Page 57 of College Town

“Dark cars started driving past the house. Frank was right: he wasn’t the only one who’d found us.

“We stayed in Eastman as long as we could. The night before we left, Mom went to the mailbox and pulled out a handful of surveillance photos. One of her taken through the window, standing at the kitchen sink. One of Noah at the skatepark. One of – one of me. With you. Getting into your car after school. There was…I…your face was visible. They knew who you were, and I couldn’t…

“Mom called Frank, and he sent people to pick us up. After I saw those photos, I knew I couldn’t protest anymore. So I went along with it. I let them take me away.

“I let them take me away fromyou. And I let you think that I didn’t love you.”

~*~

At the first mention of Eastman, Lawson stood and went to the window to gaze out at the hill, and the garden beyond it. When Tommy finishes, halting, his voice choked, heavy with regret, he wipes at his face and finds his cheeks wet. He dashes the tears away, and rests his forehead against the cool glass. He feels feverish. Feels a headache coming on.

He's devastated, so much so that the numbness from earlier is creeping back in. Some sort of emotional defense mechanism.

“You okay?” Tommy asks, his voice careful, like Lawson’s glass he’s afraid of shattering.

Lawson nods. When he speaks, he’s grateful to find that the numbness has stolen into his voice, modulated it. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Law.” It’s pleading.

Lawson clears his throat, and squares his shoulders. Watches little birds flutter at the edge of a copper birdbath in the sunniest patch of the garden. “You said this was your desk before. How’d you get on top of Frank?” He grins humorlessly at his own accidental pun, mouth a pained rictus in his reflection in the window.

He hears Tommy slide off the desk, the whisper of quality fabric as he moves to stand at Lawson’s side. He’s not facing the window, but Lawson, his gaze boring through the side of Lawson’s head, his awareness of it breaking across his skin in a wave of gooseflesh.

“Lawson–”

“I asked a question. You said you’d answer my questions, so I’m asking another one. How’d you get to be the don?”

Tommy sighs, sounding impatient. “Nobody actually says ‘don,’ you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Enlighten me.” When Tommy hesitates, he turns to him, finally, his whole face numb, and finds Tommy as fidgety and pissed-looking as he used to get as a kid, when he was having trouble saying what he really wanted to. Like the time he insulted Lawson’s haircut viciously…and then sighed and admitted, through gritted teeth,“You look hot, okay? And I don’t want anyone else looking at you.”

This is like then, with a whole lot of righteous, adulthood anger superimposed over it, arms folded stiffly, hands jammed in his armpits. His chin juts out at a mulish angle, and when Lawson only stares at him, he gives a stiff nod. An angry acquiescence.

“That happened when I was thirty. Frank pissed off a lot of people and blew a lot of money. I got us back in the black, and smoothed the ruffled feathers. When I challenged him for his seat, I had the rest of the family’s backing. He went quietly, for the most part.”

“He’s still around, though.”

Tommy shrugs, stiffly. “He’s still family, and he’s still valuable. But he doesn’t make decisions anymore.”

“That makes sense. You were always a dictatorial little shit.”

Tommy’s gaze narrows, and Lawson ignores the way it makes his stomach flip. Pushes at the numbness so it spreads a little more; so it fills him, an internal armor of sorts.

“Okay, next question: where’d you get the Russian mail-order bride?”

The narrow gaze becomes a scowl. “Don’t call her that.”

“Protective of the soon-to-be-little-missus, are we?”

“She’s not – okay, look.”

“I’m looking.”

“Technically, she’s my fiancée.”

“Oh, only technically. That doesn’t count, then.”

“Shut up. Natalia’s a good person, and she doesn’t deserve to have you rag on her.”

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