Chapter 9: The Kiss

The old feed mill sat behind the garage with its doors rolled wide open.

By nine o'clock there were two hundred people inside.

String lights hung from the rafters, and long tables ran down the middle under paper tablecloths.

Somebody had set up a smoker in the loading bay, and hickory smoke drifted across the whole floor.

Lo had lent me a green dress with a neckline I would never have picked. I stood at the door tugging at it.

"Stop," Dread said behind me.

"It's too low."

"It's fine."

"You said that about your back."

He came around to face me.

He wore a clean black shirt under the vest, and he had shaved.

For a second his eyes went down, and came up again slowly.

"It's fine," he said again, rougher.

I took his arm.

We went in together, and the music didn't stop, but the room did.

Two hundred faces turned to look at the deputy's wife on the president's arm.

Women in leather vests nudged each other.

A man with a gray ponytail raised his beer at me, half salute and half warning.

Somebody at the back whistled low.

"Keep walking," Dread said into my ear.

"They hate me."

"They're deciding. Let them."

Across the gravel road, through the open doors, I saw the cruiser.

It sat dark on the shoulder with its engine off, but a small orange light glowed on the dash.

Clint's phone, filming us.

"He's there," I said.

"I know."

Alec appeared at my elbow and put a paper plate of ribs in my hand. His eyes slid to the road and away.

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