Kieran spread his arms, hands still in his pockets so his jacket flared like wings. “It’s a one-year-old’s party with clowns and an open bar. I love Freddie, but I can love him and be late to this. Jimmy’s appreciation of Chuckles the Dancing Clown won’t be dimmed just because I’m not there for the cake.” He pulled one hand out of his pocket and put it on Tag’s arm. His fingers were warm through the thin blue cotton sleeve as he squeezed. “Come on, I know you hate the bus.”
There was a possibility in that offer, in the way Kieran’s hand lingered. It wasn’t concrete, nothing they’d have to actually acknowledge, but theyhadknown each other a long time. If they wanted, it could just happen. It wouldn’t even have to mean anything. Tag would get even with Freddie for every sly smile he’d looked back at after the truth came out, and he’d see if an old flame could burn Bass out of his heart.
Or head. One or the other.
Tag didn’t know what Kieran wanted to take from the moment, but then, that was Kieran’s problem.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” he said and stepped back. The thread of “we could” pulled tight between them, stretched, and then snapped. It dissolved as though it had never been there at all, not even awkwardness left. Tag waved a hand at the schedule under scratched plastic. “Ten stops. It gives me time to think.”
Kieran hesitated for a second. Then he discarded whatever he was going to say and stepped back.
“I guess I could still make it for the cake—”
It all happened at once. A white van veered across the road and mounted the pavement. It screeched close enough to Tag that he jumped out of the way, and the van’s mirror snapped off against the bus stop. Glass splintered and scattered over his feet. The panel door slammed open, and a big man swung out and grabbed Tag by the hood.
“Doc,” the fat, dark-haired biker Tag vaguely remembered from the bar—Fat Boone—said. He twisted the fabric around his fist and yanked. “Shepherd wants to have a fucking word with you.”
Tag staggered as he lost his balance. Panic flared, and he swung his elbow back in a sharp, gut-aimed blow. It connected—he felt it sink into the hot flesh—but there was solid muscle under the layer of flab. Boone just grunted at the blow and hauled Tag off his feet. Hung by his hoodie, Tag tried to squirm out of it. Before he could shed it, Boone shook him like a dog with a rat and jabbed a payback fist into his kidney.
Pain flushed through Tag like boiled water. He choked on it, and his legs went out from under him like someone had bodychecked him.
“Let go of him,” Kieran shouted in alarm. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket. “What the hell are you doing? I’m going to call the police!”
“Shut him up,” Boone snarled over his shoulder as he dragged Tag into the van.
A biker with close-cropped hair and a deceptively genial face, one thigh still thick with bandages from the operation, swung a shotgun up onto his hip.
“Kieran, get out of here,” Tag yelled. He grabbed at the biker’s leg to try to pull him off balance. “Get inside.”
The biker grunted in annoyance and kicked Tag away from him. He braced himself, legs spread for balance, and fired. Blood sprayed from Kieran’s shoulder and splattered the wall behind him. His satchel, the strap torn apart, slid from his shoulder and hit the ground.
Then so did he.
“Kieran,” Tag yelled. He lunged forward and grabbed the side of the door. The protocol of a shotgun injury ran through his brain on a loop, dispassionate and useless from here. “Let me go. I can help him. Just let—”
A meaty hand clipped him around the ear, hard enough to rattle his brain. “Get your hand out of the door,” Boone ordered as he grabbed the handle to swing it back. “Or lose your fingers. Not gonna stitch anyone back together again after that.”
Tag let go.
The van door slammed shut, and it jolted down off the pavement. Tag half slid, half scrambled over to the far side and pressed his back against the metal. Panic rattled against the inside of his skull, but there was nothing to do with the flood of adrenaline. His hands shook, and he clamped them between his knees.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Boone glanced at him. He wiped a hand over his sweaty face and then wiped it on his jeans. “A peaceful life, Doc,” he said. “But looks like you fucked that up.”
