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  Maybe.

  She slid on the back of my bike. I handed her the helmet and she put it on. I tapped the Bluetooth communicator between the helmets I had on my bike. I made sure Nix was on a different channel.

  “Still a selective mute, I see.” I was angry. I was also shocked. Not my best opening line.

  Her response was quiet, but luckily the receiver was loud enough for me to catch it. “When life requires it.”

  She wasn’t hanging on to me. I glanced at my hip. Her hands were on her legs. That would change as we sped up.

  “I’ve been looking for you for years.” I heard the grit in my voice that time. I took a turn hard and felt her touch lightly on my middle.

  Silence.

  “I heard you’ve been back in town. You could’ve left me a note or something. I thought we had each other, T.” It was wildly unsettling to have this meeting on my bike, but it was coming out of my mouth whether I wanted it to or not.

  “So did I.” The hurt in her voice made me blink a few times. As far as I knew, she stayed away from me. I had no part in it.

  “When was I ever not there for you? Honestly. Tell me.” I turned my head, but was not satisfied with a glimpse of her.

  Silence again.

  I shook my head with the lack of a reply so she knew I thought I deserved a response.

  “Why’d you come back now? At least give me that?” I took one hand off of my handlebar to shake it out.

  “I needed to see you.” She took her hands off my middle.

  I wanted to tell her I needed to see her for the years in between when she left and now.

  “Were you okay? All that time?” I followed Nix down another road.

  “I lived.”

  Nix stopped and I followed suit. T got off the back of my motorcycle, like being that close to me was a problem.

  She listened to the directions one more time, handed me my helmet, and disappeared down the path. I was so shocked by her sudden return into my life I finally realized that we’d sent her marching into a possible ambush.

  Nix was off and driving to the next spot. We’d hired T to be a messenger girl. I hesitated. She’d been alone all this time when she could have been with me. I always planned for her and me to live together as soon as we could. The two of us could have faced this angry world at eighteen together. I followed Nix.

  That’s why I was mad, mostly. I think. The loss of her scared me. And I was shit at being scared. When she left, I never got to put down this wall I built. I had a persona to keep up. Unless I was with her. We’d been havens for each other.

  I followed through on the plan and was a lookout for Nix. I alerted him when his meeting with Feybi went too long. Nix was intense about this guy. He was taking everything about this job personally.

  All of a sudden we heard gunshots in the distance.

  I knew it was T. Just like I knew it was her between the cars under the toll bridge when we were kids.

  My stomach was a ball of nerves. I’d fucking let her go into those woods because I was pissed. Because I couldn’t process a change this big that quickly. I scanned the path we sent her down and she was already headed at me, head down, arms pumping. She was either great at hiding injuries or she was completely fine. I slowed my bike and held out my arm. She latched on and swung her leg over the seat. I gunned it once she was holding on tightly. Nix followed us, making sure there weren’t any tails.

  T threw her gun over the bridge into the water and then put her helmet on.

  I was going to take the long way to keep us safe from Feybi’s men who were most likely following us.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I got clean shots off.”

  She had her arms wrapped around my waist hard. I was guessing her adrenaline was still coursing through her.

  “You still good at shooting?” It was out of my mouth before I remembered we had all this tense shit between us.

  Her responding laughter was a home I hadn’t visited in far too long.

  Her happiness trickled through my ear and down my spine like medicine that healed me. I started laughing as well.

  She hugged me harder. On purpose. As a welcome.

  I put my hand over hers. We didn’t have skin-to-skin contact, but it was the best I could do to hug her back.

  “I got way better at shooting than the night they tried to kill you. I missed you, Animal.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, I blinked them away.

  To be missed.

  It was all the Hallmark cards and Christmas songs talked about.

  We were nearing the drop-off point where the hookers were. I knew my T wasn’t a hooker because of the things that happened to her so long ago. Before she could take off her helmet, I let her know.

  “You’re still my family, T. I’ll be back in a few hours. I hope we can talk.” She got off the bike and nodded, then took off the helmet.

  She turned from Nix and me and gave us the middle finger as she walked away.

  My brother would never know that T and I were previously acquainted. I didn’t like keeping things from him, but T’s story was hers to tell. I wouldn’t out her unless she wanted me to.

  Nix and I headed back to his house. His place where I had a room. I hoped that T would stay in town. I wanted to get her alone and find out what the hell had gone on. She seemed to still feel at least a little something for me.

  Chapter 22

  Animal

  I followed Nix home after dropping T off at her street corner, I turned around and left. I wanted to see her in person. Where I wasn’t pretending not to know her.

  When I came back to the corner, Helena and Debra, the hookers, pointed me in the right direction.

  T was in the back corner of a dive bar where pimps and hookers met up to talk business.

  She was sipping on a water bottle. I nodded when I saw her then, and she bent her head in acknowledgement. I made sure to look around and assess the situation. I had to make it clear to every man in the room that I was not to be messed with. I managed to do it with a smile.

  A few of the hookers tried their luck with winks and come-ons. I didn’t have to pay for sex, but I was polite to them.

