The coin disappears between his fingers, he claps his hands and when he shows me his palms the coin’s gone.
“Are you going to pull a rabbit out of your ass next?” I ask.
“No, but I’ll shove a rabbit up yours if you pull any of that shit again like you did with the Riot last night.”
“I was playing.”
He snorts. “Playing is dangling meat in front of hungry bears with anger issues. What you did last night was skipping through nuclear fallout. I’m not kicking you in the stones, man. I’m a friend trying to watch your back.”
I nod because that’s the best I got for him. The coin reappears as if from thin air and he’s flipping it through his fingers again at a rapid rate.
“Remember middle school with Breanna?” he asks. “She did that science project that re-created the telegraph or some shit like that. I remember my head hurting because I couldn’t understand half the crap she said.”
I chuckle because I do remember. I also recall hating her because I was proud of my exploding volcano. The moment she opened her mouth, there was no way I was going to win.
“Remember how Marc Dasher treated her after that?” Chevy says with a hint of pity.
“Yeah.” After her presentation, the bastard tortured Breanna. “We need to mess that guy up.”
“Patience” is all he says.
My eyebrows lift. Neither Chevy nor Oz are the type to walk from a fight, but they never search for one like me. As I’m about to ask what I’m missing, my father’s voice booms into the night. “Razor!”
The boisterous conversations cease and the droning baseball announcer is the lone sound.
“Find Oz,” I say. “I need you two to ride with me to Shamrock’s later.”
“Shamrock’s?” There’s a question in his tone and I understand why. “There’s going to be Army boys there causing problems tonight.”
“I know.” Breanna and her friends have no idea what they could be dancing into.
“Then I’m on it.” He slips off the table as it’s time for him to leave. Chevy’s seventeen and can’t enter his prospect period, the initiation time span when the club decides if someone should become a full-fledged member, until he’s eighteen. No one underage is allowed at the clubhouse after eight oh one. “Good luck in there.”
We smack hands, I take a fast swig from the longneck, then dump the nearly full beer into the trash. Everyone watches and half of me expects a muttered comment of “dead man walking,” but they keep their mouths shut. The shit I’m in is too deep for a smart-ass comment.
Dad’s already gone by the time I reach the door, so I head up the stairs. As the sergeant at arms, it’s Dad’s job to call people into the boardroom. It’s also his job to kick people out. Wonder how this evening will end.
I walk in and the chairs at the long mahogany table are filled. As president, Cyrus owns the head. He’s got a long beard and ponytail to match. He’s a bear of a man. I love him like a grandfather but have enough healthy fear to keep my distance when he’s pissed.
Cyrus’s son Eli sits on his right. The way Eli examines me gives the impression he’s about to yank his gun out of his holster, unload a clip into me, and will happily spend a few more years in prison over it. He tugs at the plugs in his ears and his gaze falls over to my father.
Dad drops into his seat next to Oz’s dad. There’s no seat for me, which is fine. I prefer to stand while being fired at. “I didn’t engage.”
But I would have and they know it.
“You messed up,” Eli states. “But the good news is you didn’t actually come face-to-face with them, so we’re going to call that one straight.”
Interesting. Last time I disobeyed a decree from the club’s bylaws, I was fined a hundred bucks and I had to clean bathrooms with the prospects for a month.
Eli stands and motions to his empty chair. “Take a seat.”
My eyes find Dad’s and he nods to confirm it’s cool. I move slowly to the table, waiting for a trapdoor to fly open beneath my feet. As I sit, Eli draws a folding chair up to the other side of Cyrus and straddles it directly across from me.
Cyrus may have been voted in by the members as president, but everyone knows that Eli is the chief of this tribe. Not because that’s how he wants it, it’s because every man who wears a Terror cut respects the hell out of him. But because of Eli’s stint in prison, he can’t hold an official office. “What went down with you and the detective?”
I could do a play-by-play, but talking that much to anyone isn’t my style. Instead, I pull out my phone, bring up the picture of Mom’s car, then slide my cell to Eli. “He gave me a file to look at and said that Mom’s death wasn’t an accident.”
There’s silence. It’s a silence so loud I can hear my pulse beneath my skin, the squeak of Cyrus’s chair as he readjusts, the inhale and exhale of breaths. What I loathe in this silence is how it doesn’t feel like shock or surprise. It’s more like guilt.
Dad balls his hands on the table and turns red—the same pissed-off reaction whenever we discuss Mom.
Eli scratches at the stubble on his jaw. “Did you take any more pictures?”
I remain mute and I don’t know why. The answer’s there with a swipe of his finger, it’s on the tip of my tongue, but then my sight lands on Dad again. He’s not lifted his head yet. He hasn’t said a word.