Chapter 5
SILVER
“I tried calling twice this morning,” Rachel says the moment I answer the phone. “You didn’t bother answering.”
I grit my teeth, exhaling slowly through my nose. “I was busy with—”
“Club business,” she interrupts, her tone clipped. “Yeah, I know. That’s always the excuse.”
Heat flares in my gut, my grip tightening on the phone. I bite back the first retort that springs to mind. The one that’d escalate this into a full-blown argument off the bat. We’ve danced this dance a thousand times before, and it never ends well.
So I decide to go with a difference approach.
“Is there a point to this call, Rach?” I ask instead. “Or are you just ringing me up to bust my balls like usual?”
She scoffs, and I can practically see her rolling her eyes.
“Did you forget today was parent/teacher conferences at the high school? Your daughter is flunking four of her six classes, Jack. Four. The teachers are saying she needs to go into some special after-school tutoring program. But sure, I’m just busting your balls. ”
I close my eyes again, pinching the bridge of my nose. I’m still irritated by Rachel’s contentious tone, but now I’m disappointed by the news she’s delivered on top of it.
Tabby’s a bright kid—she used to bring home report cards full of As, the look of her big smile as she showed them off still vivid in my mind. But ever since the divorce...
“I’ll talk to her,” I sigh.
My mind runs through a mental list of the things I’ll say. Encouragement, tough love, maybe a bribe or two...
“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll do a world of good,” Rachel mutters.
“Then what the hell do you want me to do, Rachel?” I snap before I can stop myself.
“You want me to build a fucking time machine and go back to before we tore our family apart? You want to lay all the blame at my feet? We both know it’s the divorce that’s got her down, but we also both know I ain’t the only one responsible for it! ”
“Jack—”
“I seem to remember you having plenty of blood on your hands,” I go on hotly, now on my feet.
I’m pacing the office back and forth like a lion in a cage.
“Maybe we ought to sit Tabby down and explain to her exactly why I pulled the plug on our shitshow of a marriage. Like the afternoon I came home early to surprise you and found you bent over the sofa with—”
“Stop it!” she screams. “Just… stop. You know I haven’t told the kids about Fred.”
“Yeah, I do. And I’ve kept that secret, Rachel. I’ve kept it for you. I’ve done it so the kids wouldn’t blame you. So they wouldn’t hate you. But what you’re not gonna do is put Tabby’s issues all on me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, suddenly no longer exuding the hostile energy she had seconds ago. When she speaks again, there’s a shift in her tone. There’s a note of weariness.
“Look… you’re right. I know we’ve both made mistakes,” she says, drawing a shaky breath. “But this isn’t about us. It’s about the kids. The real reason I was calling... with Tabby in this tutoring program, she won’t be home most afternoons. So I’m hiring a babysitter for Jack.”
“He’s ten now, Rach. Pretty sure he can microwave his own pizza rolls after school as he does his homework.”
“It’s testing season, Jack. I’ll be stuck at the school for hours most days, and I don’t want him alone that long.”
I open my mouth to argue, but a sharp knock at the door cuts me off.
“Hang on,” I mutter into the phone, then raise my voice. “Yeah?”
Big Eddie’s head pops into the crack as he eases the door open. “You ready to roll boss? Mace is out on the floor. We’re waiting on you.”
I nod, then turn my attention back to the phone. “I gotta go. Club business.”
Her sigh crackles over the line, long-suffering and unsurprised. “When isn’t it? Will you at least talk to Tabby next time you have her?”
“Promise,” I say. “I’ll sit her down and make sure she knows she won’t be getting a car or her license ’til she brings those grades up. I’m talking at least a B average again.”
We hang up on only a minimally less frosty note than when the call began. I shove the phone into my back pocket, my jaw clenched tight enough for my teeth to ache.
Just another day in paradise.
Just about the last guy I wanted to see right now.
I follow Big Eddie’s hulking frame out of the office with my mind drifting from the phone call I just had with Rachel. It ran the gamut between topics like the residual bitterness from our divorce, Tabby’s poor grades, the babysitter situation for Jack…
…and now as I head onto the barroom floor with Ed, I’m reminded about yesterday morning.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was playing white knight to his niece. She called me above anybody else she knows, asking in a distressed tone if I could pick her up.
How could I turn her down when she sounded so vulnerable and upset?
