'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,6
and Morgans
San Francisco—Kane Morgan
KANE MORGAN still felt the burden of his star in his back pocket. Every step he took had a greater weight to it, a seven-point piece of metal with a number—his number—anchoring him to the city beneath his feet. It was a familiar symbol, one he’d grown up playing with when his father came home and shed parts of his uniform at the end of his day. One of Kane’s first arguments in school had been how many points does a star have, and the teacher, a sweet young woman with hopes and dreams to lead joyful children toward knowledge, found herself embroiled in a heated battle concerning how to draw a proper star.
He hadn’t been much more than five, but Kane had been adamant. Stars—true stars—had seven points and a number engraved in them.
Now he had a number. Now he had a seven-point star. Now he came home… the same home he’d grown up in, since he’d just come out of the Academy and didn’t make enough money to have his own place… and shed parts of his uniform nearly in the same spots as his father had.
As his brother Connor had as well.
Kane wouldn’t have said he lived in Connor’s shadow, but sometimes it was hard to get out from under his older brother and his father. He’d—he still—worshipped both of them, even found himself trying to do things like they did. The badge, however, was his own.
Even if he was the third Morgan to be issued a seven-point star in San Francisco.
And from the multiple trips to the principal’s office for arguing with their teachers, it looked like the twins, Kiki and Riley, would be following in their footsteps.
Quinn, his fractured, stained-glass, brilliant next younger brother, probably wouldn’t, and it broke a little bit of Kane’s heart knowing his green-eyed quirky sibling would not have a star of his own.
“He’ll find his own place,” their father, Donal, said one day when a ten-year-old Kane wondered aloud about what path Quinn would follow in life if he wasn’t going to be a cop. “And who knows? Ye might be changing your mind, boyo. Ye can be anything ye want, son. Ye don’t have to wear the badge and blues just because I do. It’s hard and thankless at times. There are some days when it seems like no one wants ye around or hate ye because of that badge. It’s an honor to wear it, but it’s also a burden. Are ye sure ye don’t want to be an artist instead?”
Kane reminded his father of that conversation on the day he stood proud and tall while his own badge was pinned to his uniform for the first time. Donal laughed, saying it hadn’t been the only time he’d had that conversation and it hadn’t been the last.
As his eyes raked over the cluster of Morgans standing around their short redheaded mother, he’d said, “I might have one more—maybe two—to go. But my answer will always remain the same. All I want for any of ye is to be happy, to love, and to be loved.”
Kane was working on the first and dabbling in the second and the third. He was young, not even in his late twenties, and for some reason, tramping through Chinatown on a rainy Saturday night looking for the alleyway entrance of a tattoo shop.
“It’s right over there.” Connor’s deep voice echoed through the tight streets. His older brother was practically vibrating with excitement and an overabundance of energy. “I’ve seen one that he’s done on someone else, and I really liked how it looks like the patch, but it’s better. I wanted one like it, but not exactly. He said that wouldn’t be a problem. I’m excited to see what he’s got.”
“So ye haven’t even seen the art?” Donal’s eyebrow lifted, and Kane instinctively took a slower step, leaving Connor well within his father’s firing range while taking himself out of Donal’s field of view. “Ye be meaning to tell me that my son is going to be putting something permanent on his skin—something he will have to defend it to his mother—and he doesn’t even know what it is?”
“Well, I know it’s going to be Gold In Peace, Iron In War and there will be a phoenix on it. I just don’t know what’ll look like exactly. But Da, you should see what he’s done.” Connor shrugged his broad shoulders, and he gave their father a sheepish look. “Besides, I