The two of them sat down on the bench to take long pulls from their water bottles; Carter offered a wave to the watchful mothers who’d taken up spots on the next bench over, and got several waves – and even an appreciative look – in return.
“Now that your face doesn’t look like shit” – his bruises had all but faded – “you gonna try to bag a soccer mom?” Elijah teased.
“No.” His cheeks heated. “I mean, I could if I wanted to…”
Elijah choked on a laugh.
“But nah. Not really my thing.”
“Not your thing? Who was that MILF I saw you talking to that night at practice?”
“Oh. Um. Well. She…”
Elijah knocked their shoulders together. “I’m just playing, man, relax before you have a stroke.”
Carter wiped a hand down his face. “My relationship history is really weird, okay?”
“Okay, okay. That’s cool.”
It was a little bit shocking, how quickly they’d moved from warily circling one another to being something almost like friends. When he wasn’t waiting for Carter to prove himself an enemy, Elijah was jovial, and funny, and not at all afraid to rib his pseudo-coach. Carter truly did love his club brothers, and, on good days, he liked joking back and forth with them, too; but there was a part of him that would always feel like he’d stepped into a world in which he did not belong. Even flying the Lean Dog on his back, he didn’t truly feel that he was one.
A braver man than him would have opened his mouth and actually talked to someone about that – maybe not Aidan, but at least Mercy, or Tango. Even Ava.
It was easier with Elijah. With someone who loved the game the way he did; who was hungry for the same things he’d been hungry for at this age.
Out on the field, the boys had upended their bag and now zipped around wildly, kicking soccer balls in every direction without any sort of organization or cooperation. It was the spirit that counted at that age, Carter guessed. Beyond them, the sun flirted with the tree line, brilliant as a fresh orange, too fierce to look at for long, though the trailing gold and pink froths of cloud tempted the eye.
“Hey,” Elijah said, and his voice had gone serious. “You know how you asked me about everybody hating the Lean Dogs at school?”
Carter turned toward him, careful not to look too eager. “Yeah.”
“Jimmy Connors was running his mouth in the cafeteria today.”
“About what?”
Elijah shrugged and looked away, hands knotting together around his water bottle. He looked uncomfortable. “Just talking shit about how the Dogs tried to scare him at work. Said y’all roughed up his dad.”
Carter snorted. “My president spoke to his dad. He didn’t rough him up.”
“I know,” Elijah said, surprising him. “He was all worked up. Saying y’all took Allie off and chained her up in the clubhouse. Lotta real nasty shit.”
Carter took a slow breath in through his mouth, startled by the surge of fury that swept through him. And after they’d gone to the effort of setting up that little show on Main Street. After people saw Carter step in. And now Jimmy was out saying they’d turned Allie into some kinda club sex slave. Thatlittle shit. “Do you believe what he said?”
“No.” Right away, no hesitation. His gaze slid over, cautious – but not like it had been at first. “It’s like I said before: I don’t really give a shit about Jimmy. And now he’s being super fucking annoying. He’s got it out for y’all. Bad. And I don’t know why. Everybody knew he liked Allie–”
“He did?”
“Yeah. He was kinda stalkery about it, actually. She was real sweet, but there was no way in hell she was gonna go out with him.”
“Did he harass her?”
“Nah. But he was following her around at the party.” His gaze narrowed. “Why do you care?”
“Well, for starters, I care about the fact that some dumbass is trying to blame us for something awful that we didn’t do.”
Elijah nodded, and Carter thought he looked sheepish.
“And one of my brothers – his old lady’s a PI. A really good one. The police haven’t found anything, and she was supposed to do some poking around today and see if she could find anything useful out about what happened to Allie.” He caught his gaze and held it. “But I promise you: we had nothing to do with Allie disappearing.”
