The kid’s next words froze him in his tracks. “You’re Carter Michaels.”
Carter turned back to face him. He was a little taller than Carter, and with his head tipped back, his gaze low-lidded, assessing, guarded, he regarded him with a regal sort of judgement that so many teenagers played at, but never possessed. He was built a little thicker than the average quarterback. His sweaty t-shirt and shorts clung to thickly muscled shoulders, biceps, and thighs. This kid spent a lot of time on weight training, and it showed. Carter had watched passing drills today, but he could see the speed in him; knew that, if given a run play, this quarterback could put his head down and bull right through the defenders. Light on his feet, he’d be hard to sack; give him a gap, and he’d be dangerous headed for the endzone.
“I am,” Carter said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “How did you recognize me?”
His voice carefully modulated, the quarterback said, “Your picture’s on the wall in the weight room. Y’all won state that year.” His gaze tracked deliberately down to Carter’s boots and back up; his lip twitched, not a sneer, but not a smile, either. “You look a little different now.”
Carter plucked at the front of the cut. “As you can see,” he said, dryly, “I really hit the big time after college. You want a ‘stay in school’ poster? I’m your man.”
Another lip twitch – a reluctant smile, this time. The kid had a stern face, but his smile, a glimpse of bright teeth in the dark, softened him; gave truth to the fact that, despite looking like he could bench press Carter, he was still just a teenager.
“Coach said you went to Texas A&M,” he said, tone a little easier now.
“Yeah, and then I ruined my shoulder.” Carter touched it, phantom pain flaring. “Now I’m a creepy-ass biker.”
The kid laughed. “Nah. Just…I mean. A little.”
Carter winced. “Yeah, sorry. I just miss it, sometimes.” He gestured out across the field. “You know?”
The quarterback nodded, expression growing serious again. “I know.” He glanced out across the expanse of grass, profile limned a moment by the lights. With a little notch pressed between drawn brows, Carter could see it so easily: the SI cover. The country was full of good, talented ball players, but this kid – this kid had that ephemeral something special. It clung to people, radiated off them like stardust. It didn’t always mean that success was guaranteed, but Carter hadn’t seen it up close and personal like this in a long time.
That old thrill again.
When the quarterback faced him again, he tipped his head, braids rustling against the back of his shirt. “You caught that pass.”
Carter nodded. “Like I said: good arm.”
The kid snorted. “Yeah. If I’m trying to throw it into the stands.”
Carter offered a sympathetic smile. “You can work on accuracy.”
“I can run the ball. I am damn good at running the ball.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“And I can throw. But.” He made a face that betrayed his nerves. “If I can’t make the deep pass by the time the scouts come around.” He shook his head, face creased by a momentary hopelessness.
“You’ve got some time.”
“Coach just keeps saying–” He bit his lip, and shook his head again.
“Coach thinks yelling about it more will make it better,” Carter said, remembering all too well. “He’s not exactly about the nuance.”
“For real.”
Ghost’s words from earlier came back to him. The assertion that they were going to have to ingratiate themselves more with the community; make connections with people in a way that didn’t rely on dealing or intimidation – so that more people would turn to them in times of crisis.
He took a breath – and a chance that, even fifteen minutes ago, he wouldn’t have thought he’d take. In typical fashion, lately, he made it awkward and distinctly un-biker-like. “Hey. Um. If you want – I mean, there’s private coaches out there. You could hire somebody. But if you just want some pointers, I could…I could help. Maybe. If you want.”
Damn it, he thought, after. That was a real winning offer.
The quarterback stared at him a long moment, expression inscrutable. His voice had gone careful again when he said, “You a biker or a coach?”
“Not really much of either, honestly. I know a few things, though. Or, I used to. The arm’s busted, but the brain still works. If you’re interested.”
The kid wet his lips, started to respond – and hesitated. “Lots of people say lots of things about the Lean Dogs in this city,” he finally said, and Carter had been a Dog long enough to pick up on that particular note of fear, no matter how small or well-hidden.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “They do.”
