Laughing hardest out of everyone #2
“You’re tall, breathing, and currently empty-handed,” she says. “Make yourself useful.”
Finn blinks down at the tray. “Yes, ma’am.”
That gets another soft ripple through the room, and even Rhodes’s mouth almost pulls into something resembling a smile before it disappears again.
Gwen gestures toward the far table without looking up from the bottle in her hand. “And if you drop my good glasses, I’m charging Ashgrove.”
Finn glances at her, mouth tugging despite himself. “Good to know interdepartmental relations are thriving.”
Her eyes flick up to his once and flash.
“Move, Hotshot.”
He moves.
When he comes back within range, Fletch pipes up. “Alright, Ashgrove. Important question. You skate?”
Finn pauses for a beat. “On purpose?”
“This is already concerning.”
“I’m Irish,” Finn says. “Most of our sports involve grass, violence, or both.”
Tucker snorts into his drink. “Oh, he’s gonna fit in great.”
Fletch stands and hooks an arm around Finn’s shoulders like they’ve known each other longer than thirty seconds. “C’mon, rookie. Lemme tell you the rules of Maplewood. One: never trust Tucker with karaoke. Two: if Leah Parnell offers you food, saying no is a cry for help.”
“Correct,” Leah says immediately from across the room.
“And three,” Fletch continues solemnly, “under no circumstances do you let Lawson convince you to—”
The words cut off sharply, and silence dips across the table for half a second as I see it hit him in real time.
Fletch’s jaw works once, then he lifts his beer vaguely toward the ceiling. “Well. That’s gonna take some getting used to, you bastard.”
Behind the bar, Gwen goes still. Then she reaches for a clean glass, fills it with two fingers of Colt’s usual, and sets it on the far end of the bar. Colt’s spot.
It’s Tucker who pulls us back, bumping Fletch hard with his shoulder. “You still owe Lawson fifty bucks for that fantasy league, by the way.”
“Bullshit.”
“You changed your lineup after kickoff.”
“That’s strategy.”
“No, that's cheating.”
By the time Fletch is loudly defending himself against accusations of “sports fraud,” the heaviness has eased enough for conversation to pick back up around the room.
I let out a breath and lean back against the bar beside Penny, and she slides her hand into mine automatically. It’s a small thing, but enough to settle some of my unease.
Across the room, we watch Ghost gently intercept one of the older retirees before he can corner Remi again, steering him smoothly toward another table with a fresh beer in hand.
Remi doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s curled into herself beside Rhodes while Zela sleeps against her chest and Max lines up toy cars along the edge of the pool table beside Elle. Rhodes finally sips at the whiskey Gwen shoved at him earlier after what looked like hours of refusing it.
Penny watches all of it with her mouth pressed tight.
Then, before I can stop her, she lets go of my hand and reaches for the tray of waters Frankie abandoned near the service hatch.
“Pen.”
She looks back at me. “Don’t use that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one that says you’re about to tell me I have bruised ribs and should remain decorative.”
I stare at her, and her brows lift. “Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“Great. Character growth.” She takes two glasses from the tray. “I can carry water, Prince.”
“You can also sit down.”
“I’ve been sitting down for a week. My ass is starting to think we’re in a committed relationship with the sofa.”
It comes out dry enough that I snort quietly, and somehow that makes it easier to let her go when she turns toward Remi. I still follow three steps behind her, though. I haven’t quite managed to let her out of my sight much, yet.
Penny notices and glances back over her shoulder. “Subtle.”
“I’m not aiming for subtle.”
She sets one of the waters near Remi without making a big thing of it, then another beside Rhodes. Remi looks up like it takes all the effort she has to drag herself back into the room.
“Thank you,” she says in a distant voice.
Penny nods. “Someone once told me hydration is emotionally important.”
Remi’s mouth twitches, and I nod.
“Colt used to say that right before putting his weird pre-workout in a water bottle,” I add.
Rhodes stares down into his whiskey. “He once told me it counted as premium vitamins.”
“It was vitamins,” Ghost murmurs from the next table. “For people who hate their kidneys.”
The small laugh that moves through the nearest tables is rough and uneven, and Remi’s breath catches on something dangerously close to one too. She presses her lips together, eyes shining, and Penny steps back before the moment can become too much.