When I pulled up outside the address she gave, I found a young woman who looked like she’d been through it—dress torn, mascara smeared down her cheeks, bruises visible on her knees and throat and probably other places not in view.
Every instinct in me had demanded I park the truck, bust up through the door, and start cracking skulls ’til somebody told me what the fuck happened to my friend’s niece.
But I’d made a promise. I swore to her I’d keep it between us, whatever it was. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that a man’s word is his bond.
Even if it means lying to the man standing in front of me now.
“You think Pena’s gonna be happy to see us?” Eddie chuckles as we walk into the barroom.
“We sure as hell are about to find out one way or another.”
Mace is leaning against the bar counter when we emerge, shooting the breeze with Mick whose eyes are bright as he tells him about some date he’s going on.
“About time,” Mace drawls when he sees us coming. He jerks his thumb over at Mick. “This one’s been yapping about some dating app for old people.”
“You’d be surprised,” Mick cackles, slapping his dishrag over his shoulder. “You think those of us in our golden years ain’t getting it on? I’ve got a pocket full of magic beans to sell ya!”
I humor him, cracking half of a grin. “Let’s hope those dating sites are still around in twenty years when I need ’em. C’mon, let’s head out.”
The three of us walk out of the saloon and start toward the behemoth of a Hummer parked near all the bikes.
It makes sense this would be Eddie’s ride when he’s not on his bike—he’s as tall and broad as a redwood tree and needs something to accommodate his size.
The sky’s a dreary gray with the drizzle coming and going every other hour. As we pile into Eddie’s car and hit the road, it’s returned again. The windshield wiper slides back and forth as conversation quickly turns to yesterday’s game.
“Heard the Falcons got massacred yesterday,” Mace says, casual as can be. “What was the final score again? Forty-something to jack shit?”
Eddie’s laugh is a rumble of distant thunder. “Big talk from a Longhorns fan. How’s that 5-7 record treating you, huh?”
“That’s college ball, Ed. Stick to the subject at hand. Like your sorry excuse for an NFL team getting absolutely destroyed by a bunch of California pretty boys.”
Their shit talk goes on for a while. I’m amused listening along at first.
Then their voices fade into the background as my thoughts drift back to Solana. She obviously hasn’t told Eddie about what happened. He wouldn’t be in such a relaxed mood otherwise.
But she’d looked like she’d run into real trouble; she really seemed like something was seriously wrong.
I can’t get the image of her watery eyes and torn dress out of my head.
I didn’t mean to spend the night…
What did she mean by that? Spend the night at her friends’ house? Then why was she so upset?
She’d named two female friends, but something tells me there was more to the story. Who were the ‘some others’ she’d referenced?
If it were Tabby... if it were my baby girl stumbling home looking like she’d gone ten rounds with a Mack truck... I’d want to know. I’d want five minutes alone with whoever put those marks on her.
Secrets are a cancer. They eat you up from the inside out. This one in particular could do more damage in the dark than being brought to light.
I clear my throat, tension pulling at me from within. “Eddie, listen, about yesterday—”
“That reminds me,” he grunts, cranking the wheel to the left. “Gotta grab my other piece from the house. Never know what kinda mood Pena’s gonna be in. That cool with you two?”
I bite back a curse as we pull into his driveway, the window of opportunity closing. Mason shoots me a curious look, but I shake my head.
Later. I’ll tell him later.
We trail Eddie inside, finding that not much has changed about the Youngblood household since the last time we came by (which was years ago by this point).
The home is like a time capsule, every inch of it frozen in the moment Reggie died. Ed hasn’t changed a thing since he lost his older brother, Solana’s father, preserving it as if he’ll be back any day now.
The living room walls are plastered with decades-old photographs, smiling faces forever young and untroubled, a shrine to happier times.
An ancient TV monopolizes space in the corner, the kind with knobs and dials that still somehow works, despite being a relic from a bygone era.
The shelves are cluttered with dusty knickknacks and tchotchkes, each one a memory collecting dust.
It’s like the whole place is holding its breath, waiting for an expiration date that never comes.
But I remember when this house was full of life, the air thick with the smell of Solana’s mom’s famous chili, the cluttered patio where sometimes barbecues were held, Reggie’s booming laugh rattling the windows.
Now it just feels cold and empty. Almost depressingly so.
“Be right back,” Eddie mumbles, his heavy footsteps clomping down the hall.