Headstrong (11 page)

“I will,” Jason said.

Reece suspected he wouldn’t. There were those who’d made the effort to track Reece down six years ago when Colin’s troubles had rocked their family to the core, and Jason hadn’t been one of them. Crisis was a great barometer of friendships, and Reece didn’t have much use for those who’d made themselves scarce during that dark period.
Fair-weather friends,
he thought. And things had been cloudy for the Nolans for a long time, now.

Chapter Six

Libby confirmed the downtown address on Colin’s business card, standing before the building’s shabby entrance. Pushing in the door, she was reminded of a taxi dispatch—half mechanic’s garage, half waiting room. A handful of surly bike messengers lounged in folding chairs, eating slices of pizza off paper plates. A slightly cleaner young man stood behind a reception desk covered in ledgers and pagers.

“Help you?” he asked, looking up.

Libby felt the eyes of the couriers at her back as she approached. What a strange breed of people…like pirates. Feral and dirty and thoroughly unapologetic.

“Is it okay if I wait here for Colin? If he’s working today, I mean. I just need a quick word.”

“Colin’s out back.” The man pointed to the double doors at the far end of the room and eyed the candy cane in Libby’s hand. His tone made it sound as though Colin receiving female callers during work hours wasn’t an uncommon event. “Go on through.”

Libby pushed in the door and glanced around the back room. It was a veritable bicycle repair shop, filled with the skeletons of half-built frames and strewn with workbenches and shelves laden with toppling heaps of parts. Colin was standing beside a wheel-less, spruce-green bike frame, wielding a foam brush and a can of shellac. A sheet of newspaper was spread under the front fork, catching the drips that fell from the wet, canvas-wrapped handlebars. A short young woman with fashionably messy hair and supremely tight black jeans stood at Colin’s side. She turned as the door swung closed behind Libby, and her look was not welcoming.

Libby didn’t hesitate to exacerbate the tension. “Hey, Tiger!” she said brightly.

Colin raised his head and smirked. He set the can and brush on a table and wiped his hands on a rag. “All right, Libby? What’s the good word?” He offered a warm grin and a gentle clap on her arm.

“Nice bike.”

“You have no idea.” His gaze roamed the frame with electric reverence. “This is a 1950 Helyett
Speciale
.” He affected a heavy French accent and flicked an invisible cigarette holder. “
Magnifique.
And all mine.”

The young woman gave Colin a kick on the shoe and a moody glare, indicating she was off to the waiting area. He offered her a playful push in the right direction, and Libby caught her smile from the contact as she left.

“Frosty in here,” Colin mumbled once she was out of earshot.

“Girlfriend?”

“Colleague.”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

He shook his head. “Not even close. I don’t do girlfriends.”

“If you say so…but I feel it’s only fair to warn you,
she
seems to think differently.”

“That’s her worry. But trust me, I don’t have the energy to deal with a twenty-year-old. I already babysit twice a week.”

Libby smirked.

“Is my brother stalking you today?” Colin asked.

“No, he has the day off, but tomorrow he gets to document me at the library and the grocery store and the Laundromat.”

“Sounds upstanding.”

“That’s the look I’m going for,” Libby said.

“But anyhow, something you need?”

“Not really. I wanted to see if you’d come out tonight. And bring your brother.”

“Karaoke?” he asked.

“Maybe next week. I’ve got something else in mind for tonight. Something a little more Reece’s speed, I think.”

“Intriguing. But didn’t you see him yesterday? You should have asked him yourself.” Colin raised that eyebrow that was forever doomed to betray his jealousy. Not an ugly jealousy—a sweet one, despite its tough packaging.

“Yeah, but Reece doesn’t fall for my strong-arming. I was hoping to get you on my side.”

He nodded. “Annie’s behind the bar Thursdays, so he’s got no excuses.”

“Awesome. Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Meet me by the bookstore in Courtenay Place? Sevenish?”

“You got it.”

“And karaoke next Thursday, definitely.”

He nodded. “Save me a good one.”

“I’ll be Sheila E. if you’ll be my Prince.”

Colin clapped a melodramatic hand over his heart. “Oh, Libby, you know how to melt a man.”

