Elijah laughed – the first time he’d laughed since they met.
“No, I’m serious, you might get to meet Martha Stewart.”
His laughter deepened – and he laid back across the grass, hands folded over his stomach as it died away slowly, happily.
Carter’s life had become so pathetic that making someone laugh felt like a victory.
After a moment, when the silence was once again only broken by the twitter of birds and the distant calls of children over on the playground – ignoring their mothers’ calls that it was time to go home and have dinner – Elijah’s gaze cut over, serious once more, assessing. “You’re good at this.”
Carter lifted his brows.
“Coaching.”
He was too stunned to respond.
“You ever think about doing it as a career?”
“No.”
Elijah shrugged and glanced away. “Maybe you should. If the whole biker thing doesn’t work out.”
In truth, he’d never considered such a thing. Opportunities were for people with better connections, better resources, and, above all, money – all things he hadn’t had when he left college. He’d spiraled straight into depression, written off the whole rest of his life, and never stopped to consider other possibilities. When Ava walked into Leroy’s that day, he’d seen it as a sign, as the best offer he was likely to get.
Tripped up on second-guessing, he nearly missed what was unfolding right under his nose: an inroad to talking about the high school. His stomach soured when he thought of it. He’d come here out of a genuine desire to help Elijah; he wasn’t running a sting, or trying to use this kid for his own, nefarious purposes.
But.
He wore the black dog on his back. That came with responsibilities and obligations. He could hear Ghost’s voice in his head:If you club has your back, then you have to have the club’s.
He drew one knee up and rested his chin on it. “Since you brought it up: the other night. When your teammates were giving me a hard time.”
Elijah stiffened immediately, face blanking.Shit. “Man, they were just playing. They didn’t mean anything.”
“No, I know. It didn’t bother me. But. Like. When I was in school, everybody thought the Dogs were pretty cool” – a total lie; he’d watched them torment Ava, had known what Mason’s posh set thought of the local “biker trash” – “but it seems like maybe they don’t anymore.”
Elijah fidgeted a moment, fingers drumming against his stomach. He made a face, squinting against the sinking sun – or maybe shrinking back from what was probably a harsh truth he was reluctant to share. “You guys have a reputation, you know?You’renot scary. But everybody knows who runs all the drugs in this town. And when you guys all go down the street together like you do…”
“Yeah,” Carter said. “I get it.”
“Everybody around here knows who Ghost is. Everybody knows that he isn’t the guy you ever want showing up.”
Even if he was trying to work on public relations, Carter thought there was a large part of Ghost who would be delighted to know that. Plenty of his brothers relished being a dark shadow that fell across doorways; the boogeyman in the middle of the night.
“I had someone tell me they thought the Dogs were responsible for that girl that went missing.”
Elijah’s brows went up. “Allie?”
“You know her?”
“She came to a lot of the games last season with her friends. She was on the homecoming committee. But I wasn’t friends with her, no. I was at the party, though, the one where she disappeared, after.”
“See anything weird?”
“Nah. The usual shit. Jimmy’s parents weren’t home, and he’d gotten his older brother to buy a keg. Buncha stupid white kids getting drunk and spilling shit on the furniture.”
“Wait. Jimmy Connors?”
“Yeah. His dad has that boat place.”
