Page 146 of American Hellhound
Her dinner settled heavily in her gut. “What?”
His smile was thin and humorless. “Guess I gotta buy a suit and take my ass down to the bank or something.” He groaned and scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “Fuck, I don’t even have a credit card – I have no credit. Nobody’s gonna give me a loan.”
“But…it’s going to be a club-owned business. The club’s going to earn the profits, so it only makes sense for the club to put up the money.”
“He says it’s my plan, my risk – my money.” His brows jumped for emphasis.
“But he told you to pitch the plan to everybody. He said–”
He cut her off with another miserable smile. “Welcome to life with Duane Teague, sweetheart. He’ll fuck you over every time.”
She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from responding, but then couldn’t help it. “What anasshole.”
“Pretty much.”
Her face felt hot with agitation, her pulse too quick. She sat back in the booth and stared through the window a long moment, gaze tracking aimlessly across the parking lot, the cars sitting under the streetlamp. Traffic moved past on the road, a parade of headlights. People getting off work, going home to their families. Families with similar problems, no doubt, but right now, the quiet murmur of dinner conversation around them, Maggie felt like she and Ghost were on an island together, stranded, and that not one person was willing to throw them a flotation device.
Her dim reflection in the window glass looked impossibly young. It was a miracle, probably, that their waitress hadn’t called the cops and claimed Ghost had kidnapped a minor. “Sometimes I feel really helpless because I’m sixteen,” she admitted quietly. “But you’re twenty-seven and things aren’t any easier for you.”
“Things are rough for me because I ain’t ever made a smart decision in my life,” Ghost said. “You…you could get outta this, if you wanted to.”
She turned to him and stared, not willing to dignify the stupidity of his remark with a verbal response.
“You could,” he insisted, shrugging, glancing away from her. “My problems don’t have to be your problems.”
“Ghost. Shut up.” To soften it: “We’ll think of something.”
In fact, she was already thinking of something. It made her a little nauseous, but it might be their best option.
“Like what?”
“Let me get back to you on that.”
“Mags–”
“Ugh.” Aidan climbed back into the booth beside her, sneaker soles squeaking on the vinyl.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stupid kids said I had to get off.Assholes,” he said, viciously, the word ugly in his little-boy voice.
“Aidan, you shouldn’t use that word,” Maggie said, on instinct, and then bit her lip, guilty on two counts. One, she cussed herself, and so did Ghost, right in front of the kid. And two: she wasn’t his mom; she couldn’t make the rules for him.
“What kids?” Ghost asked, scowling, already half-out of the booth. “Where?”
Aidan pointed toward the Ms. Pac-Man machine and the lanky teenagers who’d taken it over.
“Little fuckers,” Ghost said, sliding to his feet.
“Ghost,” Maggie started, and he sent her a questioning look, face already dark and tense, spoiling for a fight.
She swallowed, throat suddenly dry.
He cut a striking figure, tall and strong and dark. Patrons were staring. At his face, sure, because it had been rendered with a few bold cuts of some wicked sculptor’s knife, all angles and planes and shadows. But also at his leather and patches, the wallet chain, the scuffed boots – the things that branded him outlaw. Other. Abnormal. Amid soccer moms and little league coaches, suburban families with soft middles and neatly pressed khakis, he was a freak show of muscle and threat and smoke.One of these things is not like the others. In the weeknight bustle of the pizza parlor, he was a wolf among sheep. He had at least two guns on him now – that she knew of. God knew how many people in this city had lit up, or snorted, or injected something he’d sold to them.
A waitress took the long way around to avoid walking past him.
A dad a few tables over had thrown his napkin on his plate and was looking like he might step up and interfere if he needed to, if the reckless outlaw did something he shouldn’t in this nice family establishment.
