jealousy because the girls they liked had winked at him. He’d heard it on the field, too, when the backup quarterback thought he should be the starter. He’s not that good.
He thought about what Jazz had said, about not wanting him to get lost in his own head – to not get so far gone that the darkness closed over him. She hadn’t had a chance to repeat that, to pet and fuss over him, in a few days. He hadn’t been by to see her, and had responded to her texts in only yes and no. When he reflected back on their last time together, that night with the other girls, he couldn’t scrape up anything close to desire or fond remembrance.
It was evening, and he was headed across the parking lot for the clubhouse, on his way to church, when his gaze flitted over a figure sitting in the shadow of the pavilion, long legs draped casually on the bench of a picnic table, smoking. It was Tenny.
Carter looked away and started past him. He couldn’t think of anything in the way of polite chitchat to offer the guy, and knew it wasn’t wanted of him anyway.
But Tenny said, “You need to put him in his place.”
Carter froze, and turned to him. “Who?”
“That wanker who popped you. Boomer.” He made a face like the name tasted bad. “He’s still simmering, and you need to put him in his place before he breaks your nose again.”
Carter stared at him a moment, hating how casual and affected his posture was. He wondered, briefly, if the guy had been waiting here for him, to deliver his message, just because he hadn’t gotten to kill anyone lately and was bored. “Why do you care?”
He lifted a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t. Only offering a suggestion.”
“Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks.” He started to walk off again.
“You won’t last like this.”
Again, he paused, against his better judgement. “What?”
Tenny took a long drag, his gaze hooded, unfathomable; he had the body of a strong twenty-something, but his eyes were hundreds of years old. “This club. As pathetic as it is, it’s going to chew you up and spit you out if you don’t get your head on straight.”
“Gee, thanks, prospect,” Carter bit out. “Glad you’re an expert.”
“I watched you the other day,” he pressed. “And you retreated.” Another sneer. “You’re the senior member here, and he has no claim on that woman, and you ran away and let him hit you.
“This is a pack of wolves. If you act like a sheep, they’ll eat you alive.”
Carter’s hands curled into fists. “Like I said: why do you care?”
Tenny ignored the question. “What if it had gone the other way? What if it was your favorite woman who’d been taken out from under you? Used by someone else?”
“I don’t own anybody,” Carter said, bristling. “Jazz isn’t mine.” Though he’d challenged Candyman of all people about her, once. That seemed decades ago now. “I guess I’m like you,” Carter said, offering a sneer of his own. “Sex is just sex. Nobody has to be my property for me to enjoy myself.”
“No,” Tenny said, expression hardening, his voice on just that one syllable sending a shiver down Carter’s back. “I assure you that we are nothing alike, you and I. Sex can be just sex. But if anyone ever touches my property, I’ll rip him apart piece by piece, and stop his heart last of all.”
He was, Carter could see, wholly serious.
Carter wet his lips. “You don’t have an old lady either.”
“No,” Tenny agreed, and Carter thought of a lighted doorway, and a hand on an arm, and Stephanie saying something.
Tenny grinned nastily. “Have I shocked you?”
“Nothing shocks me anymore,” Carter said, and went inside.
~*~
Ghost had an honest to goodness slide projector set up in the center of the chapel table, projecting an image of the currently-under-construction Bell Bar up onto the wall. All the lights were off, and curls of cigarette smoke lifted up into the beam of projected light, distorting the image.
“General updates, first,” Ghost said.
At his side, Walsh opened up the thick file folder in front of him. “The contractor says it’ll be another six weeks or so on the bar.”
“Six weeks?” Dublin asked, brows raised. “Why so long? It’s already been, what, two months?”
“The plumbing, the mold, the permits,” Walsh said, ticking off on his fingers. “And the window glass we wanted was on backorder, so that’s another delay.”
Aidan took a long drag on his