Prodigal

by TA Moore

  That would be a whole thing to deal with.

  “That he didn’t ask for any of this,” Boyd said as he pulled his hand free to finish his buttons. “Besides, I don’t have to make that call. Once the DNA results come back from being retested, it’ll turn out to be a mistake.”

  Shay cleared his throat as he stuck his hands in his pockets. His shoulders hunched up toward his ears, and he was as lanky and gangly as the teen he’d been when all this started.

  “Yeah, well, that’s the thing,” Shay said. “They did.”

  The air in the locker room was suddenly too thick to inhale. What was already in his lungs felt too dense to force back out. He fumbled the buttons on his shirt with numb fingers and gave up. It felt like a nightmare, that unsteady moment when you realized it was a bad dream and anything really awful could happen.

  “And?” Boyd asked. His voice cracked on the word, and he had to bite his tongue as the sudden reversal of “I changed my mind. I don’t want to know” tried to escape him. He closed his eyes and managed to exhale.

  Con artist or kidnapped child?

  Everything would change, or nothing would. Maybe. The thought of Morgan, the uncomfortable blend of cocky asshole and awkward tenderness, flickered through Boyd’s mind, and he felt an unexpected pang of possessiveness. Whoever Morgan was that night—the kiss, the taste of Morgan on his tongue, the ache of hunger between them—had been Boyd’s.

  Nothing else would be after this, but he could hang on to that.

  “Inconclusive,” Shay said.

  Boyd had already taken a deep breath, ready to react. It caught in his throat as he stumbled over what to say.

  “Huh?” was what he managed to get out.

  Shay dragged his hand down his face. “Sammy and me had different dads, remember. Half-brothers. So all the DNA can tell is whether we have some blood relation or not.”

  “No blood relation sounds like it would be conclusive,” Boyd said.

  “Yeah,” Shay said. “It would be.”

  Boyd leaned back against the sink with a soft grunt as what Shay didn’t want to say caught him in the gut.

  “So he is—”

  “A relative,” Shay cut him off sharply. “That’s all. He could be a cousin, not even a close one, or my dad could have had another set of kids before he met Mom. Or after.”

  “Or,” Boyd said, “the DNA was right, and he is Sammy.”

  A muscle clenched into a hard knot under the skin of Shay’s jaw. “He’s not.”

  “Shay—”

  “He’s not, Boyd,” Shay said flatly. “There’s no miracles in Cutter’s Gap. You know that. I know that. The only one who doesn’t is my mom.”

  Of course. Boyd winced. If Shay’s DNA wasn’t enough to prove or disprove Morgan’s identity, then that only left Mrs. Calloway. Their grandparents had died years before, and if Sammy’s dad was still alive, no one knew where he was. He’d been gone since before Sammy was born, and if his son’s disappearance hadn’t brought him back, nothing else was going to.

  “How is she doing?” Boyd asked.

  “Good as she ever does,” Shay said. He had the grace to look uncomfortable but not ashamed as he admitted, “I haven’t told her. Not yet.”

  “Jesus,” Boyd muttered.

  “She couldn’t deal with it,” Shay said. “Not so close to the anniversary. Not with him in fucking town, like her prayers came to life. She’d believe it. She’d want to believe it. I hoped that it, that he, would just go away once I gave my sample to the cops.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “I just told you that,” Shay pointed out acerbically. “So I have to tell her, and she’ll want to meet him. Before that happens, I want to talk to him, make sure he understands that he can’t do this. She can’t lose Sammy again.”

  “So ask Mac to set it up.”

  “He says it’s a bad idea, but he doesn’t know what Mom’s like, how bad it got sometimes. Not really. You do. Please, Boyd, I need your help.”

  Guilt pricked at the back of Boyd’s neck, the reminder that he owed the Calloways for being here, for getting home that day. It had gotten better over the years—therapy, self-preservation, Shay’s steady refusal to blame Boyd, even if that meant shouldering more of his own guilt—but he didn’t think it would ever go away completely.

  And he’d agreed to stay away from Morgan when Mac asked him, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted to. How would he ever get any answers if he couldn’t talk to Morgan? Or get rid of the itch of fantasy that was stuck in his brain like a burr if he couldn’t touch him?

