by Sam Burns
The question was how far Keegan would have to go.
Brendan Quinn’s death would leave an enormous power vacuum in the city, and it would cause chaos. Would that tempt Owen to step in and get his own hands dirty? Keegan considered discussing it with his brother, but decided that it was a bad idea. It would just be admitting defeat, and Owen wouldn’t want to hear it.
Keegan didn’t want to think about it either, if he were being honest with himself.
Damn Phil for putting the idea in his head.
He was just finishing signing off on Drew’s purchase orders when there was a knock on the door, and Mickey poked his head in. “Hey Key, you got time for lunch? Brigit says you haven’t eaten yet.”
Glancing at his watch, Keegan realized he’d lost track of time. “Jeez, yeah. Sure, I can do lunch.”
“Sweet. I’ve been jonesing for one of those cheeseburgers you guys make,” Mickey said, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain.
Keegan rolled his eyes. “You’re thirty now, Mick. You can’t go through life eating cheeseburgers.”
“You just watch me,” Mickey said, the grin never leaving his face. “Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna live to see forty, anyway. Gather yer cheeseburgers while ye may, or whatever.”
He knew what Mickey meant. Keegan had discussed it with his therapist so many times, that internal expiration date. He’d been surprised to hit twenty, and he’d started telling himself that he wouldn’t make it to twenty-five. Then it was thirty. Keegan was six years out of the business, five of them in therapy, and he was only starting to understand that he didn’t have a set expiration date. He might live to be ninety.
He bumped his shoulder against Mickey’s. “What about Dad?”
Mickey cringed. “What? Is there—”
“No, Mick, I mean you’re doing the same thing Dad was doing at your age.” Keegan stood and took the lead, turning to walk a step ahead of Mickey while still facing him as he spoke. “And he’s pushing sixty. You wanna be in the hospital with heart disease when you get there?”
“No offense, Key, but I ain’t your dad. I’m just a grunt.” Mickey dismissed him with a negligent wave of his hand. He slid into the booth on the side that faced the door, and turned his head to smile at Brigit as she walked up behind him.
She raised an eyebrow at him. She never seemed to know if she was charmed or slightly unsettled by his antics. “Mickey. Coke and a cheeseburger?”
He gave her his most charming grin, the one that made him look like the not-so-innocent altar boy he’d once been. The image made Keegan smile. It reminded him of the time they had found the key to the church storage room and gotten into the sacramental wine. Drunk at nine years old, and their fathers had been somewhere between proud, amused, and apologetic to the priest who had caught them.
“Yeah, Brigit. Mickey wants the old-fashioned cheeseburger,” Keegan told her. She turned her raised brow on him, but didn’t say anything. The old-fashioned cheeseburger, if one actually read the menu listing, was mostly made of black beans. “And I’ll have that new Hawaiian salad thing, with the ham. And tea.”
She made some quick notes, gave them a nod, and went back to work.
“So what’s up, Mick?” Keegan asked after settling down into the booth. “I’m assuming you didn’t just come for the food, as much as it would be worth it.”
Whatever it was, it was bad. Mickey wouldn’t even look him in the eye. “I dunno, I just wanted to talk. You know, like old times.”
Keegan gave him a look, but didn’t point out how ridiculous that sounded. “Okay. How is everything going? Without telling me anything illegal you’ve done.”
Mickey snorted. “That’s a short list.”
“Bullshit. How about Amy? When are you going to give up on pretending she doesn’t own you and marry her?” Keegan asked, giving Mick a light kick on the shin. He’d been dating Amy off and on—mostly on—since they were thirteen. He didn’t really understand why they weren’t married already.
When Mickey stared at the table looking forlorn, he started to actually worry.
“Mick?” he asked. “Don’t tell me Amy broke it off.”
Mickey shrugged and offered him a self-deprecating smile. “I was never gonna do it, so she decided it was up to her. Story of our relationship, right?”
