Apollo slid the nozzle into the gas tank and flipped the clip. Unleaded began to pump, and he leaned against the Pathfinder and watched Jacinda’s stellar ass swing to and fro as she went to stand in line at the little walk-up roadside grill. The seat of her jeans still showed dirty marks from her adventure at the Riggs’ place, and her boots were pretty scuffed up, but otherwise, from this angle, she looked no worse for wear. When she turned, he’d see that shitty bruise, but today, a lot of it was obscured behind dark Oakley wraparounds.

His shit had turned upside down and inside out since he’d met that woman over there. It was not quite noon on Wednesday. He’d first put his peepers on her on Saturday night. Eighty hours, give or take, and now he didn’t know which way was up.

He liked this woman. It wasn’t her beauty, which was exceptional, or the seismic power of their one night together, which was prodigious. All of that, he could easily have set aside as one hell of a great random fuck. There was something else drawing him to her, but he couldn’t get his head around what it was.

If they were embarking on the first stage of a relationship, he wanted to use that chance to understand why she had him taking all kinds of risks. He was a good guy, but he’d really stuck his neck out here.

The ice under his feet with the club was thin. Delaney had nearly stroked out when Apollo had told him that her parents—her father, the PI, and her mother, the lawyer—knew about him and had details about where she was. He didn’t think they’d meant to hurt her; she’d gone toe to toe with Delaney and assuaged his concerns, maybe even earned his respect. But the president didn’t like the way Apollo had forced their hand.

None of the officers did. Rad had said it outright: doing so walked right up to the line of treason. Apollo had thrown that right back at him, arguing that if it was treason to protect an innocent, then the Bulls needed to take a hard look at what they’d become. Rad had shut up after that.

Still, if protecting Jacinda had hurt the club...

But it hadn’t. They’d finally handed off the guns, and the investigation into the melee at the Riggs’ was already closed. Open and shut, with the dead bail jumper listed as the sole perpetrator. The Bulls weren’t implicated at all, except for whatever Jacinda’s parents thought about him specifically. Apollo supposed he’d find that out in a couple of hours.

As for how the club felt about him, Delaney had levied a massive fine on his head for acting without the club’s okay. Fifty percent of his gun take for three months. That was going to sting, but he’d survive it, and he supposed he understood it. Right or not, he’d manipulated the situation so the Bulls had no choice but to let Jacinda go. It should have been a club call, but he hadn’t trusted the officers—and Delaney specifically—to make the right call.

And that was something he needed to think about.

But for the present, he had himself sorted with the club. Other than that fine, and the few weeks of sidelong scowls from Rad he was sure to get, he was square with the Bulls.

The clip unlocked, and he topped off Jacinda’s tank. He still had plenty of gas in his Glide to get back to Tulsa. Checking the grill counter and seeing that she was one back from the front of the line, he pulled her truck over and parked it beside his bike, then ran in to pay for her gas and hit the john to wash his hands.

When he came out, she was seated at one of the round plastic picnic tables, setting out their food order. He sat down across from her and checked out the menu. He’d told her to get him a couple of big burgers with everything, and she had not taken the instruction lightly. Two enormous burgers, wrapped in white paper, sat in a red-checked paper basket. Between them were two orders of curly fries. And Jacinda lifted a fat broiled hotdog slathered in mustard and wrapped in a sesame-seed bun to her gorgeous mouth.

As she took a big bite, he laughed. “You sure are a meat-eater.”

Her mouth closed around the mass of food, she nodded and grunted in the affirmative. After she’d chomped a few times and made some room, she mumbled, “I like to eat.”

“Good.” He unwrapped one of his sandwiches and found a bacon cheeseburger. Nice. “Tell me what I’m facing when I get you home,” he said before he took a bite.

She sipped on her soda, then set the Styrofoam cup aside. “Well, there’s no way he didn’t look you up as soon as we got off the phone. I guarantee he knows you’re a Bull and has your road name by now. He knows your address. He probably won’t have your criminal record yet because he relies on me to do that kind of digging online.”

“You assume I have a criminal record.”

“Don’t you?”

