Riding in her car back to town, Jessie felt more and more like she'd left behind a dream world that she would never quite access again. She would get back to town and find Delilah and say "Remember Cody Brewer?" And Delilah would say "Who?" And Jessie would spend the rest of her life wondering why she remembered someone no one else did, and had she stepped into an alternate dimension somewhere on the way back from Polanco's orchard.

 

Her lower body ached, and not just from the (incredible, mind-blowing, fantastic) sex. The bike ride had been a delicious vibration on the way down, but on the way back up to the farm, her thighs had ached from the effort of holding the right position on the bike, and her ass was sore from the continuous pressure. When she'd been a kid, one of her friends had taken her horseback riding at a ranch, and she'd felt the same way, like she'd be walking funny for days.

 

Sitting there next to Tex, it had felt like things were confusing, but they'd manage to work everything out. Now, things felt...very different. Confusing, scary. Like she'd obviously misunderstood everything that really mattered. Because why would anyone carry a torch for her for so many years? How was that even a possible thing? She wasn't anyone special. Not like Danny. Danny had been meant to change the world; she was just his kid sister, tagging along. After he died, the house she shared with her mother had been empty, purposeless. Tangled up, filled with ghosts. She'd hated it.

 

She'd made her peace with it, but she'd always hated it.

 

Summoned by her thoughts, the LED display on the dash lit up with a selfie her mother had taken. Janis Hendricks had kept her easy good looks well into her 50s. She applied makeup effortlessly, bought drugstore beauty products and maintained flawless skin, and if she was dying her hair, Jessie hadn't managed to catch her at it. When they went anywhere together, tourists assumed they were sisters. Jessie didn't begrudge her mother the natural good genetics she clearly had, but it was hard when your own mother made you feel like an ugly duckling in your late 20s.

 

She tapped the hands free control on the steering wheel and called out "Hi, Mom. What's up?"

 

"Just checking in," Janis said. "Mrs. Hillis said she saw you heading out of town, and I wondered what adventure you'd been on."

 

Well. This had gotten real substantially faster than she'd anticipated. "Mom? Do you remember Cody Brewer?"

 

"Of course I do, the sweet little boy who lived next door. He was best friends with your brother, God rest him. Why?" Mom paused for a moment, and before Jessie could find the right words, Janis continued, her voice hushed now. "Jessie Jane. I saw a man in town the other day, on a motorcycle, parked, talking to Detective Pedroza. I couldn't place him at the time, and I didn't want to walk any closer to that death machine, parked or not, but his eyes stayed with me all day long."

 

"That was him," Jessie said. "He goes by Tex now, his middle name. He's back in town."

 

Janis was quiet for a long, long moment. Jessie imagined the different emotions her mother was probably ricocheting through. Janis had only commented on Cody—Tex—once. Drunk as a skunk, Janis had shouted at the moon that it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that God had given the Brewers so much, and had still taken her boy instead of theirs. It had made Jessie more than a little sick to her stomach to hear her mother speak those slurred words, but she'd also felt a deep resonance to them. She had wanted her brother back so much then, she would have agreed to almost any bargain to get him by her side, sleeping in his own room again.

 

"You've seen him," Janis said, her voice as quiet and calm as it was in church. "You and him."

 

"I've seen him," Jessie confirmed. "I don't know what else. He's different. So am I. But there's—no one else remembers Danny anymore. It was...good to be with someone who remembers. It made me feel...free."

 

Her mother gave a little gasp, and it sounded like something inside of her had cracked and given way. "Well," she said, in the most fake and false tone that Jessie had ever heard from her mother, "if that's how things are going to be, you'll need to bring him by for dinner."

 

"Mom -"

 

"No," Janis said. "I'm—it'll be fine, Jessie. I know, I know I was horrible all those years ago, and there's part of me that still feels that way, I'm not going to lie to you, but if I was angry that my living daughter was happy, I'd be no kind of Christian. I'll make my peace, and you bring him over for dinner." She was quiet for a moment, and Jessie listened to the road noise under her tires, waiting for whatever came next. "That motorcycle of his, though. It's a death trap, Jessie. Don't you forget it for a moment.”

 

"I won't, Mom," she said, thinking of how amazing it had felt to fly over the road with nothing keeping her safe but that helmet—which had seemed big and awkward when she put it on her head, but incredibly small once it was the only thing between her skull and the pavement—and Tex's skill.

 

Mom let out a huge sigh. "He already took you for a ride, didn't he?"

 

Jessie let her silence speak for her. The only words she could think to say were I'm sorry and that was definitely not the image she wanted to convey just now.

 

Mom groaned, and let out a very ladylike curse. "Jessie, listen to me, all right? Your daddy convinced me he was worthwhile on the back of one of those horrible machines, and I loved Danny and I love you with every cell of my flesh, but they're a damnation and a terror, and they make men forget to be human. Don't you let him seduce you out of the things you know are right and good."

 

"I won't, Mom," Jessie repeated, and then said her goodbyes. After her mom ended the call, she let the car drift to a stop, pulling off to the side of the road for a moment. I let your daddy convince me he was worthwhile on the back of one of those horrible machines.

 

Everything Tex had said to her made sense, all of a sudden. She believed every word of it, doubted nothing. She hadn't realized until right then that she'd been holding out some kind of hope that he was wrong, that Johnny "Smokey" Hendricks was a criminal who made shitty drugs and who had done nothing worthwhile in her life except for make her and her brother. He was responsible for Danny's death. Tex wanted to hold the motorcyclist accountable, and she was down with that, she was very ready for that plan, but before she was done, she was going to look John Hendricks in the eyes and spit in his face.

 

Her hands were shaking, but her eyes were dry when she pulled back onto the road.