  That little pull of temptation just made Boyd feel guiltier. “Maybe we should just do what Mac asked,” he said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  Shay curled his lip in a sneer of old, sour contempt. “Since when?”

  The door opened and Jessie sauntered in, shirt slung over his shoulders and exercise shorts low around his hips. The colorful tatts on his arms and chest were slicked with sweat, and he was still breathing hard from his workout.

  “Hey,” he said with a nod. “Shay, isn’t it?”

  Shay flushed red all the way up to his ears and gritted out through clenched teeth, “Maybe we should finish this outside.”

  He stalked past Jessie, careful not to brush against his sweat-damp shoulders, and let himself out. Jessie turned to watch him go and then looked around at Boyd. He arched his eyebrows. “What’s his problem?”

  Boyd rolled his eyes, grabbed his bag, and headed after Shay.

  “See you tomorrow,” Jessie yelled after him.

  The fire station was full of the smell of freshly roasted chicken and potatoes as Harry pulled the crew’s dinner out of the oven. Boyd waved off the shouted offer of a plate and jogged between the sturdy red frames of the engines to the main doors.

  It had gotten later than he realized. The sky was painted with the murky reds of sunset, and the road was full of slow-moving cars. A few honked appreciation as they saw him come out of the fire station, and he lifted his hand in absentminded acknowledgment as he looked around for Shay.

  He caught sight of him on the other side of the road, head down and shoulders hunched as he walked. Boyd hitched his bag up onto his shoulder and loped across between the cars. Most of them braked to wave him through. People usually appreciated firefighters. The tides could change after a bad call, but it usually rebounded to positive quickly enough.

  The shops on the other side of the road were mostly closed, doors locked and lights turned off. Some of them were empty shells, For Rent signs pasted optimistically in the windows as though the town were going to bounce back any day now.

  Boyd followed on Shay’s heels around the corner. He caught up with him and fell into step next to him. Shay’s ears were still uncomfortably red.

  “You could just talk to Jessie,” he suggested.

  “Or I could pretend I’ve forgotten we slept together too,” Shay said, “and never mention it again. You don’t want me involved in your sex life? Stay out of mine.”

  That was fair enough. It wasn’t as though his love life was—ever—in any better state. He didn’t say anything else as they headed down the block to where he knew they’d end up—at the corner of the Grant Cutter Kindergarten playing fields. A handful of preteen kids in blue uniforms tossed baseballs and swung bats on the pitch as their coach yelled instructions and occasionally loped onto the field to pick up and brush down a whimpering kid who’d face-planted. A few parents huddled on the sidelines, coffee cups in hand, to cheer their little athletes on.

  Boyd’s mother had never made it. She tried to get to some of his games, but her schedule was tight. His dad turned up occasionally, soot still behind his ears, but he gave up after the divorce.

  “I came to your last game that year,” Shay said. “Sat over there, bought Sammy a Slushie afterward, and talked about… cars, probably? I can’t remember. If I’d known, I’d have paid more attention, but I didn’t know that was the last time we’d really tal
k.”

  Boyd didn’t touch that. “If I’d known” was a quagmire of pointless regret.

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea,” he said. “You can’t interfere in this, Shay. If you chase Morgan off, whoever he is or isn’t won’t matter. Your mom will believe he was Sammy, and she’ll never forgive you.”

  A boy with thick black glasses and a scabbed knee hit the ball with a crack of wood on leather as it wobbled toward his face. He was so surprised that he forgot to run. He just stood with his mouth open as he watched the ball arc toward the sky.

  Boyd swallowed the “Run!” that old memories dragged up into his throat. There were people to raise the chant without a creepy stranger on the sidelines joining in. The kid looked around blankly for a second and then stumbled into a run.

  “What difference will that make?” Shay asked wearily. “She’s never forgiven me, never forgiven anyone in this town. Just… I need to do this, Boyd. I need to see him. Before this becomes a circus.”

  There was a raw edge to Shay’s voice as he delivered that plea. Maybe he wasn’t so confident that Morgan wasn’t Sammy.

