“Copycat kids?”
“That’s what I just said.” He nodded slowly before landing both his feet back on the floor and leaning forward again. “We don’t know where they’re coming from, but they’re not just in our town. They’re everywhere, moving from place to place. They’ve been on the news, according to Deeks and Harry. Jedd has spoken to a couple of the cops he’s got on the payroll these days, and they’ve said there have been a few incidents of minor theft, gang related petty crimes, that sort of thing.”
“In Babylon?”
“Just once. The old man at the barber store got held at gunpoint by some boy that he thought was fifteen, sixteen at best. Unloaded gun dumped by the door, group of assholes running away and high fiving the shit out of each other down the road.”
“Fuck,” I whispered, shaking my head and looking back down at the pawn shop figures. “Just what we need, kindergarten clean up.”
“Want me to take care of it?”
Looking back up at him, I gave him another flat smile before raising my hands in the air again. “We’re not the baby police. Let’s just keep our eyes and ears to the ground. If they have any kind of markings on them, we need to know what it is and who it belongs to. Tell everyone out in the club, too. Even the women. They could be a target for the wannabes. Ain’t nothing like getting your cock sucked by an older woman to make you feel like a man.” I leaned back in my chair and let my hands fall to my stomach. “Just make everyone aware. Sounds like something anyone of us couldsquash if we needed to.”
“Got it.” He nodded again, motioning to stand up before I called out.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me about yesterday?”
“Yeah. Harry told me it was no big deal and it could wait until today. Sorry about that.”
“Can’t blame you for being jumpy these days.” I smiled flatly, glancing towards the door before the conversation we’d just been having began to replay over in my mind, the single point I’d somehow missed hitting me square in the jaw like it had the force of a bear behind its swing. “Hold up. Did you say Tate was looking for Ayda this morning?”
Slater perched back on the edge of the seat and raised both his brows. “Yeah.”
My frown was instant. “She’s not in the club?”
He didn’t have to answer. His face told me it all. I was up and out of my chair within seconds, and I didn’t miss the way it slammed against the wall, or the way Slater told me to hold up and calm down before I marched out of my office and into the bar, leaving my growl of annoyance to echo around the whole fucking club for everyone to hear.
Chapter Seven
Ayda
There was something calming about the cemetery. It wasn’t that stereotypical place you saw in the movies, which was a small spatter of headstones in an open field, or even the New Orleans type of style with mausoleums dotted around and marble tombs, holding caskets above the water table. This was beautiful. It was like a forest meadow, hidden among the trees that had been claimed by visitors and the wind chimes that they hung there. In the summer, the air was stifling. The humidity hung around you like an unwelcome friend while you sat sweating over the people you missed most. In the winter, it stayed comfortable, out of the chill of the breeze that tended to bring the temperature down another couple of degrees.
I reveled in the solitude of it as I cleared their headstones and did a little maintenance of my own. The pennant Tate had dropped off after last season's game was looking a bit weatherworn and faded, but I put it back where he’d left it, along with my mom’s collection of trinkets.
“There, that’s better,” I said, finally sitting down between them and crossing my legs. I leaned back, resting my weight on my hands as my eyes moved over their engraved names. “What the hell am I supposed to do about Tate, Momma? He’sa good kid, but right now, I swear to God he's ruled by his hormones.”
I sat listening to the wind and imagined her response. Her voice was so clear in my head. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I was back on our couch with my head on her lap.Hormones are leading him, pumpkin. Boys are rabid when they’re adolescents. They think about one thing and one thing only. Why do you think Daddy was so intent on you being back by ten at night?
I must have looked crazy sitting there alone, smiling at the mental image I had. My dad would have looked over his paper at me, one eyebrow raised in a knowing smile. He always knew me better than I knew myself. When I’d come in from my first intimate experience with Jacob, he’d been sitting at the kitchen table, a bourbon in hand and a small hint of sadness. It was probably designed to make me feel guilty, but I just remembered the way I’d interpreted it. He paid attention. He knew who I was.
“I wonder if I made a selfish decision where Tate was concerned. I couldn’t be happier. I love Drew, and I love The Hut and the boys, but I feel like Tate is losing himself in it. He still goes to practice, but I think that’s only because Kenny rags on him if he doesn’t. His grades are still okay, but I can see the slow deterioration into not so great, and I know it’s because he’s distracted. I found him in bed with one of the girls this morning. She’s one of the few sweet ones, but she’s still older than him, and I’m not ready for that last part of childishness to be stolen from him.”
Sitting up and dusting off my hands, I dragged them through my hair and made myself smaller by drawing my knees to my chest. I had so many questions to ask them.I needed their wisdom, but all I had were my memories. I couldn’t trust myself to give honest speeches. I loved where my life had taken me, and if I was truthful, I was being selfish when it came to Tate. Sure, he was happy where he was, but that didn’t mean it was the right environment for him.
So what did I do? Set ground rules? Hope that all of those men would choose to honor them for me? I couldn’t expect them to do that. The club was a place where they could be themselves, where they were free of house rules and regulations. I couldn’t suddenly implement some purely for my own selfish need to feel like I was being proactive. Even so, I couldn’t leave, either. I couldn’t walk out of there and expect one of those guys to have to sit and guard our door, just so I could give Tate some kind of routine. Drew would never understand why I had to leave, and I didn’t want him to have to understand. I just wanted to be with him.
“How do I do what’s best for Tate and think about my own happiness? Or do I put his above mine?”
You do both,came the voice of my dad in my head.Just because you think it’s not a good environment, it doesn’t mean that’s true. You said yourself these guys are decent men. What’s to say they won’t help shape your brother into a good man?
Maybe that was just wishful thinking; perhaps it was the truth. I wasn’t a parent, and I was proving to be a shitty understudy for the ones we’d lost. I still had no idea how to handle a boy or know what was good for him.
I’d just hung my arms over my legs and started to lean forward to talk some more when an almighty crack came from across the silent cemetery. I thought I’d been alone up until that point, and it wasn’t until I sat up and strained to look overthe headstones that I saw a group of three kids laughing, while a fourth was using all of his strength to kick at a headstone in an attempt to break it.
“Speaking of misspent youth…” I grumbled, pulling my purse toward me and rocking to my feet. “I’m going to go and take care of that and figure out how the hell to talk to Tate. I love you both, and I promise I’ll be back again soon. Oh, and I promise I’ll bring Tate, too. Even if I have to dress him myself, and hog-tie him… Which I may do anyway.”
I leaned down, kissing my fingers and pressing them to each name before looking back toward the kids who had grown louder as one of the others had joined in the goal of destroying property that didn’t belong to them.
