The shops on the other side of the road were mostly closed, doors locked and lights turned off. Some of them were empty shells, For Rent signs pasted optimistically in the windows as though the town were going to bounce back any day now.
Boyd followed on Shay’s heels around the corner. He caught up with him and fell into step next to him. Shay’s ears were still uncomfortably red.
“You could just talk to Jessie,” he suggested.
“Or I could pretend I’ve forgotten we slept together too,” Shay said, “and never mention it again. You don’t want me involved in your sex life? Stay out of mine.”
That was fair enough. It wasn’t as though his love life was—ever—in any better state. He didn’t say anything else as they headed down the block to where he knew they’d end up—at the corner of the Grant Cutter Kindergarten playing fields. A handful of preteen kids in blue uniforms tossed baseballs and swung bats on the pitch as their coach yelled instructions and occasionally loped onto the field to pick up and brush down a whimpering kid who’d face-planted. A few parents huddled on the sidelines, coffee cups in hand, to cheer their little athletes on.
Boyd’s mother had never made it. She tried to get to some of his games, but her schedule was tight. His dad turned up occasionally, soot still behind his ears, but he gave up after the divorce.
“I came to your last game that year,” Shay said. “Sat over there, bought Sammy a Slushie afterward, and talked about… cars, probably? I can’t remember. If I’d known, I’d have paid more attention, but I didn’t know that was the last time we’d really talk.”
Boyd didn’t touch that. “If I’d known” was a quagmire of pointless regret.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” he said. “You can’t interfere in this, Shay. If you chase Morgan off, whoever he is or isn’t won’t matter. Your mom will believe he was Sammy, and she’ll never forgive you.”
A boy with thick black glasses and a scabbed knee hit the ball with a crack of wood on leather as it wobbled toward his face. He was so surprised that he forgot to run. He just stood with his mouth open as he watched the ball arc toward the sky.
Boyd swallowed the “Run!” that old memories dragged up into his throat. There were people to raise the chant without a creepy stranger on the sidelines joining in. The kid looked around blankly for a second and then stumbled into a run.
“What difference will that make?” Shay asked wearily. “She’s never forgiven me, never forgiven anyone in this town. Just… I need to do this, Boyd. I need to see him. Before this becomes a circus.”
There was a raw edge to Shay’s voice as he delivered that plea. Maybe he wasn’t so confident that Morgan wasn’t Sammy.
Boyd watched the kid stagger into third base and look around to see who’d watched him win. A man on the sidelines whooped and cheered and punched his fist in the air. Tonight he’d drivehiskid home, safe and sound.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Boyd said. “I don’t even know if he wants to talk to me, though, never mind you.”
Chapter Eight
CUTTER’S GAPmight be a dead-end town in the ass-end of West Virginia, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t find some action if you looked hard enough.
Morgan chalked the worn-down blue nub of his stick as he sauntered around the pool table. His opponent was a stocky young man who introduced himself as Bob, but his friend’s called him Bobby. He dressed too well for the dive they were in but flashed too much cash to be tossed out for being free with the waitress’ asses. While Morgan weighed up his shot, Bob nudged one of his hangers-on and sniggered something to him.
“Tell you what,” Bob said as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He licked his thumb and dealt out a couple of fifties. “I’ll put an extra hundred down. Pot the eight ball, and you get the whole thing.”
Morgan fumbled the cue just before he took the shot and dug the cue into the baize. He straightened up, patted his pockets, and emptied out a crumpled ten and a handful of coins. His keys—well, someone’s keys he’d lifted earlier—came last.
“Dude, you’ve already tapped me out,” he protested with his best dumbass jock grin. “Can’t we go back to playing for beer?”
“No,” Bob said. He put his manicured finger on the stack of notes and held them down. “More fun this way. If you don’t have the cash, we can work something out.”
Despite his lewd, loud come-ons to the waitresses, there was a flicker of wet, furtive lust in Bob’s watery blue eyes as he looked Morgan over. Something about it put Morgan’s hackles up, an itch of revulsion in the back of his throat. He ignored it.
“We’ll take the keys as collateral,” the friend suggested. He was as sly as a drunk could manage. “You can pay us back tomorrow.”
There was a flash of annoyance in Bob’s eyes as whatever nasty little fantasy he’d entertained was derailed, but he covered quickly. He grinned and nodded at the table.
“C’mon. You called the shot. Don’t you think you can make it?” he coaxed greasily. “I thought you said you were a jock, right? Captain of the football team.”
His friend sniggered at that, and Bob elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up.
“You’ve made harder shots,” Bob pointed out. “You can do it.”
His friend, recovered from the dig to his side, pumped his fist in the air. “Do. It. Do. It!” He started the chant as he looked around for someone to join in. A few of the other guys in the group—the rest had faded away either because they were disgusted or bored—picked it up halfheartedly. “Do. It! Do! It!”
Morgan managed not to roll his eyes. Instead he shifted his weight uncomfortably, as though the drunkenly applied peer pressure had worked. He grabbed his beer bottle and took a swig, but lukewarm beer wasn’t enough to strip the bad taste that Bob’s brief flash of lust had left in his mouth. Tonight was supposed to distract him from the sour disappointment that came from looking back at his shit life. The only records he was even able to find were from his third social worker in the second town and came with a blank-eyed photo of a twelve-year-old kid with a black eye and a swollen ear. He’d…. Morgan didn’t remember what he’d done. Whatever it was got him a beating and a new foster home.