The kid nodded toward his cut. “Why’d you join?”
In the moment, the true answer was also the easiest to voice. “Because I had absolutely nothing. My dad was shit, my job was shit, my future was shit. And a friend gave me a chance to be a part of something.”
Though what his own part in that something was, he still sometimes wondered. He wasn’t a killer; wasn’t a spy; wasn’t especially good with money, or business. He brought no ideas to the table; he didn’t serve a single function that someone else couldn’t serve. He was a body in a cut. The realization wasn’t a new one, but it hit him hard and sudden now, standing in the half-dark, talking to a kid with the kind of bright future he’d always wanted.
He sighed. “Look. I know what gets said about the club. I’m in it. I know that things aren’t always–” He offered a vague hand gesture. “On the up-and-up. But I’m not talking to you right now as a Lean Dog. As a former state champ who got a full-ride football scholarship to an SEC school: I can help you. If you want. If you don’t, it won’t hurt my feelings.”
The quarterback studied him another moment longer – so long Carter nearly cut his losses and walked away. But, finally, the kid adjusted his backpack and stuck out his hand. “Elijah Henry.”
Carter accepted his shake – as firm and strong as expected. “Good to meet you, Elijah.” He realized he was smiling.
Nine
Dear Ms. Cook, While you certainly are a strong applicant, at this time…
Leah exited Gmail without bothering to open her latest email. She would go back and read the whole rejection later – “Sometimes they ask you to reapply later,” her mom would say – but right now, she didn’t feel like being told she yet again wasn’t a good fit.
“Any luck?” her dad called from over behind the counter.
She shook her head.
“Next time, tiger. You’ll get it.”
She offered a half-hearted smile, but didn’t turn her head to see his go get ‘em smile. She just couldn’t right now.
Around her, the coffee shop hummed with its usual evening crowd: mostly students, mostly in groups. They’d dragged tables together, and the low murmur of voices was cut by the occasional sharp, quickly-shushed bubble of laughter.
She glanced up in automatic reaction when the door opened, surprised to see Carter there, back again for the second time that day. His bruises looked even worse.
“Hey,” she said, and he glanced over, a little startled. “Hey. You’re here again.”
“So are you,” he countered. He hesitated a moment, looking at the chair across from her. When she pushed it out with her toe, he pulled it back the rest of the way and sat. “Homework?” he asked, nodding toward her laptop with a bare scrap of a smile to show he was teasing.
“Job hunting,” she said, making a face. “Job not-getting, actually.”
He winced in sympathy.
“I think I’m gonna have to take Maggie up on her offer to help me find something.”
“She’ll love that. Getting people to do what she wants is kind of her specialty.”
“It’s a superpower.” She closed the lid of her laptop, and saw that Carter had his hands on the tabletop, picking at a scrap of loose cuticle. His kn
uckles were bruised and scuffed in a way they hadn’t been in high school. Roughed up from garage work? Or had he been throwing some punches, and not just taking them? “So, what’s up?” she asked. “Why are you here?”
“I like coffee,” he said, a touch defensive.
She gave him a narrow look. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
He chewed at the inside of his cheek a moment and glanced toward the window. “Technically, I’m working.”
“Lots of bikes in here that need fixing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Club work.”
“You shaking my parents down for some money?” she asked with a laugh. Then sobered. “Oh, shit, you’re not, are you?”
“No,” he huffed, offended. “This is a stakeout.”
“Ooh. What are we staking?”
He lifted his brows.
“Humor me. I’m bored and I’m jobless.”
He snorted, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. “Okay. So. Top secret.”
“Of course. I did grow up best friends with Ava, you know.”
He nodded, conceding. “Okay, so, you’ve seen the graffiti on the plywood down the block?”
“Yeah. Y’all ain’t as popular as you think you are.”
