Page 47 of American Hellhound
Maggie’s mother drew herself up, thin arms crossed beneath her breasts, head thrown back at a challenging angle. “Who the hell are you?” Her eyes burned him – and not in a good way – as they raked all the way down to his scuffed boots and then back up, lingering on his face in a way that made him want to squirm. It was exactly the sort of way Olivia had looked at him at the end, and hehatedit.
“Kenny,” he said, because his club name was more likely to get him laid, but never worked on mothers. “Kenny Teague.” He shifted so his left hand was on Maggie’s shoulder, and reached with the right to offer a shake to the mother.
She stared at his hand as if he was asking her to touch fresh roadkill. “You don’t live in this neighborhood,” she accused.
“Jesus, Ghost,” Greaves said behind him with a groan. “Why do you always turn up like a bad penny?”
Ghost ignored him. “No, ma’am, I don’t. I met Maggie in town a few days ago. I was telling her that I had trouble finding a babysitter for my son, and she offered to watch him on nights I had to…work.” He stumbled over the last word. He did get paid for it, but it wasn’t exactly work – save on the nights when he had to make sure Roman didn’t get killed.
“Your son?” Her lips pressed together until they were was white as the rest of her face. He could see a fine tremor in one cheek; she was a hairsbreadth from exploding completely. Maybe in a figurative way, but he wouldn’t put it past her to literally fly apart and splatter all over the sidewalk.
Ghost had no idea where he was drawing his patience. He squeezed Maggie’s shoulder and said, “Yes, ma’am. He’s in the truck.” He tipped his head to indicate the direction. “We picked her up, and now we’re dropping her off. She was perfectly safe the whole time.” Except, not really, considering his sketchy apartment complex.
Maggie’s father looked down at the toes of his slippers.
Her mother sucked in an audible breath through her nose, which strained the tendons in her neck and made her look almost skeletal. “You didn’t pick her up in front of the house?Drop heroff in front of it?” Her voice had gone quiet – scary quiet.
“Get out while you can,” Greaves hissed behind him. Then, to Maggie’s parents: “Let us know if you have any more trouble, folks. Have a good night.” Sound of their shoes scraping over the asphalt. Thump of doors. The lights went off, and in their absence, Maggie’s mother was a ghost – an actual one.
“She…” Ghost took a breath. “She asked me to…”
“God, Mom,” Maggie burst out, “I didn’t let him drive up to the house because I knew you’d do this exact thing! I didn’t tell you who I was sitting for because you would’ve donethis!” She gestured to her mother’s robe-wearing, lawn-fit-pitching state.
“As well I should!” her mom snapped back, hands starting to flail again. “ThesecondI give you so much as aninchof leeway you start screwing around with white trash thugs like this!” She jabbed an accusatory finger through the air toward Ghost.
It was no worse than anything else that had ever been said about him, but it still stung. More than he would have thought.
“Ugh!” Maggie shoved her hands back through her hair in a show of frustration, and despite the tenseness of the situation, Ghost got lost in its thick gold waves a moment. “I’m notscrewing aroundwith him. I was just babysitting.”
Her mother’s head tipped, like her neck was having a spasm. “Babysitting. Babysitting his son.” Uh-oh: she was at the point of berserk anger that overcame rational English. “Hisson,” she repeated. And then her eyes – dark, flat, furious, nothing like Maggie’s pretty hazel ones – snapped to Ghost. “How old is your son,Kenny?”
He felt like he needed to swallow, so he did. “Eight.”
“Oh. How nice. Half as old as my daughter.My underage daughter.”
“Mom!” Maggie said.
The patrol cars pulled away from the curb.
Maggie’s mom glared at Ghost with a blend of fury and satisfaction.
“God,” Maggie said, turning around to fully face him. “I’m so sorry, she shouldn’t be talking to you like this. Just walk away, please.”
All these sounds seemed to come toward him down a long tunnel. Like he was listening in to the moment rather than experiencing it. His mind latched onto one word:underage. Time slowed between one moment and the next.Underage. Spread slow and thin, like pulled taffy. Nothing else that had been said so far during this conversation mattered at all afterunderage. It meant only one thing: Maggie wasn’t eighteen. Maggie wasn’t an adult. She was achild.Twice as old as Aidan, which meantsixteen.
Sixteen, and Ghost hadkissedher.
Had thought about doing a lot more than that.
Maggie was standing right in front of him, head tipped back so the moon shone on her face, turned it cream, and porcelain, and every pretty pale thing he could think of.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Please–” Her hand landed on his forearm, and itburned.
He shrugged her touch away.
Her eyes widened.
His heart was thumping so hard he could no longer hear the ambient noise of the neighborhood. His pulse was deafening in his ears:sixteen,sixteen,sixteen.
