Page 40 of Handful

He didn’t know exactly what he was apologizing for. I did — the hourglass he’d made with his hands at lunch, the story that had stopped dead when I’d told him to stop it, the silence after.

Austen went back to the door and hugged him.

Mark’s arms came up a half-second late, the reflex of a man who hadn’t seen it coming.

She stepped back. “It was great meeting you,” she said, and I could tell she meant it.

Heather waited until the boys were inside. Then she stepped forward and hugged Austen — firm, brief.

“Come back,” Heather said. Not to me. To Austen.

“I will.”

Heather let go. Looked at me. “She’s a keeper. You treat her right.”

That was all. She went back up the walk. What I felt wasn’t pride or relief. It was quieter than that. Two parts of my life, side by side for the first time.

I helped Austen with her helmet.

Behind us, Finn and Owen were at the window. Finn with his face pressed to the glass, Owen trying to look like he wasn’t watching. I raised a hand. Finn waved back hard. Owen gave me the chin.

I started the bike. She hopped on, her arms came around me, and we pulled away.

Somewhere past Willowbrook, Austen’s arms tightened around me and I reached back and touched her thigh.

I opened the throttle and we rode the last stretch home.

Chapter 10

❧

— Austen —

The clubhouse was transformed. Indira had done this — the decorations had intention behind them, the kind of specific, considered effort you either have or you don’t. Fairy lights along the bar and the porch railings. A banner that read Happy Birthday in letters that looked hand-painted.

And flowers. On every table, wildflowers in small jars. Simple. Nothing fussy.

The room was full. Not just the officers and families I’d gotten to know at Sunday dinners — the wider club was here. Brothers I’d seen in passing, prospects I recognized from the gate, women I hadn’t met, people from town. The clubhouse at capacity was a different animal from the clubhouse at dinner. Louder. Denser. Nobody standing still.

Maya was on Dutch’s hip when we found them — eight months old now, dark-eyed, gripping the collar of Dutch’s shirt with the iron determination of a baby who had opinions about being put down. Dutch had Maya in one arm and a beer in the other and looked completely unbothered.

“Happy birthday,” I said, and touched his arm.

He nodded. “The first lady outdid herself.” He looked at the room with an expression that was part gratitude, part bewilderment — like he still hadn’t fully adjusted to the idea that someone would do this for him. “I told her not to make a fuss.”

“You told me you didn’t want a big party,” Indira said, appearing at his shoulder with a glass of something fizzy. “This is a medium party. You should see what big looks like.”

“I’m afraid to.”

“You should be.” She pressed the fizzy glass into Dutch’s free hand and lifted Maya off his hip and onto her own in the same motion. “Maybe I’ll get Colt involved next year.”

Dutch looked at her. Set his beer down.

Tyler bit back a laugh beside me. There were three brothers waiting behind us to get to Dutch, so we moved on.

His hand was on my back. Light, present, guiding me through the room without steering. He was good at this — the social version of himself, greeting brothers, shaking hands, grinning. The version I’d met first. The performance that made everyone in his radius feel like the only person in the room.

I’d learned to tell Handful from my Tyler.