“Pretty sure Aidan is the only one who ever thought we were popular.”
She snorted.
“We’re trying to figure out who’s doing it. But without scaring the shit out of anyone.”
“You’re fairly non-threatening.”
“I feel like that isn’t a compliment.”
She shrugged, biting back a grin.
“You’re not wrong, though,” he said, frowning. “I’m on lookout. But we’ve got guys stationed on the second floor at Bell Bar.”
She glanced toward the windows. The sun had set only a half-hour ago, and the dinner crowd was thick on the sidewalks; a lovely, cool spring evening had lured everyone to outdoor dining patios and a local production of My Fair Lady over at the theater. In the soft glow of the coffeeshop, one reflected in the window glass, she could see herself easier than she could see the people passing back and forth. She saw clothes, hair colors; had impressions, but she couldn’t have offered a description to a sketch artist. Though she guessed someone with a mask and a bag full of spray paint would stand out.
“What are the guys at Bell Bar gonna do?” she asked, turning back to him.
He made a face. “Honestly? Who knows.”
~*~
They’d taken the glass out of the window, and kept all the lights off, so the second floor opening that overlooked the street below would be the yawning black of a vacant window; unremarkable and unlikely to draw attention. Reese crouched just inside the frame, dressed head-to-toe in black, his face concealed by grease paint.
Beside him, Tenny swiped at his own painted face.
“Don’t,” Reese admonished. “You’ll wipe it off.”
“I’m trying to wipe it off. It fucking smells.”
“It’s practical,” Reese countered. “It’s keeping us hidden.”
“This is the definition of a low-risk op. It’s zero risk. Do you seriously think these spray paint wankers are going to spot us up here?”
“We don’t want them to recognize us when we drop down.”
“They’ll be too busy pissing themselves to take note.”
“Tenny.” It was a warning. Drop it. But he could hear that his voice wasn’t quiet stern; something like affection colored its edges. A new habit: saying his name like that. Now that Tenny was a proper name, and not just a number. It felt right to use it more, and so Reese did. The change had been remarkable. Reese didn’t know that others saw it; Tenny was still insolent, and caustic; still rolled his eyes and acted like everyone around him was a hopeless idiot. But he could see and feel the change. A faint glint in his eyes, the slightest softening of a smirk. His insults felt more like conversation now, and not like attacks. Tenny just…was that way. Reese had learned he didn’t mind.
Mostly.
“You’re chewing gum.”
Beside him, Tenny blew an obnoxiously large bubble with it, and then popped it. Loudly. A second later he went, “Ugh, shit.” And spit the pink wad out through the window. “It got paint on it.”
“Serves you right.”
Tenny’s eyes cut over, the blue of them bright as glass in the gloaming. They narrowed in an affected sort of scrutiny; he might be a good actor, but Reese was learning what was show and what was the rare, human real of him. “You’re getting better at banter.” It was said like an accusation.
“I’ve been studying my environment. And reading.”
Tenny’s gaze narrowed another fraction. “You really are starting to understand humor. It’s terrible.”
Reese felt a bare smile touch his own lips.
A paint-smudged finger appeared in his face. “See? Stop doing that.”
“I thought I was supposed to work on controlling my face.”
“Not to me! It’s for running ops.” The little twitch in his cheek betrayed his own threatening smile, and Reese felt warm inside, like he so often did these days. A comforting sort of internal flush that came with knowing someone who no one else did. In so many things – little day-to-day, social, ritualistic things – he was ill-equipped and left out. But he was the only one who could read Tenny like this, and that felt like a hard-won skill.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he shoved all non-relevant thoughts aside. “Someone’s coming.”
They both glanced down toward the sidewalk. Pedestrians used the sidewalks frequently here, and now, just before the dinner hour, a variety of couples, families, and friend groups tracked past in front of the boarded-up storefronts. Reese spotted their marks right off: two males, both wearing black hoodies, heads down and on a swivel, scanning nervously back and forth. Both of them carried backpacks. When one reached to tug at his hood, Reese spotted the black, leather shine of a glove.
