“You too,” Quinn managed to say, then swallowed his sudden emotions and nodded his head toward the counter. “You busy? Wanna catch up?”
“No, just thought I’d grab it and go back to the ‘yard, you know.” He made eye contact with the older woman that was working instead of Charlie today, and she nodded at him. Brody slid into the booth and beamed at Quinn.
“Good to see you’re doing well,” Quinn said, smiling back at him.
“Yeah, it is what it is, yanno,” he replied, and for a moment Quinn could see a teenaged Brody sitting under a tree in the park and gesturing with a joint between his fingers. “Took over the junkyard when Dad passed and that’s about it. I don’t need much.”
“Just some decent porn and really good weed,” Quinn said, filling in the rest of the sentence Brody had used back in the day.
Brody threw his head back and cackled with delight. The waitress came by with his coffee and asked if Quinn wanted anything else.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”
She gave him a tight smile and left. Not a fan of the MacGregors, then.
“So, on the scale of one to ten with ten being nuclear, how bad is Jimmy going to fuck up this town?” Brody asked, then took a sip of his coffee.
A laugh burst out of Quinn’s mouth. Brody clearly still didn’t beat around the bush.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I wish it was like three, but it might be eight,” he said quietly, more seriously.
“Yeah, see, the year before last, he got permission from Ian to build a warehouse for his own businesses on that lot across the road from the junkyard. It’s…interesting.” Brody’s eyes were sharper then than they’d been only moments ago.
“Oh?” Quinn finished his own too-cold drink and grimaced at the taste. He should’ve gotten a shake or something just to have something to do with his hands.
“He’s clearly planning something. Showing up at night, sometimes cars I don’t recognize come by, that sort of thing.” Brody shrugged and gave him a lopsided little grin.
“Wait…you’re not staying at the loft?”
“Eh, I might be living there, actually.”
Quinn did a dramatic double take for fun. “Dude, you’re living in the fucking horrible metal hall? Above the office? What the fuck?”
“Yeah, see, at first it was just a place to stay when I sorted out all the shit after Dad died.” Brody’s expression grew soft and sad, but then he smiled again. “But then my girlfriend sort of kicked me out and yeah, I’ve been living there for now. It’s fine, I’ve a space heater and it’s quiet there.” He drank some more coffee and then grinned knowingly. “Unless your cousin has company in the night.”
Quinn nodded slowly. “Well, if you wanna give me your number…”
“Sure, man. Anything. I saw Aaron and he sort of reminded me of the good old days, right?” He put his number into Quinn’s phone and sent himself a message before giving the phone back.
“I appreciate it,” Quinn said quietly.
“Look, I don’t know why you’re here, really, but I know you don’t want the job after your uncle. So if I can help whatever it is you’re here to do, let me know, okay?”
Quinn swallowed and hid every single emotion coursing through right then. “Thanks, man.”
Brody nodded as if that was that, and then launched into telling Quinn about some guy who had sold him a sweet ride a while back and it felt like the old days. Quinn settled in and once again, soaked in the echoes of an old friendship.
* * * *
Quinn drove to Jimmy’s house, the house Quinn had grown up in. It was almost exactly between Karen and Ian’s place and Jimmy’s warehouse on the edge of town. Seeing the house as it was now weird. It sported a new, different color paint and even new windows, making it look nothing like the house where Robert had ruled first the household, then the whole town.
He needed to set some things straight with his cousin and he didn’t really want to do it in public. He knew Jimmy had his own crew, partially, but they all fell under the MacGregor umbrella. It was just that most of Ian’s guys had been Robert’s first, and they were starting to get older. Jimmy’s crew was his and Quinn’s age group; some of them had gone to school with them, too.
It felt weird to think that.
In his childhood, the whole thing hadn’t felt real. Sure, people talked about his family, but as a kid, you had to go with the flow. As soon as he and Jimmy were teenagers, the men in the family started to talk to them about the business. Not much, but some things here and there.
Jimmy had loved it, of course. Quinn had been wary. He didn’t like the pain and suffering crime caused, and while he did his best to not see what the MacGregors did as black and white, he’d started to resent his father by the time he turned fifteen.
