Page 71 of Stupid Dirty

His fingers trace the edges of a scar on my forearm, one that I covered up with a tattoo of a motorcycle tread. It was my first tattoo, and the only one I have that wasn’t done by Wish. I broke the bone when I flipped over my handlebars doing a jump that I had no business attempting, and I didn’t get the follow-up care that I should have, so it never quite healed right. The nerves are still a little funky there, so the drag of his fingertips makes pins and needles light up across my skin in inconsistent little waves.

“This is from the time you broke your arm, right?”

I hum and kiss the skin over his heart. I’d forgotten he was there that day. My own fingers are trailing over his ribs, tracing every notch and groove until I can memorize the planes of his body. If I know him well enough, he’ll become a part of me, and then no one can truly take him away.

My fingertips find a knot of scar tissue high up over his ribs, to the side of his pec. I’ve wondered about it before, but never had the courage to ask.

This time, he doesn’t wait for me to ask.

“My lung collapsed. I crashed and broke my collarbone two years ago. The bone punctured my lung, and they had to cut a hole in my chest to let it inflate again.”

Fear, dark and unctuous, leaches into me at the thought. Which is stupid, because it was a long time ago. I don’t speak, settling for digging my fingertips into his skin and clinging to him even more tightly. News of the accident made it here at the time. I never realized how much they downplayed it, though. It felt like he was back racing barely a week later.

I’m sure I have Travis to blame for that, but I don’t ask, because confirmation will only make it harder to contain my rage. All I can do is focus on the Silas I have here in front of me, and keeping him safe.

His heartbeat continues to thump, quick but steady, under my ear.

“Cade?” His voice is a whisper, but it sounds loud, like it’s echoed by all the things we’re both not saying right now. “Do you remember Anthony Turner?”

It’s been years since I heard that name, and it makes my gut twist. I freeze, my muscles caught in a trap and held there by the memory.

“Yeah,” I say. “I was at his funeral. I think everybody was. You were there, right? With your dad?”

He hums his confirmation. “A lot of it is a blur. I remember thinking his coffin was so little.”

“Me too,” I say, swallowing down my nausea at the thought. Something about a child-sized coffin seemed profoundly wrong to me, even though I was still a teenager myself.

“Were you at the track when it happened?” There’s a hollow, far-off quality to his voice that I recognize. It’s never a good sign.

“No.” I don’t want to ask. “Were you?”

He doesn’t answer for a while, but the roughness of his breathing tells me before he speaks the words. “Yeah. It wasbad. You could see right where his neck had broken. It happened in an instant, and he was just gone. There was nothing anyone could do.”

“I bet.” I kiss his chest again, and this time there’s a smudge of wetness where all the nameless emotions I’m shoving down spilled over and leaked out of my eyes.

Silas’ fingers are tangled in my hair the way he likes, rubbing at my scalp and tugging at the strands.

“Do you ever get scared, Cade?”

His chest shudders beneath my face as he takes in a deep, slow breath. It’s such an off-the-wall question, I wish I could peel back the layers of his mind and see what’s making him think about this shit. Especially considering I can feel his fear in the way he breathes underneath me, but I can’t hear it in his voice.

He has moments like this. Not often, but occasionally. Where the Silas I can touch and the Silas trapped in his head are two completely different beasts, and the one spinning out in his mind is dealing with a version of reality that I can’t quite perceive.

It scares the shit out of me, but there’s nothing I can do about it except continue to be here. As long as he needs it, I’ll be as steady as a maladjusted adrenaline junkie from Possum Hollow can be.

“Sometimes, baby. Sometimes.” Pressing my skin to his, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to stop the leaking. I don’t know where it’s even coming from. His fingers continue their ministrations as he takes one slow, shuddering breath after another, and his heartbeat continues to race beneath my cheek.

I think Silas and I are scared of very different things. But we’re both scared. The silence goes on for too long, and eventually I have to break it before something else snaps.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow? Is that what this is about?”

His fingers stop moving over my scalp. “Why would I be nervous?”

“It’s your first time riding since the suspension was made permanent.”

Silas huffs like I’m being ridiculous, as if he isn’t the one who just dragged out the greatest hits of all our dirt bike-related trauma. “It’s just another race. I’m sure Dad will crawl out of whatever hole he’s hiding in to come yell at me, like always. It’ll be like any other race, even if it’s not at a national level.”

Like everything to do with Travis Rush, the words spark my temper, and I have to fight to keep my voice even.

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