“They’re not subtle,” Tenny remarked in a whisper. “Makes our job easier.”
Reese nodded, and put a foot up on the empty window ledge. Tenny did the same. He could hear the way their breathing fell in sync; felt the vibration of Tenny’s readiness as an echo of his own. The thing about it was: Tenny liked working. Reese had always found a kind of quiet pleasure in knowing he’d executed his task neatly and efficiently, but some of Tenny’s feral thrill for the hunt was starting to rub off on him, he feared. Working as a pair was an entirely different experience, emotionally, than working as a lone wolf.
Below them, the targets moved into position, trying to shrink up against the front of Bell Bar’s boarded windows. A family was passing, and they watched them, waiting for them to move down the sidewalk, hands clutching their backpack straps.
Reese traded a look with Tenny, whose expression, beneath the grease paint stripes, had gone tight and ready, eager, all business. He nodded.
Reese gripped the window frame, and they both dropped out and down at the same time.
Reese had landed like this countless times; Tenny had, too. When he hit, he landed on the balls of his feet, bent his knees, let his whole body take the shock of impact, and he was turning within the same breath.
The two targets in hoodies let out yelps of surprise, and shrank back against the building façade.
One tried to bolt. Tenny grabbed him by his hood, whirled him around, and slammed him face-first into the plywood.
Reese took the other by one unresisting hand and followed suit.
“What the fuck, man?” one of them cried out, and his voice was young. These were kids, and not hardened criminals.
The one Tenny had, his hood down, proved to be a teenager in a beanie hat, his eyes wide and rolling in terror. “Hey, we didn’t do anything! Let us go, let us go!”
Tenny held his wrists together in one hand, and with the other rifled through his backpack. He pulled out a can of black spray paint and shot a look at Reese. “Sure. Not yet.” He was using his American accent; he soun
ded Southern as a local.
The kid in Reese’s grasp tried to twist away; Reese pinched his wrist until the nerves spasmed, and he subsided with an exclamation, going limp against the plywood. A quick search revealed he was carrying spray paint, too.
“Out for a little light vandalism?” Tenny asked.
“Hey!” a familiar voice shouted from down the sidewalk.
Tenny sighed. “Spoilsport,” he muttered, and Reese was afraid he might smile again. It was getting to be a habit.
~*~
Carter clocked the two kids in hoodies with backpacks, felt a twinge of internal guilt for assuming – but sent the text. Better safe than sorry. And prayed Tenny and Reese didn’t get too rough. They’d been cautioned at length by Ghost, he knew, that they were simply trying to scare whoever this was, and not add notches to their belts, or whatever sick method they used to tally their kills.
“Was that them?” Leah asked, glancing between the window the targets had just passed, and his face. She looked eager. Bored and jobless she’d said a few minutes ago. He guessed this counted as excitement.
He pocketed his phone and pushed his chair back. “I gotta go.”
“No, wait.” She stood, too. “Was it?”
He hesitated; he had a little window of time here. Thirty seconds or so to let Tenny and Reese rattle their quarry. “Maybe. I’ll find out in a minute.”
She stepped around the table. “Can I come?”
“What? No.” He frowned at her, genuinely startled by the request – though he guessed he shouldn’t be. She’d always been the sort of person who leaped into things with both feet. “It’s dangerous.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, it’s teenagers, and you’ve got backup.” When he continued to frown at her, she said, “I’ll stay back. Promise.” And then, voice gong low so they wouldn’t be overheard: “It’s not like I don’t know what the club gets up to.”
She had him there. “Just…stay behind me.”
“Dad, I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she followed him out the door.
He couldn’t hear the scuffle taking place down the sidewalk, but he could hear that people were reacting to it. A few low murmurs and shocked gasps. “Oh my God,” he heard a woman say. “Should we call someone?”
Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Page 7