The Crevi was already busy with activity when Withers stepped in. All of the fireteams from that night’s failed incursion on the SIREN compound were tightly packed into the little basement bar. Some of them were standing around or seeing to their equipment, but most appeared to be packing up their things. That made Withers nervous.
A few more of his compatriots were laid up in the booths on the left side, having their wounds tended to. Los Perros had evidently suffered plenty of casualties during the attack, but by the looks of it, no KIAs (at least, aside from the two Withers had put down). Among the wounded was Rosy Thorn, who had a nasty looking bullet wound in her shoulder that was being tended to by their medic.
“Dammit, what the hell were you thinking, walking straight into enemy fire like that?” asked the dark-skinned man with glasses kneeling beside her. Scope Lens, if Withers remembered right.
Rosy Thorn shrugged. “I dunno, I just got this idea in my head that… that the tangos weren’t real.” She then winced as the medic applied some salve to the wound.
“That looks pretty real to me,” Scope said with a wry grin.
“Yeah, feels pretty fucking real, too!”
That was all Withers heard of the conversation as he continued past them. He didn’t have time to engage in the usual inane small talk he was expected to with the other mercs. He had a bee in his bonnet and that bee’s name was Hardy Fucking Biff.
The annoying bee in question buzzed over as soon as he spotted Withers. “Where’s Barrel and Dancer?” he asked.
Withers played up the lament in his voice as he answered, “Enemy ambush caught us as we were pulling out. They didn’t make it.”
Biff just sighed and shook his head. “Dammit. Should never have gone ahead with this op in the first place.”
Seeing an opportunity for a well placed barb, Withers sighed and said, “Or, maybe if you had let Watership Down reach its natural conclusion, we might have achieved victory and poor Barrel and Dancer would still be with us….”
Biff gave him a look that said Did you really just go there? “Would you like to know why I called off the attack?”
Yes, I would love to know why you cut short my fun, asshole! Withers thought. But like Biff, he only said it with a look.
Biff clearly didn’t care for it. It was the only reason Withers could think of that he would say something as ludicrous as, “We’re leaving town. Tonight.”
“What!?” he exclaimed, causing a few heads to turn his way. “But our business here isn’t finished yet!”
“It is now,” Biff said before holding up what looked like a small USB harddrive. “The Feds are onto us.”
Withers scoffed. “So what? We knew we’d have to tread carefully when we got here. And yet you still approved Watership Down.”
“Like I said, the situation's changed,” Biff said, wagging the hard drive in Withers’s face like he was scolding a child. “The Feds have spent the past week mobilizing to take us down, and if they catch wind of what we did tonight, they’ll be on us tomorrow morning, if they weren’t going to be already.”
Withers ground his teeth together. No. No! This was the absolute worst-case scenario. He hadn’t even started creating his next masterpiece with Troubleshoes Clyde, and a true artist never left a work incomplete. He had to find some way to buy himself more time!
“Where’d you even get that information, anyway?” Withers asked, gesturing to the hard drive in Biff’s hand.
“I’ll tell you later, when we’re in private,” Biff said, putting it in his pocket. “Right now, we’re shipping out. Next stop, New Mexico.”
With a nod, Withers turned and set out to do what he had to do next. As he did, Biff called out to him, “One more thing,” Withers turned back to face him, knowing he was going to hate whatever Biff had to say next if experience was anything to go by. “The Bloodhound wants to have a talk with you when we get back to base.”
Withers furrowed his brow. That didn’t sound good, and the tone in which Biff told him this indicated it was serious. Withers found himself thinking back to every time he was called to the principal’s office as a boy.
Well, fuck that guy! Withers thought. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have me!
And maybe, just maybe, Withers would be able to show him. Yes, if he played his cards right, he would correct the absolute shitfest the night’s attack had turned out to be and get his coveted canvas in one swift stroke.
The family was just finishing up their breakfast when the triplets finally showed up. Troubleshoes couldn’t help but grin as he looked up from his own meal. The three of them were absolutely drenched, partially from sweat and partially from the freezing cold water from the garden hose that Troubleshoes had sprayed them with halfway through their run. The training exercise was meant to build their physical as well as their mental endurance, and it brought back memories of Troubleshoes’s own time in BUD/S back in San Diego. It was likely that the triplets had this training at some point as well, but based on their reactions to it, it had been a very long time ago.
“You three enjoy your run?” Troubleshoes asked, smiling as he took a bite of cereal.
Only Aria had the strength to meet his gaze, and a brief moment passed as they locked eyes. A snarky remark seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, and Troubleshoes raised his brow, silently inviting it along with the promised consequences.
“Yes, sir,” Aria finally said.
“Aye, Chief,” Troubleshoes corrected. “I was a bluejacket, so I worked for a living.”
“Aye, Chief,” Aria repeated.
Satisfied, Troubleshoes nodded his approval, allowing the three of them to go about eating their breakfast, which they attacked as viciously as if it was a member of Los Perros.
“That’s good, because we have a full day of hard work ahead of us.”
The triplets paused, slowly exchanging a look between themselves.
“Better keep eating. Gonna be burning a lot of calories today,” Troubleshoes said, and the three of them did so after only another moment’s hesitation.
It had been a couple of days since Los Perros attacked the mansion, and already the family seemed to be returning to a semblance of normalcy. It was clear they were still dealing with some unease about the whole situation, but Troubleshoes was surprised to see how well they were dealing with it. He made some small talk with the family as he finished up his breakfast, asking them what their plans were that fine Saturday. Night said he wanted to get some writing done on his new book, Velvet was going to do some shopping, and the kids were either seeing friends or working their part-time jobs.
When they asked him how he planned to spend the day, Troubleshoes said with a chuckle, “Oh, I’ve got some more exercises planned out for the triplets. It’s not like I can exactly go out, can I?”
“Not unless you want the police to pick you up,” Sunset said, looking at him with sympathy.
Troubleshoes frowned. With all the trouble with Los Perros lately, he had forgotten all about the warrant for his arrest that was also keeping him here. Will Tires and I ever be able to go home?
Sunset must have guessed what he was thinking, because she put a hand on his arm and said, “Hey, my brother’s fiancée is doing everything she can to sort that out. This will all be over soon.”
But how long was soon? Weeks? Months? Troubleshoes tried not to think about it. The situation was out of his hands.
“You know, I might check on Tires before getting started with the triplets,” Troubleshoes said with a hopeful smile.