  Boyd watched the kid stagger into third base and look around to see who’d watched him win. A man on the sidelines whooped and cheered and punched his fist in the air. Tonight he’d drive his kid home, safe and sound.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Boyd said. “I don’t even know if he wants to talk to me, though, never mind you.”

  Chapter Eight

  CUTTER’S GAP might be a dead-end town in the ass-end of West Virginia, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t find some action if you looked hard enough.

  Morgan chalked the worn-down blue nub of his stick as he sauntered around the pool table. His opponent was a stocky young man who introduced himself as Bob, but his friend’s called him Bobby. He dressed too well for the dive they were in but flashed too much cash to be tossed out for being free with the waitress’ asses. While Morgan weighed up his shot, Bob nudged one of his hangers-on and sniggered something to him.

  “Tell you what,” Bob said as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He licked his thumb and dealt out a couple of fifties. “I’ll put an extra hundred down. Pot the eight ball, and you get the whole thing.”

  Morgan fumbled the cue just before he took the shot and dug the cue into the baize. He straightened up, patted his pockets, and emptied out a crumpled ten and a handful of coins. His keys—well, someone’s keys he’d lifted earlier—came last.

  “Dude, you’ve already tapped me out,” he protested with his best dumbass jock grin. “Can’t we go back to playing for beer?”

  “No,” Bob said. He put his manicured finger on the stack of notes and held them down. “More fun this way. If you don’t have the cash, we can work something out.”

  Despite his lewd, loud come-ons to the waitresses, there was a flicker of wet, furtive lust in Bob’s watery blue eyes as he looked Morgan over. Something about it put Morgan’s hackles up, an itch of revulsion in the back of his throat. He ignored it.

  “We’ll take the keys as collateral,” the friend suggested. He was as sly as a drunk could manage. “You can pay us back tomorrow.”

  There was a flash of annoyance in Bob’s eyes as whatever nasty little fantasy he’d entertained was derailed, but he covered quickly. He grinned and nodded at the table.

  “C’mon. You called the shot. Don’t you think you can make it?” he coaxed greasily. “I thought you said you were a jock, right? Captain of the football team.”

  His friend sniggered at that, and Bob elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up.

  “You’ve made harder shots,” Bob pointed out. “You can do it.”

  His friend, recovered from the dig to his side, pumped his fist in the air. “Do. It. Do. It!” He started the chant as he looked around for someone to join in. A few of the other guys in the group—the rest had faded away either because they were disgusted or bored—picked it up halfheartedly. “Do. It! Do! It!”

  Morgan managed not to roll his eyes. Instead he shifted his weight uncomfortably, as though the drunkenly applied peer pressure had worked. He grabbed his beer bottle and took a swig, but lukewarm beer wasn’t enough to strip the bad taste that Bob’s brief flash of lust had left in his mouth. Tonight was supposed to distract him from the sour disappointment that came from looking back at his shit life. The only records he was even able to find were from his third social worker in the second town and came with a blank-eyed photo of a twelve-year-old kid with a black eye and a swollen ear. He’d…. Morgan didn’t remember what he’d done. Whatever it was got him a beating and a new foster home.

  Too many moves. Too many homes. Not enough people who actually cared.

  “Fuck it,” he said—about all of it—as he set the bottle down, missed the side of the table, and the beer spilled over the floor. “Oh, damn it.”

  “Leave it,” Bob said dismissively. He tossed down another ten on the stack of money. “That’ll cover it.”

  Morgan wiped his wet hand on his hip and then bent over the table again, He lined up a different shot this time. The key to a good hustle wasn’t the mechanics of it. It was being able to figure out what the other guy wanted. You could hustle some people, and they’d just enjoy the art of it. Most wanted money, but Bob wanted to humiliate someone—the waitress, his friends, a cocky, kind of dim stranger.

  Hell, Morgan hadn’t even had to steal a set of keys with a fancy fob. Bob didn’t care how much the car was worth. He just cared that he could make someone crawl to get it back.

