Heathens & Hand Grenades (Book 1 of the Heathens Duet)

Chapter 53- Callie

The harsh lines on Rave's face are gone while he drives. His fingers dance along the steering wheel as though he's playing his guitar. I catch him singing quietly along a few times, but he stops when he spies my eyes on him. Shame. He really does have an amazing voice. I guess we're just gonna avoid talking about that night though. He doesn't seem eager to bring it up and I have no clue how without tons of awkwardness. Our little secret.

"So..." I start and then stop at his blank look. I turn my face to the window, lots of fields and old farmhouses. He's being very careful to avoid major roads with signs I notice. "What errands are we running?"

"Curiosity killed the cat Princess," he teases.

I'm more surprised by his tone than his words. Rave doesn't tease me, not kindly. "Have you been body snatched?" I blurt out before quickly covering it with a sip of my now lukewarm coffee. I'd kill for a refill, but don't want to push my limits by asking for him to stop.

His laugh tickles my brain, so familiar yet not. "Improvement or downgrade?"

I've entered the twilight zone and this is all a future of what could have been as I float away in limbo after God killed me. Rave never saved me. What if all of this is a dream? The guys, escaping Colt, all of it? Wouldn't surprise me. My mind imagined a wild crazy life where I escaped Colt and ended up kidnapped by a bunch of hot bank robbers, meanwhile I'm hooked up to machines in a coma after Colt hit me a bit too hard. Sadly, it's not too hard a scenario to come up with.

That's a depressing thought.

"That bad, huh? And here I thought I was being nice," he mutters under his breath before he reaches for the dial to turn up the radio once again.

I'm screwing all of this up by being too in my head. Earth to Callie, take the peace offering. "Not bad, just different I guess. I always feel like I'm flipping a quarter with you and I never get the same face the guys get," I say honestly though I pause at the focused look on his face. "Not that you're terrible," I start to lie but he arches his brow, calling me out on it. "Okay, you have been absolutely terrible. For no reason. At least that I can tell. Yeah, we came to a truce, but I have no how long that'll last or if it was just when we were in the bunker. You don't have to fake it when it's just us. Be your true cantankerous self, Carl."

"Carl?" I wish I had my phone so I could capture the pure blank puzzled face he's giving me.

"Yeah, Carl. The old man from Up. That's you. You even grumble the same."

"Is that right," he asks and I don't know how to proceed from his tone. It gives nothing away.

I forge ahead like a brave wilderness explorer, straightening my shoulders and sitting up in my seat. "That's right. In fact, I bet that's why they call you Rave. Carl just doesn't have the same cool, intimidating factor."

His raised eyebrows and upside-down grin say what his words never will. He finds me amusing, but that goes against everything he's been telling himself.

"I'd have to be deaf, blind, and dead not to think that and you know it. Carl," I add, as if that'll erase my admission. The silly name helps to ease my very present nerves as he slows the car and pulls over in a sparsely populated picnic rest stop. A few semis parked for the night, but even they're starting to get up and moving for the day. Easy for us to be dismissed. "What are we doing? Here?" There's no way his errands are here and chills roll across my shoulders that I didn't pick up the oddness before. "Rave?"

"You could run you know," he says while staring directly ahead, his knuckles turning white from his fierce grip on the steering wheel. "Any of these trucks would be able to get on a radio and get you back home. I wouldn't chase after you." The click of the doors unlocking sounds like a gun going off at the start of a race. My feet tense in response.

"Why are you saying this?" My heart is hammering in my chest and my head is a mess of emotions. Days ago, I would have been thrilled, a chance to make a choice for once in my life. Now all I can feel is a low simmer of anger, though I can't tell who I'm more upset at. Rave or myself.

"You know as well as I do; we can't keep you. This always had an end date and the longer you stay, the more entwined you get. Already you've wrapped yourself so firmly in our lives. I had to untangle you from Cupid's arms this morning. Pretty Boy dotes on you and God, I don't want to ever see that look on his face again. If I hadn't gotten there when I did," he trails off. He doesn't need to finish when we both know the answer. I would be dead, God would be devastated and blame himself, and I would be the cause of a fracture within their brotherhood.

His words scratch at my heart. It's worse than the stab of a heartbreak. He's scratching away the scabs that have formed over the wounds that Colt left me with years ago that time and my small circle of Rachel and Nicole have done their best to triage so I don't bleed out. A few days with these men and the stitches were finally starting to dissolve. A real end was in sight.

Here I am bleeding again.

"I see," I whisper. My mouth wobbles as I do my best to plaster on some kind of expression that doesn't look like I'm falling apart. The last thing either of us needs is some well-meaning trucker to come over and try to help. It's brittle at best, deranged at worst, and probably falls somewhere within the middle. Lost in the cracks as I will most likely be if I were to take him up on his offer.

It's not that I haven't thought about it a million times. What I would do if I escaped the bunker. Every answer just brings me back to them. I would miss them and the woman I was with them. The woman who isn't scared to go toe to toe with any of these men who are just as big and powerful as the monster I ran from and sometimes win. Jaxson woke the animal I didn't even know lay inside me, ferocious and hungry to be let loose. Dario showed me kindness doesn't have to mean weakness. God showed me surrender isn't giving up, it's knowing when to pick my battles and the best pieces to use to win. Rave is love, fierce and unrelenting. It took a while to see past my own hurt feelings and his barbed jabs, but that's him at his basest form.

I'm touching him before I even give the action thought. He startles at my hand on his shoulder before he hastily tamps it down. "You take care of them," I say. For once seeing clearly that man God always told me was hidden behind his harsh words. The man whose actions spoke so much louder. "God is the rock, but you pick up the slack when he falters. He tries to hide it, but you're there. Even as it chips away at you. You're eroding. All of you, drowning and you can't even see it."

"Princess, don't try to make this more than it is," he sighs even as his hand reaches to cover mine.

Blinking like an owl in the sun is my honest reaction. The music that has been a constant hum in the background feels like its blaring in my head as I run through all the things I said trying to figure out where things went left.

His eyes are firmly on my face and I will myself not to squirm even as I feel him dissecting every little twitch. Like he's trying to figure me out the same way my eyes watch him.

A sharp honk breaks the moment and I don't know whether to be relieved or not. It felt like we were two opposing sides on a scale and I'm still not sure which way we're tipping.

"So, about those errands," I say with so much false cheer I'm astounded my teeth haven't fallen out from the rot. Following my awkward outburst with burying my face in my nearly empty coffee cup, I'm thankful he doesn't call me out despite the dregs I'm attempting to suck out.

His thumbs drum against the steering wheel for a moment before he finally lands on a decision. "Fuck it," he mumbles as he throws the car back in drive and pulls out.