Mayhem shrugs. “She didn’t look like she hated it. Does she do that with you?”
“Beg?” I say. “That ain’t any of your business.”
“No. Oh, gross. I’m not trying to talk sexual with you, not that I have anything against that. It’s just, you and I aren’t that close and clearly, boundaries are important. I mean ‘not hate’ things. Because I get the exact opposite vibe from her every time I try to talk to her,” Mayhem says.
I wonder why?
I keep my mouth shut, cognizant of just who’s turf I’m on, and that the man talking to me about boundaries is playing with a knife that makes fire.
Bishop’s gaze slides over me, calm and unreadable. “She doesn’t do favors for just anybody, you know.”
“Only person I can think she did a favor for was Riley, and that involved love and pity,” Mayhem says. “Does she feel that way about you?”
“Love?” I say.
The roof suddenly feels hotter.
“I was thinking pity, since she seems to keep looking at you through the window, like she’s worried you don’t know what you’re doing on the roof and you’re going to fall,” Mayhem says.
I glance down. “You always talk this much?”
“Only when people are unlucky,” he says brightly.
Tank grunts again, like that’s his version of laughter.
For a while, it’s just tools and noise and the rhythm of work. I zone out into the job, losing myself, while the three of them settle into the familiar chatter of brotherhood. They talk about dumb shit — barbecue rivalries, a guy in town who tried to jump a dirt bike over the river, and whether the new jukebox in the bar is cursed.
It’s normal. Comfortable. Dangerous.
Mayhem wipes his hands on his jeans and calls up, “So what’s your deal, man? You moved into Ironwood Falls and immediately start fixing everybody’s crap. You running from alimony or a murder charge?”
“Neither,” I say.
“Boring,” Mayhem declares. “Suspicious.”
Tank points at me with the handle of a hammer. “You got family?”
My grip tightens on a nail; I hesitate a moment before driving it in. “Yeah. A sister.”
“Where?” Bishop says, casual.
“Up north. She ain’t single, if that’s why you’re asking. She’s taken.”
Bishop’s eyes flick — small, quick, like he clocks the change in my voice. “Not interested like that. My ol’ lady, Eden, would kill me.”
“Okay, okay — serious question: I heard you’re trying to stack cash for your sister. That true? She’s in trouble?” Mayhem says.
The hammer slips in my grip; I catch it before it tumbles off the roof.
“Who told you that?” I ask.
Mayhem spreads his hands. “News travels. Also, you told Molly. And Molly had to really make a case to get you in here,even though, clearly, we desperately need a new roof on our garage.”
Tank shifts and fixes me with a heavy stare. “What kind of trouble is she in?”
I keep my face neutral, the way I learned a long time ago, back when I had to soften heavy news for my sister — the times we were so close to getting evicted, the time the power got cut off because I couldn’t scrape together enough to pay the electric bill, the night where I really needed to make some cash and first went to the Sons of Sorrow for a job and came home with cuts and bruises I couldn’t bear to explain. “Medical. It could be fatal.”
Mayhem’s expression shifts, just a shade. Something like sanity and empathy sits in his eyes. “Ah. Shit. I’m so sorry.”
