Page 100 of American Hellhound
“Yeah, well…”
Duane took another step. The desk was no longer between them. “What was it you called me? An old creeper?” He laughed, low and dark. “And look at you, ya hypocrite, neck-deep in underage pussy.”
He took another step, bringing them eye-to-eye, and the smile abruptly fell off his face. His laughter died while the last chuckle still echoed off the close walls. The gleam in his dark eyes was bloodthirsty; Ghost could see his reflection in them, saw the tension in his own jaw and throat. He didn’t look frightened, exactly, but cornered. Staring into Duane’s eyes was like looking into a pond at night; no ripples, no sense of what lurked beneath. All you could see was yourself.
“The difference between you and me,” Duane said. He had whiskey on his breath. “Is thatmypiece of ass is just a goddamn groupie.” One of those lost, fatherless, throwaway women without credibility or connections. Groupies knew what they were getting into, old before their time. “Andyoursis some rich little bitch who’s gonna go running to Daddy, or the cops, and who’scosting me money.”
Maggie, in Duane’s eyes, was a liability.
“I want to meet her,” he said, and Ghost’s stomach knotted up so tight he thought he’d lose his lunch. “Bring her tonight.”
Ghost couldn’t breathe. He tried, unsuccessfully, to drag air into his lungs. “No.” Blame it on the lack of oxygen.
The one-eyebrow lift was a family trait. Duane gave it to him now. “No?”
“I mean.” Ghost scrambled. He felt sweat prickling along his hairline. “She’s busy, and the kid…”
Duane smiled again, sharp canines, sharp edges. “Nah. Bring her.”
And that was that.
~*~
Maggie lost three days to suspension and she spent them throwing herself full-bore into the Teague household, pretending she wouldn’t ever have to go anywhere else. Three glorious days of no dirty looks, no snide comments, no disappointing anyone. Three days of Aidan’s laughter, and Ghost’s possessive touch, and playing house.
And the sex.Oh,the sex. Unlike anything she’d ever imagined.
But then school came back. She almost threw up in the parking lot that first morning, hanging out of Ghost’s truck, staring at the grit of the pavement below her and willing her stomach to settle. When she walked into the building, she held her head high and pretended she wasn’t about to vibrate out of her skin. When people looked at her – and they did – she refused to look away. And then, to her shock,theylooked away. Students, teachers, even the janitor, Mr. Grossman, all averted their gazes before she did.
As she went through that first day, her tension slowly bled away, and her incredulity mounted. She wasn’t mocked, laughed at, or scorned. At lunch, Rachel set her tray down beside hers with obvious hesitance. “Hey,” she said carefully.
They were – all of them – afraid, she realized. She’d been accused of being a Lean Bitch, and she’d proven them right. Stephanie’s scabbed-over face served as living testament to her ferocity.
Huh. She should have melted down sooner.
As the days progressed, she caught the rustle of whispers behind her in the hall. The furtive, half-curious, half-appalled glances became commonplace. She wasthatgirl now – the tainted one. Even Vince Fielding wouldn’t approach her, only stared glumly from the far sides of classrooms.
She’d learned to expect all sorts of things from life, but this total rejection hadn’t been one of them up ‘til now.
Her situation felt tenuous, though. It couldn’t hold, and she knew it, but she didn’t expect the next hit to come so soon.
It was Friday, and she’d picked Aidan up from his after school program, stopped at Leroy’s, and was prepping a simple dinner of chicken and rice while he watched cartoons. Rather than disturb her, the domesticity of the scenario was a comfort. It wasn’t very domestic back home.
Her mother could boil water, but that was the extent of her meager cooking skills. Their part-time housekeeper, though, wide and Ked’s-shod, always humming, always placid, had taught Maggie the ways of the kitchen when she was sick to death of dresses, and candy necklaces, and watching ballroom dance videos. The kitchen, with its heat, and delicious scents, and sizzle of the skillet, was the back of the house, the beating pulse behind all the cold, soulless parties she was dragged to up front. There were no fake smiles, or false pretenses, or plastic personalities in the kitchen. Food, and its meticulous preparation, had no room for lies.
Just like there was no room for lies in Ghost’s small apartment. He was all jagged edges, and long-nursed heartache, and his home was tattered and dated, but it was honest, all of it. And she craved honesty liked narcotics.
She smiled to herself when she heard the approaching rumble of his bike. She could almost count it down in her head now, the time it took him to park, walk up the stairs, and kick the mud off his boots. He was faster today, the door opening while she envisioned him halfway up the concrete stairs. He whirled in, shut the door quickly, and his eyes darted across the room, coming right to her face.
Her cheerful greeting morphed into a careful, “Hi…”
“We have a problem,” he said, and her stomach somersaulted.
“O-okay.” She set down the canister of salt she’d been holding. “What kind of problem?”
“Hi, Daddy,” Aidan said, and Ghost detoured, went to ruffle his curly hair on his way to the kitchen.
“Hey, bud. You have a good day?”
