Page 57 of American Hellhound
“But?”
“I hate watching you screw yourself over. Again. And again.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted in a small, broken voice. “Everything’s going to shit, and I don’t know how to turn it around.”
If ever anyone in his life had had all the answers, it was Collier. But now, his best friend just gave him a sad look. “I’m sorry.”
“I shoulda listened to you, back when you first met Olivia and said you didn’t like her.”
“Hold on. I said she wasn’t my type.”
“And what did that mean?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t like her. But you can’t think like that. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t have Aidan.”
“Yeah,” Ghost said, and didn’t know which was worse: being a bad parent, or wishing he wasn’t a parent at all. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he stared at his ceiling and wished he’d never met Liv, even if that meant Aidan wouldn’t exist. It didn’t get any lower than that, he figured: wishing your own kid out of existence.
“It won’t be shitty forever,” Collier reasoned. “Aidan’s gonna get older. Duane’s gonna step down or die someday.”
Ghost felt a grin threaten. “Not a nice thing to say about your president.”
“No, it’s not.” Collier topped off his own beer. “My point is…”
“I hear your point,” Ghost said with a nod. “I get it.”
“Good.” Collier’s tone had a finality to it, like he was glad they had that matter settled. “What we gotta do–”
“Oh no.”
“–is find you a new old lady. Those groupies are gonna kill you, my friend.”
“I hate them,” he admitted.
“You always have. You never gave a shit about anything that came too easy.”
Ghost finally smiled, really and truly, because his friend was right. Which maybe explained why he couldn’t stop thinking about Maggie.
They finished the pitcher, threw down some bills to cover it, and ventured back out into the world.
“Shit,” Ghost muttered, sliding his sunglasses into place. Emerging from the smoky, nighttime darkness of the bar into the bright white of late-afternoon felt like stepping into a solar flare. It was long moments before the dancing spots cleared from his vision and he could make out the familiar landmarks.
And something else familiar.
He spotted a flag of honey blonde hair across the street. Maggie was wearing tan cargo pants, brown loafers, and a rust-red sweater that highlighted her figure, the one that belonged to a twenty-five-year-old temptress rather than a high school kid. She had her Ray-Bans on again, and walked with her arms folded tight across her middle, head down.
A boy walked beside her, sandy-haired and still soft-edged with childhood. It made her seem older by contrast, and impossibly younger, this evidence of the kind of guy she ought to be kissing instead.
Ghost didn’t realize he’d made a sound until Collier touched his arm and said, “Whoa. Down, boy.”
He was growling, a low tight sound in the back of his throat. He stopped the second he registered the fact, swallowing hard.
Collier followed his gaze. “Is that her?”
“Yeah.” He forced his hands to relax, uncurl from the fists he’d balled up at the idea of her kissing that doofus walking beside her.
“Okay. Is that her boyfriend?”
“No. I don’t know.” His boots fidgeted across the sidewalk of their own accord.
