like a chance to start fresh in others.
Like defeat when she waved goodbye to Ava and Mercy and closed her new front door. Turned around and put her back to it, and looked at the scuffed cardboard boxes, and her ugly secondhand sofa, and her empty kitchen counters. She wasn’t a pessimistic person by nature, but there were moments, like now, when it was hard to find the silver lining. When the backs of her eyes stung, and she felt like she’d been wasting time.
Her mother would have argued. Time isn’t wasted if you learned something.
She’d learned not to work for someone who was scamming his clients.
Learned that love wasn’t a guarantee, and sometimes it didn’t last, and sometimes it had been so flimsy to start with that you didn’t even miss it all that much.
She stood chewing at her lip, twirling her ponytail around her finger, until she heard Mercy’s bike start up in the parking lot. Then a grin touched her lips. There were motorcycles in Chicago, but they hadn’t sounded the same. Not like Knoxville. Here, that sound meant something totally different.
As she went to put the pizza boxes in the trash, she realized she’d missed it.
Three
“Why weren’t you helping us wrestle that couch upstairs last night?” Aidan asked the next morning, jabbing an accusatory finger toward Carter.
“What couch?” He’d had a quiet night. Jazz had wanted to study, and he’d watched TV in the common room a little while before eventually dragging himself to bed with a bottle of whiskey tucked under one arm. Now he had a headache and a sour stomach; had overslept his alarm and missed his chance for coffee and breakfast.
“Leah’s couch,” Aidan said, like that was supposed to make some kind of sense.
“Who’s Leah?”
“Dude. Leah Cook. Aren’t you friends with her, too?”
“Leah…oh.”
Mercy materialized beside him, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand that he held out in offering. “You look like you need this, QB.”
“Jesus, yes, thanks.” The first sip worked wonders. “Leah’s back in town?”
“Got in yesterday,” Aidan said. “Didn’t you know that?”
“Obviously not if I’m asking about it.” He felt snippy – sounded it, too, if Aidan’s raised brows were anything to go by. He shook his head and sipped more coffee. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.”
Mercy took pity on him. “She called Ava last week and said things hadn’t gone the way she wanted in Chicago. We helped her move in last night.”
Carter nodded. He hadn’t seen Leah in years, since before she moved. He’d gotten busy with the club, prospecting, and patching in, and going on runs, and he didn’t socialize with anyone beyond it, now. He and Leah had been friendly, before, but not friends. In his memory, she was Ava’s tiny, bouncy friend with an excess of energy and hair dye. She’d been the sort of girl who seemed able to see right through whatever bullshit veneer that caused other girls to simper or stutter. Not the sort charmed by blue eyes, and blond hair, and a good football arm. He could easily picture her owning her own Bohemian shop of some sort, married to a tattoo artist with fifteen earrings. Someone who looked like Tango, honestly, who was studying him quietly now, arms folded.
When Carter made eye contact, he cocked his head and said, “You alright?”
An innocuous question, and a fair one, given the state of his reflection this morning. He hadn’t shaved, and the hangdog bags under his eyes were reaching failing-used-car-salesman levels of critical mass. A kind question, too; concern from a worried friend.
But it hit Carter like a spotlight. The coffee he’d just drunk sloshed in his stomach. “Yeah, fine.”
Tango’s gaze narrowed with doubt. He’d been through too much shit personally to buy it from others.
“Just slept bad. Too tired. Too much whiskey.” Carter wondered if he sounded as desperate as he felt.
Tango nodded, and offered a flickering little smile. “Been there.”
“Hey,” Ghost called, from the open rolltop doors of the shop, and Carter released an internal sigh of relief for the distraction. He knew Mercy had talked with Tango, daily, back when things had gotten really rough. A listening ear, a shoulder to help with the burden he carried. The last thing he wanted was for someone to offer that to him – he was afraid of what might come spilling out if he dared to crack the shell.
The president had his shades on, hair windblown like he’d just climbed off his bike; probably he had. He rarely seemed to