Keegan just sat there blinking like an idiot. It was like being told that his parents were getting a divorce. “You’re kidding, right? No, I’m sorry, that was an asshole thing to say. Jesus, Mick. I’m so sorry.”
The smile on Mickey’s face turned more genuine, and he returned the kick with an even gentler shove of his own foot. “She was right. If we were gonna get married, it woulda happened ten years ago. I kept putting it off, and she didn’t care enough to push. We were with each other ‘cause it was easier than being apart.”
“You two playing footsie over here?” Brigit asked when she showed up with their drinks. She gave Mickey a hard look that was only three-quarters faked. “I’ll have you know he’s spoken for, and you can’t have him.”
Mickey snorted. “You kidding? Keegan’s way too classy for me. I need somebody who can belch the alphabet.” The smile on his face was a sad one, and it made Keegan wonder who else Mickey thought was too classy for him. Not Amy, surely. She’d put up with him for the better part of twenty years, so she obviously didn’t think that.
Brigit chuckled. “Okay, you two. Lunch in five.”
“Sorry to bring you down,” Mickey said with a sigh after she left. “It’s not like you don’t have enough crap going on right now.”
“Did this just happen?” Keegan asked. “You didn’t say anything.”
“It’s been a couple weeks.” Mickey waved it off, shaking his head. “Anyway, like I said, she was right. And you’ve got way bigger stuff to worry about than my nonexistent love life.”
Something in his expression made Keegan sigh. “Someone told you Phil has been here.”
Mickey made a face. “Nobody told me that leech was back in town. He’s here?” He looked around as though he thought Phil were present in the restaurant right then, and he wanted to pick a fight.
Keegan shook his head. “Not here, but in Chicago. I had lunch with him on Saturday.”
“Figures,” Mickey finished surveying the room with a glare. “You’ve got a boyfriend for what, two weeks, and he shows up? Like the ghost of boyfriends past and best forgotten.”
It took some work not to laugh at that. Mickey had never liked Phil. He had always said that the model was more interested in dating Keegan for his status than for Keegan himself.
In the middle of picking up his drink, Mickey froze. He set the glass down and looked at Keegan. “He asking about your dad?”
“Well, yeah. It’s kind of important, Mick.”
“How is this shit getting out?” Mickey asked no one in particular. “First the Russians start testing our borders like they think they’re gonna find a weakness, and now suddenly here’s Phil poking around.”
Even six years removed from the business, the urge to ask what was going on with the Russians was almost overpowering. Instead, Keegan made a pacifying hand gesture and stuck to talking about Phil. “He’s just here to visit friends or something.”
Mickey shook his head, and it reminded Keegan of an angry bull, preparing to ram someone. “But he knew? He knew your dad was sick, and suddenly here he is, trying to ingratiate himself again. After the little weasel abandoned you when you needed somebody most—”
“Mickey!” Keegan held out his hands. “None of that is important. I stopped showing up to the relationship as much as he did. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. There’s no ingratiating going on. He knows I’m with Jon. He may not like it, but there’s nothing he can do about it.”
Slowly, Mickey deflated. “Yeah? You know he’s gonna try anyway, right?”
“I doubt it, but it won’t matter either way,” Keegan told him without hesitation. “Even if I weren’t with Jon,
I’m not the same guy who dated him the first time. Neither of us is what the other needs.”
“As long as you know that, I guess. You let me know if you want him gone, though.” Mickey offered, picking his drink back up.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Keegan told him. Then he thought about the rest of what Phil had said, and sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if he’s right, though.”
Mickey’s eyes narrowed. “Right about what?”
“Dad. If Dad dies, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
A strange look crossed Mickey’s face, something harder and colder than Keegan was used to seeing on his old friend. “He brought up the boss dying?”
Keegan tried to shrug it off. “Just in the sense of what I’m going to do if it happens. About”—Keegan waved his hand in a circle—“you know, business.”