On the topic of Tirespin, his acerbic daughter hadn’t shown up to breakfast that morning. It was possible she was sleeping in, but the apple didn’t fall far from the tree—Troubleshoes’s daughter was an early riser like him. So, after ordering the triplets to get ready down in the bunker, Troubleshoes hastily put away his dishes and went up to what had become their bedroom, a mild sense of worry filling him.
He heard Tirespin’s voice talking to someone as he approached the door, which he opened quietly. Tirespin was seated cross legged on her bed, holding the burner phone that Sunset had given her when they had first “moved in” two weeks ago. She stared into the screen like a lost soul, her eyes filled with longing.
“Mama misses you, sweetie. Mama misses you so much…” she told the screen, and the sound of a baby’s cries coming from the phone’s speakers immediately told Troubleshoes who she was talking to.
Without saying a word, Troubleshoes sat down on the bed and scooched his way next to her. Tirespin didn’t say a word back, but she did angle the phone towards him a little so he could see the screen. On it, Troubleshoes could see that Tirespin was on FaceTime with his mother, who currently appeared to be seated in Sable and his girlfriend’s kitchen. In her arms was his granddaughter, Cinnamon.
“Heya Ma,” Troubleshoes said, giving her a little wave.
“Hey there, Trouble honey,” Down Luck said with a warm matronly smile. “You eating well over there?”
Troubleshoes chuckled. Some things never changed. “Sure am, Ma. How about you? My man Sable treating you right?”
Downy chuckled. “He’s trying to make me breakfast,” she said, turning the camera around to reveal Sable Loam standing at the kitchen counter, clearly in the midst of an epic struggle with a waffle iron. “Emphasis on ‘trying’.”
Troubleshoes laughed and said hi to Sable, and for the next several minutes he and his mother chatted about this and that. Both Troubleshoes and Tirespin silently agreed not to mention the attack from two days ago. No need to make Down worry. When they ran out of things to say, Troubleshoes told his mother goodbye, and Tirespin said a tearful goodbye to Cinnamon before reluctantly hanging up.
Seeing that she looked distressed, Troubleshoes gently rubbed her back. “Hey, it’ll be okay. You’ll be with her again soon.”
Tirespin looked at him with some of the old fire in her eyes. “How long is soon, Dad?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know.”
Tirespin looked away from him, standing to leave. “Of course you don’t. What do you know? You only got us into this mess in the first place,” she said, the old familiar petulance returning to her tone.
“C’mon Tires, don’t be like that. I thought we were finally putting all that stuff behind us!”
Tirespin rounded on him in an instant. “Oh? And what ‘stuff’ would that be, Dad? Do you even know?!”
Troubleshoes leaned forward. “Look, I know I haven’t been the best father to you over the years, but Goddammit I am trying to be better! Why do you refuse to see that?”
“Because somehow, despite all your talk about ‘being better,’ our family is still paying for your fuck ups!” Tears started to fill Tirespin’s eyes, and for a moment it seemed she couldn’t choose between wanting to shout or wanting to sob. “Two weeks. It’s been two weeks since I got to hold my daughter! I have been so fucking scared every day since this all started. Not just for me, but for her! What if those people you pissed off find her and Gram-Gram?”
“They won’t,” said Troubleshoes, the assurance sounding lame even to him.
“I hope not, because if anything happens to her, it’s on you!” she exclaimed, wiping her eyes. “Because no matter how much we need you, you always end up going back to your military shit instead! Even now, you’re spending more time with those fucking gun bunnies then you are with me!”
Troubleshoes frowned. She’s got me there. Before he could say anything else, Tirespin stormed out, and Troubleshoes could only sit there on the bed and try to rub away the throbbing ache in his head.
“They get difficult when they reach that age, don’t they?”
Looking up, Troubleshoes saw Twilight Velvet standing in the doorway.
“Well, she’s not entirely wrong,” he said with a sigh. “I thought I was doing better, but I guess I’ve just been falling back on the same old habits, just in a slightly different way.”
Velvet took a seat on the bed next to him. “You know, I’ve encountered my fair share of shitty fathers over my career. I don’t count you among them.”
Troubleshoes gave her a smile. “Thanks.”
“And she’s not entirely right, either. I saw how you were there for her during the attack, despite where you wanted to be instead.”
“Still, feels like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back.”
Velvet laughed. “That’s parenting for you. I like to think Night and I have gotten pretty good at it after all the times we’ve run the gauntlet. But even now, we screw up from time to time. There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect run’ when it comes to raising our children.”
“Yeah, ain’t that the truth…” Troubleshoes said with a quiet chuckle. “Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m making the same mistakes over and over again.”
“If you ask me, I don’t think what you’re doing for the triplets is a mistake,” Velvet said, a playful frown crossing her face. “Even if I’m not entirely a fan of your training techniques.”
Troubleshoes opened his mouth to defend the US Special Forces' proud traditions, but Velvet raised a hand and said, “Yes, I know they can more than handle it. They don’t exactly have the same… upbringing as most girls their age. Even so, a mother has her worries.”
“Understandable.”
“But how you are with Tirespin isn’t one of them.” Velvet looked right at him, her eyes earnest as she said, “She’s wrong to resent you for doing what you love. Most people seem to think that being a parent is a sacrifice you make—the things you love for the people you love. But I think it’s a compromise.”
A nostalgic smile crossed Velvet’s face then. “I remember when my first born, Shining Armor, first started in the third grade. The math took a spike in difficulty, and he struggled with it. But I was usually working long hours at the office, and wasn’t always home to help him. I was doing good work that I was passionate about, but I wanted to help my son succeed as well. So, I taught him how to use our fax machine and he sent copies of his math homework to me at my office. From there, I’d spend however long I needed to talk him through it and encourage him. It was a lot of work, and some of my coworkers thought I was nuts, but it was worth it.
“Because I got to do what I loved and be there for my boy.”
Troubleshoes nodded. “Now if only I could make Tires understand that.”
“If you want, I could talk to her. I know a lot about how kids like her think,” Velvet said. “Let’s just say it’s my area of expertise.”
“Thanks Mrs. Velvet, but I think this is something I need to do on my own,” Troubleshoes said.
With that, Velvet stood and headed for the door. “Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind.”
Standing with a smile and a nod, Troubleshoes said, “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the talk.”
Directionless, Tirespin power walked through the halls of the mansion. She didn’t care where she ended up, she just needed space. Space from the father that until recently she had been absolutely certain she knew where their relationship stood. Dammit, things had been so much simpler when she thought he was still just a deadbeat.