  “Can I sit here?” I pointed at the chair across from T.

  “The seat across from me always belongs to you.” T set her water bottle down.

  “Really?” I ran my hand through my hair as I sat. “I thought maybe I’d never sit in my spot again.”

  I put my sunglasses on my head.

  She returned my gaze briefly and then it darted all over the room.

  “Care to tell me what happened? Every night before I closed my eyes, I wondered if you were dead. Until Merck showed me a picture of you checking on your mom.” I rapped my knuckles on the scarred wood.

  She picked up her water bottle and took another sip.

  “You get addicted to something, T?”

  I watched her body then for tells. Because lies could be tucked in words, but not in reflexes.

  No tremor. No flinch.

  “I’m not addicted to anything.”

  I watched her swallow. She was obviously uncomfortable. I was making her that way. I reconsidered my approach. I was handling her like an enemy.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have accused you of that. You’ve been to your mom’s? How’s she?” I rubbed at my lips. I knew she was having some issues. It was medication based and there wasn’t anything I could do. I was still watching out for her.

  She shrugged off my apology. “She’s not well. Part of the reason I’m home.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” This should have been my opening question when I first saw her.

  “No. Thanks, though. It’s…good to see you.”

  The shyness peeked out. I recognized it. When we were kids, if I kept testing her, I’d eventually get a smile and even a laugh out of her. That’s when I knew I was truly funny, when she forgot to be demure and would snort laugh at something I said.

&nb
sp; “Same here. You look beautiful. Badass. But super pretty. You glowed up.” I tried my grin out on her.

  She blushed and I thought I saw a glimmer of happiness.

  “You packed on some muscle and height. That all happened how quickly after eighth grade?” She closed one eye while she looked at me.

  I sat up straighter and flexed my biceps. She laughed.

  “It took a while. The height came before junior year. Sister Mary was complaining all the time about how she could barely get the tags off my jeans before I needed a new pair.” I drummed my fingertips on the table.

  When we had eye contact again, I saw her brown ones sparkle with delight.

  “I was like a long string bean. But then soon after—the muscles.” I worked out now to maintain, but Nix always complained how few reps I needed to stay ripped.

  “How’s Merck?” She rubbed her hands on the table like it might be a Ouija board.

  “He’s good. Shot up the ladder at work.” I bobbed my head.

  “Did it work out with you? Ever?” She flipped her hair so I could see her whole face. My favorite version of T. The betrayal was layered just under our pleasant conversation. Heartbreak. Bitterness, maybe. But still, her face and voice took me back to a purer time.

  “Like adoption wise? Nah. It was too complicated for him and eventually for me. He’d drop by two or three times a week to take me out of the home, though. Made sure I went to baseball games and concerts and stuff.” I touched my phone thinking about sending the old man a text.

  There was silence then. The past crowding out the common conversation.

  “I never stopped looking for you.” My voice cracked with the emotion of it. I stopped talking and looked to my left. The hookers and pimps were minding their business, but all at once I wanted T and me out of there. I wanted us both to feel too important to stay in this environment.

  She started and stopped her sentence a few times before squinting at me. “This is not the conversation I expected to have today.”

  “Me either.” I didn’t let her off the hook, though. “But still.”

  Chapter 23

  T

  He was devastating. Just being near him was like getting pulled into the sun. I knew it was probably bad for us both, but my heart was set up like a clearance sale. No returns, no refunds.

  Animal was more beautiful than ever. When we were kids, I was his friend because I watched him look out for everyone else. If a teacher dropped a pencil, he picked it up. If he saw a kid being bullied, he stopped it. Sometimes with fists, but mostly by just talking everyone out of the situation. He was like a magician.

  My observations as a quiet person had paid off. I remembered seeing him lose his cool with a math teacher long ago. She couldn’t understand how it was possible for Animal not to do his homework.

  But I’d watched Animal at night before when we were still in middle school, when his fosters threw him out on the street. He’d banged on the door, yelling for them to at least give him his work, and they’d refused.

  I knew about Animal, but I was a creature of the night in my head. A bat. A fox. Mostly an owl.

  I could see everything around me, and I stayed awake all night a lot of times.

  He wasn’t being disrespectful to that math teacher. He just wanted someone to understand. I got him and the struggle to hand in work when you were trying to survive first.

  That recess I sat near him. He was jovial to everyone on the pavement, but I could tell when he saw me. Like a magnet, he was drawn until we clicked together.

  I’d told him I liked his shoes, and he said he liked mine.

  That same man was in front of me now. His potential was limitless. It had been then as well.

  He was angry that I’d left, and I had shame with that. What he didn’t know was I’d be back until death parted us.

  I’d traveled all over the country, and I’d never felt the magnet again—like I did that day.

  Later, when Nix left to work for the Feybis, I knew Animal would need a person to be with who didn’t have expectations for him. I slid into that place. I belonged there.

