Page 60 of Henhouse
“I will if he sticks around long enough, love. Don’t worry.” She patted Effie on the cheek. “Have fun tonight.” She slipped away andbehind her bedroom door before Effie could summon the nerve to retort. Effie bottled her feelings about how her mother assumed Theo was like her own romantic disappointments and hurried down the steps. Tibby would be at the release. Louisa and Ellen said they’d make an appearance as well, so at least four Thatcher women might get the chance to meet Theo that night. The thought of it had been exciting before her mother’s little display. Effie bottled that too and stepped onto the sunset-streaked street where Theo waited.
With his motorcycle.
He held a helmet out to Effie. “I thought we could take a ride down the coast before a late dinner.”
Effie didn’t take the helmet. She assessed the bike instead. It was a 2022 Heritage Classic 114 Harley Davidson, at least that’s what he’d told Effie when he revealed he rode a motorcycle last week. She hadn’t heard much else he said about the bike, her pulse hammering in her head at the mere mention of it, but she distinctly remembered saying she wouldn’t ride it. She gawked at the sleek navy body and chrome detailing. He took good care of it, even if it was practically new.Not that that mattered.
“Effie?”
The stopper on her emotions wanted to pop, but she shoved this down as far as she could too. “We can take my car down the coast.”
She shuffled through her clutch for her keys, but Theo stopped her with a hand over hers. “It’ll be fun, come on.”
Effie stiffened. She wasn’t interested, but he looked so excited. “I thought I said I would sooner jump out of a plane than ride on this thing.”
Theo cocked his head in confusion. “You were being serious?”
“Yes.”
Theo looked at her again, piercing through her in an unsettling way. “Hey, what aren’t you saying?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Let’s just take my car.” Effie spun on her heels and made for her Jetta parked around the corner. Theo jogged after until he could edge in front and stop her in her tracks.
“Effie, tell me what’s wrong?”
She didn’t want to share too much. She was too close to bursting to let any bit slip. “I don’t want to ride the motorcycle, okay?”
“That’s fine. I’m sorry I misunderstood, but . . . you seem mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing you do with other people. With Hope and Brayden and probably everyone else, where you don’t say what you’re really feeling and you shove it aside, so no one else is uncomfortable but you. Don’t do that with me.”
Effie openly gaped at him. No one had ever seen through her like that. It was unnerving, to say the least. Utterly endearing, if she was being honest. But she hadn’t been honest, not with her mom upstairs, not with him about the bike, and it bubbled up the bottleneck along with every other little hurt since they’d met. “I don’t want to get mad.”
“Why not? Do you ever experience your emotions as they come up or are they all living in bottles on a shelf somewhere?”
“You need to get out of my head,” Effie huffed, trying and failing to make it sound playful. She wasn’t mad at Theo, not really. She didn’t feel right unloading everything on him for such a minuscule lapse in judgment.
“Let it out. Feel it. Right now. Be angry, with me, with whatever else is going on. You’re allowed to take up space, Effie.”
“I don’t want to ruin the night.”
“I promise you, you won’t. Maybe I already did. I was the asshole that didn’t hear you about the bike. Despite it being so super safe I’d bring Lilah for a ride—”
“It’s not safe,” Effie said flatly.
“Well sure, some idiots think they can push the bike until it’s riding them and not the other way around.”
“You don’t have to be an idiot to crash it!” Effie screamed. “I hate motorcycles. I don’t want to talk about them, I don’t want to see them, and I sure as hell don’t want to ride them, so drop it!” Effie scrambled for a piece of gum in her purse. Everything tasted too raw.
To Theo’s credit, he didn’t balk or try to convince her otherwise. He ran his hands from her shoulders to her elbows in comforting strokes. “Okay, good. What else?”
Effie broke from Theo’s grip. “Effie, come on. Talk to me.”