Forgiveness is God’s command, quoted the ever-persistent Inner Critic. And somehow, Tirespin found herself actually wanting to listen to the damn pest, despite how shitty it made her feel. But thinking about what any of it meant for her was way too hard, so instead Tirespin continued wandering the house like a restless spirit.
Eventually she found her way out the back door onto the porch, where all of the broken glass from the attack had been swept up, leaving it feeling almost empty. To her surprise, she found Spike seated on one of the outdoor wicker sofas, staring out at the rear acres and idly swinging his legs. He looked about as lost as Tirespin felt, so she decided to take a seat next to him.
“Thought you’d want to be inside on your game,” she said casually.
Spike seemed mildly startled when she spoke but relaxed almost immediately. “Well, my mom’s always telling me to go outside more.”
“Fair enough, but I’m surprised you’re not at least playing on your DS.”
With a subdued smile, Spike said, “Still can’t find the charger for it,” and Tirespin laughed, remembering the night she and her father first arrived here. “Besides, it is a nice day, I guess,” Spike added as an afterthought.
Tirespin nodded. “Mm-hm. But something tells me that ain’t the reason you’re out here.” Spike looked at her with some confusion and Tirespin grinned, pointing to her forehead. “Daredevil, baby!”
That got a quiet chuckle out of the boy, which regrettably didn’t last. “Yeah, I dunno. I was inside playing earlier, but then I just… had to get out.”
That was curious. “Why?” Tirespin asked.
“Because… my room doesn’t really feel like mine anymore.” Spike rubbed his hands together anxiously. “That night, when those people attacked us… I saw some of them go into my room on the security camera.”
Tirespin nodded, starting to understand.
“Ever since that night, something about being in my room just… hasn’t felt right,” Spike continued. “My room’s always been kind of a mess, but now when I go in there, I can’t stop wondering… how much of it is my mess, and how much of it is theirs?”
Seeing how unnerved the boy looked, Tirespin put a hand on his shoulder. It made perfect sense that he felt this way, of course. Tirespin remembered a time when she was even younger than him when someone had broken into her family’s old home while they had been out somewhere. Just about anything that wasn’t nailed down had been taken, and the bastard had even helped himself to some of the snacks in their kitchen. That house hadn’t quite felt the same to young Tirespin for the rest of the time they’d lived there.
The situation here wasn’t exactly the same as that, but Tirespin felt she understood how he was feeling, nonetheless. Home was a sacred place; a sanctuary where one could escape the often stressful and scary world. So, when the sanctuary was violated the way hers had been all those years ago—and the way Spike’s had been now—home no longer felt like home.
“You talk to your folks about how you’re feeling?” she asked him.
Spike shook his head. “Nah, it’s nothing. I don’t think they want to hear about it.”
“’Course they do! Because what you’re feeling ain’t nothing. You should talk to ‘em. I promise you’ll feel better afterward.”
The irony, of course, was not lost to Tirespin, and the Inner Critic made damn sure she knew it. She resolutely ignored it, though, focusing on giving her young friend an encouraging smile.
“Yeah, I guess I could talk to Mom about it.” Then with a bitter smile ill-fitting to a boy his age, Spike added, “At least I know they didn’t take my DS charger. That was missing before this all happened.”
It wasn’t much of a joke, but it at least showed that Spike was in a better mood than before, so Tirespin gave it a laugh regardless. Then an idea came to her head, and she stood up, taking Spike’s hand in her own.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let's reorganize your room!” Tirespin exclaimed.
Allowing himself to be pulled to his feet, Spike looked at her with some trepidation. “Did my mom put you up to this?”
“Nope. I just figured, if you can’t tell what’s your mess and what’s their mess, the solution is obvious: get rid of the mess!” Tirespin was leading him by the hand back into the house now, unable to keep the smile off her face as she put all of her worries aside and just enjoyed the moment.
If nothing else, it was a welcome distraction.
Grunting in frustration, Ring Finger hobbled through the door to his apartment on his cheap crutches. Not-so-affectionately dubbed “Ratshit Manor” by Ring and some of the other tenants, the Sunnytown apartment complex was as run down as the nickname suggested. Most of the other tenants were either ex-cons on parole or had a conviction in their future. Ring Finger was in the former category; it was why he had made “no stupid risks” his creed of late.
“Lace! Hey Lacey, you here?” he called out as he hobbled into the kitchen.
And yet, the job he had taken for the mysterious man in sunglasses had certainly been a stupid risk, even with the pretty payout. It wasn’t like Ring had expected to be hit by a shitty brown sedan before he and his friends could rough up that Tire-what’s-her-name girl. Now his leg was in a cast, and his cracked ribs still hurt when he moved. Ring had a far better understanding of the phrase “hindsight is twenty-twenty” after that.
It had been the act of a Good Samaritan—a rarity in Sunnytown—who had called the ambulance to pick up Ring where he lay broken in the street. Really, it had been absurdly lucky, but that wasn’t what Ring had thought when he had been brought to the hospital. Before Ring’s first conviction, whenever he got injured on a less-than-scrupulous job, he did what every other lowlife in Sunnytown did: go to a less-than-scrupulous clinic. The staff at the South County Free Clinic didn’t ask questions if you came in with a gunshot or stab wound, and with a friendly donation of cash would “lose” all records of your stay with them. But the ambulance called by the Good Samaritan took Ring to Sunnytown General, where the staff did ask questions and kept nice detailed records of their patients.
So, it had been a day later when Ring Finger had gotten an early visit from his parole officer, a real fat fuck named Cuff Keys.
“How’d that happen, homie?” Keys had asked in the casually racist way he always did, studying Ring’s broken body with almost sick amusement.
“Was just crossing the street,” Ring had told him. “Bastard hit me dead on and kept going.”
Keys had studied him with an expression that told Ring he knew it was bullshit. “Weren’t up to any trouble, were you?”
“No, sir.” Luckily, Ring knew Keys couldn’t prove otherwise. Probably.
Again with the bullshit-detecting look, Keys asked, “You at least catch the plate number on the guy that hit you?”
Ring had plenty of time to study the license plate as the car idled next to where he’d lain on the pavement while the huge man driving it had chased after his two friends.
“No, sir.” Ring Finger may have been many things, but he wasn’t a snitch.