  Chapter 24

  Animal

  The year I spent with Nix in Feybi’s organization sucked. I tried to understand his reasoning. He’d lost his will to live when Becca’s mom asked him to leave her alone. Granted, I was glad he was still alive after the scare we had when Becca killed his horrible father, but Nix took things to the extreme.

  I saw the future, though. I knew my man would get out if he wanted to. And he had to want to. Whatever punishment mechanism made sense in his skull-flavored mind wasn’t something I could figure out. Like I didn’t know where his finish line was. I hoped he would recognize it when it came.

  I started to build. In that time the material was already on site, so to speak. I knew how to collect people. The bruised and battered. The ones that needed to have a place. T came around. It’s what she did. It reminded me of when we were kids and had each other’s back. I was guarded. Not with my words, but with my heart. It wasn’t that she’d left, but that she returned and didn’t tell me that was the deepest wound.

  She was getting back in, though. In her head, I think she was doing a penance. In the time away, she had honed her skills for survival to a deadly edge. She didn’t talk about how life was hacking the world on her own as a teenager.

  She didn’t want for money, so it seemed. She learned how to make it. She never shared with me if she finished school, and I didn’t want to open the door to that conversation. Because I had my degree, I didn’t want her to think I was judging her if she didn’t have one.

  Nix was highly inaccessible. He checked in, but shut down. He’d submitted to the Feybi top soldier mentality as far as I could tell because he’d be able to get me a message if he wanted to. He could hack anything if he wanted to.

  So while he improved the Feybi organization, I was creating one to take it down. It was okay, because he’d run it with me once he came to his senses.

  T became my go-to person. She was still quiet and apprehensive, but listening all the time. While I tried to hash out solutions to problems like the docks being run by the Kaleotos, she would file it away, and two weeks later I would hear a rumor that things were settled. Sometimes it was as simple as police activity increasing in the area. Other times places of businesses were burned to the ground. After about three incidents, I addressed her.

  “So the docks, Kaleotos’ restaurant, and the drug deals over at the Duggerton—those were all problems that sorted themselves out.”

  We were in my office in my house. It was temporary. As soon as Nix was back, I was going to his place. I didn’t like being there when he wasn’t.

  T was wearing tight jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and a hoodie. Her style hadn’t changed that much since school. She didn’t wear the black eyeliner as thick anymore, though. Her hair still swooped over one eye.

  She was sitting on my couch. She didn’t look up to acknowledge the fact that I was talking to her. I watched as her pinkie twitched.

  “I’m thinking it wasn’t a coincidence.” I waited until it was awkward for her not to make eye contact.

  She finally looked up. “Things happen.”

  I snorted. “Things that I specifically bitch about mysteriously resolve themselves in my favor? I find that hard to believe, T.”

  She shrugged.

  “And Smiley tripped into the river the night you left me. Just coincidence, huh?”

  Most foot soldiers would be quick to claim responsibility to the man in charge to make sure they got props when it was time. But she wouldn’t even admit to the murder she committed to tie up loose ends before she left town back in the day.

  “’Fess up.”

  I wanted to know if she was going rogue to do these things.

  “I just see a solution and implement it. If it works, it works.” She shifted in her seat.

  “Listen, I appreciate you going and getting shit done, but you have to keep
me informed. If you’re out there putting yourself in danger, I want to know. I don’t like losing track of you.”

  I watched as she tilted her head down. I heard the double meaning of my words then. The argument we never really had.

  That she knew where I was and how I was doing, but I never knew where she was so long ago.

  “I’m sorry.” The apology was for now, and maybe then.

  I didn’t like to beat a dead horse. But I apologized just like that if I accidently stepped in front of someone in line. I wanted more for what we’d been through. What I thought our relationship deserved.

  “You still haven’t told me why.”

  “It’s embarrassing.” She was finally admitting there was a reason.

  “Sweetheart, you knew that my fosters would shoot up the check they got from me, and I was okay with that so I didn’t have to move again. You know I hate snakes. We’ve shared too much shit to be worried about embarrassment.”

  “You remember when I told you I only love once?” She was so far behind her hair that I knew we were about to get real.

  “Yeah. You were loyal to your mom no matter what. She was the only mom you would ever let yourself have.” I tapped my fingers on my desk.

  She raised her face and her hair fell away. Her eyes flashed.

  “Not saying you were wrong about that. But that last foster mom for you would’ve been a real decent choice. I know it costs you to be that way. And I respect it.”

  The flare of anger in her eyes simmered down.

  “I did come back to talk to you in a thrift shop dress. I figured I’d show up and it turns out it was prom night, you know? And when I got there to say hi, I saw you on your way in.” Her voice got so quiet that her sentence disappeared.

  “I went to prom with two chicks…”

  “I only love once, Animal.”

  Oh shit. That’s what it was. She was in love with me. All I could say was, “Oh.”

  Because I loved T. She was—well, is a beautiful woman. But I wasn’t in love with her. She was family. I wanted to keep her behind me. Protect her.

  I pictured the scenario at prom. Her arriving and me somehow missing her. I’d just found out from Merck she was in town from time to time and not checking in with me. And I was pissed and in pain.