Knight was silent.

I let this stretch then threw him a grin and started toward the door, saying, “Got shit to do.”

I had my hand on the handle when Knight called my name and I turned back.

“You need to bail, do it,” he stated. “You’re still mine, I’m still yours. Nothin’, woman, not this shit, not you needin’ to protect yourself from history in your face, not anything comes between you and me.”

That meant the world but he knew it so I didn’t have to say it.

I jerked up my chin but assured him again, “I’m looking forward. It’s cool, Knight, trust me.”

“You may be lookin’ forward, babe, but that direction right now means most of what you see is history. You can’t deal, you can’t. Understood and it’s all good.”

Seriously, I f**king loved this guy.

Still, I griped, “Jeez, man, it was sixteen years ago. I’m totally over it.”

“Anya left me or I lost her, I’d never get over it so don’t bullshit me,” he shot back. “There’s only one, we both know it, and Tucker Creed was your one. So you aren’t over it. That doesn’t mean you can’t cope. But you won’t cope if you deny that somewhere inside you can’t.”

It kinda sucked he was hot, rich, cool and smart.

“Heartfelt, badass lecture over?” I asked and his lips twitched.

“Yeah.”

“Terrific. Got shit to do,” I muttered and threw open the door.

“Sylvie,” he called and I whirled on a snapped, “What?”

“Bottom of my soul,” he whispered across the room, eyes locked to mine.

I sucked in breath through my nose before I whispered back, “Bottom of mine.”

Then, before he could really get to me, I took off.

Chapter Four

Orange Sherbet Push-Ups

A cold, dark night in the hills of Kentucky, twenty-eight years earlier, Sylvie is six, Creed is eleven…

I stared up in Tucker Creed’s pretty blue eyes that I could see were a pretty blue even in the dark.

Everyone in town knew Tucker Creed, his Momma and his dead Daddy. I’d even heard about them, all of them.

When his Daddy died, my Daddy told me the whole town went to his funeral. This was because he was a hero. He had the medals to prove it and everything.

My Daddy didn’t talk about Tucker’s Momma straight to me but I heard him talking about her.

What I heard was him saying, “Winona Creed is a slut, a total f**king whore. If Brand Creed was alive today, he’d beat her bloody and the bitch would deserve it.”

I wasn’t certain sure what “slut” and “whore” meant but obviously they weren’t good. And I wasn’t certain sure Brand Creed, Tucker’s Daddy, would beat his wife bloody. That didn’t seem like what a hero would do at all.

Looking up in eleven year old Tucker Creed’s eyes in his cute boy’s face, I could believe his Daddy was a hero. He was so tall. So handsome. His eyes so pretty. He looked like a hero too. Now I knew what all the older girls at church were talking about all the times, and there were lots, when they talked about him. He was everything they said.

And more.

“I cannot believe you are SUCH a DICK!”

I heard the words and my body jerked hard, my eyes flying to the side.

Oh no, the words.

The words were here too.

Suddenly, I felt hands over my ears, my eyes flew back and when they did, all I could see was Tucker Creed.

“Fuck you, you f**kin’ cunt! Fuck YOU!”

That was a man. A man and a woman saying the words and gosh, I didn’t know one of them but it sounded a lot worse than Daddy and my stepmom’s.

My eyes slid to the side and I saw them outside the little, rickety house with its gutters falling down. The outside light was on. I could see the paint on the sides of the house and around the windows nicked and chipped. The screen hadn’t been switched out of the side door since summer which was crazy and the screen had come loose on one end, hanging down. I could see the house was a whole lot smaller than Daddy’s and mine. Then again, everyone in town, even me, knew the Creeds didn’t have a lot of money and my Daddy and Granddaddy and all the ones before made certain that everyone knew we did.

I could also see a man and a woman outside in the snow. She was barefoot. He had his jacket on. She was pushing him. He shoved back and she fell on her bottom in the snow.

I gasped.

I just heard the words.

I never saw. Never, never, ever.

Tucker Creed jerked me around so his back was to the house and I couldn’t see anymore. Then he started walking, fast, making me walk backwards, his hands still covering my ears.

Silently, Bootsie followed us.

He came out like I did. He came out to get away from the words. He came out so he wouldn’t see.

“You don’t like the words,” I whispered and watched his head move funny, hard, fast, like a twitch.

“The words?”

“Mean words,” I told him as he kept pushing us back.

“Fuck you, motherfucker!” the woman shouted. “You leave, don’t come back!”

“I time it right, you got a bottle of Jack in you, you’ll lie back and spread so fast, my head will spin then you’ll spin that tired, used cunt of yours ON my f**kin’ head!” the man shouted back.

Tucker kept pushing me into the woods, his hands over my ears, clenching kind of tight but not hurting, his body blocking the view.

Then his mouth came to my ear.

“I don’t like the words.”

He didn’t like the words. Like me.

“I don’t either,” I whispered in his ear.

“Time it for TWO bottles, ass**le. That’s what it’ll take for you to get me to spread!” she screamed.

Tucker kept pushing us back, asking, “You got the words?”

I nodded, his hands moving with my head. “Daddy and his new wife.”

Tucker kept pushing us then he said, “We’re in the sun.”

I blinked.

“What?” I asked.

“We’re in the sun. On the pier. By the lake.”

“Get off me, bitch!” the man shouted, I closed my eyes tight but my hands came up, lifting high, I put them over his ears.

“We’re in the sun,” I agreed, seeing it, feeling it.

We were on the pier on the lake in the sun.

Tucker kept pushing me backwards. “We’ll do cannonballs off the pier. My splashes’ll be bigger than yours.”