Page 31 of Baiting Kong
Axel shrugged and stifled a chuckle. “Pretty much. I’m just curious. Why did your brother charge the robber when I was already putting the cash in the bag?”
“He pointed his gun at me,” Scout replied, shivering at the memory of the moment and the split second when he was certain his life was about to end. “Sawyer would have left him alone if he hadn’t.”
“That’s fair,” Axel murmured. “He’s older than you, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“I always wished I had a big brother,” Axel admitted. “Maybe then there would have been a buffer between me and my old man.”
“Does he get on your case a lot?”
“Yeah, and I fuckin’ hate it.”
“My pops is amazing,” Scout said. “After my mom left, he became mom and dad to us. Worked his ass off and still found time to help with homework, cook supper, and teach us to build things. Neither my brother nor I was into sports, but we loved machines, and Pops is a master mechanic. Sometimes he’d bring things in just for us to take apart. Like, that was family time for us, working on some pieces of machinery together.”
“I bet that was fun.”
“It really was. Better than being parked in front of the television watching movies and playing video games,” Scout said. “He’d take us camping and fishing too. In the summer, we’d canoe down the river, fishing until we got bored and found a new place to pitch our tents. Food never tasted as good as when it was cooked over an open flame. I miss it. I miss being a kid and living out there with him.”
“Why not go back?”
“Someday, I will, once I’ve made enough money to help us keep the place.”
“Shit, I have to get back inside; my break is just about over.”
“No worries, I need a nap before work,” Scout remarked before snubbing his cigarette out in the can of sand near his feet. “See ya around.”
“See ya,” Axel called before he disappeared inside, while Scout began the last leg of his walk.
Pinpricks of pain were his only companion as he wandered past the pool hall and glanced in, wishing his brother was around for a couple of games. Their old man was handy with a pool cue and, admittedly, a bit of a shark in his younger days. There were times, during his childhood, when he’d left Sawyer to watch out for Scout while he went into town with his stick. At the time, he’d figured his old man just needed a night out and the company of other adults after weeks of it just being the threeof them. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he realized that he only did it when they were short on cash for groceries.
His old man had put his whole life on hold for them, so when he’d gotten sick, it had been easy for him and Sawyer to do everything they could to keep the salvage yard running. Yeah, maybe Sawyer had done a few things he shouldn’t have, which was how he’d come to be a member of the Hounds. But he’d always kept those men away from their family business. Now it was Scout’s turn to do the same.
Damn, it was hard though.
Mark and the other Jokers he’d met were different from the Hounds. Not better, not worse, just different in the way they went about things. They had businesses and skills. Giving back to the community and helping it thrive seemed to be important to him. Even at their rowdiest, they didn’t go tearing around smashing shit and fucking with people for fun. It was like they were a family. A real, honest-to-God family.
Only family wasn’t supposed to throw you away the way they’d done to Teddy.
Fucking hell. It was all so fuckin’ confusing. Even Kong was confusing, the way he’d looked at him in an almost pleading way when he’d peppered Scout with questions. A part of him would love to tell them about the scrapyard, if only so they’d know he wasn’t trying to run some kind of a scam on them. What Kong had said, about not having his trust or his protection until he did, had left Scout longing to tell him everything, including the reason he was disappearing into town all the time. But what if he was only feigning concern to get answers?
Teddy’s warning, about not trusting Kong because of the way he went through men, echoed in Scout’s head. His shoulders slumped as he trudged up to the gate, punched in the code, and waited for it to roll back and let him in.
He was too tired for a shower now. He just wanted a nap and to stop trying to sort out all the complicated people who’d recently entered his life. Things were easier when it was just him, Sawyer, and their old man.
The moment he cracked the door open, he realized that his wish for Teddy to be asleep or out had gone unanswered. The man stood in the kitchenette frying something that smelled delicious. Scout’s stomach gave a halfhearted rumble, reminding him that he was as hungry as he was exhausted and sore.
“You okay?” Teddy asked as Scout trudged from the door to the couch and flopped face first on it.
“Define okay?” He muttered as he crammed a pillow under his head.
The couch wasn’t as comfortable as the mattress in his room, but it was closer to the food he knew Teddy would share once it was through.
“What happened?”
“Bad choice made with the best intentions,” Scout admitted.
“Isn’t that always the case?”
