow, bags slung over their shoulders. “Oh, um.” He turned back to her. Pushed a hand through his hair, thick and disarrayed as ever. She hadn’t had a chance to touch it on their date; had vacuumed her couch cushions to within an inch of their lives in the hopes they’d up there, tangled and breathing hard. She could have touched his hair, then; could have raked her fingers through it and taken a tight grip. But, no. Only awkward goodbyes at the door and the ghost of a kiss that hadn’t happened.

“Maybe?” he said, wincing apologetically. “Not that I don’t enjoy Knoxville, and this will be dangerous, and–”

God, this was too painful. “I’mexcited,” she said. “Dead bodies all over the place? Sounds like a party.”

A brow lifted. “I thought you were having fun playing…who was it?”

“Jessica Jones. You need Netflix. And, yeah, fun. Boring fun.”

“Oh.”

Fox reached them, gaze hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans. “We good?”

The sun was dipping down, bobbing low along the river, the night coming on cold and smelling of frost.

“We’re good,” Eden said, voice laced with anticipation.

Ready was a disease, in this case, and they all had it.

Axelle jangled her keys. “We’ll follow you. Lead the way.”

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