Always Crew

Something was going to get blown up. I was figuring my job since we just broke into it.

I was finishing up in the shower when Cross pulled up. The headlights swept over the inside of our bathroom. I was toweling off and starting to dress when they came inside. A second later, Cross was coming into our bedroom.

He had pulled off the black sweatshirt, but he was still in the dark pants.

Seeing me, he tore his clothes off. He rasped out, “Where’s your clothes?”

I pointed to the floor.

He grunted before disappearing into the closet. He came back out in sweats that were low on his hips, deliciously low, and he was pulling a gray Henley over his head, tugging the bottom down. I slept with him, had explored his body on many occasions, but seeing that V leading down to his groin, the one that disappeared under his sweatpants, and I was feeling all sorts of other sensations.

Warmth. Maybe that buzz was coming back? A throb was starting deep inside of me.

He ignored me, bent and grabbed my clothes. He carried them to the other side of the bed, stuffing my clothes and his clothes into a bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to burn these.”

“What?” Alarm spiked me. “I think that’s a little much, don’t you think?”

He stopped just in front of the door and pinned me with a dark look. “We broke into a bounty hunting company. They work with law enforcement. They have confidential information on some big people. There’s probably cameras with us on them. We need to get rid of evidence. I’m not messing around with this.” He looked through the bag. “Where’s the ski mask?”

“I took it off just inside the garage door.”

He nodded.

It was then I saw the tiredness clinging to him.

“Hey.” I moved to him.

He paused.

I touched his arm, pulling him to me. Lifting a hand, I wiped my thumb over some tension lines around his mouth. “They won’t do anything.”

“You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“True, but—”

“You didn’t see that second room. I did.”

He had me there.

He grabbed the doorknob, but looked back. “We’re crew. We don’t lie to each other, but what I saw in that room—I want to call your brother about it before I talk to you. Can I do that? I need your permission to do that.”

I opened my mouth, unsure what to say. The alarm spiking within me was about Cross and how he was acting, not even about what he saw. He was worried, and whatever they had in there, I’d deal. My dad would deal. This wasn’t the first time we were dealing with law enforcement agencies, and I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, except for beating up Harper and breaking and entering my own place of employment, but besides those things, I was pretty clean.

When I didn’t answer, Cross rested his forehead to mine. “I need to talk to your brother. Trust me?”

He asked me to trust him.

“Okay.”

I was trusting him.

He reached up, cupping the side of my face for a moment, before he pulled himself away. The bag of clothes went with him. A few minutes later, now dressed, I headed out for the kitchen. The upstairs light was on, so I was guessing Zellman was up there. Jordan was staring through the back window, looking out over the yard with a bottle of water in hand.

He took a sip, asking a question as I passed him by for my own water, “Why’s Cross burning clothes?”

I grabbed a bottle and went to stand next to him.

The silhouette of Cross was clearly visible. He was feeding one piece of clothing into the bonfire after another. He looked calm and patient. There was also an air rippling off of him. An air that I felt inside of me, spreading through every inch of my body, setting my hairs upright, but not in fear. In awareness. That was our leader, the same guy who had stepped forward when we were about to face off against Alex Ryerson in the Roussou school’s parking lot and who needed an entire group of guys to wrestle him down at the police station when I was arrested. Seeing him incinerating those clothes was a sober enough moment that Jordan was picking up on it.

I didn’t answer.

Jordan slid his eyes sideways to me, tipping his bottle back for another drag. “That have something to do with where you and he went after you dropped us off? Why Cross had a ski mask in the seat next to him?”

Again. There was no answer.

But Jordan was my crew. I patted his shoulder and said what I could, “Let’s wait until he comes in. He has to make a call.”

Jordan watched me, and I was picking up the same vibes that Cross was giving out. Patience and calm. He nodded, going back to taking a drink from his water. “Okay, then.”