Keys had been silent just long enough for Ring to wonder whether he had something on him after all. Then the fat fuck gave him his patented condescending smile.
“Tell you what, seeing as this is a unique occasion, I won’t ask you to piss in a cup for me today,” Keys said, before asking him a few of his usual questions about his job and general movements. Then finally, fat fuck went off to do whatever he did whenever he wasn’t giving Ring a headache. Probably stuff his face with donuts.
After that visit, Ring gave the plate number to some of his other friends, hoping to track it down for a little payback, but the car had been found at the local impound lot and to this day weeks later, still hadn’t been picked up. He had since decided that payback wasn’t worth it.
Now, Ring Finger was stumbling through his apartment, calling out for his girlfriend. Lace Stocking was a stripper at the club where Ring now worked as a bouncer. It hadn’t exactly been love at first sight, but she had a body that didn’t quit, and he knew people who could get her precious molly, which immediately ingratiated him to her.
Due to Ring’s recent injuries, his boss at the Sunnytown Gentlemen’s Club had given him time off to heal. It wasn’t like a bouncer in crutches would be particularly intimidating, but the thought gave Ring Finger a laugh. At least, it did before he’d realized he would have to be completely reliant on his druggie girlfriend to take care of him while he recovered.
“Lace? C’mon, I need you!”
Figuring the bitch was sleeping off another high (probably from those downers he’d picked up from his buddy Pickpocket the other day), Ring shuffled over to the bedroom and pushed the ajar door open with the end of one of his crutches. Immediately ring saw Lace lying face down on the bed, perfectly still. But that didn’t alarm him nearly as much as the man sitting on the end of the bed, his back turned to him.
“What the fuck?! Who the fuck are you?!” Ring exclaimed.
Slowly, like one of those creepy animatronics at Disney World, the man turned his head to look at him.
“Just little old me, Ring my man.”
Hearing his voice and seeing the side of his face caused something to click, and then all at once Ring recognized him as the man who had paid him and his boys to rough up that girl (Tirespin! That was her name).
“Withers?” he exclaimed, “The fuck you doin’ in bed with my girl?!”
“Relax, I didn’t penetrate her. Well, not the way you’re probably thinking, anyway,” Withers said calmly as he stood, pulling what appeared to be a spike out from Lace’s spine at the base of her neck. Her body lay still.
Half a dozen emotions surged through Ring then: shock, horror, disgust, grief. But the one that flew to the surface and stuck was anger.
“What the fuck did you do?!” Ring roared. “I’M GONNA STOMP YOUR SKINNY WHITE ASS!”
Withers just took one look at Ring’s crutches and burst out laughing. “Oh, you are a riot, Ring!”
As the anger faded at the realization of his helplessness and the despair started to set in, Ring asked, “Why did you do that…?”
“Relax, man. I didn’t kill her. See?” Withers pointed at Lace with the blood-tipped end of the spike, and Ring followed it to his girlfriend’s face. Lace’s eyes were wide open, and they were staring right into Ring’s own in terror. Ring was reminded of a species of African spider he’d seen on the Discovery Channel. Its venom paralyzed its prey but left the hapless creature alive so it could feed at its leisure. “She may not ever walk again, though. Shame. Oh well, it’s one more thing you two have in common now, right?”
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Ring asked again
Withers laughed in a way that once again brought Ring’s thoughts to that spider. “You ever been in love, Ring?” he asked before nodding to Lace’s paralyzed form. “I’m not talking about your girlfriend here. Girls like her are fun for a while, but what I’m talking about is something real.”
Ring didn’t know how to answer that, so he just shook his head.
“I thought as much. You don’t strike me as the romantic type,” Withers continued, a wistful smile cutting across his face made all the more unsettling by the almost childlike glee in his eyes. “Until recently, I thought I was the same, but then an epiphany hit me: I’ve been falling in love all my life!
“In fact, I still remember the first time I did. Her name was Sugarspun. We were in high school, and I thought she was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. A work of art. Perfect… at least, at first. And here’s a free bit of wisdom for you, Ring my man: time tests our love.
“See, the more time I spent with her, the more I realized that Sugarspun was in a lot of ways like your girl Lace here. Pretty to look at, fun in bed a couple of times, but other than that… so tedious. That’s the problem with people. Even the most beautiful of them all grow tedious after you truly get to know them. That’s when I realized that what I thought was a work of art, was really nothing more than a canvas—something with the potential to be beautiful. You following me so far?”
Ring really wasn’t, but nodded his head anyway, and with a smile, Withers continued.
“I knew then what I needed to do. The week before I first shipped out, I rented out a place with some good soundproofing, picked up some equipment, and invited Sugarspun over. I then spent that weekend moulding her into the perfect piece of art. It wasn’t easy—art is often a painful process, as each of the things I love could attest if they were able—but after days of methodical application of pain, I had finally turned Sugarspun from just another person into my very first masterpiece!” There was a second of silence that seemed to go on forever, and then Withers frowned. “Of course, even true love is fleeting. Eventually it came time to dispose of my hard work, but then after that, falling in love again came easily!”
Then, with a spidery grin, Withers exclaimed, “And boy let me tell ya, it’s true what they say: Love makes you crazy!”
Like so many others that resided in Sunnytown, Ring Finger liked to consider himself Hard. To survive on these streets, you had to be. But the wide-eyed, grinning man standing over his girlfriend was not someone Ring would ever fuck with even if he had two good legs. This Withers guy wasn’t Hard. He was something else entirely.
“W-what do you want?” Ring asked, trying and failing to keep his voice steady.
Withers walked over and put an arm around him, his hand still holding the bloody spike. “I want you to help out a man in love, Ring my man.”
No matter how much he wanted to, Ring knew he couldn’t refuse him. “Okay. What can I do to help?”
“That’s the spirit!” Withers exclaimed, patting him hard on the back. “What I need from you is so simple, even a cripple could do it! But you have to do exactly what I say….”
Sable stopped by the Sparkle household that afternoon to check in on Troubleshoes’s progress with their agreed-upon punishment/training acceleration for the triplets. Looking at the time and recalling the workout schedule for the day that Troubleshoes had proposed, Sable realized that he was going to find them around behind the house rather than in the bunker.
Specifically, Sable found them by a large area of the back garden that didn’t have anything planted yet. Each of the triplets were on the ground, covered head to toe in dirt as they slowly did push ups on shaking arms. Ever growing mounds of dirt were piled onto their backs as they struggled.
