Chapter 8: Room 214

Hallie's POV

Boone found me in the garage office at ten, with his cut hanging open and nothing on the back of it.

He had no rocker, no patch, and no club name.

He stood in the doorway with his phone held out in front of him.

"Read it," he said.

I read it.

I did what Gus told me. All of it. I'm so sorry. Meet me where we went on Tuesdays.

"Where is that?" I asked.

"The Cimarron Inn, in Tulsa."

"Room 214."

"Yeah." He did not look away. "I'm not going. I wanted you to see it before I decided anything."

I looked at the blank leather of his cut.

"What happened to your patch?"

"I tore it off." He said it without any pride at all. "They voted me down to prospect, eleven to two."

I stared at him.

Nobody had ever given up anything for me in public before.

I felt it land in my chest, and I shoved it away.

"That doesn't change anything," I said.

"I know."

"It doesn't give you the right to touch me."

"I know that too."

"I'm going to Tulsa," I said, and picked up my keys. "You're not."

"Hal."

"My question." I turned in the doorway. "Will you stay here and not follow me?"

His jaw worked.

"If I say yes, I'm lying," he said. "I'll follow you the whole way."

It was the first time he had told me a hard truth before I asked him to.

"Don't," I said. "Mags needs help with lunch. Go sit in her kitchen and don't let Gus near her."

For a long moment he did not move.

Then he nodded.

The drive to Tulsa took an hour.

The Cimarron Inn was a low beige building off the turnpike, with a pool nobody swam in and a sign missing two letters.

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