The Boy I Grew Up With
Page 19

“Yeah. We find him, bring him to you.”
His head cocked to the side. “What’s the catch?”
See? He was smart.
“For a price, we’ll deliver him to you.”
He sighed, his shoulders drooped, and he shook his head. “Of course. For a price.” He grumbled, pulling out a checkbook. “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to rip me off?”
“Ten gran—”
“Ten thousand?!” he sputtered.
I ignored him. “Lawyers ain’t cheap. You’re driving around, chasing tail on this guy, so either he’s blackmailing you or you’re charging by the hour. Either way, he’s got enough to want to have his son brought back to him. So, yes. Ten fucking thousand, Peter.”
He growled. “That is not my name.”
“If he’s in the area, we’ll have him to you in forty-eight hours. If he’s not, it’ll take longer for travel time.” I shrugged. “Take it or leave it. Or we can wait, see if he comes back to finish his con, and we can give him the same option.”
Moose leaned forward. “Except he’ll pay us to not fuck him up, but fuck you up.”
“Your choice,” I finished.
The guy was screwed, and he knew it.
A vein popped out from the side of his neck. Moose and I did what we’d done before: nothing. We stared back, and we didn’t move an inch.
“Fine.” He expelled a frustrated sigh, cursing under his breath. “I have a feeling you’ll have no problem figuring where I’ll be staying in the meantime.” He wrote out the check, signing so forcefully his pen ripped a small hole in it. Tearing it out, he flung it toward Moose, then started for his car.
He was halfway there, past our trucks, when he rotated on his heels. He jabbed a finger at me. “He better be alive and unharmed.”
We didn’t answer.
He started for his car, but paused again. “Do I want to ask what a Peter is?” He was already grimacing.
Moose glanced to me. I dipped my head forward, giving him the go-ahead, and with a wicked smile, he started.
“You heard of a place called Tuesday Tits?”
The lawyer’s eyebrows pinched together. “That the bar in town?”
Moose nodded. “But it ain’t a strip club.”
“What’s that have to do with a Peter?”
Moose was getting there. He wasn’t going to be rushed. He spoke slowly. “A Peter is the type of guy who first showed up when Tuesday Tits was renamed. He came in thinking the place was a strip club. He goes in, he looks around. There’s a few girls, but no one showing their tits. So he’s confused, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t leave. He doesn’t ask if the place is a strip club or not. He goes to a dark corner, where he’s ready to stroke it, and he starts drinking. He sits there all afternoon, hoping someone will start dancing, and hell, by the time night rolls around, he’s hoping just any girl starts dancing. He drinks all night long, getting so wasted that he’s a pile of nothing when he’s escorted out. He takes a cab home. Sleeps it off, and comes back the next day. A Peter is that guy who comes every day, drinks every day, just on the hope to see a pair of tits. But he’s so ashamed of himself, he never just asks if it’s a strip club or not. He’s the type of guy that gets Pathetic Every Day At Tuesday Tits, and when he’s called a PEDATT at the end of the night, he turns around and slurs back, ‘I ain’t no Peter.’”
Moose was smiling wide now, but with a cruel glint. “That’s a Peter.”
The Peter looked at us. He didn’t blink. He didn’t react. He was still until his hands jerked up and tightened over the steering wheel. “Unharmed,” he said again.
He peeled out of there, spewing up dirt, some of it raining over us.
As soon as he was gone, Moose looked at me. “He’s not unharmed.”
I lifted a shoulder. “What’s he going to do? Sue us?” Then I gave a brisk order. “Spread the word. Get him before Richter finds out about this lawyer being here. We don’t need to have one problem merge with our other problem.”
Moose nodded, a dark look on his face. “Got it.”
All the shit in my life, that was one problem I could cross off.
But I still had a need to pummel my fists somewhere.
16
Heather
I broke the rules.
I talked about her.
There’d been an uneasy truce in the two days since then between Channing and me. We hadn’t talked about her anymore, but we both felt her. I knew we did. Channing was on edge more than normal, but so was I. It was probably the reason we’d gone at it like animals last night.
Sex was easier than feelings. Always. Forever.
I was leaving his place when Bren came in, already skipping on her first day of school. She had a bag of food in her hand.
I lost my footing, like I did almost every time she was around.
It wasn’t her fault.
She hadn’t asked for their dad to go to prison and for Channing to be her guardian. Despite the nonchalance and cold exterior, I had a feeling she loved her brother. But I remembered being in high school. I remembered losing my own mother, and I remembered not wanting to get close to anyone. I’d barely let Sam in, though she never knew that.
Bren and I talked a bit, and there was an awkwardness, like always.
She was a caged female wolf that grew up being abused. There was such beauty there, but she was wild and dangerous. She needed love, so much love, and I was the dick, taking some of that love away because Channing hadn’t figured out how to juggle everyone on his plate.
I ached for Bren. I truly did. I wanted to take her in my arms, hug her, and hold her—even though I knew she’d struggle to get away. She needed the love, but she didn’t want to need it.
I didn’t have the words. I rarely did.
So she was here. I was here. And neither of us knew what to say.
I was surprised we lasted as long as we did. Eventually she took off, saying she was going back to school, but I wasn’t born yesterday. The girl was ditching. It wasn’t my place to step in. Fuck. I didn’t even know what I would’ve done, so I left too.
I had to get back to Manny’s.
But once in my car, I realized the gas was nearing empty, so I pulled into the one of two gas stations in Roussou. Channing was sitting on the front of my truck when I came out, an energy drink in hand.
His feet dangled off the hood, and he flashed a cocky grin at the sight of me.
I faltered for a step, glad to see the cockiness, not the turmoil I had unleashed two nights ago.
I tightened my hold on my drink before going over. “Hey.”
“Hey.” He was mocking me, giving me the same tight-lipped response.
I fought against rolling my eyes. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer that. “You just coming from the house?”
“Yeah, I slept in.”
We fell silent, but we both knew what was happening next.
He was cocky. He was smirking. That meant we were going surface. We weren’t going deep.
But Channing would wait for me to make the first move—if I wanted to touch him, or if I didn’t. I would set the tone. He usually let me unless his hunger was too much. Then he’d prowl for me, and I could either say yes or no. But not like this, when his hunger was sated, when we were in broad daylight and there were people watching us like I knew there were. Everyone watched us, especially Channing.