He shook his head. “Couple of arrests, no charges. Never spent a night behind bars.” He sipped on his own soda—she’d gotten him a Coke, which wasn’t his favorite—and asked, “How about you? You have a record?”

She grinned. “Nope. Not yet.”

“So he knows I’m a Bull. What’s his feeling about the club?”

“Until last year, I wouldn’t have said he had a feeling about it.”

“Last year?” He knew what she meant, but he wanted to hear how she’d say it.

She set her half-finished dog in its paper nest. “Yeah. Last year.”

That was it. For a few seconds, they simply stared at each other while the wind rattled the paper wrappings of their lunch and blew Jacinda’s hair around. The highway wasn’t particularly crowded, but it was lunch time, and carloads of people had pulled off for gas and grub. The tables around them were filled with chattering families.

Apollo noticed all that— wherever he was, he noticed his surroundings without trying—but his focus was on Jacinda and parsing out what she’d said. What kind of answer had she given him?

A good one. She hadn’t asked him to clarify, or even loaded up the expectation. There was an opening, but he had no need to use it. In three words, she’d said that she knew what had been going on with the Bulls last year, she’d given him the chance to elaborate, and she’d made it clear that he didn’t have to. It was the kind of answer a woman who knew damn well who he was and had made a choice to accept him even so might give.

It was perfect.

So he honored it by moving on. “What’s his feeling about the club now?”

“He’s not a fan.” She picked up her dog again and took another impressive bite.

She was a fast eater, he’d noted. That first meal at Donovan’s, picking at a garden burger, was not representative of her true self. Now he’d seen her eat several meals, and she ate like a guy—each bite a mouthful and no dillydallying while she did it.

He was way behind, so he finished one of his burgers before he picked up the topic again. “So what can I expect from him?”

She smirked at him. A smear of mustard across her upper lip compromised the sass in that look a bit.

Apollo lifted up and leaned over the table. He licked her lip and then kissed her fully, lingering over the savory taste of her plump mouth.

“You’re a slob,” he murmured before he sat again.

Grinning, she swiped her thumb across her lips. “Yeah, well, you’re afraid of my dad.”

“Not afraid. Just want to make a good impression.”

“Too late for that.” She shoved a thick curl of fry into her mouth.

She hadn’t answered his question, so he lifted his eyebrows and gave her a look meant to remind her.

Huffing a big breath, she wadded up her hotdog wrapping and tossed it in the basket. “He’ll be civil, but he’ll make it clear he doesn’t trust you. It’s my mom you need to worry about. She’ll try to question you like you’re in the witness box, but I’ll get in her way.”

He chuckled. “I don’t need you to protect me, baby. Especially not from a woman.”

“You haven’t met my mother. Talk to me after you have, Macho Man.”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

He hadn’t expected her to be rich.

She lived in a decent apartment complex, and she drove a decent vehicle. She dressed well, but not lavishly. It all tracked as middle class. Cedar Grove High School, too—a good school, but not the best. Middle class all the way.

But her parents were well above middle. As he’d followed her into Tulsa, off the highway, and into a neighborhood with wide, smooth streets and lush, landscaped lawns, with big, beautiful, homes set far back from those wide, smooth streets, Apollo keenly felt his own humble roots.

He wished she’d wanted to go to her apartment instead, but she needed to see her parents straightaway, she’d said.

It wasn’t an old-money kind of neighborhood, the houses weren’t mansions or castles, but it was solidly, comfortably affluent. German cars parked on blacktopped driveways before three-car garages affluent. Shit. A self-employed PI made this kind of jack?

No. But an attorney might. Mrs. Durham was probably the breadwinner of the family.

Jacinda pulled onto a driveway behind a white Lexus ES300 and a black Acura SLX. The Durhams were a Japanese car family, it seemed. Apollo pulled up alongside her Nissan Pathfinder and dismounted.

The house was nice. Nicer than the Delaneys’ place, and they had the nicest home of anyone Apollo knew. Until now. A mix of wood siding and brick, two stories, with three gables. A curved walk swept from the driveway to the low front porch and the leaded-glass front door.

