Page 51 of American Hellhound
Rob laughed. “Yeah, yeah. It’s always boring with you.”
The others climbed out of the boat, crowding together on the end of the dock, Mercy’s shadow swallowing all of them. Ghost thought Roman looked edgy, though he hid it well. Good, he thought, with some satisfaction.
Rob tossed a look toward the pontoon boat and lowered his voice. “I don’t know what you want with that lot, but I’ve explained everything to them. Y’all are just gonna have a nice little chat, and then all go on your way. They know the boys in blue will be all over ‘em if they so much as blink funny.”
Ghost squeezed his shoulder before he let him go. “I appreciate it.”
Rob nodded. “I’m just gonna go on down here a ways and inspect my other boats.” Which meant he’d be out of whisper range, but close enough to hear and see anything untoward, and he’d be watching them like a hawk.
Ghost turned to Roman. “That them?”
Roman shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted toward the boat and the three men waiting for them on it. His throat jumped as he swallowed. “Yeah.”
Mercy shoved him between the shoulder blades and he stumbled forward a step. “Thanks for volunteering.”
“I can’t believe you let your kid marry this nightmare,” Roman whispered as he passed Ghost and led the way up the dock to the pontoon boat.
From behind, Ghost watched Roman lifted his shoulders, align his spine, and then skew the whole picture with a practiced slump. Pretend-casualness. The transformation occurred between one heartbeat and the next, from nervous captive to swaggering leader. That was the problem with him, the thing he’d never understood about himself. He could pretend to be anyone or anything he needed to be, depending on the situation, but that wasn’t how leadership worked.
“Roman? What the hell is this?” A wiry young guy in a denim cut stepped up to the edge of the boat, squinting at their group with his lips pulled back off his teeth. It was too cold out on the water for his tattered shirt with the sleeves cut out, and all the fine blonde hairs on his arms stood on end, his skin pebbled with goosebumps.
“Come on, Deacon, you know the Lean Dogs weren’t gonna come toyou.”
The kid snorted, gaze tracking across all of them. Half-spooked, half-pissed. Ghost was surprised to find a vice president patch stitched above his breast pocket.
“This ain’t exactly neutral territory.”
“No such thing,” Ghost assured him as he stepped up onto the boat’s deck. It was a party barge, and stayed stable beneath his boots. No doubt Rob had picked it for its roominess, and its visibility – there was nowhere to hide on this thing.
The kid – Deacon – was Aidan’s age, maybe a little younger. He worried his lower lip between his teeth as the Dogs crowded the deck in front of him.
“Ghost,” Roman said, fully-in character now, at ease, good-natured. “Meet Deacon. VP of the Dark Saints. Deacon, this is Ghost Teague.”
Deacon nodded; a muscle jumped in his throat as he swallowed. “Figured.”
“Where’s Boomer? There he is.” Roman walked toward the huddle of three men waiting under the party deck, hands in their pockets, heads on the swivel.
They were young too, Ghost noted with a start. Even the man Roman approached and shook hands with. Thick and wide-shouldered, he lacked Mercy’s height, but was the solid, muscular sort of man you wouldn’t want to start a fight with. He wore his dark hair buzzed close on all sides, long and bristly on top. His jaw was square and firm, nose sporting a bump from a badly-healed break. But his eyes were young, and blue, and vulnerable. He was scared – scared shitless. Hiding it well, but still. His bare, beefy arms clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed. His president patch was new, black with clean white stitching, its edges sharp.
One of the brothers flanking him was the sergeant at arms. The other averted his gaze, glancing out across the shimmering, flickering water.
“Boomer, good to see you, man.” Roman clapped palms with the president and leaned in close for a brief hug, and a whispered exchange of words.
Ghost was dumbfounded. Where had these kids come from? Clubs were by nature eclectic; the younger generation was recruited as the older generation aged and grew arthritic, but both sides of the spectrum were well-represented.
This crew, though, at least the four present, looked like they’d all just come from the same frat house. He’d never seen anything like it.
Roman turned, a friendly arm slung across Boomer’s impressive shoulders. “This is Ghost. I’m assuming there’s no introduction necessary.”
Boomer stuck his hand out, gamely; Ghost could see a fine sheen of nervous sweat on the back of it. “It’s an honor, sir,” he said, and damn if that didn’t just take a wrecking ball to all of Ghost’s defenses.
Well, some of them. He hadn’t lived this long by being an idiot.
He shook the kid’s hand, a fast hard squeeze. As he turned loose, he said, “I’m not sure why we’re here, Boomer,” just to be an asshole.
Boomer blew out a breath and sent a quick, questioning look toward Roman before he shrugged off the guy’s arm and met Ghost’s gaze. “My club’s setting up shop in Spring City. Your crew is based in Knoxville, so I don’t see it being a problem. Sir.” He swallowed.
“Just to the south of us. And you didn’t see it as a problem?”
