Free Force: Blacktop Sinners MC by Evelyn Glass Page A

after.”
     
    Her eyes widened at that even as she continued to chew on her sandwich. “Every day? I guess your brothers or sisters had the veto power over what was bought at the grocery store?”
     
    Derek shrugged and set the bag down. “I was in foster care as a kid, never found the right match. Been in a ton of homes all over a few counties, even out by Charlotte. Some places, man, they wouldn’t have anything but baking soda in the pantry, but at least most had bread and peanut butter. I’m sort of an expert on every brand’s merits from Peter Pan to Skippy. I could be a PB&J sommelier.”
     
    His tone was light as he joked, but the hunch of his shoulders told Tess that foster care hadn’t been a picnic for him either.
     
    Taking his hand in hers, she regarded him with wide, earnest eyes. “I was in foster care too. My brother, Jason, and I got moved to different homes, but when I was eight and he was six we got placed out here. We thought we’d won the lottery with the Everharts: room in the country, a new dog, actually nice big sister. I kept waiting for five years for them to send us back or turn out to be serial killers. There had to be some catch after four years plus of terrible luck, you know?”
     
    Derek nodded and squeezed her hand back. When he turned to her, she couldn’t keep herself from falling deeply into his azure eyes. “You’re one of those lucky ones, huh? That’s actually really awesome. Let me tell you, you didn’t miss anything with the other families. I think I test drove all of them. I wasn’t sad to turn eighteen, not one bit.”
     
    She chewed her bottom lip a little, unsure of what to say next. “I’m sorry. I know exactly how lonely that is. If Jason hadn’t been with me, I’d have gone crazy being passed around until my mom and dad adopted me.”
     
    “Sounds like you’re lucky to have a brother.”
     
    Tess nodded and forced herself to keep her answer in the present tense. There was no point to bring it up. She’d learned from hard experience that she couldn’t lead a first date with personal tragedy. Besides, as much as she liked Derek, Jason was private, and talking about him in the past tense, just like with stepping into his room, made his death too painfully real.
     
    Even if it was.
     
    “I am. He’s great. But you must have turned out mostly okay. Sure, you seem to have a death wish on a bike---”
     
    “I maintain that you don’t knock it until you try it, blondie,” he sing-songed while winking at her. “You talk about that freedom and how you love to see it vicariously.”
     
    “Huh?”
     
    “That chick flick movie? Thelma and Louise , right?”
     
    “Yeah,” she agreed, blushing and glad he couldn’t see her cheeks go crimson in the night. “But they die by jumping a gorge because the law is winning, has the upper hand. It’s a tragedy about how no one listened. Sure, I mean, who hasn’t wanted to chuck it all in a car and run to Mexico when life sucks? It’s still different than wanting to hop on death on wheels.”
     
    “For someone who’s never ridden, you sure have a lot of stereotypes. I’ve been on my bike every day for ten years, never wiped out.”
     
    “You did a few days ago, and you were just ungodly lucky that you didn’t end up with a split skull or brain damage,” she countered, her voice shriller than she wanted. “I just…you’ll never get me on one of those.”
     
    “Maybe, but maybe I can find another way to let you relax. I know your job has to be stress incarnate, I get that. You’re literally on that line between life and death. Sometimes steam has to come out.”
     
    “That’s a luxury that I don’t have,” she admitted, draining her glass. “Sometimes I feel if I even relaxed a little that, I don’t know, maybe I’d fly apart completely.”
     
    Those beautiful blue eyes studied her and, for an instant, she felt like a work of modern art, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her