“COFFEE?” DONNAstared at Morgan in surprise and then checked the cup of milky tea in her hands. Something bleak cracked through her careful “everything is all right now” facade for a moment before she calmly plastered back over it. “Sorry. I should have asked. Do you take creamer?”
She whisked the tea away, back into the kitchen. Every now and again she tripped over something that threatened her conviction that she could “just tell” that Morgan was Sammy, that he drank coffee now or he didn’t remember some in-joke Donna had with her son. She’d managed to ignore them all so far.
Morgan wiped pizza-greasy fingers on a napkin and glanced over the coffee table at Shay. “I’ll talk to Mac tomorrow, about Hill,” he said. “So I want the car ready to go.”
“As soon as Mac has your statement, you can pick it up,” Shay said. “There’s a spare set of keys in the tire well, so you don’t have to say goodbye in person.”
Dinner had been awkward. The tension between Shay and Donna was tight enough to strum, but nobody wanted to acknowledge it. Instead it was a bitter trade-off, where Donna only spoke to Morgan and Shay only spoke to her.
“Yeah, that’s nice,” Morgan said. “I’m sure the cop who picks me up for hauling a stolen car over the border will appreciate your consideration. I want papers. It’s my car, free and clear.”
Shay looked disgusted at the accusation, but he nodded.
“Did you hear about what happened with Boyd?” Donna asked from the kitchen. “Ridiculous. It isn’t right.”
“Not now, Mom,” Shay said. He stared at Morgan as he said it. “It’s not important.”
Fuck him. “What do you mean?” Morgan said. “What happened to Boyd?”
“Nothing,” Donna spat as she brought the coffee out of the kitchen. The venom in her voice made Morgan flinch with surprise. “Nothing ever happens to him, does it? He just sails through life and never has to pay the consequences.”
Shay clenched his jaw. “Drop it.”
“I will not,” Donna snapped. “You all lied to me, but he was the worst of it. I saw those pictures. He tried to take advantage of… Morgan, to use his money against him. And he lied to me, to all of us. Yet he gets to keep his job? It’s not right.”
Shay rubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus, what did you have?”
She handed Morgan his coffee, and he smelled her sour, sticky breath. He grimaced and leaned back from her.
“Whiskey,” he said. That she drank wasn’t a surprise. She had the sallow, red-veined cheeks of someone who got too many calories from liquor, but he could have done with a different tipple. The smell of it soured the coffee when he sniffed it until he couldn’t tell if it was in his nose or the hot liquid.
“Mom, you can’t do this,” Shay said. “It hasn’t even been a week.”
She snorted at him. “Do what? Have an Irish coffee after dinner? Don’t act like I’m the addict in the family, Shay. I won’t let you bad-mouth me in front of… Morgan. I won’t have it. Or taking Boyd’s side.”
Morgan’s temper flared with a hot scratch that slid up his spine and into his skull. He wasn’t sure whether it was the way Donna talked about Boyd or the way she talked to Shay that put him on edge. Both. He didn’t even like Shay, but the ready, weaponized anger Donna used like a whip was too familiar.
“Why would he need to?” Morgan asked as Donna, still glaring at Shay, sat down opposite him. “Trust me. Boyd didn’t take advantage of me. I wanted to fuck him the minute I saw him.”
Shay looked uncomfortable. Donna looked disgusted as she leaned back into her chair.
“Shut up,” she snapped. Then she visibly caught herself, one hand to her lips. “I didn’t mean that. That wasn’t what I meant to say. It’s just you don’t talk like that. You’re not like that.”
Morgan set the coffee on the table, on top of the greasy pizza box. It felt good being an asshole instead of playing the good kid come home.
“What, gay or easy?” he asked.
Donna shook her head and patted her cheeks with her fingers as though she needed to push her good-mom face back into place. “Just don’t talk like that,” she said. “You’re not old enough for that sort of thing. Did Boyd tell you to do it? He’s…. You don’t understand. Do you know what he did when you were gone? He went to school. He got a job. Nothing bad happened to him.”
“Good,” Morgan said. He meant it too. Maybe Boyd had more chances to be a good person than Morgan had, but in the end, they’d made their own calls. And Morgan liked Boyd’s easy affection too much—the head on his shoulder, the softness in those pretty eyes when he looked at him—to wish anyone had scarred it over. “And you think he should lose his job because he bailed me out of jail? Nice.”
Donna reached for her boozy coffee. “I would have paid it.”
“With what?” Shay asked. “Money you borrowed from Boyd?”
That made her flinch, and the coffee slopped over the edge of the cup. She yelped in surprise as the hot liquid hit her, and she jumped to her feet, her T-shirt plucked away from her body with one hand.
“I have to… have to change,” she stammered. “Then we can forget this, forget Boyd, and have dessert. I got mint chocolate chip for you…. Morgan, it’s your favorite.”
