Page 2 of Crash’s Secret

The story hangs unfinished, and nobody around him seems to understand why he quit talking.

I stop breathing.

He’s still staring. The glass cracks in his hand.

Beer seeps through the glass, running off his wrist, and he doesn’t look down at it.

He sets it on the bar, doesn’t say a word, and walks out the back door.

Gone. Four years and he couldn’t even say hello.

“CASSIDY!”

The roar comes from the pool table, and then Saber is plowing through his own party, and I’m off the ground, ribs being crushed in a hug that smells of leather and the same cologne he’s worn since I was twelve.

“You said you were coming tomorrow,” he says, twirling me around.

“I lied.” I playfully smack his chest. “Put me down.”

He doesn’t. He turns another full circle with me hanging there and shouts at the room. “MY BABY SISTER IS HOME.”

Strangers raise bottles to me. My brother—President of the Hellborn Kings, the man who scares grown men out of whole counties—is grinning so wide it changes his face.

He sets me down and holds me at arm’s length. “Four years.”

“I came home for Christmas.”

“Four years,” he says again, like Christmas doesn’t count.

He doesn’t need to introduce me to the women by the kitchen. I met most of them last Christmas, over three days at Saber's ranch. And I’ve heard about all of them during phone calls with my brother.

My glance lands on the back door. Shut. Stayed shut.

Shelby reaches me first, my brother’s Old Lady. She hugs me before I get a word out.

“I’m obligated to report he cried when you told him you’re coming home for good,” she says.

“Not true,” Saber says, behind me.

“It’s true,” she whispers, before stepping back.

The rest of the women come in a wave after that. I hug everyone who hugs me first, laugh when I’m supposed to, and lose track of half of what’s said.

It takes less than a minute to feel like I never left.

Acorn salutes me with his cue from the pool table, more gray in his beard than I remember. He taught me to bank a shot when I was twelve, mostly so he could take Saber’s money betting on me.

Near the pool table, Joker’s voice carries over the music. He’s talking to a couple of the National guys.

“Most of you are rolling out soon, right? Can’t blame you. Two months and the Warriors haven’t so much as crossed the county line. It’s over.”

“Nothing with Nitro is over,” Razor says from the end of the bar.

“Here we go,” Joker responds.

“I’m just telling you what I know.”

Joker laughs it off and changes the subject, but I catch the look the two National guys trade. They don’t argue with Razor. Nobody does.