I was reading about what Dillon did to get incarcerated.
Thus, I said, “So apparently, Dillon was the instigator of the aggravated part of the burglary. While another member of their crew held the family at gunpoint, Dillon pistol-whipped the husband-slash-dad right in front of them.”
“Yup,” Luna said. “The dad took one hit, then got pissed, fought back, disarmed Dillon. Being the tight crew they are, the other guy left Dillon, made a run for it, but the dad held Dillon at gunpoint with his own weapon while his wife called it in. The cops found the other guy that night because, evidently, he didn’t think maybe he shouldn’t go to his usual hangout after a felony he was committing went bad. And being the tight crew they are, Dillon ratted him out almost immediately. They grabbed him while he was enjoying a beer post burglary gone bad,” Luna finished.
“It really doesn’t sound like these people are playing with a full deck,” Joey noted.
“Agreed, so that makes them unpredictable because you can’t predict stupid,” Raye replied, for the first time sounding a little squiffy about this job. “It’ll make me feel better to get Titus’s take on it. So, unless anyone else has anything to say, it’s time to roll to the man cave.”
No one had anything to say, which was why we headed out to the cars.
While we did, in the middle of finding Shanti to see how she was feeling about a return to the man cave after her crash and burn with Titus, I noticed Harlow seemed distracted.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She looked at me and announced, “Javi has decided to have a sit down with his father.”
At this news, every Angel stopped dead.
“No shit?’ Jessie asked.
Harlow nodded and turned to Raye. “I’m sorry, Raye. He’s going to do this on Sunday, and even though I knew it was probably coming, and I know my man has it together, still, I’m worried about him.”
“Of course,” Raye replied.
And yeah.
Of course.
To say Javi’s dad was absentee was an insult to absentee dads, and the results of him checking out of Javi’s life were catastrophic, so we all got why Harlow would be worried about him.
“Humans are tribal,” Gemma said, reaching to take Harlow’s hand. “We crave family. Connection. I mean, even Duane, who seems totally down and out, like he’s given up, but that Amy woman offered him a connection, and he grabbed at it.”
“Yeah, and look what happened to him,” Harlow replied.
Gemma scrunched her face.
Jessie bellied up to her bestie (that meant Harlow). “What happened to him was the people he really connected with, us, Jinx, Persia, Skyla, all the rest, found out someone was fucking with him, and here we are.” She threw out her arms. “I wouldn’t give Javi’s dad a chance. But that’s me. Javi is Javi because he would. You don’t know what’s going to come of it. It might be nothing. It might be awful. But it might be something really good for Javi. Whatever’s gonna happen, he’ll be strong enough to handle it, and so will you.”
Harlow’s lips were trembling. “Thanks, Jess.”
“But if you need to bow out of this tomorrow because your head is with Javi, we’ll get it,” Luna put in.
Harlow turned to her. “Thanks, Loon.”
“You good?” Raye asked.
Harlow nodded.
“We ready to roll?” Raye asked.
In answer to that, we separated to get in the cars.
Shanti was driving ours, and quickly, before Joey and Gemma got in, I scrambled in and asked her, “You okay with going to the man cave?”
She turned and looked at me with a bemused expression. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because the…you know,” I reminded her as Joey and Gemma climbed in.