“C’mon, Dazzle! Give me a proper push up now. All the way down. There you go, and up! Good!” Troubleshoes exclaimed as he shoveled up another mound of dirt from the unused stretch of garden and added it to the pile on Adagio’s back before moving on to Aria.
Sable gave him a nod, which the bigger man returned before getting back to instructing. Sable decided to simply sit back and supervise as the grueling session for the triplets went on, taking note of where each one of the triplets excelled, and where they needed to improve.
After completing their push ups, the triplets were next sent over to the pool, which had been uncovered and cleaned the day before. The triplets swam back and forth from one end of the freezing pool to the other in the chilly autumn air. Sable stood ready to jump in and pull them out when their physical and mental endurance inevitably hit its limit; because that was exactly where they were being pushed now.
Eventually, as the sun went down, the day’s training session came to an end, and the three girls, exhausted and sore all over, headed inside to finally relax. Troubleshoes lingered outside, and Sable went over to him with a congratulatory pat on the back.
“Some fine work you did today,” he said. “I think today was the push they really needed to truly get back into a SPECFOR mindset.”
Troubleshoes smiled as he took a swig of water. “Glad you think so,” he said. “To be honest with you, though… I didn’t really feel on my game today.”
“Oh? Didn’t look that way to me.”
“Well, you never served in an instructor’s capacity before. I suppose you wouldn’t notice that I let them get away with cutting corners in more places than I probably should have.”
“Why do you think you were off your game?” Sable asked, and when the other man didn’t immediately answer, he decided to go out on a limb. “Something to do with your daughter?”
“Not sure I want to talk about it,” Troubleshoes said with a frown.
Sable just folded his arms as he tried to come up with a way to reach out to him. “Remember when we went to lunch at the Windmill Diner all those weeks ago?” he asked, and Troubleshoes nodded. “You told me about your old chief. What was her name?”
“Tumblehome.”
“Right. You told me I reminded you of her a bit,” said Sable. “You also told me why you valued her leadership so much.” Then with a grin that said I’ve got you, Sable said, “Can you remind me those words she said to you when you met after your own promotion to Chief?”
With a single chuckle (he clearly knew what Sable was trying to say), Troubleshoes repeated his old mentor’s words, “’When led well, sailors won’t feel like they’ve been hired or gained. They’ll feel like they’ve been adopted.’ Right.”
“You’ve clearly enjoyed working with the triplets these past weeks, and I won’t lie, I’ve been kinda grooming you to take over from me in that regard,” Sable said. “They like you, and you can clearly push them in ways that I can’t. So if there’s something holding you back from doing that, I want you to tell me.”
The two men looked at one another, each of them finally knowing the full measure of the other. Then with a sigh, Troubleshoes said, “Tirespin… hasn’t been happy about how much time I’ve been spending with them. I want to be a good father to her, I really do. There’s so much I have yet to make up for, and I think that seeing how devoted I’ve become to training the triplets has Tirespin thinking that… she’ll always come second.”
Sable listened thoughtfully, and took his time with what he said next. “Well, I certainly don’t want to come between you and your daughter, and I’m sure the triplets don’t either. But I don’t think that will be a problem. You know, Tirespin and I had a good talk the other week. I think she’s really matured a lot over the short time you and her have been with us. I’m sure that she’s well on the verge of opening up to you, under the right conditions.”
Troubleshoes put a hand on his forehead. “I just don’t know how to talk to her anymore. I’ve spent so much time estranged from her it feels like the Tirespin I know now is a completely different person from the one I knew when she was a kid.”
“It’s funny you should say that, I actually said something similar to Tirespin when we had our talk,” Sable said. “I suggested to her that we each knew a different version of you, and that the two of us should each set out to get to know the other’s version. I just realized now that I haven’t really held up my end of that bargain.”
With a sad nod, Troubleshoes said, “Right, guess I could tell you a little about when I got out for good. My wife and I split up shortly after—guess both of the women in my life didn’t care for how much I loved to wear the Budweiser—and the loss of both the job I loved and the woman I loved was just too big a hole for Tirespin alone to fill. So… I filled it with alcohol.”
Closing his eyes and shaking his head in shame, Troubleshoes continued, “I still loved Tirespin, but damn if I wasn’t too stuck in my own head to show it. For years it was like that, with me in a bottle and Tirespin and I just avoiding each other until she was halfway through high school.”
Sable listened somberly, and after Troubleshoes slowed down, he asked, “What made you finally quit?”
With a long drawn out sigh, Troubleshoes said, “Early one morning I was up in the kitchen taking my regular three shots of tequila to start the day when I yacked it all up. Tirespin walked in while I was cleaning it.” Sable saw tears in the big man’s eyes as he said, “I’ll never forget the way she looked at me: like I was a total stranger. Like I was just some bum on the street. She was pregnant with Cinnamon at the time, and I had this moment of realization: this is what she’d always remember of me. This is what she’d tell her child about when they’d ask about their grandfather.”
Wiping the tears from his eyes, Troubleshoes vehemently shook his head, as if trying to refute the thought. “I decided right then that I would not let that be my legacy to her. That morning was the last time a drink ever touched my lips.”
Not sure of what else to do, Sable gave the big man a hug, which Troubleshoes returned with some hesitation.
“You’re not that guy anymore,” Sable said, patting his back. “And I think Tirespin knows that now.”
“Maybe, but there’s still other things I’ve been keeping from her.” Troubleshoes thought back to his conversation with his daughter as they were fixing Night Light’s car. I know about the affair, she’d told him. Troubleshoes pulled out of the hug. “The situation with me and her mom is… complicated.”
“I think you and her just need to have a real conversation. About all of it.”
“I’ve tried, but she just won’t talk to me,” Troubleshoes said.
Sable looked past him towards the house, where three certain Canadian sisters were peeking over the railing of the back porch.
“I think with a little help, we can push her in the right direction.”
Tirespin pumped her fist into the air and let out a loud whoop as on the TV, Zero Suit Samus sent Ness flying off the screen with a precisely timed midair hit.
“Aw dammit, I almost had you with my Up B!” Spike moaned, setting his controller down.
Spike had been dominating for most of their games, so Tirespin felt like rubbing it in a bit. “Don’t come at me with those weak-ass moves!” she said with a teasing grin.
“Talk shit get hit, Tirespin!” Spike exclaimed as they returned to the character selection screen and he picked Ness again.
