Chapter Two
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Cash
The sweetest journey is the one that takes you home.
Read that somewhere once, and it comes back to me now as I make my way through the French Quarter.
New Orleans…
A place with a slight otherworldliness to it. A city built atop the primordial ooze, where time measures itself in generations, not minutes. Stand still and you can feel thethunkof all that history in every beat of your heart.
She might not be the city of my birth—that distinction belongs to Newark, New Jersey—but she’s where I plan to spend the rest of my life. Because it was here I first experienced true friendship. And it was here I fell in love.
The year was 2007. When Fergie tried to convince us that “Big Girls Don’t Cry”and Daniel Radcliffe reprised his role of Harry Potter for the fifth film in the franchise. More important, it was the year I met Lucien Dubois and Magnolia May Carter.
Magnolia…
Her name is the state flower of Louisiana.
Don’t ask me how I know that. Probably read it in the guidebook I picked up before my father moved me here when I was sixteen years old.
Magnolia…
My heart sighs.
“Who d’ya think the guy is?” Luc asks as we make our way past the Napoleon House on the corner of St. Louis and Chartres streets—or Rue St. Louis and Rue Chartresas the signposts say. “Mom hasn’t mentioned her posting anything on Facebook about a boyfriend. Just stuff about the bar.”
“Do people still use Facebook?” I ask, welcoming the long, whirring sound of cicadas. Even here in the middle of the French Quarter, they call to one another from the trees. “Isn’t it all Instagram and Snapchat nowadays?”
“How the hell would I know?”
Good point. Luc and I avoid social media like the dumpster fire it is. Which is standard operating procedure for guys in our line of business. Er…rather, ourpreviousline of business.
We’re civilians now. No more orders. No more missions. No more MREs or NVGs.
The idea takes some getting used to.
“Don’t know who the guy is. Don’t care,” I say, eyeing the dude in the fedora who’s hanging over Maggie’s balcony railing. “He doesn’t stand a chance now that we’re back.”
Luc snorts. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an arrogant sonofabitch?”
“You tell me all the time.Ikeep tellingyou, you’re confusing arrogance with confidence.”
“What’s the difference again?”
“Arrogance requires advertising,” I say with a toothy grin, then hook a thumb toward my chest. “Confidence speaks for itself.”
He battles a smile, then turns serious. “It’s been ten years. She might not even remember our names.”
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Haveyouforgottenher?”
He tugs at his ear. “You know I haven’t.”
“Believe me, she hasn’t forgotten us either. That kind of friendship never dies.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t mean she wants to see us. Up and leaving like we did? That kind of friendship might not die, but I can sure as shit see it turning into the mother of all grudges.”
