Page 150 of The Spider & the Storm

“But I prefer Ray.” Ray was a little younger than Stormy, but her eyes twinkled with the wisdom of someone who’d seen more than even I could imagine. “It’s nice to meet you, Charlie.I think …” She gave Stormy a questioning sidelong glance. “I feel like I’ve seen you before … like … I don’t know … I can’t—”

“When you guys came up last month, we bumped into him outside the restaurant,” Stormy cut in, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment. “But I didn't know his name then. I had called him—”

“The Spider,” Ray finished, her face lighting up with instant recollection as she nodded. “That's right. The tattoos.” Her eyes dropped to my forearms and hands. “Well, it's nice to officially meet you, Charlie.”

“You too,” I replied while trying to place her in my memory.

She had remembered me, but could I remember her? It felt shameful that she hadn't made as much of an impact on me as I apparently had on her.

She gestured toward the two boys, engaging Chris in separate but equally enthusiastic conversations. “Those are my kids. The tall one is Noah, and the short one is Miles. I'd introduce you, but obviously, I'd be interrupting something very important.”

I lifted one side of my mouth. “Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll say hi later.”

“Where's Soldier?” Stormy asked, looking around the living room.

Soldier …

My gut churned with the panic I’d felt weeks ago at the sound of his name.

Ray sighed with agitation, and I looked back at her in time to watch her eyes roll. “Miles is on an apple-juice kick. It's literally all the kid will drink, and Mom forgot to grab some at the store. So, Soldier ran out to find an open store.”

She laughed beside herself and lifted her eyes to mine, obviously attempting to pull me into the conversation. “You know, kids.”

Actually, I didn’t. It might've been silly and sheltered of me, but I couldn't say I honestly knew much about kids at all. I'd been one at some point, and I'd had brief interactions with them throughout my life—mostly while working or running into a grocery store. But apart from that, I couldn't say I knew anything at all about what they were like.

But still, I pushed my lips to smile and forced a laugh. “Yeah.”

Chris stood up from where he'd been sitting on the couch with the boys on either side of him. He announced to them that Grandma had been up all night, baking cookies for them, and he led the way into the kitchen. Only the younger boy—Miles—followed while Noah made his way over to where I stood with his mother and aunt. He eyed me warily, eyes narrowed. There was distrust written in the premature lines forming between his brows. Stormy had mentioned her sister had been through some things, never divulging what those things might've been, but now, I wondered. Had her son been through those same things? What had happened to make him eye a stranger that way? Like he had every reason to believe I was up to no good.

He reminded me of … well, me.

“Hey, kid,” Stormy greeted him.

She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. He hugged her back, but his eyes never left me. So much suspicion was held in that darkened gaze, too old to belong to a kid this young. How old was he anyway? Sixteen? A little older maybe?

“God, you're getting too tall,” she complained, her tone teasing.

He ignored the jab though and instead asked, “Who's this?”

Ray bumped her hip against her son's and said, “Your aunt Stormy has aboyfriend.”

I didn't have to know much about kids and teenagers to understand a post-traumatic response when I saw one. So, I held my hand out to him, treating him with respect—like a man—so as not to give him the impression that he had reason to worry about his aunt.

“Charlie Corbin,” I introduced myself. “You must be Noah.”

“Uh-huh,” he grumbled, nodding. He was slow to take my hand, but he did. “You bumped into us, right?”

I chuckled awkwardly. God, did theyallremember me? “Apparently.”

He was a few inches shorter than me, putting him at maybe six foot even. Good-looking kid with the same eye color as his aunt and mother—a startling shade of green, the color of springtime and new beginnings. But he had the haunted look of dead autumn and deader winter buried beneath that bright green, where he likely dwelled in a past darker than I wanted to acknowledge. A cold trickle of ice carried down my spine as I gripped his hand in mine. Fuck, I hadn't expected to feel like this, so much empathy and compassion for this kid, but I did.I wanted to know what had happened to him, and I wondered how I could find out without overstepping boundaries I had no business wandering beyond.

He dropped my hand and cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest. “I like your tattoos. They're cool.”

“Thanks.”

“Do they mean anything, or do you just like spiders?”

I huffed a soft chuckle, glancing down at the webs covering the backs of my hands and fingers, traveling up my forearms and disappearing beneath the sleeves rolled up to my elbows. “Uh … both.”

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