Instead of clearing up Mickey’s anger, that seemed to make it worse. “He shows up in town, just as your dad gets sick, and starts making noise about you getting back in, is what you’re saying?”
Keegan frowned. When Mick said it like that, it looked really bad. “I doubt he came back to encourage me to pursue a life of crime, Mick. And wouldn’t you be happy about it, if he did?”
Mickey narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. If he’d been anyone else, Keegan thought the gesture would have been intimidating. As it was, it just made Keegan worry for Phil’s life. “You know I’d love to have you back, Key. You know that. I miss working with you. But you’re done. You’re out. And that little sleazeball isn’t going to drag you back in, unless it’s over my dead body.”
Keegan blinked. Brigit showed up at the table with their food, and it gave him a few precious minutes to process everything. Was Mickey right? Was Phil trying to push him back in? Did it matter? Someone was going to have to run things if his father died, and with Uncle Pat in prison, that someone seemed to be Keegan.
“Key?” Mickey said after Brigit had left, casting a worried look behind her. “Look, I just hate that guy. The way he disappeared on you was shitty.” Mickey shook his head. “I’d like to get my hands on—”
“It’s okay, Mick,” Keegan said as he idly stabbed a piece of pineapple with his fork. “Phil doesn’t have a say about my business. He’s got a point, though. It’s something I need to think about.”
Mickey shook his head stubbornly. “Let it fall apart, Keegan. Screw ‘em all.” He picked up his burger and leaned in. “You say the word, Key, and I know just the cop to squeal to about everything.”
Keegan stared at his friend in shock, and tried to understand what he’d just been offered. The family had been Mickey’s life for almost as long as Amy, and he was willing to watch it crumble for the sake of Keegan’s sanity. He blinked away the sting in his eyes, and nodded.
Mickey paused, and looked down at his burger. “What the hell is this?” he asked, his mouth still full of black-bean burger. He chewed a few more times, looking curiously at the sandwich in his hands, then shrugged and took another bite. “‘S pretty good. Could use some barbecue sauce.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jon Sings the Body Electric
Dinner at Keegan’s condo that Friday night seemed like a good idea. It let them get away from work, crowds, and everything else that distracted them from each other. While he loved the occasional spotlight, Jon was mostly a homebody. He suspected that was a huge disappointment for Miles, since FBI agents were supposed to spend their free time investigating unsolved mysteries.
The truth was that an evening in, with dinner and a movie, seemed like the perfect date.
As it turned out, both of them were passable in the kitchen. No awards were going to be given out, but no one would be poisoned either.
The only problem was that all through the evening, Keegan was distracted. There were a dozen possible reasons for it, and those were only the ones that Jon knew about. Brendan Quinn’s chemotherapy was apparently making him even crankier than before, with good reason. Owen was struggling with their father being sick, again with good reason. He also hadn’t had any luck with the employee hunt, and conducting job interviews was apparently quite stressful.
Keegan didn’t seem to want to talk about any of it, though, and Jon definitely didn’t want to push. So instead of talking, they opted to watch a movie, something with a bunch of mindless action and explosions. They spent more time laughing at stilted dialog and poor directorial choices than anything else, but at least it was entertaining.
Snuggling on the couch was high up on Jon’s list of favorite activities anyway, and it didn’t disappoint. Having Keegan reclined across his lap, getting to run his hands through the man’s soft curls, Jon decided he’d be happy in that position for as long as it continued.
It was nearly eleven when Keegan finally opened up a little. “Sorry I’m only half here,” he said softly, eyes still on the television screen.
“You’ve got a lot on your mind,” Jon murmured back. “I suppose I don’t help, since I’m not someone you can confide everything in.”
Keegan rolled his eyes as he turned his body to face Jon. “I can confide in you plenty. It’s not like you’d be freaked out by the stresses of interviewing people who know more about how businesses work than me.”
It was Jon’s turn to roll his eyes. “You mean they know more than you about the theory of running a business. So they went to school for it. That doesn’t mean they know anything about the reality of how it works.”
