sound over Auggie’s phone and rethought sharing that with Mag.
“Second,” he eventually said, his voice sounding tighter, but he was persevering, “stop buying Legos for people’s kids. You got somethin’ like that you wanna do, you tell me. I’ll swing by Target, get it, and you can do the giving.”
Hang on a second.
What?
Not Mag too!
“Last, you can tell Aug he’s off duty. I’m headed to Smithie’s right now. I’m on you and I’m your ride home.”
I stood stock-still.
“Evie,” Mag called.
I remained standing stock-still.
“Evie,” Mag growled.
“Hey,” Auggie said softly, suddenly standing close.
“You’re off duty,” I said stiffly. “Mag’s on his way.”
The phone was out of my hand, I heard Auggie mutter, “Evie’s having a moment. I got it. See you soon.”
Then Auggie’s black eyes were so close, nothing else existed.
“Talk to me,” he urged.
“He’s on his way,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he said.
“He can’t watch me dance, Auggie,” I told him. “He can’t see me dance.”
“Hey,” he said then grabbed my neck on either side “Hey, hey, hey,” he repeated, and I knew why.
The damned tears were building in my eyes.
“My boy thinks you’re the shit, babe,” he said.
Another “babe.”
Yeesh.
I didn’t have it in me to get into that.
Mag was on his way and he was going to see me dance.
“I gotta get out of my head, you know, to do it,” I shared. “I gotta be like, a different Evie in order to be able to go out there. I’m not like Lottie. She’s talented and she’s proud of her abilities, of her body, she understands the world where this exists. She puts things in boxes. She uses them to get what she wants and she’s at one with that. I’m not…that’s not me.”
“I can get that,” he replied.
“I won’t be able to get out of my head if Danny’s watching.”
He kept his hands on me even as he straightened and declared, “I’ll stay.”
I shook my head. “No, no, no. You spent all day with me. You need to go home or do something you want to do.”
“I’ll stay, look after you, drive you to Mag’s after.”
“Auggie, I can’t ask you to—”
“Evan, he’s going to keep it in check, for you. But he’s gonna like watchin’ you dance for a bunch of horny assholes about as much as you’re gonna like him watchin’ you dance for a bunch of horny assholes. I’ll stay.”
“No. Seriously. I wouldn’t feel right if—”
“You know, Duke called Hawk last night.”
Uh-oh.
I wasn’t sure that was good.
I closed my mouth.
“Now, Hawk was there when Mag talked to your brother. So, Hawk gets an earful about how your ma talked to you. And so, Mo, Boone, Axl and me get a call to haul our asses to the office last night. We get there and Hawk is pissed.”
Oh man.
I hadn’t met Hawk yet, but by virtue of his name, and him commanding a crew of commandos, I had a feeling him being pissed was not a good thing.
“He’s got a daughter, you with me?” Auggie asked.
I nodded.
“He also had another daughter, who, while he was deployed, got shot in a drive-by shooting. His wife had a brother who was bad news. His wife refused to give up on that brother. She got shot too. Neither of them survived.”
“Ohmigod,” I breathed.
Poor Hawk.
“So, to say he’s not down with you getting shit on is an understatement. Before, he was resigned to one of his boys getting tied up in some messy shit. Now we’re under orders to handle it.”
Which meant now, even a man I’d never met was looking out for me.
“And the list of people I owe keeps getting longer,” I mumbled.
“You know, that’s what those assholes put in your head and you got it stuck so deep in there, you don’t see you don’t live that life. You gonna make Gert pay you back for taking care of her? You expect Bobbie to do something for your brother in exchange for Legos?”
“Of course not.”
“Then shut it down about owing shit, Evan. This is what people do in life, that is, if they’re worth dick. Sometimes you give. Sometimes you get. The measure of a person is how gracious they can be when they’re in the position they have to receive.”
“You know, you’re actually more annoying when you’re being nice,” I told him.
He smiled, wide and white, then folded me in his arms and gave me a tight, brotherly hug complete with a kiss on the side of my head.
Then he let me go and shoved me toward the door to