It was still early in the day. Only about six, so there should have been an hour of sunlight left...

"Do you mind if we go to the cemetery?" I asked Dex hesitantly.

"Why the hell would I mind, babe?" he asked, already putting the truck into reverse. "Tell me how to get there."

The cemetery was pretty close to where we were at. It seemed like I'd just been there yesterday. I didn't need a map or directions to instruct Dex on where to go. In no time, he was pulling into the long, winding drive through the grounds.

Until he wasn't.

He parked the truck along the ultra familiar drive. I could recognize the slight slope of the grounds even if I were blind. I got out and looked around, watching as Dex climbed out as well, his eyes wary and uncomfortable as they flitted over tombstone and tombstone.

"Are you okay?" I asked him after he'd taken a long gulp. He didn't look well.

"Yeah," was his simple answer.

Was he...uncomfortable? From what I could remember, his grandfather had died when he was a baby. All of his family members seemed to still be kicking, so the only thing I could come up with was that cemeteries freaked him out. There was nothing wrong with that.

But I kept my mouth shut and appreciated the gesture instead. "You can stay if you want, I won't be long," I told him,

Those dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You sure?"

I could see it on his face. Please be sure.

"Yeah, it's fine. Fifteen minutes tops."

It took him a second to agree but once he'd fed me a nod, I blew him a smile and started making my way toward the large tree that served as a marker to where my mom and yia-yia were buried together.

Months had done nothing to the lush grasses or the classy tombstones that my grandmother had paid for years in advance of her death. She had never found anything ironic about planning for her passing before she was even close to the day. I found the spot almost immediately, taking in the side by side headstones beckoning me forward.

In some sweet, romantic movie, there would be flowers from my dad on the grave with promises of love that could survive an apocalypse. Of a love that had no value for time and no understanding of death.

But there wasn't.

Not a weed. Not a live flower. Not even a dead flower. Or an old love note.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Grass and more perfectly manicured grass.

To say that it was disappointing would be the understatement of the week. Then again, what did I expect from a reigning disappointment of a human being?

I should know better.

It was almost an afterthought lowering myself to my knees when I came up to my mom and yia-yia's grave. Sweet but incredibly bitter. How many times had I sat here in the years after yia-yia had died asking for her moral and mental help with Will? Dozens?

Raising a brother was hard. It had always been hard, but after yia-yia died, it got even more difficult. Yet, somehow we'd found a way.

My hands brushed over the sticky green blades, feeling how closely cropped they were. Immaculate and untrodden. I suddenly wished, more than the hope of finding my dad, that I'd have either one of them around to tell me what I should do with this situation.

I wanted their guidance. Their suggestions. Their support.

And all I had was this damn grass.

I wasn't nervous or afraid. I was desperate. What should I do? Give up? Sell my car? Try to get a loan? Start a murder-for-hire business?

Quitting wasn't a part of my DNA. Being forced to submit was but it was also a last resort. I'd always thought of myself as being practical.

I had no idea how long I sat there, looking at the etched names with a heavy soul. It couldn't have been that long if the sun was still out—low but it was there. Tired emotionally rather than physically, I got up and made my way back to the car to find Dex sitting in the bed with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes made a slow path over me as I got closer, checking and inspecting.

Dex stood up, throwing a long leg over the tail bed. With a graceful hop, he dropped to the ground, tucking his cigarette behind his ear.

Neither one of us said anything as I walked over to him and slipped my arms around his waist. Dex wrapped an arm over the top of my shoulders, his free hand finding its way into my hair. I took a hesitant sniff of his shirt, but all he did was smell faintly like soap and laundry detergent.

"You don't have to quit smoking because of me," I told him though obviously I'd rather he did, but I wouldn't ask him to.

He twisted my hair around his fingers. "'Kay."

"I'm serious."

He kept twisting knots at the end of my ponytail. "Went five years without a smoke, babe," he whispered into my ear, his lower lip brushing the shell. "There's shit I want and shit I need. A smoke's not one of 'em, 'specially not when I'm around you."

Was it wrong that his words made me swoon a little? And that I wasn't even going to bother arguing with him more about it?

Going up to the tips of my toes, I pressed my lips against the underside of his chin. "In that case, thank you." I pressed my face to his chest for a moment, savoring the hug.

"You doin' all right?"

I nodded enough so that the top of my head brushed his chin. "Yeah. I just miss them."

Dex hummed in his throat, his arms tightening around me in response to my comment. His body, his heat, his comfort, and safety, saturated me. The feel of him fed the parts of me that were needy and that grounded me. It wasn't that anyone or anything could ever replace the two women who had raised me, but Dex was so much man and personality, that I realized I wasn't alone anymore.

And as selfish as it was, I hoped I wouldn't be alone ever again.

I squeezed his waist. "Since we're here and all, want to go to my favorite pizza place? Sonny used to say they made the best pepperoni."

“I like pizza.” A hand slid down the curve of my spine until I felt a strong pinch on my bottom. "What are you gonna eat? Cheese?" he snickered.

"Spinach alfredo, smart ass." I snorted and took a step away from him, rubbing where he'd gotten me.

Dex wrinkled his nose but made his way around me, swatting my rear when he had the chance. "Spinach alfredo it is, babe," he said.

I got into the truck after him, smiling like a moron. I was in the middle of thinking all about magical thin crust delicacies as Dex steered us out of the cemetery. For some reason, just as we were stopping at the gates, I happened to look across the street. There was one of those pay-per-hour motels on the corner.

"Left or right?" Dex asked.

It was supposed to be a left but something had me zeroing in on the hooker hostel. "Right." Worse case was, we could circle around and head back in the same direction, right?

Dex turned right.

I craned my head to look into the parking lot. What would I really find? Nothing, more than likely.

And I didn't, at first at least. Cars and trucks. Then I saw the handlebar. It could have been anyone's but what if it wasn't? It couldn't be that obvious...

I reached over to slap Dex's arm. "Pull in there, please."

That wonderful man didn't even bother asking why I wanted him to turn into the lot. Swinging the truck to a hard left, he drove the pickup into the two-story motel's parking lot. Up close now, the bike was like a kick to the sternum.

It was still shiny, black with a coil of red shot through the body. Almost a decade later, I still recognized it like the back of my hand. Torn between the memories of being a kid and climbing all over it when it'd been parked in the driveway, and the last memory I had of my dad riding away immediately after Mom's funeral, a frog curled in my throat.