“You miss it,” he noted.

I turned back to the windshield. “Some of it,” I told him.

A lot of it. I heard whispered in the deep recesses of my mind, this surprising me.

Deke took me out of that thought when he fully lifted my hand and I felt his lips touch my knuckles before he dropped it back to his thigh.

I didn’t watch that. It felt beautiful. If it was as beautiful to see as it felt, I’d unravel in the car.

We were driving down Main Street in Carnal when Deke spoke again.

“Want you to think on that, Jussy.”

“Think on what?”

“You have way too much to give to let others offer it for you, baby,” he said carefully, quietly.

Marvelously.

And he wasn’t done.

“It’s your choice. You want your less that’s more, I get that. I do. But you miss it, you feel the need for that connection direct, you should go for it.”

I didn’t know what he was saying.

But what I thought he might be saying concerned me even as it bizarrely elated me.

And I focused on the part that concerned me.

“And if I went for it, where would you be?” I asked.

He shot me another glance before he asked back, “Where would I be?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“No, babe, where would I be?” he asked again, but it was a statement as much as a question.

I just didn’t know what he was stating.

“Yes, Deke, that’s what I want to know. Where would you be?”

It was more than a glance, he gave me a full look before he shifted his attention back to the road and put on his indicator to turn left on County Road 18.

He did this saying, “With you.”

I gripped his hand so tight I felt his bones dig into the pads of my fingers.

“If…if…” I swallowed and forced myself to finish. “If something like that happens, Deke, and I’m not saying it will, but if it does, that’s a lot to ask of you.”

“And me makin’ it clear I want a future with you, doin’ that tellin’ you you gotta leave your home to be on the back of my bike with me half a year wasn’t askin’ a lot of you?”

This was true.

Though I wasn’t certain he really understood.

But maybe he did.

“Jussy,” he gave my hand a light tug, “this works with us, there’s gonna be a lot of times I’m gonna ask a lot of you and I’m gonna get the same back from you. I got no experience with it. Longest I’ve ever been with a woman was a three-month stretch up in Idaho. But my boys all got women and I see that’s the way it goes. Shit, wait until Christmas. Laurie goes absolutely fuckin’ nuts at Christmas. She’s a grouch with a mission until she’s baked every cookie and sent every card, and the woman bakes and sends thousands, no fuckin’ joke. Tate and Jonas, they put up with that. Think it’s hilarious but they don’t get up in her shit about it. They keep their heads down and let her have at it because it’s important to her. And that’s it. The way it goes. You just gotta go with it.”

I was all for just going with it.

But Lauren being really into Christmas was not exactly the same as being on the road with your woman the rock star.

“Well, I’m not getting back into that,” I told him.

“Maybe,” he replied. “Don’t close that door, even in your head.”

“Deke, there’s more to me leaving that life than what I said. I was in a relationship with one of my band. He was deep into shit I wanted no part of.”

I got a hand squeeze where Deke probably felt my bones at talking about my relationship but he didn’t say anything about it.

So I carried on.

“Honestly, baby, it wasn’t who I was. It didn’t feel right. None of it.”

“Unless you were on the stage.”

He was freaking me out, how he seemed to be able to read things.

It was frankly a little scary.

“Unless I was on a stage,” I agreed.

He must have read my freakout because he explained, “Not hard to see, gypsy. Only saw you once and it was clear. That was your place. That’s a big piece of who you are. Couldn’t miss it.”

Right, well, that made sense.

“Your choice, Jussy, like I said,” he continued. “Just want you to know you got that choice.”

And I wanted him to know I loved him. I also wanted him to know all the reasons why.

But he was making a turn so I didn’t say it to him.

And we’d been together-together not very long so I didn’t want to share that and completely tweak him.

So I kept my mouth shut about that and just said softly, “Thank you, honey.”

He rubbed my hand on his thigh then kept holding it tight.

And without another word, Deke drove us the rest of the way home.

* * * * *

The next morning on the way to the bathroom, my foot got caught in something and I tripped.

I righted myself before going down and looked at what caught me.

My dress tangled with Deke’s green shirt.

And I stared at that dress Deke had thrown aside and the shirt I’d thrown aside last night, both lying on my bedroom floor, thinking distractedly I still needed a rug in there.

But mostly what I thought was, that dress and that shirt could be on that floor in that house.

Or it could be on any floor, if there were wheels underneath it or if it was in a motel in Idaho.