“I’m just saying,” he repeated as he braced his hand against Clay’s chest. “From what I’ve seen, Pulaski is a cold little shit. He’s not the type to go off half-cocked. Whatever happened, he had to at least think it wa—aargh.”
Clay gripped Harry’s hand and bent it back until his thumb touched his forearm. Harry folded at the knees, sweat on his forehead.
“One. Unless I ask you to touch me, don’t fucking touch me,” Clay said. “Two. I don’t care what his reason was for locking me buck-naked on my own balcony. Three. If I want to know what you think, I’ll stop telling you to shut up. Are we clear?”
Harry swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not my business. I get it.”
It would be easy enough to break Harry’s wrist. The thought floated through Clay’s mind for a second before he abandoned it. He let go instead and stepped around Harry to get to the door.
“Get up,” he said. “I need a ride.”
He was halfway down the stairs before he heard Harry’s footsteps following him. They didn’t say anything as they headed out to the car.
That was fine.
Clay climbed into the passenger seat and slouched back, legs stretched out in the footwall. He had a feeling that after tonight Harry wasn’t going to worry about what would happen if someone called his bluff anymore. Give him a couple of hours and Clay might regret that.
“Where are we going?” Harry asked as he got into the car.
Clay dropped his head back against the seat and tried to think through theitchof his mood. He was pissed off. The thin skin of post-fuck dopamine had been scraped away, and underneath was all raw and twitchy. Itstung, and Clay’s knee-jerk response to that was always to hurt someone else and see how they liked it.
But Harry was annoying, not wrong.
Clay closed his eyes and remembered Grade’s face just before the bastard had slammed the doors shut. He’d looked grim and on edge, spooked in the way Clay had seen new recruits on their first tour in the sandbox. And he’d had his phone clutched in one hand, knuckles white against his skin.
“Clay?” Harry poked.
Money was a possibility. Grade had made no secret of the fact he didn’t intend to stay in Sweeny, and he needed money to fund the move back. Besides, it wasn’t likeEzrafucking Clay over. The only thing between Clay and Grade was a tension-relieving fuck. That was a bond that didn’t take a lot to break.
More likely, it was a threat. There’d been no dog at the house, so that left the mom, the sister, or the kid.
Either way, it had to be Hadley or Ezra behind it. Hopefully, it was Hadley. Clay didn’t want to have to make that choice.
“The Slap,” Clay said abruptly enough that Harry started in his seat. He wedged the uncomfortable realization that it would be a choice, not a done deal, to the back of his head. That was something to drown in the good whiskey later. “I need to get some gear and check in with Ezra.”
Harry nodded and started the engine. He did a U-turn on the drive while Clay popped the glove compartment open to fish out one of the burners. The radio crackled and then caught a station as Clay tore open a sim card with his teeth.
“Swwwwwweeeeeeee…” the singer wailed.
Clay killed it before he got to the state. “I need to make some calls,” he said.
“You’re the boss,” Harry said as he pulled out onto the road. He pressed his foot down on the gas, and the engine growled as the speedometer nudged up toward eighty. “I got the memo.”
Clay checked to see if he cared about that. The hot red static of anger had already started to simmer down to just pissy. His temper had always been a flash in the pan, hot just long enough to do something stupid, cooled down in time that you could regret it.
So maybe a bit.
“So, did I?” he asked as he slotted the card in and booted up the phone. “Fuck up us getting on?”
Harry kept his attention on the road.
“Yeah, well, next time you tell me to roll up a window, I’m going to do it,” Harry said. Then he shrugged one shoulder and hung his hand over the steering wheel. His wrist was still welted up from where Arlo had scratched him, and probably still kind of sore from being half-broken… but who was keeping score? “But you were locked on your balcony with your cock hanging out, so I’ll cut you some slack.”
“Felt like an underachieving Rapunzel,” Clay grumbled as he opened the browser to look up the contact details for the nicest hotel in town. “I’ll tell you that.”
Harry laughed.
“And don’t worry about the windows,” Clay said as he hit the green icon to make the call. “I’m thinking of giving up smoking.”
