Page 19 of The Evening Wolves

Emery clapped again. It was all he could manage, since he was, quite literally, choking with rage.

“Bubs,” John said with what sounded like a suppressed laugh, “we’ve got to talk to these guys. Can you keep an eye on the girls?”

“That’s not fair,” Colt said. “I’m old enough—”

“Go watch the girls, you walking boner,” North said.

Emery waited for the explosion.

Instead, though, an enormous, goofy grin spread across Colt’s face. He glanced at North and jogged toward the front room.

“Who said being a parent was hard?”

Emery opened his mouth.

“Not right now,” John murmured.

“Later.”

“Oh, definitely later.”

That was good enough for Emery.

The first few minutes, John spent greeting everyone properly—hugs, slaps on the back, squeezing shoulders. North actually gripped him by the arms and shook him a few times, which only made John laugh, and Jem’s hug turned into a quick grapple as John tried to recover his wallet. Shaw whispered something in John’s ear that made his shoulders soften, and Tean’s hug, although reserved, made John swallow and grow still for a moment. Emery had watched a documentary on the restoration of old paintings, and it was something like that—like the real John was emerging, moment by moment, from where the pale, exhausted man had stood before.

Finally, John stood at Emery’s side again, holding his hand. When he spoke, everyone fell silent.

“Thank you all for coming. I couldn’t have imagined anyone doing this for me. Thank God Auggie had his phone, and, as usual, was much smarter than the old men in the room.” A laugh rippled through the room, and Theo hugged Auggie to him as a flush lit up Auggie’s face. “We love you all so much, and we’re so grateful you came.”

“We love you too,” Shaw said, and Tean nodded.

“I know you gave up a lot to be here, and I’m so thankful for your support. But the reality is, the best thing you can do now is go home. This is going to be a long process. It’s going to be hard.” A grim smile shadowed his face. “It’s going to be awful, I imagine. But I’m innocent, and all we can do is let the justice system take its course. I hate to ask you to go home after you just got here, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I’m always going to remember that you came like this, to show your support. Thank you. I don’t think I can say that enough. Thank you so much for doing this.”

In the silence that followed, Colt’s voice came from the living room, “No, bite Lana! Bite Lana, you dumb dog!” And Lana and Evie giggled helplessly.

“John, may I talk with you privately?” Emery said.

“What happened?” North asked. “Did they do that thing in prison where they put all the bunks in a circle and bang your brains out?”

“If anybody’s going to bang his brains out,” Shaw said, “it’s Emery, only Emery hasn’t had a chance unless they were banging in the basement.”

“They weren’t,” Jem said. “Tean would have told me.”

“Jem!”

“What? You would have. Oh, you know what it is? It’s probably because he hasn’t had any real food and his brain is low on—Tean, what’s that thing when I get McDonald’s brain because I haven’t had a McGriddle or anything delicious?”

“There’s no such thing as McDonald’s brain.”

“Glucose. His brain probably doesn’t have any glucose. He needs a Big Mac, minimum, supersize fries.”

“They don’t do supersize anymore. There was a movie. Someone died.”

“Nobody died. Well, maybe. But if you make friends with the fry lady, and then you come up with ‘supersize’ as a code word—”

“John-Henry,” Theo said, “you’ve been through a lot. Why don’t we talk about this in the morning?”

“I appreciate that you all want to help,” John said, “but I believe in this town, and I believe in our justice system, and—”

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