“Yeah. Could you explain that to your brother, please? Actually, on second thought…”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Colin picked up the brush and can. “Have you been following my advice? Laying on the sweetness and all that?”

“I’ve been good,” Libby said, which was true. For her, she’d been an absolute saint. The Patron Saint of Sincerity. “I think we’re making progress.”

“Good. I’ll see you later.” Colin smiled tightly, adding, “You look good.”

“You look real pretty yourself,” Libby said over her shoulder as she swept through the door. “Love your shoes.”

“There she is.”

Reece squinted through the streetlight and neon signs of Courtenay Place, following Colin’s finger to where Libby was leaning against a wall outside the used bookshop. She was nodding thoughtfully, engaged in a conversation with a gesticulating Rastafarian who was stripped to the waist and wearing a dirty, patterned sheet like a sarong. She spotted them as they approached and waved, then went back to her conversation. Reece and Colin waited politely until the homeless man finished his impassioned rant.

Libby touched him on the shoulder and said, “I really hope they get their shit together. Take care, man. Oh, don’t forget your coffee.” She grabbed one of two takeout cups from the top of a newspaper box and handed it to him.

He gave her hand a vigorous shake and picked up an old backpack, heading off down the street. Reece glanced at Libby, torn between disapproval and admiration.

She turned and smiled at them. “Hello, boys.”

“Taking in the local color?” Colin asked.

“Oh, that’s just my friend John.” She glanced down the street after him. “I like to buy him a coffee and listen to his conspiracy theories about the government.”

“All right, Libby?” Reece asked.

“Better, now.” She gave him a good once-over.

“We aren’t going to a poetry slam, are we?” Colin pointed at Libby’s ensemble—black yoga pants and long-sleeved black turtleneck.

“Or burgling someone’s house,” Reece offered, honoring the promise he’d made to himself to give Libby the benefit of the doubt tonight. She’d been right to call him out on their first documentation excursion, just as his brother and sister had been right when they’d said he needed to lighten up.

“We’re doing something way better than theft or poetry.” She grinned and pointed down a few storefronts to a door framed in yellow and black hazard stripes.

Colin laughed.

Reece raised his eyebrows at her. “Laser tag?”

“Would you prefer karaoke?”

“Actually, no,” Reece admitted, warming. “I could get into this.”

“It’ll be good practice for all the sting operations you’ll be a part of once you’re a copper,” Colin said, sarcastic. Wellington wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal excitement.

Reece nodded at Libby’s cast-less digit. “I guess your finger’s mended, then.”

Curling it around an imaginary trigger, she squeezed off a shot in his direction. She drained her coffee and led them inside.

They had a short wait before their group was due to get equipped for the game. Libby took the opportunity to fish a tube of black lipstick from her pants pocket and smear a streak beneath each eye.

“You don’t mess around,” Reece said.

She grinned and pulled her messy hair into a ponytail. “Just pray we’re on the same side.”

A heavy man wearing a Laser Zone staff shirt appeared from the next room. “Right! Next group!” They joined a couple dozen hyped-up players, most looking twenty or younger and several looking a tad intoxicated. Reece glanced around as they assembled in a dim room lined with vests and fake guns. “I feel really old.”

“And I feel
really
sober,” Colin offered.

Libby rolled her eyes. “You two are useless at bloodlust.”

The crowd was divided into two teams. Libby ended up on the red team, Reece and Colin on the blue team. Everyone donned vests equipped with sensors and were issued plastic laser rifles for zapping the enemy.

Libby caught Reece’s eye from across the room as the teams huddled. She fake-cocked her gun and shot an evil grin at him.

“I think you’re fucked,” Colin whispered.

The red team headed down a corridor toward the other end of the building.

Reece couldn’t help but smile as they were released into the playing arena. It was a vast, low-ceilinged space full of sci-fi-style partitions and fiberglass boulders and the like for ambushes, everything edged in fluorescent colors. Pure black-lit, over-the-top eighties cheesiness.

“Feels like we’re in
Tron
.” Colin said. The lettering on his Black Flag T-shirt glowed bright blue-white behind his vest.

