She knew that, but somehow now that they were together, it felt different. Real. And there was no holding back her anxiety. “But why would you do that when you know it’s more dangerous than what Eddie did? Do you want to end up dead?”
“No. Jesus, Billie. I’ll be fine. I’ve been doing this for years.”
“All it takes is one mistake. You know that.” Her voice escalated, heart slamming against her chest. “You were there when Eddie died. Have you forgotten what it was like to see our best friend lying lifeless? To see him carried away? Buried in the ground?”
His jaw clenched. “You know I’ll never forget that.”
“But that could happen to you! It doesn’t matter how many times you do something. Eddie had ridden bikes a million times.”
“He’d never done a flip on one, and it was stupid of him to try when he was pissed off. But he didn’t deserve to die because of one fucking mistake. If anyone deserved to die out there, it was me. So don’t think you have to remind me of what can happen, because I think about it every damn day.”
“Is that why you’ve been doing crazier stunts ever since? Climbing out of a moving biplane and strapping yourself to it? Riding the Wall of Death? Testing fate every chance you get? Because you’re waiting for your turn to die?”
“No,” he gritted out. “I’m doing it because this is who I am, Mancini. It’s who I’ve always been.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” she said shakily. “You’ve always done crazy shit, but jumping over buses on a motorcycle? That’s not like skydiving or riding the scariest bull at the Carlsons’, which was also terrifying, but your chances of survival were a lot higher than jumping buses or running with bulls in Spain.”
His eyes bored into hers. “You never had a problem with the way I lived my life before.”
“Yeah, well, I guess this is the new me,” she said angrily, hating the fear and anxiety consuming her as much as she hated the things she was saying to him. “The me after I lost a man I loved.” She tried to rein in her emotions, but she was shaking. “We just got together, Dare, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me, Billie.”
“You don’t know that.” Her head was spinning. She crossed and uncrossed her arms, feeling scared and out of control. “I hate this. I hate worrying. I hate the fear that’s eating me alive right now, and I hate saying all this to you. I sound like someone I never wanted to be.”
“You sound like someone who lost a friend during a stunt, and you’re allowed to be worried about me,” he said vehemently, putting his hands on her upper arms and bringing her eyes up to his, his expression softening. “This is who I am, Billie. I know you’re scared, but I want to live my life, not live it in fear.”
“I don’t want you to live in fear. I’ve done enough of that for both of us, and I don’t want to change you. But I don’t know if I can handle worrying every time you decide to up your game.”
His jaw tightened. “What are you saying? If I do this, we’re done?”
“God no. I’m not going to make you choose between me and something you love doing. Even if we weren’t together, I’d still worry about you. I barely took a breath when you were off doing that damn Wall of Death.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know!” She exhaled loudly, shaking her head. “To not have all this stuff in my head.”
He reached for her hand. “Then let’s talk about it.”
“I can’t. I’m late. I have to go. Just…” She went up on her toes, holding his gaze. “I love you, Whiskey. Please don’t die.” She kissed him and hurried out the door before he could see tears of frustration trickling down her cheeks.
By the time she got to town, she’d thrown out open-ended threats to the universe—So help me, if you let anything happen to him—and dozens of silent prayers to keep Dare safe. Her tears had stopped, but she felt like she’d eaten a plate of lead. Usually just driving past the cute brick shops in her quaint small town brightened her spirits, but that sinking feeling wasn’t budging.
She drove past the fountain in the center of town and around the corner to the iconic ’50s style diner where she was meeting her mom and sister. It was decked out with red vinyl seats and checkered floors, served drinks in mason jars, and was known for its comfort food. Billie questioned the sense of that term—comfort food. She was so stressed, she felt like she could throw up.
She took a deep breath as she stepped out of her truck, throwing out another silent prayer and trying to think of an excuse to tell her mother and sister about why she was late other than sleeping in, having sex in the shower, and then fighting about shit she didn’t want to think or talk about.
I lost my keys.
The old excuse she and her sister had used when they’d missed curfew because they didn’t want to stop kissing a boy they were with or they were having too much fun with their friends would work perfectly.
As she passed the window of the diner, two of her father’s Dark Knights buddies waved from inside, where they were eating breakfast with their wives. Billie smiled and pulled open the door.
“There’s Hope Valley’s superstar,” Flo said from behind the counter.
Flo was in her midfifties, with thick dark hair that she wore twisted into some sort of bun and trapped under a scarf when she was at work and loose and wild when she wasn’t. The diner had been in her family for generations, and they’d been hanging up pictures of locals’ claims to fame for practically as long. When Billie had hit the pro-motocross circuit, the town had thrown a freaking parade. She, Eddie, and Dare had ridden on a float down the middle of the street. They’d done the same for Dare when he’d broken the world record for the Wall of Death, although she hadn’t attended that parade.
Billie glanced at the picture of herself above the bar. She was riding her motocross bike at her first professional race. A photographer for the newspaper had taken it, and Flo had asked her to autograph it. She’d scrawled BILLIE “BADASS” MANCINI, DAREDEVIL FOR LIFE. She felt a pang of longing, but it was pushed to the side by that morning’s frustrations. “That was a long time ago, Flo.”
“You’ll always be a hero in my eyes, sweetheart. Your mama and sissy are right back there. I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.” She motioned to a booth in the back of the diner, where they were drinking coffee and chatting.
“Thanks, Flo.” As she weaved around the customers eating at tables, waving to the ones she knew, she realized her mother and Bobbie were sitting beside the picture of Dare riding the Wall of Death. Great. He’d signed his picture the same way she had—DAREDEVIL FOR LIFE. When she’d first seen the picture of him doing the stunt, and his signature, it had sent her heart into a full-on tizzy. The three of them had signed everything that way, from schoolwork to birthday cards, but she’d stopped after Eddie died, and she’d been shocked to see that he hadn’t.
Billie’s thoughts returned to the motocross track Dare had built for her, and her chest constricted. How could she feel so many conflicting things at once? She tried to push those thoughts away as she plopped down in the booth beside her sister, who looked cute in a pink blouse and white miniskirt. Her long blond hair was loose and wavy, and she wore a smirk that Billie wasn’t in the mood to decipher.