Actually, all of them, I hear.
Saw him for a beat at the Loop, straddling his bike and talking up some girls. I can spot a young guy, new to town, and enjoying a playing field of fresh new faces a mile away. They don’t mind him having fun, but they will mind when he’s having fun with Quinn. I guarantee it.
Tipping up my bottle, I take a drink.
“Is he coming tonight?” I hear a voice ask.
I swallow a little more water and then stop. I think it’s the other kid Quinn was with.
“What time?” he asks.
He’s on the phone.
“What time?” Again, but sterner.
I take a step, then two, and spot the other blond around the corner, his back to the towel station. He holds a phone in his hand, an ear piece is in his ear.
“You think I want his job?” He grins. “I’ll be taking yours first.”
He slides a hand up under his black T-shirt and rubs his stomach.
“And then Reeves will fucking find out how short-lived power is when you have no people.”
I pull back just behind the wall again.
Reeves.
Drew Reeves?
“I won’t be late,” I hear him say. But then his voice softens. “Well, I might be late. Kind of like what I’m looking at right now.”
I take another step, seeing him follow Quinn with his eyes as she runs with Noah.
“Don’t wait for me.”
He ends the call, tucks the phone into the pocket of fitted gray sweatpants, and then he turns.
And that’s when I see it.
RIVER inked vertically down the side of his neck, a line stricken through the word.
My chest caves.Fuck.
I stand there, watching him walk back to Noah and Quinn as they stop running and move to the machines. Something coils in my stomach as I clench my teeth.
The tattoo. The fucking tat.
Green Street.
He had said “and then Reeveswillfind out…”
…will.
As if he’s still here.
But he’s gone. I checked. He was driven away two years ago. The crooked Shelburne Falls cop who ran the Weston Green Street gang and was caught siphoning confiscated goods for his own benefit and conning a bunch of kids into doing his dirty work. He fled, and an underling took over.
But eight years ago, Drew wasn’t a cop. And he wasn’t alone.
