“So do you,” he said.
I tilted my head toward Riggs. “So does he.”
Marshall swirled his wine around, took a sip and smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was something new, to see him out of his element, on unsteady ground and unsure footing. I didn’t think I hated it, though. Maybe it humanized him a little bit, knocked out some of the supports in the pedestal I’d put him on over a decade earlier.
“Of course,” Marshall agreed, setting his sights on Riggs. “So, Riggs. Tell me about yourself. How did you and my brother first meet?”
CHAPTER 36
RIGGS
Lunch with Marshall went better than I had expected it to. He and Smith talked out whatever they needed to talk out while I paced a hole in the floor of the bathroom, and everything was mostly easy after that. Marshall was protective of his brothers, and that wasn’t something I could fault him for. Toren and Ev had been the same about each other, and while I didn’t have siblings myself, I understood the bond.
We were on our way back to the apartment a few hours later when Smith’s phone went crazy with a series of text messages from his friend Lincoln, someone I was also yet to meet.
“Will you read them to me?” Smith asked, angling the phone mount toward the passenger side of the car.
“You’re alive!” I read him the first one. “Right? Marshall texted Silas and said he could come home. I don’t think he’d let him come home if your body was there.”
Smith chuckled, shaking his head.
“Are there more?”
“He told Silas you’d done well for yourself.” I paused, looking up at the stoplight. “Are you sure you want me to read all of these?”
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“I want to meet him,” I read the last one out just as another one came in. “When can I meet him?”
Smith banged his head against the steering wheel, glancing up in time to see the light turn green.
“What do you want me to tell him?” I asked.
“I guess it depends on when you want to meet him.” Smith groaned, flexing his fingers around the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. “This feels like a lot of work. Are you sure you’re sure about me?”
I let the phone screen turn dark, swallowing hard at the nervous simplicity of the question.
“Do you doubt me?”
“No,” he rasped.
“Then I want to meet him whenever you want me to meet him.”
The screen on Smith’s phone lit up again and we both looked at it and read the single word Lincoln had sent.
“Sure,” I answered out loud, and by text. “Today is good. Come to the shop if you want.”
“You’re not open today,” Smith protested.
“I know.” I put his phone back into the mount. “But it’s neutral.”
“He’ll ask for a tattoo.”
“I’ll give him one.”
Another incoming message that Smith didn’t even bother to read.
“He’ll be there in an hour,” I said.
