Shades (Evil Dead MC 3)

She hugged his neck. “I’ll miss you.”

He grinned, his head turning to the side to kiss her cheek. “I’ll miss you, too, squirt. You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. We both will.” She gave him a squeeze.

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“There’s a woman, isn’t there?” she asked with a sly grin.

His smile faded, and he looked away.

“What happened?”

He pulled her arms free and stood, pacing a couple of steps off the stairs.

“Crash?”

“There was.”

“Was?”

“It’s over now.”

“Tell me about her.”

He shrugged and let out a huff of laughter. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Hey,” she caught his attention and dipped her head, grinning at him. “The beginning is usually a good place.”

He laughed with a shake of his head. “It’s complicated. We didn’t even get along at first.”

“But then you did?”

“Yeah. Then we did. Big time.”

“Big time, huh?” She grinned. “Sounds interesting.” When he didn’t elaborate, she prodded, “So? What happened? What went wrong?”

Crash slid his hands in his hip pockets and took in a deep breath. “I tried to protect her. Did something I shouldn’t have. She shut me out.”

Skylar looked out over the hills. “Women are complicated.”

He let out a huff. “No shit.”

She grinned. “Sometimes when what we want most is right in front of us…”

“Yeah?” She had his attention now.

“We get scared and push it away.”

“Why? Why do women do that?”

She shrugged. “We sabotage ourselves, I guess.”

Crash folded his arms, leaned up against the post at the foot of the stair rail and shook his head. “Women.”

“But then we usually rethink it and wish we could take it all back.”

“I don’t want someone who has to rethink being with me.”