Page 201 of Lone Star

Something amazing happened: Tenny blushed. “Yeah, well, that was just for practice, yeah? We can’t be doing that sort of thing in an MC clubhouse.” A note of regret in his voice.

“We aren’t like them, remember? We can do what we want.”

Tenny’s face smoothed. Reese thought it might have been amazement.

“I want to show you something.” He let go of him and turned toward the bookshelf along the far wall of the dorm. It had been empty when he moved in, save a few old dusty bike magazines, but it was where he now kept the books he’d borrowed from Mercy. He slid a finger along the cracked spines, until he found the volume he wanted. Slid it out, and flipped to the page he’d marked a few days ago.

He glanced up at Tenny, now thoroughly perplexed. Lowered his eyes to the page, cleared his throat, and read aloud.

“Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.”

He glanced up again, trembling a little inside. He was literate, but he knew his voice was no good for that sort of thing, nothing like the rich warmth of Mercy’s voice when he told stories. But Tenny stared at him, perplexed and transfixed. “It’s from a poem,” he explained. “It’s called ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ I don’t really know what it’s about, but I liked that bit about the cannons. About being shot at, you know, and facing Death? It reminded me of–”

“Us,” Tenny said. “It reminded you of us.”

“People like us,” he said, relieved. “The club too, I guess.”

Tenny swallowed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“The man who wrote it was pretty famous, I think. His name was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”

Tenny stood very still, but he vibrated like a plucked cord.

“Ten is a number,” Reese went on. “But I thought, if you were going to be Tenny, that maybe your real name could be Tennyson. Like the poet. If you like. And then you could be a person. Like me.”

Silence.

Tenny’s lips parted, and he took a breath–

And then his jacket hit the floor and his arms were around Reese, crushing him, and the book hit the floor, too.

Reese thought to scold him, because the book was Mercy’s and they shouldn’t damage it, but then he felt the hot, wet tears, and Tenny was sobbing, broken-open and full-throated, against his shoulder, and so Reese only held him, and they swayed together on the orange carpet, two people who weren’t numbers or weapons at all, butpeople.

This was satisfaction, too, holding his friend while he cried. This was the best kind of satisfaction of all.

Epilogue

It took a few weeks for the wall to get fixed, because Candy would be damned if he paid someone to do it, but Jinx was his best fix-it guy and he was laid-up, and he himself was pretty good, but he’d bought the wrong kind of insulation at first…

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