Seth pulled up at the curb outside Sean’s condo, pulled out his cell phone, and dangled it in front of Sean’s face. “Here.”
Seth waved it away. “Forget it. I don’t want—”
“Take it,” Seth snarled. “Or else I’ll hit you with it.”
Sean sighed, shoved it into his pocket.
“Short string gets to babysit this bozo til midnight.” Davy held out his huge fist. Four pieces of string dangled from it.
“Aw, shit,” Sean protested. “I don’t need—”
“Shut up,” Davy said harshly. He pulled out a string—long. Con grabbed his. Long. Seth and Miles drew.
Miles grunted in resignation. He had the short string.
“Congratulations. You got your work cut out for you,” Seth said.
“This is humiliating,” Sean complained.
“Tough. If you don’t like it, stop doing this to us every year.”
Sean shut his eyes. The weight of his eyelids made his eyeballs throb. Red bloomed like a bloodstain in his head. Black bloomed from the center and took its place. Red again. Then black. The drumbeat of his stubborn heart. And behind it, Kev’s pickup. Endlessly falling.
Miles shoved open the door and slid out. Sean followed him.
“Hey. Erin had a sonogram yesterday,” Connor said abruptly.
“Oh, yeah?” he inquired politely. “Everything’s fine, I trust?”
“Yeah, everything’s great. It’s a boy,” Con said.
“Ah. Uh…good. Congratulations.” He felt like he should say something more profound, but his mind was as blank as the white sky.
“We’re going to name him Kevin,” Con added.
Something squeezed like a vise around his larynx, horribly tight.
Con laid his hand on Sean’s shoulder. “It helps, you know?” his brother said, his voice intense. “Trying to make a difference. And if it all comes together and you get there in time to save somebody, oh, man. It’s the best damn thing in the world. It makes up for so much.”
“Yeah? And then? What happens after? When the thrill is gone?”
Connor hesitated. “You get out there and do it again.”
Sean nodded. “Right,” he muttered. “It never lasts, does it?”
“No,” Connor admitted. “But then again. What does?”
Sean contemplated that. “Sounds pointless and exhausting.”
His brother did not contradict him. He just turned away, his face stony. Sean let the door swing shut. The Chevy sped away.
Chapter 2
Sean and Miles stared at each other. Miles’s mouth was settled into a flat, stubborn line. “Don’t even start,” he said. “It’s useless.”
Sean groaned inwardly. Not that he didn’t love the guy to pieces. Miles was a great kid. A good friend. Crazy useful when it came to the gearhead techie computer details that bored Sean out of his skull. In the last couple years since he’d taken on the role of McCloud mascot, he’d proved his worth many times over. But Sean wasn’t up to being anybody’s mentor, love counselor, cheerleader, or fashion guru today.
“Buddy? You know I love you, right? But I don’t want company,” he said wearily. “So get lost. Disappear. See ya.”
“Nope.” Miles’s face was implacable.
Sean realized that clenching his teeth so hard was making his head throb harder. He made an effort to relax his jaw. “OK. Let me phrase this differently,” he said. “Disappear, or I’ll rearrange your face.”
Miles looked unimpressed. “If I leave you alone and you get into trouble tonight, Davy, Con, and Seth will rip my head off and plant it on a stake. There’s only one of you. There’s three of them. Forget it.”
Sean started up the stairs to his condo. Each step was a hammer blow to his skull. “I won’t get in trouble. I don’t have the energy.”
“I’m not going to get in your face, either.” Miles followed him up the stairs. “Just pretend I don’t exist. I’m used to it. Look at my track record with the women. I’m, like, the Invisible Man.”
Sean shot Miles a critical glance as he unlocked his door. “Do not say stuff like that if you want to get lucky with women,” he lectured, out of habit. “Don’t even think it. It’s the kiss of death.”
“Yeah.” Miles rolled his eyes. “By the way. I need a favor.”
Sean slapped the door open. “It’s not a good day to ask favors.”
“You owe me,” Miles reminded, following him in. “Big-time.”
Sean spun around, planted his feet, and gave Miles a death look that knocked him back two paces. “What the fuck do you want, Miles?”
Miles gulped. “I want you to drive me up to Endicott Falls.”
Sean started to laugh at the irony of it. He breathed the shaking feeling down before it made him hurl all over his own kitchen. “Dream on, buddy. I hate that town, especially today, and it hates me worse.”
“I taught your Thursday kickboxing classes for the entire past month when you were in L.A.,” Miles reminded him. “I spent three days fixing your computer when that virus crashed it. Free of charge.”
“Aw, shut up. What do you want with that backward hole, anyhow?” A thought struck him. He shot Miles a darkly suspicious look. “Isn’t Cindy up there, doing band camp? Don’t tell me you’re still—”
“Absolutely not. I am totally over Cindy.” Miles’s tone was stony. “She’s up there, but I avoid her like the frigging plague.”
Sean was unconvinced. Miles had been pining for Cindy Riggs, Connor’s wife Erin’s seductive little sister, since before the McClouds had met him. He’d finally gotten a clue, after a spectacularly public episode last summer at Connor’s wedding, but it had not made him happier. On the contrary. He’d been in a funk ever since.
“I’m sound and light technician for the Howling Furballs at the Rock Bottom Roadhouse tonight,” Miles told him. “And tomorrow, I start assistant teaching karate at the Endicott Falls School of Martial Arts.”
Sean was startled. “No shit. You’ve got, what, a brown belt now?”
“Nope. Passed the test for my first dan black belt last month. Got an honorable mention for my kata, too.” The pride in Miles’s voice was palpable. “Davy gave my name to a guy who runs a dojo in Endicott Falls. They need someone to help with the class while the regular teacher recuperates from knee surgery, so…it’s no big deal.”
“It’s a very big deal,” Sean said. “It’s great. Good for you.”
“Plus, my folks just bought a car. They’re giving me their old Ford. This is the last time I’ll have to blackmail you into giving me a ride.”
“That’s reason enough in itself to drive you up,” Sean said sourly. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Early nineties sedan, right?”
Miles looked wary. “So? What of it?”
“Beige, right? I’ll bet you my left nut it’s vomit-tinted beige.”
Miles jerked his shoulders in a defensive shrug. “So what if it is?”
“Fogeymobile,”