The countdown clock mounted on the wall said the battle would begin in ninety seconds. Reece enjoyed the race in his pulse. Corny or not, he loved competition. One of the younger guys—a short, slight teenager who seemed to take the sport exceedingly seriously—began outlining his strategy to the blue team. He issued orders to the others, directing them this way and that. Then he reached the Nolans and gave Colin and his scars and tattoos one look before saying, “You guys just do whatever you want.”

“Cheers, Napoleon,” Colin muttered as he left them be. Lights strobed as the countdown reached the ten-second mark. “May God have mercy on the epileptics.”

The space went black, and a robotic voice from a speaker boomed, “Game on.”

The black lights came back up, and the clock reset itself to ten minutes.

“Give her what for,” Colin said. He slapped Reece’s back and headed off down a passage in search of the enemy.

Reece grinned to himself. He took his cue from the younger players and let himself pretend he was part of an intergalactic military operation. He was feeling pretty good about his skills a couple minutes in, having zapped several red players, leaving them temporarily unable to use their weapons. Then his vest made a depressed arcade-game noise and his sensors went dark. He turned to find Libby standing behind him, gun still trained on his middle.

He gave her a deadly look. “You’ll pay for that.”

She grinned, teeth so white they nearly glowed, and ran down a side corridor.

Reece sequestered himself in a corner until his vest lit back up and his ability to shoot returned, then went after her. He took down a handful of opponents along the way, a man on a singular mission. When he found her, Libby was crouching inside a bunker, taking aim at Colin. Reece zapped a shot at the red pad on her back, and her vest went dark. She turned to him, mouth hanging open in offense. “You little…”

Reece took off, hopping over a low wall and grabbing Colin as he ran back into the maze of glowing corridors.

“Enjoying yourself?” Colin asked, letting himself be led past a room designed to look like a spaceship’s cabin.

Reece took aim and hit a red team member. “I just saved your ass back there. Libby almost had you.”

“Damn, you should have let her. That’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to being her conquest.”

Reece was enjoying himself too much to let the comment trouble him.

Over the next seven minutes, Reece and Libby turned the game into a private vendetta. They traded shots and playfully angry looks until the countdown clock buzzed and the lights came back up. In the end they’d each hit the other six times. The red team won by a landslide of points, but Reece knew as well as she did that it had been a draw.

The players shuffled into the equipment room and removed their gear.

“Again?” Libby asked, eyes sparkling above their black war paint.

“Tiebreaker,” Reece agreed.

However, after another spell of waiting, Libby and the Nolans ended up on the same team.

“Let me show you how it’s done.” Libby strapped on her vest. As soon as the other team went off down the hall, she took charge.

“Okay,” she boomed, shutting up even the bossy teenager. “You three, you’re in the first wave. You two.” She pointed her gun at a pair of young men who seemed only too eager to follow her orders. “You watch their backs. You guys are snipers.” She nodded at a group of high-school-aged girls. “You protect the mothership. You,” she barked, turning to Colin. “You’re my man on the inside. You head all the way down and take out their generator. And you.” She looked to Reece with a grin. “You just follow me.”

Reece selected a rifle, having understood only half the things she’d said. “Yes ma’am.”

As the game started up, he dutifully shadowed Libby. It was freaky how eager people were to do what she said. Just as with karaoke, she could command a crowd like no one he’d ever met. She issued an order and strangers followed it, no questions asked.

“You ought to be an organizer,” he said as they hunkered down behind a pile of fake boulders.

She looked over her shoulder at him, calculating.

“Or a politician,” he amended, meeting her stare. “You’re very…persuasive.”

She softened, smiling. “Am I mistaken or was that almost a compliment?”

Reece was spared further flirtation as a group of opponents approached and drew them back into the game.

The buzzer sounded a few minutes later and lights came back up, killing the campy illusion. Reece noticed the tired carpeting, the worn-out props, the cheap office-style ceiling tiles. He saw Libby in a new light, as well—a flattering one.

Colin found them as they ditched their equipment.

“Did you happen to spot on the board who the highest scorer was?” he asked Libby pompously. He nodded to the LED sign that listed all the players by vest number and how many points they’d earned.