Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“Good question,” Damon grunted against his palm—then bit off a “Fuck” as the shirt unfurled a little more and he caught the logo on the breast of it.
Hank’s Roadhouse.
Styled to look so much like the Harley-Davidson logo it was a miracle it wasn’t a copyright violation, but...goddammit.
Damon knew that place.
And while Omen might not have much of a gang presence or even a criminal element, anyone who wanted to get drunk and skirt the law a little went to Hank’s Roadhouse—strategically placed right across the Mystic on the other side of the town line, so specific town laws about liquor licensing and other restrictions didn’t apply; only state, and that made it damned harder for the rich families who sent their kids out here to use town laws to try to get rid of the place, too.
“Oh,” Damon said, followed by Rian’s strangled,
“Fuck.”
“Whoa,” Luke echoed.
Rian stared at Damon. “Why does Chris have that? Isn’t that that—that—not nice place across the river?”
“It’s sure as hell not somewhere you want your sixteen-year-old kid,” Damon growled, letting the shirt drop atop the bag and then nudging it aside to peer in, but all he saw was a pair of dirty jeans, stained in grit. “What the hell is he doing? He going out there to get drunk and fuck around with people he has no business with?”
“Luke said he’s never drunk,” Rian murmured, then lifted his head, looking at Luke. “You said he’s never drunk, right?”
“I mean I’m not making him burp into a tube or any shit, but he doesn’t seem drunk,” Luke said, shrugging. “Maybe he can like, really hold it. I’unno.”
Rian looked at Damon helplessly. “So what do we do?”
Damon frowned, then cocked his head. “Stakeout?”
“Stakeout,” Rian confirmed, only for Luke to roll his eyes.
“You’re not fucking cops,” he said. “Why the fuck are teachers so weird?”
“Because we gotta be, to deal with you little heathens.” Damon stuffed the shirt back into the bag fully and stood, trying to keep his fucking cool when goddammit, this just kept getting worse with every new turn. “Bring that. C’mon. We can take my car.”
Rian rose—but he and Damon both froze as Luke moved to bar the door, folding his hands over his chest and glaring at them.
“Not yet,” he said, and pointed one skinny brown finger at the mess on the floor. “Which one of you is gonna clean that up?”
* * *
It turned out, in fact, that they both cleaned it up.
Rian didn’t mind, when it was just barely past five p.m. and he doubted Hank’s Roadhouse would be opening before sunset, and even then only for the earliest barflies. That, and he was quickly finding that he enjoyed doing anything with Damon, whether it was discussing what to do about Chris or cleaning up the fountain of pure chaos that had spilled out of Luke’s and Chris’s closet.
They hadn’t said a word to each other, as they’d worked side by side and handed things off to each other to try to recreate that Tetris mess that had somehow held in delicate balance inside the closet, wedging things in here and there and just...trying to impart some kind of organization.
It had just been easy.
Simple.
That was all it needed to be.
And all it needed to be was quiet and calm and wordless, as they split up to change into something warmer for the evening, then met up at Damon’s car—an older model Jeep Cherokee, the kind that still had the square edges instead of the more rounded modern contours, boxy and angular and somehow perfectly suited for Damon, right down to its matte dark green finish. When Rian peered inside, the back seat had been let down to expand the cargo area, a rumpled sleeping bag still laid out on the floor with camping equipment piled against the rear hatch.
“Remnants of your last trip to Rhode Island?” he asked, as he let himself into the passenger’s seat and slung his shoulder bag down at his feet.
Damon tossed Chris’s gym bag all the way into the back and slid behind the wheel, fitting his bulk in easily—but glanced over his shoulder into the back. “Not Rhode Island,” he said. “Not that time. The first weekend school started, I needed a little bit to find my stride. Clear my head. So I headed out to this place in Maine, this harbor city that kind of hid itself away beyond this ridge of black mountains so no one even remembers it’s there. Silver Forge. Hard to get to, but real damned pretty.” He smiled slightly. “Never see the sunlight, during the day there. Just mist and clouds and storms, day in, day out. But at night...” He shook his head, dark hair skimming against his jaw as he fitted his keys into the ignition. “Nothing but bright silver moon and stars, turning the sea into this sheet of pewter.”