Apollo wiped his hands on his jeans. He went to take off his kutte, but Jacinda stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t. Like I said, they’ll know. No point in hiding it.”

“Okay.” He caught himself wiping his hands again, like he was afraid he was dirty, and he laughed. “Shit, I’m nervous.”

She grinned. “Come on, Adonis. It’ll be fine.”

The front door opened before they made the porch, and a shortish man, balding and slight except for a thick belly, and a tall, stunning woman leapt out of the house.

“Jaci!” her father yelled and grabbed Jacinda. “Jesus, we were out of our minds.” Her mother got in on the group hug, wrapping her arms around them both.

“I told you I was okay,” Jacinda grunted under the assault of her parents’ relief.

Her mother pulled her out of the scrum and looked her up and down. She snatched the sunglasses off her face, and her eyes flew to Apollo. It was the first time anyone had looked at him. “Did you do this to her?”

“Mom!” Jacinda snatched her sunglasses back and shoved them into place. “I told you. Colleen Jones did it. The job. She kicked me in the head. Apollo helped me get out of there.”

“Apollo?” Mrs. Durham sneered, like his name had a bad taste.

Oh, this was awesome. He was beginning to remember the appeal of banging sweetbutts and secretaries.

Jacinda turned away from her mother and faced her father. “Don’t play like you didn’t find out everything you could as soon as we hung up yesterday. You know who he is.”

Her father’s mouth quirked up sheepishly. “There’s another Neil Armstrong in Tulsa. He’s forty-eight. Married, three kids. We were hoping it was him.”

Yep. This was awesome.

While Jacinda goggled at her parents in outrage, Mr. Durham came up to Apollo and offered his hand. “Bill Durham. Thank you for helping Jaci out, Apollo.”

He shook—the little guy’s grip was strong. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

“So you’re a Brazen Bull,” Mrs. Durham said. She was not, apparently, going to greet him politely. “What does a ‘Brazen Bull’ do?”

“We’re a motorcycle club, ma’am. We ride bikes. Harley-Davidsons.”

“And what do you do to earn a living?”

“I’m a mechanic, Mrs. Durham. At Delaney’s Sinclair.”

“A mechanic.” That sneer was fucking weaponized. “Is that...what? A euphemism? For arson, murder, drug trafficking?”

He very nearly cut her off and said that the Bulls didn’t traffic in drugs—never had, never would—but he stopped himself just in time, realizing that correcting that would confirm the others.

Besides, Jacinda jumped in then and saved him. “Okay, Mom, that’s enough. You’re being rude.”

Her mother’s response was to grab Jacinda by the arm and drag her off to the side. Seeing Jacinda handled like that made his muscles clench, but he stood still, knowing he shouldn’t get in the middle. Not yet, anyway.

Still standing nearby, Mr. Durham focused on his wife and daughter. They both eavesdropped unabashedly. The women spoke in loud whispers, wanting privacy but too angry to keep their voices truly down.

It was a lot of back and forth about What do you think you’re doing? and I’m an adult, Mother, and more of the kind.

And then her mother said, just clearly enough that Apollo was sure what he’d heard, Ten years, Jacinda Louise. After what you went through, after all it took to get over it, ten years of being alone and so careful, that’s what you let your guard down for?

After ‘what you went through’? What had she gone through? Apollo actually took a step toward them, but her father got in his way. “Don’t get between them. Trust me. And don’t think you know anything about anything you might have heard.”

“I’m not a bad guy, Mr. Durham.”

Jacinda’s father studied him with dark brown eyes like his daughter’s. “Okay. We’ll have to see whether I agree. I guess I’m supposed to ask you your intentions.”

“Get to know your daughter. See where it leads.” Apollo hesitated, then added. “Keep her safe.”

Mr. Durham chuckled. “Well, that we have in common, at least.”

Before either could say more, Jacinda stormed across the yard, pushed between Apollo and her father, grabbed Apollo’s head, and yanked it down. She kissed him fiercely, without any romance or sensuality whatsoever, shoving her tongue into his mouth. That kiss wasn’t for her, or him. It was for her mother.

