know they’d found him.”
I was confused for a few seconds as to who they were. “Oh! Your brothers found where Stan was staying. Do I even want to know?”
Hennessey barked out a quick laugh. “The Red Roof Inn.”
“Say no more.” I’d heard rumors about The Red Roof Inn being a pit since high school. It was the place to go to buy drugs or get a bit of action like you’d see in pornos. I’d never been part of either crowd. My father would have killed me if he thought I was hanging out at a place like that. “At least now you know how he’s got the money to stay here in Gloucester.”
“The good news is that he’s not going to be staying here in Gloucester.” Hennessey laughed. He sounded free.
“Oh, shit. What’s the bad news?” The McCoy brothers wouldn’t put Stan in the hospital. I knew that as well as I knew my first name.
“Other than my brothers being out a thousand dollars between them? There is no bad news.”
“You’ve totally lost me.” What did money have to do with Stan and The Red Roof Inn?
Brushing a quick kiss against the back of my hand, Hennessey snickered. “I’ll tell you the whole story.” He kissed me again.
If Hennessey kept it up, I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on his damn story. “Shutting up now.”
“When I got to The Red Roof Inn, my brothers were all waiting for me in Ozzy’s big truck. They’d found Stan earlier in the day and had put their heads together on how to get him to hit the road. I had no idea what they had planned when they headed toward Stan’s room. Kennedy pounded on the door until Stan answered it. He was surprised to see the five of us standing there.”
My heart started pounding again. “Oh, Jesus, did the five of you beat the shit out of him?”
Hennessey slapped his right hand over his heart. “You wound me, Morrison. Of course we didn’t beat him up. The long and short of it is that they paid Stan to get out of town and not come back. He took the money. Kennedy stayed on him all day and tailed him to the Greyhound station and watched him get on a bus. After the bus pulled out, Kennedy asked the clerk where the bus was headed and she said the final destination was Knoxville, Kentucky. If memory serves, Stan was from Lexington. I assume he’s headed home.”
“No wonder you’re so giddy.” It all made sense now. Hennessey had something to celebrate and he wanted to treat me to a night out. I was game for that.
“I’m only half giddy.” The light and airy tone was gone from Hennessey’s voice. He was all business now.
“Why only half?” Was there a part of this story he wasn’t telling me?
“I like you, Morrison. I really do,” Hennessey began.
I held my breath. Whatever Hennessey was about to say next was going to change my life and maybe not in a good way. I knew we were all dressed up and going somewhere fancy, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit insecure. “I like you too,” I half-whispered.
“When Stan came into town, I didn’t feel like I could fully give myself to you in a relationship of any kind. It was a constant tug of war between being all in and not wanting Stan to get anywhere close to you.”
None of that sounded bad. Unfortunately, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Now that he’s gone, I think there’s a chance for us if that’s something you’re interested in?” Hennessey sounded almost shy as if he thought I could possibly say no to his proposal.
The breath I’d been holding whooshed out of my lungs. “It's definitely something I’m interested in. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what would happen between us so long as Stan was around. As much as I liked kissing you last night, I couldn’t help wondering if he was hiding behind some bush watching us.”
“I wondered the same thing.” Hennessey was silent for a few seconds. “After the military police came to me with allegations about the missing drugs, I started having anxiety attacks which quickly worsened into panic attacks. Everything I’d worked my ass off to achieve was on the line because of Stan’s lies.”
“What happened to you was perfectly understandable. I went through something similar myself when I transitioned from showing my father’s dogs to training search