There was something about walking across the threshold of Cash’s that Tourmaline felt very deeply but couldn’t identify. Something that made her feel as if she weren’t ready. That she hadn’t been ready for any of this, but now she had arrived—with new skin, and new edges, and new places in the world, dark though they might be.

The house wasn’t anything special. Cheap and clean, Cash had said when walking into the kitchen. She wandered after him, eyeing his stride and the movements of his body as he pulled a menu out of a noisy kitchen drawer.

He leaned against the counter with the menu and tucked the phone into his shoulder, boots braced on pea-green linoleum. But the orange cupboards and yellow countertops were absolutely spotless, looking as if a man lived here and not a young, wild conscript in a motorcycle club. A tea towel hung neatly folded on the stove handle. A cinnamon-scented candle sat in the middle of the small kitchen table.

She wanted to open up his chest and see which parts were tea towels and orderly houses and which parts were wild conscript and weigh them out to see the balance, but she just crossed her arms and headed toward the stairs to explore.

His room was as neat as the kitchen, bed covered in a smoothed-out navy quilt, and the walls a soothing gray. Curtains on the window soaked in the last glow of twilight, and at each side of the bed stood a nightstand and a lamp. A million different things pulled under her skin at the sight of his room and his bed. At the heavy scent of clean sheets and old wood floors. She took a deep breath and walked in only far enough to glance at the dog-eared books on the table. Dante’s Inferno. She frowned and moved it aside. Underneath it, a Bible. On the table was a framed picture of a man Tourmaline recognized as Cash’s dad and a woman whom she assumed was his mom. They were both on bikes.

Cash’s mom rode.

She stared at it. Studied it. Longed for what that photo depicted in a way she’d never expected to long for a future. Suddenly she hoped Cash’s mom would like her. More than like her—accept her.

Her father wouldn’t be angry about their relationship because of their races—he would think of their ages and Cash’s membership in the club long before he got to black and white. But it was hard to know whether a thread of the belief that they simply shouldn’t be together didn’t still exist, maybe so deeply buried that her father wouldn’t even recognize it in himself. And she hoped, looking at Cash’s mom, that it wouldn’t be the same. That his mom wouldn’t have a deeply buried belief that they simply shouldn’t be together.

The second bedroom was an office of sorts, messier than the rest of the house but with a computer open on a desk, rolled papers, and shelves filled with thick books that boasted titles like Heat and Mass Transfer, Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Propulsion, and Mechanical Vibrations.

She shut the door and turned back down the stairs.

“Done snooping?” he asked when she came back into the kitchen.

“For now.”

“Food should be ready in twenty minutes. You and Virginia can take my truck.”

Tourmaline nodded, leaning her hip into the counter and looking around. The future seemed to fade and pulse with her heartbeat. It’d seemed perfectly clear on the road under the moon. It was less clear back on earth with everyone else.

“What did you think?”

“I think an old man lives here,” she said with a grin.

Cash groaned and shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

She hoisted herself up to sit on the counter’s edge and swung her legs back and forth. “How long do you think it will take them to get suspicious we’ve been gone too long?”

“Well, Jason knows we’ve been talking.” He shifted off the counter and stepped closer. “Obviously.”

Automatically her knees opened, though she wasn’t sure how far he’d go. Her heart raced, breath tumbling over itself.

His hands came to her legs, fingers curling around the tendons and softness behind her knee—pulling her just the slightest toward him.

The backs of her thighs stuck to the countertop and he released the tension, but kept his hands where they were.

“Are you in trouble?” she asked. She was on his level. Knees at his waist. Easy to settle her arms on his shoulders. Easy to pull her chest toward him.

But he didn’t quite answer.

The space between them shrank.

Cash’s hands slowly slid up her legs, just above her knees. His fingertips pushing on the edges of her skirt.

She looked down, wanting to see his hands there, on her legs, against the yellow floral laminate countertop. Blood pumped in her ears. In her fingertips draped on his spine.

His fingertips sank into her skin, as if responding to her look. His breath was on her neck. On her jaw.

All she had to do was lift her head and his mouth was there. Lips parted. Waiting for her.

Her mouth watered.

The door opened. They shot apart.

“It’s just me, relax,” Virginia said. “The bathroom?”

Cash cleared his throat. “Upstairs and to your left.”

“Thanks.” She stomped up the steps.

Tourmaline heaved a sigh, fingers trembling.

“Jason’s grumpy,” Virginia called from upstairs.

Tourmaline glanced at Cash.

“I think we should tell your dad,” he said. “I told Jason we’re only talking. To go any further, though . . .”

“No.” She gulped, still running after her heartbeat. “We’re not doing that. You won’t patch out.”

“It’d be better to tell him sooner rather than later.”

She bit down on her lip and looked at the floor.

“Tourmaline, he’s not going to like things happening behind his back. That’ll bother him more than if we’re honest with him. I can’t disrespect him like that.”

She gritted her teeth and thought of the woman with the tinkling earrings. How could he demand her honesty when he withheld his own? “Not yet.”

“If we tell him, he’ll watch out for you.”

She blinked, confused. Why would he need to watch out for her? Then slowly it dawned on her—if Dad knew, he would make sure Cash didn’t hurt her. Wasn’t asked to betray her to earn his cut. She swallowed. “That’s a risk.” Dad might just make it worse.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered and groaned all at once. “I want to . . . ,” he murmured the rest in her ear.

She grinned, heart jumping alive. “We don’t have to actually figure this out for that to happen.”

But his eyes flickered away and he frowned without saying anything. As if she hadn’t said what he’d hoped.

After a few seconds, they heard Virginia start downstairs. “Y’all. Did you hear me?” She paused at the door, raising her eyebrow at Tourmaline before going outside.

“Would you ever tell him? If it was up to you?” Cash asked.

“Yes,” she said immediately. But as her voice fell away, they both heard a tremor of untruth. Would she tell Dad? She tried to envision it, but she couldn’t get a clear image.

This wasn’t just about Cash. It was that she didn’t feel as if she had a right to say what she wanted—that she didn’t just want him, she wanted him with loyalty. She couldn’t bring herself to demand it. She couldn’t even bring herself to ask for it. All she could do was hope for it. And in that position she’d never planned on being, she had to look at the world, in the face, as it truly was and stop thinking of herself as something different, something special, and join the long line of girls with all the same faces.

“Yeah?” He rubbed his hand over his jaw and looked away. “All right. You tell me when.” He straightened off the counter.

He wasn’t going to kiss her.

She frowned, following him into the hum of bugs and humidity. She could pretend that Cash was different. That Aubrey and girls like her held no power over him and would never hold sway between them. But she knew too much. Squaring her shoulders, she walked ahead, wishing she could just go home and bury herself under her covers. She’d not thought her life would be this way.

“Hey.”

Tourmaline only turned her chin.

“Forgot. The keys to the truck.” He tossed them, clinking silver in the dark.