When she returns to my side, her fingers find mine.
“You don’t have to earn being here,” I remind her.
Her gaze stays on our joined hands. “I wasn’t.”
Liar.
Before I can answer, the opening beat of a Spice Girls song blasts through Neverland, and every firefighter in the place groans.
Fletch turns accusingly toward Tucker. “This feels like a cop crime.”
“I didn’t touch it!”
Gwen looks up from the bar. “Nobody change it.”
Fletch’s mouth drops open. “You’re allowing this to happen?”
“Colt once sang this entire chorus into a pool cue,” Gwen says, her eyes dancing. “Badly. So nobody’s changing it.”
Fletch turns to Finn so fast his beer nearly sloshes. “Important question, Ashgrove.”
“Oh no,” Frankie mutters.
“Favorite Spice Girl,” Fletch demands.
Finn pauses, his eyes sliding briefly to Gwen behind the bar, and his mouth tugs at one corner.
“Always had a thing for Scary.”
“Oh, bold,” Penny whispers.
Gwen’s eyes narrow, and Finn lifts both hands. “Respectfully.”
She presses both palms flat against the bar. “Hotshot, you have known me for thirty minutes and already committed two offenses.”
Finn’s mouth tugs at one corner. “Only two?”
“Three, if you think that dimple will get you a discount.”
Finn’s grin deepens, but he wisely stays put.
Tucker laughs into his drink. “He’s gonna die here.”
“Come on, Ashgrove,” Penny pipes up. “Everyone knows it’s Ginger, anyway.”
Fletch slaps the tabletop. “Correct. That's why we keep her.”
My hand tightens around Penny’s as the words hit me in the chest, because yeah. We do. I do.
Penny looks down quickly, and I know she feels it too.
“Anyway.” Fletch leans back against the booth. “Lawson loved Sporty Spice.”
Remi’s head lifts, and the silence fills the space fast. Fletch’s face changes, his jaw tightening around whatever grief just punched through him.
“Sorry. I—”
“No, he didn’t love Sporty Spice,” Remi says quietly. “He only said Sporty because it made Fletcher mad.”
Everyone stills, and her eyes stay on the glass in front of her. “He loved Baby Spice the most.”
For a second, nobody moves. Then Fletch lets out a broken laugh and lifts his beer toward her. “That manipulative bastard.”
Remi’s mouth trembles, and she lets out the smallest sound beside Rhodes. It's more a breath than laugh, but everybody notices it, including Rhodes. His eyes close briefly, like the sound of his daughter trying to laugh through her heartbreak physically hurts him. I look away.
Penny leans into my side. “You okay?”
The irony of her asking me nearly makes me laugh. We’ve both answered it too many times this week.
“Nope.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “Me neither.”
I look down at our joined hands. Bruises still shadow the inside of her wrist, peeking out from under my hoodie sleeve, and anger flashes through me, hot and sudden.
Stacey is in custody, with charges and a no-contact order stacked between her and my family. But the man who hurt Penny is still out there, and it sits wrong under my skin every time I think about it. Tucker says they're looking, and Beck is handing over everything they need from our side.
But none of that changes the fact that Penny has bruises. Both the ones on her skin, and the ones I can't see.
Her thumb strokes once across my knuckles.
“I’m here,” she murmurs. “Not going anywhere.”
“I know,” I say, squeezing back.
The noise rises again, and I realize maybe this is how people survive it. You take the good with the bad, and the happy with the sad. That’s all anyone can manage right now. Laughing through their pain, because silence is heavier—and nobody in this room is willing to let Remi carry it alone.
The moment shatters when somebody calls out from behind us. “Prince, your kid’s hustling retirees at pool!”
I turn to find Elle standing on a chair beside one of the old station guys, absolutely sharking him with the kind of concentration usually reserved for chocolate chip pancake negotiations.
“She learned from watching Tucker gamble during playoffs,” Fletch says.
Tucker whacks him in the arm. “That is slander.”
Elle sinks the ball badly enough it bounces off two rails before dropping into the corner pocket anyway, and she throws both arms into the air triumphantly while the entire side of the room cheers like she’s won the Stanley Cup.
And for a second, I swear I can almost hear Colt in the middle of it.
Laughing hardest out of everyone.