Page 149 of American Hellhound
Here went nothing. “I know how you can get a loan for the garage.”
He looked skeptical. “Okay.” Touch of doubt in his voice. Like he didn’t see how a teenager could solve his financial problems.
It gave her the resolve she needed to push him back another step and say, “My dad works at a bank.”
“Okay,” he said, mildly, like she was crazy. “I don’t have any credit, number one. And number two, your parents want me drawn and quartered. So thanks, but no.”
“My dad doesn’t hate you,” she corrected. “He’s sad, and disappointed, and worried, sure, but he doesn’thateanyone. If I ask him to do this for you, he’ll do it.”
In a sequence of hilarious eyebrow twitches, the horror of her seriousness dawned on him. He staggered back as if she’d shoved him, both hands scratching through his hair, standing it up in black spikes. “You’re shitting me,” he said, tone hopeful. “This is a joke, right?”
“Ghost,” she said with a sigh. “You want to start the garage. Youneedto.” And he did, she thought. He needed to get out from under his uncle’s poisonous thumb, strike out on his own. In the über macho world of one-percenters, men made their statements with action. With sweat, and blood, and violence. Duane couldn’t respect Ghost until he became, in his eyes, a man. Maggie couldn’t help him bash heads, or arm wrestle at truck stops, or whatever physical labors these biker boys revered, but she could do this for him. If he’d let her. “Let me help.”
He sat down hard on the edge of the bed, ribs expanding as he hauled in a deep breath; his running black dog tat seemed to stretch, as if it was prepared to leap off his skin down onto the carpet. “I won’t take money from your family. Iwon’t.” He sounded affronted by the idea.
She moved to sit beside him, close enough to feel the heat and unhappiness rolling off of him. “It wouldn’t be from my family. It would be a real loan, from the bank. Dad would just put all the paperwork together.”
“I have no credit!”
“He could cosign for you.”
He made a face. “Yeah. Here, let me cosign a loan for the creepy fuckhead who’s nailing my teenage daughter. Right, because that’s a thing that people do.”
“He–” she started.
“No,” he cut her off, surging to his feet. He paced a tight line from wall-to-wall, kicking viciously at his discarded jeans when he stepped over them. “Stop talking about it. It’s not happening.”
“You can’t just dismiss it.”
“Watch me.”
“You don’t have a lot of options, so you need to seriously consider the ones youdohave.”
“I said to shut up about it,” he growled, whirling to face her, hands balled into fists at his sides. He might have been an actual Lean Dog then, all raised hackles and poorly-leashed menace, eyes flashing, glint of black in the lamplight.
When she was ten, her next-door neighbors bought a new dog: a Belgian Malinois, imported, expensive, professionally trained. A gorgeous, smart, very effective dog – when handled properly. But Mr. Vega enjoyed frightening neighborhood children with it. The dog had been designed to intimidate burglars and home invaders, but Vega would let it out into the front yard, delighted when he’d venture into the Lowes’ yard and bark at Maggie.
There were two ways people reacted toward aggressive dogs. They ran. Or they growled back. One afternoon, set upon by the snarling beast in her own yard, Maggie stood up on her tiptoes, puffed out her chest, and pushed her voice as low as it would go, a shouted “Hey!” that started the dog…and herself. “Knock it off!” And he knocked it off, and didn’t bother her again.
So Maggie knew what it looked like when a pissed-off dog tried to dominate her. And in this instance, just like the last, she growled back. Maybe it was second nature, maybe it was some of her mother’s blood bubbling to the surface, but it wasn’t a conscious decision. She justdid it.
“Hey.” She jumped up, hands curling into fists of her own. “Don’t tell me to shut up. You don’teverget to tell me that.”
He stopped breathing. His chest expanded…and then nothing.
She, however, had flipped some sort of switch inside herself. Later, she’d groan to think it was more of her mother’s influence, but in the moment, she could only go along with it.
“You’re pissed off, and scared, and worried, and maybe some other things. I get that, okay? I do. Trust me, I’m all those things all the time too. But you’re not my parent, or my teacher, or my boss, or my freaking parole officer. I love you. I love youso much, but I don’tanswerto you. You don’t want my help? Fine. Screw you. But if youevertell me to shut up again, I’m gone. Right after I kick you in the damn balls. Understand?”
His face had smoothed over, blank with wonder. His eyes moved slowly across her face, down her arms to her ineffectual fists, and back up again. “Uh…”
She lifted her brows.
“Yeah. Um.” He cleared his throat. “Understood.”
She let out a deep breath and eased back down to the bed, spent after her adrenaline surge. “I’m just trying to help.”
“I know.” Quiet voice now, head ducked, embarrassed or ashamed. A little bit defeated: “I don’t know what to do, Mags. Maybe I ought to forget the whole thing.”