Twilight, who had been knocked out of the fight early on, looked up from her cell phone. “Spike, language.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Ugh, yes Mom.”
Tirespin looked through her options on the character select screen, starting to get tired of Zero Suit Samus. Shame there’s no real black characters in this game.
It was as Tirespin settled on one of the generic anime sword characters that Sonata walked into the entertainment room. “Hey guys, playing some Smash?” she asked.
“Yeah, wanna join?” Spike asked.
Truth be told, Tirespin didn’t care much for the so-called triplets, but Sonata seemed cool, so she greeted her with a smile and a nod.
“Actually, my sisters and I are gonna hit up the shooting range,” Sonata said. “I wanted to see if Tirespin wanted to join us.”
“Wait, really?” Tirespin asked, not entirely sure how she felt about this invitation.
“Why not? I feel like you and my sisters haven’t talked much since you’ve been here,” Sonata said. “We could teach you how to shoot.”
“I don’t know….”
“C’mon, please? We know you don’t care for us, but we really wanna clear the air with you, Tirespin,” Sonata said, giving her puppy dog eyes that Tirespin just couldn’t say no to.
So after bidding see you later to a disappointed Spike and a neutral Twilight, Tirespin followed Sonata down the hall to the main foyer. It was a silent walk, and once or twice Tirespin thought of saying something to break it, but couldn’t think of anything. Despite the fact that they were roughly the same age, there was a certain wisdom to Sonata and her sisters beyond their years. Even to Tirespin, whose early pregnancy had forced her to grow up faster than most, the mental age gap between them was a gulf.
The elevator let them off inside the bunker, and Sonata led her over to the firing range, where Adagio and Aria were getting set up. Tirespin greeted them politely enough, and then they got to business.
“Here, you’ll need these,” Aria said, handing Tirespin a set of ear protectors.
Adagio then approached her holding some kind of submachine gun with a stock (it didn’t help that Tirespin’s only real gun knowledge came from movies and video games).
“Ever been shooting before?” she asked.
Tirespin remembered that her father had offered to take her to a gun range once recently, and that she had only told him to leave her alone in very colorful language. “No,” she said.
Adagio then proceeded to talk her through all of the safety procedures, which were pretty straightforward (only point downrange, finger off the trigger unless you’re about to shoot, etcetera etcetera…). After giving her a brief primer on how to operate the submachine gun, Adagio handed it to her. Tirespin stepped up to the firing line and surveyed the targets, then carefully raised her SMG downrange. She felt one of the triplets nudge her heel with their foot.
“Spread your legs out more,” Sonata said, and Tirespin did so. Sonata then reached around and adjusted the stock so it was right up against her shoulder. “Make sure you really lean into it. Otherwise the recoil’s gonna knock you off balance.”
Tirespin did everything she was told, lined up her shot, and when she was ready, fired her first shot. Her weapon was set to semi-auto rather than full automatic, so she was able to keep it relatively in control. Still, her shot landed high off the mark. She tried again, this time with a better feel for the recoil, and actually hit her target this time, although her shot was still a little higher than where she was aiming.
“Alright, not bad for a first try,” Adagio said.
Encouraged, Tirespin continued firing downrange, watching her bullets make satisfying impacts against the earthen structures behind the targets (backstops, Adagio had called them). For a few minutes, Tirespin continued at it, finding the activity simple but surprisingly enjoyable. She could certainly see why her father seemed to enjoy it so much. Still, I can’t imagine myself abandoning my daughter for it.
When her magazine ran dry, Tirespin stepped away from the firing line and returned her weapon to Adagio as Aria stepped up to the line, firing some kind of semi-automatic rifle with much more confidence and precision than Tirespin. The evening went on much the same, with all of them taking turns shooting the targets, and with Tirespin trying out many different kinds of guns (her favorite had been the military shotgun, which felt incredibly satisfying).
Eventually, the time came for them to start closing up shop, and Tirespin helped them put away all the equipment.
“Enjoy yourself?” Adagio asked.
“Yeah, it was cool,” Tirespin replied. “Thanks for letting me join you.”
“Yeah well, we all wanted to spend some time with you. I get the impression you don’t like us very much.”
Tirespin couldn’t quite meet her eyes as she said, “I… look, it’s not your fault. I just wish that… that my dad liked spending time with me as much as he seems to with you.”
Aria blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and said, “Yeah well, it’s not like you make it easy for him when you chew his face off every time he tries to talk to you.”
“Ari! You promised you’d play nice!” Sonata gasped.
“Am I wrong?”
“No.” It was Tirespin who answered. “I know I’ve been acting so crazy about my dad lately, but I’m just so… confused. I thought I knew what kinda man he was, but now… I honestly have no idea.”
Each one of the three girls in front of her all looked at her, seemingly waiting for more. So Tirespin kept going. “Ever since he saved me from those guys on that street weeks ago when this all started, I think I knew he really cared about me. And since then he’s been nothing but caring and supportive of me, but… how can I ever trust him again when he’s been a useless drunk for so long? And even before that, it seemed like he cared more about his Army stuff than he did about me or Mom.”
“Navy stuff,” Aria corrected. “The SEALs are a division of the Navy.”
“Not helping, Ari!” Sonata exclaimed.
Ignoring them, Tirespin continued pouring out her thoughts. “I guess… I’ve kinda been resenting you guys because since coming here, I got my dad back. But whenever he’s with you, it’s like he goes back to being the old version of himself, y’know? The Troubleshoes who loved his Navy stuff so much that he crawled into a bottle as soon as it was taken away.”
“Okay, I think I see what’s going on. You can’t help but associate your dad’s love of Navy work with the time he used to drink,” Adagio said, a hand to her chin.
“Which is fucking stupid,” Aria said apathetically. Although Tirespin had considerably warmed up to Adagio and Sonata over their time hanging out, Tirespin still wasn’t sure she liked Aria.
“Oh, what the fuck do you know anyway?” Tirespin asked indignantly. “You can pretend to understand what I’m going through all you want, but the fact is you don’t know shit!”
Aria then glanced back and forth between Adagio and Sonata, and in a brief instance, an imperceptible conversation took place between them. It seemed as though Aria had just gotten their permission to share a deep secret.
“Let me tell you a little story about our parents,” Aria said. “Our mom was killed on 9/11.” Tirespin didn’t have to think hard to guess how that had happened. “Losing her practically destroyed our dad. He took to drinking a little bit to dull the pain, but mostly he dove into his work.”