When she let him go, he didn’t know what to feel. But he looked around at the scene on the Durhams’ front lawn and knew what to do.

“I gotta go.”

Jacinda nodded. “Call me.”

“I will. Or you call me.” He met her father’s eyes and said, “It was good to meet you, sir.”

Her father nodded.

“And you, ma’am,” he added before he turned to his bike.

Her mother simply crossed her arms.

He left the three of them standing at odds on the lawn, looking like a cover shoot for the world’s shittiest garage band.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

By the time he rolled down his parents’ driveway, the afternoon was getting pretty long in the tooth. But it was the end of June and the days were long; they still had four hours or so of sunlight left.

The Armstrong farm wasn’t much of a thing. A few hundred acres, a couple of fields, about a hundred head of cattle. They’d lived right on the edge of subsistence as long as they’d held the deed. Apollo’s great-grandfather had bought the place from a bank after the Dust Bowl, buying what had been snatched out from under another family, and the Armstrongs had been paying on that karmic debt ever since.

But no bank would ever kick his parents off the property; he’d seen to that last year, when he’d paid off both mortgages and the loan on the tractor. His folks might not have much, but they’d always have a roof. The shit he did that had made Jacinda’s mother look at him like something a cat had coughed up, it had given him the means to help his family.

A load of fresh hay had been delivered that day, obviously, and his father was down at the barn, stacking it on his own. Apollo parked at the end of the driveway and headed down to help.

“Hey, Pop.”

His father lifted his filthy, misshapen cap with the Harris Farm Supply patch on the front and wiped his forehead with a bandana. “Hey, son. Didn’t expect to see you till your birthday. Everythin’ okay?”

Apollo shouldered a bale of hay. “Yeah, everything’s good. Just missed you guys.”

That scene at the Durhams had him unsettled. After fighting with his brothers and dealing with their anger and suspicion, and then facing more suspicion from Jacinda’s parents—and obvious, palpable contempt from her mother, and then that weird rhetorical lip-mauling that Jacinda had laid on him, which shouldn’t be bothering him nearly like it was, Apollo had needed to see somebody who would be just glad to see him. People who knew him. No baggage, nothing but love. So he’d ridden two hours home.

Of course, his parents didn’t know about the Bulls. They thought he was just their son Neil, a mechanic in Tulsa.

Apollo didn’t spend a lot of time feeling insecure about himself. He’d gotten over that while he was still in his teens. He knew he was smart and capable, that he was good-looking and well-built, that he was good in bed and good at getting women in there. He was skilled with technology and could do things a lot of his brothers didn’t even understand. He was a good patch—he rode well, he did what he was asked to do, he was loyal, and he paid attention. And he tried to be a decent human being, too.

But the past couple of days had shaken his self-concept. Too many people in too many directions had been eyeing him askance, and he felt like no one was really seeing him.

Even his parents didn’t really see him. He’d put blinders on them that obscured half his life.

But he couldn’t risk letting them see.

“Your mother know you’re here?” his father asked as Apollo picked up another bale.

“Not yet. I saw you working and came right down to help.”

“I ‘preciate that, but you know she’ll be upset if she don’t have enough food ready for you. Go on up and tell her you’re here.”

“Will you take a break until I get back?” His father was about Jacinda’s dad’s size, without the paunch. He was wiry-strong, but there was no reason he should be moving all this hay alone while Apollo was there.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll get some water. Don’t dally, though.”

“No, sir. I’ll be right back.”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

“You want another slice, honey?” his mother asked, pushing the pie plate at him.

Apollo leaned back and groaned. “No, Ma. I’m stuffed. It was real good.”

His mother smiled and stood up to clear the table. She’d never had a real job, except the endless job of farm wife, but she’d taken in other people’s washing for a few years when he was a kid, during a long bad spell for crops. He’d helped with that, pulling in strangers’ clothes from the lines out back.

He got up and helped clear, and his father went out to the back porch with his pipe.

“You hear from Cassie?” he asked as his mom filled the sink with soapy water. His younger sister’s husband was in the Air Force, stationed right now in California.

