Page 42 of Freak Show

“Dixie has a granddaughter,” he murmured. “I met Rochelle when she was around fourteen or fifteen, I guess. I’d just gotten drafted, and I swear it was like Rochelle saw me and thought we would be perfect together. She told everyone that day that I would be her husband, and has gone out of her way to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible. Though, I imagine that she doesn’t see it that way. But still.”

“Have you mentioned it to Dixie?” I asked curiously.

That’s when we got to the parking lot and I remembered how we’d gotten here.

Viddy had picked us up from the airport.

Well, Viddy had picked the girls and me up from the airport. Meanwhile, a couple of the Dixie Wardens had driven Titus’s and Slone’s motorcycles to the airport for them to ride around.

I hadn’t remembered that was the case until now.

“Um…” I hesitated. “It’s not that I refuse to get on your bike or anything, but I’m not one hundred percent certain that I won’t go all.” I threw my hands up and went wobbly, pantomiming the act of falling down to my knees. “I’m not sure I can stay on.”

He contemplated that for a long moment and then said, “Let’s put you in front then. We can’t stay here.”

The urgency in his voice had me turning around to see what was making him want to move so fast.

Rochelle.

Again at the door watching us with an assessing look on her face.

Well, shit.

CHAPTER 9

Question: How do you get blood stains out of clothes.

-things not to ask a police officer

SLONE

I wasn’t sure what it was about Rochelle that had me so uncomfortable. But from the very beginning, even when she was a teenager of fifteen, she’d given me the creeps.

There was just something about her that had me so on edge that I didn’t want to be around her for any length of time. I certainly didn’t want her around Ari, either.

“Hop up,” I urged.

She twitched her mouth up at a cute angle, and then twisted her leg to the side and swung it over.

I caught her hips when she went to tottering to one side—my bike was custom made for me, so it was rather large and she wouldn’t be able to touch her foot down to the other side—and helped her get situated on the bike.

I followed up behind her seconds later, then pulled her back into my chest and the cradle of my crotch.

If I hadn’t felt the urgent need to get the fuck out of there already—I just knew if I stayed much longer Rochelle would be making her way over to us—I would’ve loved the feeling of her body in mine.

I would’ve loved how she fit so perfectly between my thighs and against my chest.

She was so small that I could see over her head without looking around it.

I started up the bike with a kick of my heel, and then started out of the parking lot in just enough time to see Rochelle take her first step out of the Dixie Warden Clubhouse in our direction.

I saw her throw her hands down at her sides in frustration and anger and knew that we’d barely dodged a bullet.

Laughter from the woman in front of me caused me to switch my focus to what I was doing and not who I left behind.

“Wow, this is great!” she called out.

We were barely going thirty miles an hour.

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