“He was an economist and diplomat working for the Department of State. He was always traveling around the world helping out countries in need,” Sonata explained, the usually bubbly girl’s voice taking on a more somber tone. “He always used to say he was doing important work, but we were his children! What’s more important to a father than that?”
“He was so absent from our lives that eventually we had to move in here with our aunt and uncle,” Aria said bitterly.
Nodding, Adagio said. “They’re right. But can you see the difference between our dad and yours?”
Tirespin frowned. “Your dad probably wasn’t having an affair on top of all of that.” Noting the surprised looks on their faces, Tirespin sneered, “Didn’t mention that to you guys, did he? Figures he wouldn’t.”
Tirespin didn’t know how or when it had happened, exactly. Her best guess was that it was while he was off doing his Navy thing. After all, she had overheard him telling his old friends the Turkish restaurant story once. But another thing she had overheard was the fight he and her mom had right before they split up. She hadn’t heard the whole thing: her parents fought all the time after Troubleshoes got out, and she had long since learned to tune out their arguments. But hearing her mother’s voice say the word “affair” had certainly drawn Tirespin’s attention.
Then Troubleshoes had said, “It doesn’t matter, I still love you!” As if that made what he did any better.
Whatever Placeholder had said next was too quiet for Tirespin to hear. Both her parents continued talking in hushed voices after that, and Tirespin had thought that was the end of it, but then her mother had shouted one more thing.
“No, my baby needs me! You can’t….”
Her mother had walked out that night. Tirespin had only seen her once more, when she had returned for her things. She had seemed so distant. So… resigned. Tirespin didn’t know how, but her father must have taken full custody of her from her mother in spite of all he had done.
Tirespin returned from her ever-painful voyage into the past to find that the triplets hadn’t said a word since she had revealed to them the truth about her father’s character. They were quiet for some time more, and for a moment Tirespin thought she’d finally gotten them to see things her way.
But then Sonata said, “Look, regardless of what he did in the past, he seems to genuinely be trying to make amends for it now.”
“Trust us, we know what an uncaring father looks like,” Aria said. “And that’s certainly not your dad now.”
“You should at least talk to him. Get his side of the story,” Adagio said. “You can decide then whether you think he deserves your forgiveness. But only then.”
Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend went by and Tirespin seemed no more willing to talk to Troubleshoes than before. It seemed that whatever the triplets had said to her hadn’t been enough. However, his ever-rocky relationship with his daughter was the furthest thing from his mind that Monday evening, when Sunset Shimmer came to him in the middle of the day’s workout with big news.
“How would you and your daughter like to go home?” Sunset asked. “Tonight.”
That had quite effectively taken Troubleshoes’s attention away from the triplets’s workout for the rest of the evening. Fortunately, Sable was there supervising, and took over the workout session as Troubleshoes and Sunset headed upstairs. Before he knew it, Troubleshoes and Tirespin were sitting at the dining room table with Sunset. In the center of the table was Sunset’s phone, which was set to speaker so they could all talk to Cadance, Sunset’s apparent contact in the DA’s office.
“Earlier today police arrested Ring Finger, one of the men you alleged assaulted Tirespin two and a half weeks ago,” Cadance said.
Troubleshoes hadn’t exactly stopped to ask for the names of any of the bastards that touched his daughter, but his mind immediately went to the man with the wandering hand. He’d certainly had a fair amount of bling on those exploring fingers.
“What charges was he arrested on?” Troubleshoes asked, hoping that if they were serious enough, he’d be willing to make a deal with the prosecution and sell out his apparent friends in Los Perros.
“Well… I know I said ‘arrested,’ but it was more that he turned himself in. Said he wanted to offer information in exchange for protection.”
Well that wasn’t what Troubleshoes had expected. “Protection? From who?” he asked, though he could certainly guess.
“According to him, a member of Los Perros showed up in his apartment just last week, threatened him, and paralyzed his girlfriend from the neck down. The arresting officer noted a few times in his report that Mr. Finger seemed incredibly terrified.”
Well that was certainly a stroke of good luck. About damn time too, after the increasingly bad luck Troubleshoes had experienced these past weeks.
“I guess Los Perros wanted to make sure Ring and his gangbanger friends kept quiet about them, but their intimidation backfired,” Sunset mused.
“That seems likely, but we’ll know for sure once our office gets the results of his questioning,” Cadance said. “On that note, his group’s assault on Tirespin is sure to come to light, which is good news for you!”
Troubleshoes smiled and looked at his daughter, who couldn’t quite hide her hopeful expression. “Sunset thinks this means Tirespin and I can go home. Tonight even.”
Cadance hesitated before answering. “I suppose that’s possible. Last I heard, the warrant for your arrest has been a pretty low priority ever since Los Perros increased their presence in Canterlot, and with Ring Finger’s information, your assault on his friend will almost surely be seen as self-defense. That’s not to say the police won’t still have questions for you, though. Like just where exactly you’ve been these past weeks.”
“I can help take care of that,” Sunset offered. “Troubleshoes, do you have any family out of state that you could be visiting?”
Troubleshoes’s initial thought went to Placeholder in Florida, but immediately crossed that idea off. Nobody would believe he’d want to visit his ex-wife at her new house, with her new husband.
“I have an uncle who’s living in a care facility in Ohio,” Troubleshoes said instead. “I don’t see him often, but I do try to visit at least one week a year.”
“Perfect. I’ll see about putting together some fake travel documents then,” Sunset said.
“What about Los Perros?” Troubleshoes asked. “If one of them paid this Ring guy a visit, they must still be in town.”
Sunset shook her head. “According to Shiny, they all pulled out the same night they attacked our house. They might have left one or two guys behind to deal with any unfinished business they had here, but Shiny tells me the FBI is closing in on them.”
“The safest thing to do is probably to keep laying low at least a few more days,” Cadance chimed in. “But I’ll leave that to you.”
With that Cadance said her goodbyes and hung up. Everything suddenly felt so surreal to Troubleshoes. Are we really in the clear? It felt good to think about going back to Hard Luck Towing and getting back to some of his old projects. But there was certainly some merit to what Cadance had said about waiting.
That thought went out the window the moment Troubleshoes looked into his daughter’s eyes.
“I need to see her,” Tirespin said. “I need to hold my Cinnamon.”
With a nod, Troubleshoes said, “Then pack your things.”