“I did. Got some new pictures of the kids. They’re gettin’ so big! Cassie’s due around Thanksgiving, remember, so they can’t come home for Christmas. Your father says maybe we can go visit them instead, maybe stay for a while and help out with the kids. Would you mind that, honey, if we were gone for the holidays?”

His baby sister had turned into a baby machine, popping a kid out every two years. She was about to have three of them under the age of five.

Since he’d been a Bull, he’d been doing an elaborate holiday dance, getting face time at the Bulls’ events and making sure to be with his family, too. It would be a relief to have only one place to go.

It felt weird nonetheless when he said, “That’s fine, Ma. I think it’s good you get away and spend real time with the kids.”

She eyed him slyly. “It’d be nice to have a grandchild close to home, too, you know. One I could see all the time.”

He laughed and set the plate he’d just dried on the shelf. “Don’t hold your breath, Mama. Cassie’s doing the grandchild production for both of us.”

She sighed. “You’d make such pretty babies, too.”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

When they finished the dishes, his mother filled the tea kettle and heated water for her chamomile tea, and poured milk into a small saucepan for his father. Apollo stood at the back door and looked through its window onto the yard beyond. It was a good, clear night.

His father stood out on the concrete slab on which his telescope was perched on its tripod. That telescope had been an extravagance of a purchase a few years back; Cassie and Jeff, her husband, had gone in with Apollo on it. The only time in his life he’d ever seen his father cry was the Christmas night when he’d first looked through its scope.

He had no idea what his father’s IQ was, but he knew it was high. He was the smartest man Apollo had ever known. He could grapple in his head with complicated equations, and he remembered just about everything he’d ever read or heard. Coming of age during the height of the space race, he’d wanted nothing in the world more than to leave the planet. He’d wanted to be an astronaut.

But he’d been a poor farm kid from Nowhere, Oklahoma, with no money for college and a father who’d needed him to work the farm. Instead of soaring amongst the stars, he’d sat at a desk in this house and mapped them. He’d read every book he could find about space, and he’d peered through a Radio Shack telescope and seen as much as he could see.

Later, he’d stood behind his son and shown him that same, unattainable heaven.

Apollo had been interested, but not obsessed like his father. As a teenager, he’d grown bored doing astronomy projects for every single science fair, and then he’d discovered that girls liked him and the girls he liked didn’t like science, and he’d gone for the girls instead and left his father to stand alone in the yard and squint through his cheap telescope.

And then he’d blown off his grades and fucked his chance for college. He knew he’d broken his old man’s heart then.

Giving him a real-deal telescope had been like an apology.

“Hey, Ma?”

“Mm-hm?”

“You mind if I spend the night? I don’t have to work until the afternoon.”

“Well, sure! Your bed’s not made up, but I can do that before I go to bed. And I’ll make a nice big breakfast in the morning, too.”

He went to her and gave her a hug. “I can make my own bed, Ma. But breakfast sounds great. I think I’m gonna go have a look with Pop.”

“Oh, he’ll like that. Here—take his milk out to him. You want tea?”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

“Anything good to see, Pop?”

His father raised his head and took the mug of warm milk. “Andromeda is crystal clear tonight. Like she’s tryin’ to get our attention.”

Apollo looked up at the twinkling sky in the direction he’d see Andromeda. With his naked eye, he could just about make out the pale oblong, like a blurry star among all the pinpoints. “Can I take a look?”

His father stood back and let him have a turn.

He was right; what Apollo saw through the scope was a tiny, spectacular world, swirls of color as bright as gemstones circling a bright pearl of a star. “Wow. That’s beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it like that.”

“Yeah. Isn’t it a thing.”

His father’s voice had sounded like a prayer. Apollo looked back and saw him staring up at the sky, holding his mug of warm milk, meant to settle an often unsettled stomach so that he could sleep.

It wasn’t an unusual pose, but tonight, the sight struck Apollo in a new way. For the first time in his life, he saw in stark relief something he’d never forced himself to face before: how desperately unhappy his father was, how small his life had always been. How tied to the earth when he’d always sought the heavens.

And how much his earthbound son had let him down.