  “… yeah, well you didn’t hear it from me, but they finally found Sammy’s body. Big surprise, the kid was dead. It’ll hit the news in a few days, but I get to hear about it first, like it or not. My dad’s obsessed with it,” Bob said in an aside to one of his friends as he tossed back a shot. “I mean, obviously it could have been me, and he would have prosecuted if they’d managed to make an arrest. Inside tip? The mom did it. She was a big slut, I’ve heard, and the kid cramped her style.”

  Morgan clenched his jaw and then made himself relax it as he lined up the shot. Sometimes it was a pleasure to fuck people over.

  Morgan exhaled, took the shot, and spun the cue ball off the last solid red left on the table. It bounced off the side of the table and hit the eight ball at just the right angle to clack the black ball satisfyingly into the corner pocket.

  “Hah!” Morgan whooped as he rolled his stick onto the table. “Fuck me! Finally a bit of luck! About time.”

  Applause broke out through the bar, wider spread than the halfhearted “Do it” chant that Bob’s friends were able to muster. The cash he flashed kept Bob’s ass on a seat, but that didn’t mean any of the locals actually liked him. Even one of Bob’s yes-men forgot his place enough to clap briefly until someone shoved him.

  Bob’s mouth twitched at the corner as he flashed an angry glance around the bar. He tightened his hand on the cash.

  “Rematch,” he said, a sick smile thin on his mouth. “Double or nothing.”

  Morgan reached over the table and covered Bob’s hand with his. The contact made Bob exhale shakily, and Morgan let the sneer he’d felt all night curve his mouth.

  “I don’t think so,” he said as he peeled Bob’s sweaty fingers off the stack of notes. “I’ve got better things to do tonight, and you can’t play worth shit.”

  Surprised humiliation flushed a hot pink under Bob’s golf-club tan. One of the locals laughed, anonymous behind their whiskey and turned backs.

  “You….” Bob licked his lips and looked around for support. “You can’t just take my money and walk. It’s only fair I have a chance to win it back.”

  “That’s not how this works,” Morgan said. He folded his winnings in half and tucked them into his hip pocket. The smart thing to do was walk away, leave Bob here with enough pride to save face and come back another night to pluck him again. Problem was Morgan had been taught to play pool by some mean old bastards, and they’d taught him well. He let the l
ast vestiges of good nature slide from his face, and he grinned. “Come on, if you’d won, I’d be blowing you for my car keys about now, right? What’s fair about that?”

  Bob’s face darkened to fury.

  “Shut your fucking mouth,” he spluttered as he grabbed the pool cue. He tightened his fingers around the length of polished wood, knuckles white and bony. “Give me back my money, you dirty bastard.”

  “Make me.”

  “You think I won’t?” Bob asked. He jabbed the stick at Morgan and scored a chalked line over his shoulder. Morgan let it go as he fell back a step. The bar had security footage, and he didn’t want Captain Macintosh to be in any doubt that it was self-defense. “My dad’s a judge. You think anyone is going to care if I beat the shit out of some drifter that… that fucking tried to grab my balls?”

  He looked around sharply for support. His friends shifted back, visibly sweating under the pressure, but after a second, a wave of reluctant nods stuttered through the group.

  “Yeah,” one of them agreed uncomfortably. “We all saw it, all right, dude? So just give him his money back and move on.”

  Behind the counter, the barman grimaced. “I’m going to call the cops,” he said loudly. “Take it outside if you want to make a mess.”

  “I like it right here,” Bob said. “Where the witnesses are that this guy started it.”

  Bob swung the stick this time. It whistled through the air in a short, vicious arc aimed at Morgan’s temple. Morgan threw his arm up to block, and the stick hit his forearm with enough force to crack the seasoned polished ash. The broken end of the stick gouged a long, ragged scrape in his arm that slashed diagonally from his elbow toward his wrist.

  The flash of sweat-sour anger that tainted the back of Morgan’s throat caught him by surprise. He’d had worse from worse. There was no reason to feel like it would fix everything if he could just punch Bob’s perfect veneers down his throat. But maybe this rich brat’s tantrum over his pocket money was just the final straw in the shit of Morgan’s life.