earbuds in, her laptop open to a half-written essay on 20th

how hard she tried to focus, her thoughts kept drifting back to the way Jace looked after the race-dus

he had that

sn't th

n't th

her laptop

t pop

nown

e angry? Or have

nah s

ember giving J

overed over

my number.

second

Ja

y resou

t couldn't help the sm

ava

do yo

Ja

o see if you're as hard to

ava

te motocro

Ja

, I'm not ask

't owe him anything. But something in her-curiosity, maybe

ava

piter's Café

-

hop. It was Savannah's favorite kind of place: quiet, cluttered with sec

n iced latte when the bel

he place-like he owned every p

into the chair across fr

ot all of us make fashion state

boots. The

ow. "You seem to think y

rowed slightly, that usual cocky gleam replaced by som

s is? Psychoanaly

y someone like you is wasting her time

cup down. "I do

et's cut thro

h she could see the gold

ked at me like I wasn't just anoth

to respond to that,

sip of her drink without asking. She

infuri

t

h stared at him, genuinely unsure what he wanted from her. She d

self out of the rubble to let som

said, "Com

ha

ses tomorrow. Co

u want me to com

"It's a story. The real one.

-

y his voice dropped when he said "real." Maybe it was the fire in her g

he just wanted t

up Chevy truck that rumbled like thunder

roads and open skies. Texas bloomed around them-fields of wildf

heel, his eyes on the road, not

t like a scene from an old western: acres of fenced-in land, two stables, a barn that

t what I expec

Most people expect marble

you hav

e house, I d

e barn, where the light filt

real bikes," he said, s

ks of helmets, framed racing photos, and th

ver the handlebars of one.

nut and

looked at him. "W

ways paints me one wa

r head. "I'm

you see past

ly, but emotionally. Peeling away

"You keep trying to p

be I

hy

person I've met who doesn

t know wh

lked

e asked, "What hap

eart

not

me. I just know there's

h looke

y one trying to out

hat followed

as h

ing in a barn full of m

st time, she di

-