“Still,” Keegan protested. “It’s kinda hard for a guy who barely graduated high school to tell somebody their idea of advertising isn’t gonna work. I mean, they’ve got numbers to back that shit up. Statistics. I’ve just got my gut.”
“Your instincts are obviously good,” Jon pointed out. “Wilde’s is successful. And you’ve got real-life experience. You’ve been doing this for years. You’re good at it.”
Keegan sighed. “But I don’t have all that school to back me up. I never coulda made it in college.”
Jon ran a hand along the side of Keegan’s face and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “Is that what you’re worrying about? That college kids are smarter than you? Because they’re not. I went to college, and let me tell you, it’s not any indicator of intelligence. The number of benders I witnessed there far outnumbered the number of study sessions.”
That elicited a snicker, at least. “Well, at least I’ve got something in common with them then, ‘cause I’ve seen my share of benders.” When Keegan looked up at him, though, his eyes were sad. “I interviewed this guy today with a master’s degree in English. Can you imagine that? Going to college for like a million years, studying one thing, and then going into a job that’s got nothing to do with that?”
“No,” Jon admitted. “I’m a little like Owen, I guess. I knew what I wanted to do when I was still in high school. I’ve been working toward the same goal since I was fifteen.”
Keegan smiled at that, and reached up to rub his thumb across Jon’s lower lip. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“That I’m boring and predictable?”
That seemed to amuse Keegan, but instead of agreeing, he shook his head. “You’re not, not really. And English-major guy is following a plan too, kinda. When I asked why he was looking for work in a restaurant, he said he wanted a job he could do that would give him time to write.”
“That makes sense,” Jon said, nodding. “I’m not sure a restaurant is the right place for that, but I can imagine why a writer would like the idea of working at Wilde’s.”
“That was what he said too,” Keegan agreed. “He’s a classy guy. Might be a little above the pay grade for the job, I think.”
“I think you liked him.” Jon said, going back to petting Keegan’s hair. “You’re just worrying he’s overqualified, when he’s worrying about eating and paying his rent, just like anyone else, only probably with crippling debt.”
Keegan flinched. “You think? That sounds like a crappy trade.
”
Jon chuckled at that, then gave Keegan a mock-serious look. “And here you were just belittling your intelligence. I think you’re ahead of the curve.”
“You’re an ass,” Keegan grumbled, elbowing him in the stomach, but not hard enough to cause any pain. He was still struggling with something, though. Jon could see it in the way his gaze seemed stuck just below Jon’s eyes.
He wasn’t sure why, but he decided to press. “You want to talk about it? Or can’t you?”
Keegan’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. “We’ve been dating less than three weeks, and I’m that obvious?”
“I don’t know about obvious,” Jon said, shrugging. “Something is bothering you. Were you trying to hide it?”
“I guess not. I dunno if I really want to talk to you about it, but it’s not something I’m gonna hide.” Keegan’s head rolled back against the couch, and for a moment, his eyes looked bleak.
“Keegan?”
“I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen with the business if Dad dies.” Keegan confessed in a rush. “I know what you’re gonna say, and I get it, but it’s not that simple for me. People I care about will get hurt in that mess.”
It felt like a stone had settled in Jon’s stomach. Keegan was worried about what would happen to his father’s criminal empire if he died. Jon wasn’t shocked by the idea, but it did surprise him that the concept didn’t make him angry. Instead, it made him sad. “Does your father expect you to go back?”
The question seemed to shock Keegan. “I don’t know. No? I mean, I don’t think so. He’s always wanted me to, but I think he realized it’s never gonna happen.”
“And do you want to?” Jon shrugged when Keegan shot him a dirty look. “Yes, I already know the answer, but it’s the sensible thing to ask. I know Owen doesn’t expect it of you—he’d be horrified that you’re even thinking about it. Your father doesn’t expect it. So the only one left is you.”