The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

I laughed. Couldn’t help it, but I was still worried. Something seemed off. “You okay, Geeze?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shrugged, jumping in place.

I caught Grayley’s eyes and saw the resignation in them. Something was up.

“What’s going on?” I asked sharply.

“Nothing. Really. Take off,” Geezer joked.

“Charles,” I barked this time, “you better tell me what’s going on.”

“Jeez, Taryn, come on.”

“Now,” I snapped, folding my arms.

Geezer shuffled his feet self-consciously.

Grayley rolled his eyes and kicked him with his foot. “Just tell her, dude. Maybe she can help.”

“I don’t know…it’s…”

“Geezer, tell her!”

Finally, Geezer lifted his eyes to meet mine. I was surprised to see a sheen of tears in them.

“What’s going on, Geezer?”

“It’s my dad.”

Seeing he had fallen silent, I looked at Grayley.

“He’s back in town. He sent him a letter a few weeks back. He wants to stay at the house for a while.”

“What’s he doing in town?”

“I think—” Grayley started.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know that at all! It’s fucking stupid is what it is. Fucking stupid,” Geezer cried out angrily.

It was the second time I’d seen any sort of emotion like that in Geezer. I was taken aback.

Grayley snorted. “Come on. Why else would he be in town?”

“What? What do you think?”

“I think,” Grayley announced, waiting for a reaction from Geezer, “that he’s in town doing business with Jace.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. It was probably true. And it’d be just like him to use his son while he was toting up on drugs. “So what do you want me to do?”

Geezer lifted his eyes, but didn’t say anything. He went back to shuffling his legs around, still self-conscious.

I looked at Grayley.

He rolled his eyes again. “Can you talk to Jace?”

“Uh huh. No. That door on my life’s closed,” I said quickly, but already knowing the inevitable. Geezer was one of my best friends. He was family.

“Taryn,” Grayley murmured.