Get Bucked (The Valentine Boys 4)

I reached for his hand and held it over the console in the middle of us.

“Yes,” I snorted. “Just straight up asked me to move out! And I have no idea. When it comes to my father? He has a fucked-up mind and does what he wants.”

Darby’s jaw clenched, and the dusting of beard hair on his jaw had the muscles looking a little more prominent than they usually were.

He was ticked.

I could tell.

“Do you want to go to the opening of the Apache with me tonight?” I asked curiously, hoping that by changing the subject, he would chill a bit.

Darby’s eyes, still pissed, came to me.

“Yes,” he answered. “Do you officially start tonight?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been officially started for a while, Darby. But I’m only working during the day. Tonight is for the family. And they’re actually watching a porn.”

He blinked at me in surprise.

“They invited family to watch porn?” he asked.

I burst out into peals of laughter at the look on Darby’s face.

I wiped away tears in my eyes, holding my stomach as my abs started to ache from all the laughing.

“Yes,” I breathed. “Gibson’s idea. ‘Invite your spouses. Parents. Whoever wants to fucking come. But just be aware that there will actually be pornography playing on the screen.’”

Darby snorted.

“That’s fucked up.” He shook his head.

I agreed.

It was really fucked up.

But it was what it was.

It wasn’t like the Apache was actually a kid’s movie theater.

Everybody knew it was an adult porn drive-in theater.

“I’m still wondering if there’s gonna be a shit ton of people fucking in their cars all over the parking lot,” I said conversationally. “I suggested to Gibson that he should sell condoms in a vending machine outside the bathrooms.”

He gagged on water that he was in the process of downing.

The bottle cracked and creaked as he stopped drinking, eyes on me.

“You did not.”

“I did.” I grinned. “And he actually listened to me!”

Chuckling now, he finished off the rest of his bottle and tossed it into the area between the cab of the truck and the seat.

“I heard from a little birdy that you were looking at new trucks,” I said conversationally.

Darby’s eyes went to the rearview mirror as he watched the RV to make sure that it was pulling okay.

His eyes glanced over to me, then back to the road just as fast.

“I was looking into it, yes,” he admitted.

I smiled at him.

“Why?”

He gestured to the truck that he was driving.

“I was thinking you’d be more willing to drive my old truck than the new one that I wanted to buy you,” he admitted.

My mouth fell open.

“I… you… what?” I burst out.

He rolled his eyes and flicked his blinker on, and just like that, we were pulling into the Valentine Ranch.

“I’m tired of you walking everywhere,” he admitted. “I want you to have something to get you from point A to point B. The only thing is… I know that you won’t accept charity. Even though that’s stupid. But I can afford to get a new vehicle, so I’m going to. And I’m hoping that you’ll accept a piece of shit work truck that doesn’t have any AC, but has damn good reliability.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Honestly, I was stunned into silence when he finally pulled up to the spot where we’d be making our home.

“You’re practically giving me a place to live.” He paused.

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t lie. You know damn well you could go back home if you wanted to,” I pointed out.

“That’s just it,” he said as he put the truck into park. “I don’t want to go home anymore. I want to stay here, in this trailer, with you. Until you kick me out.”

I unbuckled my seatbelt and made my way over to him, not stopping until I was practically in his lap.

“You, Darby Valentine, better stay exactly where you are. I like that you keep my toes warm at night,” I informed him.

He chuckled then, cupping my face with both of his hands.

The soft puff of his breath against my skin felt exquisite.

“Do you know,” he said softly. “That it feels like you’ve always been here. A part of me?”

When I pulled back, I saw that his hand was over his heart.

“No,” I admitted. “Not until you just told me.”

He winked at me just as a giggle sounded from beside me.

It was Codie, pressing her nose up against Darby’s window.

He rolled it down using the hand crank.

“What are you doing?” he asked as the glass slid across Codie’s nose.

“Can I go sit on your couch?” she asked.

Darby blinked. “Yeah, why?”

“I’ve never seen anything this fancy before,” she teased.

I rolled my eyes and flicked my thumb at the house that they’d built. “That house says differently.”

She scrunched up her nose. “We’re not living there yet. Ace refuses to move in until this one is back home.”