The way Tirespin’s face lit up immediately informed Troubleshoes that it was the right call. Tirespin passed Sable as she ran out of the dining room. He was leaning against the doorframe, evidently having been listening there for some time. It seemed like training the triplets could wait.
“Celestia’s home with Down and Cinnamon right now,” Sable said. “I can call her and have her drive them home if you like.”
“Please.”
Before Troubleshoes knew it, he and Tirespin were both lugging their bags out to the car. Evidently, Sable had finally passed the mourning period for his old Jeep and was now offering to drive them home in the Toyota Highlander he’d leased that weekend. After loading their bags, Troubleshoes and Tirespin lingered at the front door to thank and say goodbye to the family that had shown them such kindness these past weeks.
“It was a pleasure having you stay with us,” said Night Light as he shook Troubleshoes’s hand. “Maybe you could come over again sometime during better circumstances?”
“I’d like that,” Troubleshoes said.
He shook hands with Twilight Velvet next, and he thanked her again for their talk the other day as well as her family’s hospitality. Beside him, Tirespin said goodbye to Twilight and Octavia before moving on to Spike.
“Hey, listen uh…” the young boy said, shuffling awkwardly in place. “I just wanted to say, uh… I….” Finally, the boy looked at her directly. “You’re pretty cool.”
“You’re pretty cool yourself,” Tirespin said, offering a fist for Spike to bump. “See you online?”
“Definitely!”
Tirespin next thanked Night and Velvet for their hospitality.
“Trust me, I’m the one who should be thanking you,” Velvet said with a grin. “You’ve accomplished something I never could: you got Spike to clean his room!”
Tirespin giggled, and Troubleshoes turned his attention to the triplets. “If any of you start slacking off on your workout, I want you to picture my disappointment.”
“Aye, Chief!” The three of them said, snapping off sharp salutes. They then turned their collective attention to Tirespin.
“Don’t forget what we talked about, okay?” Adagio said. Tirespin nodded but didn’t say anything.
With all of their goodbyes said, Troubleshoes and Tirespin went to join Sable. Sunset was with him; she planned on riding along to see them off personally. With Sable and Sunset in the front and Troubleshoes and Tirespin in the back, Sable turned the car around and started driving down the road off the property. Troubleshoes looked out the back window over his shoulder and watched as the large house that had been his and Tirespin’s home for the past half a month got smaller and then disappeared.
Troubleshoes was excited to finally go home, and he was looking forward to seeing his mother and granddaughter again. But part of him was also sad about leaving that house and the people living in it behind. They really were a special—almost magical—family, and in a weird way Troubleshoes felt like he had become a part of it in the weeks he and Tirespin had spent there.
The drive was silent as the sun started to set, but eventually Sable cleared his throat and said, “You know, I was serious when I told you I was hoping for you to take over training the triplets from me. You’re really good at it.”
“Of course, we wouldn’t ask you to do it for free,” said Sunset. “We could pay you whatever the standard rate is for a special forces instructor.”
Troubleshoes couldn’t quite keep a neutral face at that. Working with the triplets made him realize just how much he needed something in his life aside from working on cars. It had made him feel like he had purpose, which he hadn’t truly felt since his days in the SEALs. If they were serious about paying him a full rate for continuing his work with those three girls, Troubleshoes could support his family and—unlike when he was a SEAL—also be there for them. It was almost too good to be true.
He then looked over at Tirespin, who was fully turned away from him as she stared out the window.
“That’s a generous offer. I’ll have to think about it,” Troubleshoes said.
“Of course, there’s no rush. Let us know when you come to a decision.”
At long last, the car pulled to a stop on the street outside Down Luck’s Sunnytown home. Despite the rundown quality of the rest of the neighborhood, Troubleshoes’s mother had done what she could to make the place as homey as possible. Of course, it was so very much like her: always working hard to make a bad thing better. According to Sunset, Sable’s girlfriend had dropped off Down and Cinnamon about ten minutes before they themselves had arrived.
So, after getting out of the car, Troubleshoes shook Sunset’s hand and thanked her, and then found himself standing face to face with Sable Loam.
“I don’t even know how I can begin to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” Troubleshoes looked at Tirespin. “For us.”
“Don’t have to. We’re friends,” Sable said. “Us vets gotta look out for each other, right?”
Troubleshoes smiled. “Yeah.”
“Hey, no matter what you decide regarding our offer… don’t be a stranger, okay?”
“Of course.”
The two men hugged, heartily slapping each other’s backs, and soon Sable and Sunset were back in the car, pulling away from the curb, while Troubleshoes and Tirespin walked up the steps to the front door of the house.
“Ma? It’s me!” Troubleshoes called out.
He looked around, comforted by all of his mother’s familiar Catholic paraphernalia on the walls and cabinets. Smelling freshly baked cookies, he found Downy herself in the kitchen, apparently wasting no time getting to work on a batch while she listened to her favorite station on the radio; one that played primarily old jazz songs. Currently the DJs were introducing their next selection.
“Now, this next one may have come out in 2011, but make no mistake, The Real Tuesday Weld is excellent at capturing that authentic sound….”
As Troubleshoes hugged his mother, he heard Cinnamon crying in her crib in the living room, and Tirespin immediately headed that way. As she did, Troubleshoes was inexplicably filled with the feeling that something wasn’t right. It’s been a trying few weeks. Just need to get used to being back.
But when Troubleshoes pulled away from his mom, he saw her face. The look of worry on it was so very unlike her.
“Everything okay, Ma?” he asked.
His sense of unease grew as he saw her eyes briefly dart towards the living room. “A man was waiting for us when we got here,” Down said. “He said he was a friend of yours, but I don’t remember ever meeting him before.”
The general unease turned to full blown terror as Troubleshoes muttered, “Son of a bitch…” before racing towards the living room. Tirespin stood at the room’s threshold, staring forward with terrified, wide-eyed shock. The DJs on the radio started playing a slow jazz song, and a sultry woman started to sing as Troubleshoes entered and saw who was seated on his mother’s couch.
I love the chase, ‘til the minute I win it
Withers looked up at him as he took a bite of the cookie in his left hand. “Long time no see, eh Big T?”
A beautiful face ‘til there’s love for me in it
What stopped Troubleshoes’s heart in his chest was Withers’s right hand, which held a softly crying Cinnamon steady as he gently bounced her on his knee.
Give me your heart and baby I’ll bid it
“I gotta admit,” Withers said around a mouthful of Down’s cookie. “This is so much sweeter fresh!”
‘Cause I always kill the things I love….