Page 96 of American Hellhound
By the time the boys’ Harleys thundered up the street, all the kids had fallen asleep. Maggie had helped put Ava’s three down. Lucy was tucked into a sleeping bag on the floor beside Millie’s crib, and Lainie was in her Pack-‘N-Play.
Sam and Holly began the careful process of collecting their babies without waking them, and Maggie was struck anew by the shock of her pregnancy. She’d thought she was done with that sort of thing, but in a few months, she’d be doing this all over again. It was a stressful sort of déjà vu.
She felt displaced, older and younger all at once, caught in some strange time warp. It was…it was going to make her freak out if she thought too hard on it. So she stole out of the room, slipped silently out to the patio – this was becoming a pattern – and leaned up against the cool siding, ears tuned to the conversation making its slow way up the walk. Contemplating her own circumstances had always been panic-inducing, but she could throw herself into external problems all damn day.
“…tomorrow?” Michael’s voice asked.
“Noon,” Ghost said. “That gives us time to get ready.”
“The guy’s a lying son of a bitch.” That was Mercy.
“Yeah, but we know that,” Ghost reasoned. “He can only fuck with us if we let him.”
Michael made a disagreeing sound.
Then they stepped into the wash of the patio light, the shadows breaking away in jagged shards across their faces.
Ghost looked briefly surprised.
“Mags,” Mercy greeted.
Michael nodded as he passed, and she nodded back.
They left her alone with Ghost, door shutting with a muffled thump.
“Eavesdropping?” Ghost asked conversationally.
She hugged her middle, the cold starting to bleed through her clothes. “Just a little bit.”
He closed the distance between them, expression preoccupied. But when he put his arms around her, she felt the tension slowly leave him. His body relaxed one muscle at a time. He kissed the top of her head. She’d always loved that particular kiss. It wasn’t sexy, but intimate. Even when he was a twenty-seven-year-old sex machine, he’d craved intimacy.
“You found Roman?”
“And his kid.”
“Hiswhat?”
“Yeah, turns out he knocked someone up twenty-one years ago and he’s been a single dad this whole time.”
“Damn.” She was having trouble imagining it. “A boy?”
“Boomer.”
“Lord.” She chuckled. “Yeah, I can see that.”
His chest pressed into hers as he took a deep breath. He sighed noisily on the exhale. “Shit, baby. I’m getting soft in my old age.”
She poked his very not-soft abs with a finger. No one ever believed he was in his fifties. “Not from where I’m standing.”
He hummed, amused. “Roman’s got a sob story. And…there’s a part of me that believes it.” He had a physical reaction to his admission, a quick ripple of disquiet. She felt it shiver through her skin.
“Every great once in a while, a sob story gets to you.”
He grunted.
“Not often,” she added. “And not easy. You can talk to your daughter for that clarification.”
“Hmm.”
