Hush, Hush

“I don’t think he likes me,” I whispered to Patch when we were a safe distance away.

“Bo doesn’t like anybody.”

“That’s Bo of Bo’s Arcade?”

“That’s Bo Junior of Bo’s Arcade. Bo Senior died a few years ago.”

“How?” I asked.

“Bar brawl. Downstairs.”

I felt an overwhelming desire to run back to the Jeep and peel out of the lot.

“Are we safe?” I asked.

Patch slanted a look sideways. “Angel.”

“Just asking.”

Downstairs, the pool hall looked exactly like it had the first night I’d come. Cinder­block walls painted black. Red felt pool tables at the center of the room. Poker tables scattered around the fringe. Low track lighting curving across the ceiling. The congested smell of cigar smoke clogging the air.

Patch chose the table farthest from the stairs. He retrieved two 7UPs from the bar and popped their caps on the edge of the counter.

“I’ve never played pool before,” I confessed.

“Choose a cue.” He motioned to the rack of pool sticks mounted on the wall. I lifted one down and carried it back to the pool table.

Patch wiped a hand down his mouth to erase a smile.

“What?” I said.

“Can’t hit a home run in pool.”

I nodded. “No home runs. Got it.”

His smiled stretched. “You’re holding your cue like a bat.”

I looked down at my hands. He was right. I was holding it like a bat. “It feels comfortable this way.”

He moved behind me, put his hands on my hips, and positioned me in front of the table. He slid his arms around me and took hold of the pool stick.

“Like this,” he said, repositioning my right hand up several inches. “And … this,” he went on, taking my left hand and forming a circle with my thumb and index finger. Then he planted my left hand on the pool table, like a tripod. He pushed the tip of the pool stick through the circle and over the knuckle of my middle finger. “Bend at the waist.”

I leaned into the pool table, with Patch’s breath warming my neck. He pulled back on the pool stick, and it glided through the circle.

“Which ball do you want to hit?” he asked, referring to the triangle of balls arranged at the far end of the table. “The yellow one in front’s a good choice.”

“Red’s my favorite color.”

“Red it is.”

Patch drew the stick back and forth through the circle, aiming at the cue ball, practicing my stroke.

I squinted at the cue ball, then at the triangle of balls farther down the table. “You’re a tiny bit off,” I said.

I felt him smile. “How much you want to bet?”

“Five dollars.”

I felt him give a soft shake of his head. “Your jacket.”

“You want my jacket?”

“I want it off.”

My arm jerked forward, and the pool stick shot through my fingers, ramming the cue ball. In turn, the cue ball shot forward, impacted with the solid red, and shattered the triangle, balls ricocheting in all directions.

“Okay,” I said, shucking off my jean jacket, “maybe I’m a little bit impressed.”

Patch examined my silk­scarf­slash­halter. His eyes were as black as a midnight ocean, his expression contemplative. “Nice,” he said. Then he moved around the table, scrutinizing the layout of balls.

“Five dollars says you can’t sink the blue striped one,” I said, selecting it purposely; it was shielded from the white cue ball by a mass of colorful balls.

“I don’t want your money,” Patch said. Our eyes locked, and the tiniest dimple surfaced in his cheek.

My internal temperature rose another degree.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Patch lowered his pool stick to the table, took one practice stroke, and drilled the cue ball. The momentum of the cue ball transferred to the solid green, then to the eight ball, and punched the striped blue into a pocket.

I gave a nervous laugh and tried to cover it up by cracking my knuckles, a bad habit I never succumbed to. “Okay, maybe I’m more than a little impressed.”

Patch was still bent over the table, and he looked up at me. The look warmed my skin.

“We never agreed on a bet,” I said, resisting the urge to shift my weight. The pool stick felt a little slick in my hands, and I discreetly wiped a hand on my thigh.

As if I wasn’t already sweating enough, Patch said, “You owe me. Someday I’ll come to collect.”

I laughed, but it wasn’t quite on pitch. “You wish.”

Footsteps barreled down the stairs across the room. A tall, stringy guy with a hawk nose and shaggy blue­black hair appeared at the bottom. He looked at Patch first, then shifted his gaze to me. A slow grin appeared, and he strode over and tipped back my 7UP, which I’d left on the rim of the pool table.

“Excuse me, I believe that’s—,” I began.

“You didn’t tell me she was so soft on the eyes,” he said to Patch, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He spoke with a heavy Irish accent.

“I didn’t tell her how hard you are on them either,” Patch returned, his mouth at the relaxed stage just before a grin.

The guy backed up against the pool table beside me and stuck his hand out sideways. “The name’s Rixon, love,” he told me.

I reluctantly slid my hand into his. “Nora.”

“Am I interrupting something here?” Rixon said, dividing an inquiring look between me and Patch.

“No,” I said at the same time Patch said, “Yes.”

Suddenly Rixon lunged playfully at Patch, and the two dropped to the floor, rolling and throwing punches. There was the sound of husky laughter, fists laying into flesh, and fabric tearing, and Patch’s bare back came into view. Two thick gashes ran the length of it. They started near his kidneys and ended at his shoulder blades, widening to form an upside­down V. The gashes were so grotesque I almost gasped in horror.

“Aye, get off me!” Rixon bellowed.

Patch swung off him, and as he got to his feet, his torn shirt fluttered open. He sloughed it off and tossed it into the trash can in the corner. “Give me your shirt,” he told Rixon.

Rixon directed a wicked wink at me. “What do you think, Nora? Should we give him a shirt?”

Patch made a playful lunge forward, and Rixon’s hands flew up to his shoulders.

“Easy now,” he said, backing up. He peeled off his sweatshirt and tossed it at Patch, revealing a fitted white tee underneath.

As Patch rolled the sweatshirt down over abs hard enough to put a flutter in my stomach, Rixon turned to me. “He told you how he got his nickname, didn’t he?”

“Sorry?”

“Before our good friend Patch here got mixed up in pool, the lad favored Irish bare­knuckle boxing.

Wasn’t very good at it.” Rixon wagged his head. “Truth be told, he was downright pathetic. I spent most nights patching him up, and soon after, everyone started calling him Patch. Told him to give up boxing, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Patch caught my eye and passed me a gold­medal bar­fight grin. The grin alone was scary enough, but under the rough exterior, it held a note of desire. More than a note, actually. A whole symphony of desire.

Patch tipped his head at the stairs and held his hand out to me. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my stomach tumbling to my knees.

“You’ll see.”

As we ascended the stairs, Rixon called out to me, “Good luck with that one, love!”

CHAPTER 18

ON THE DRIVE BACK, PATCH TOOK THE TOPSHAM EXIT and parked alongside the historic Topsham paper mill sitting on the bank of the Androscoggin River. At one point, the mill had been used to turn tree pulp into paper. Now a big sign across the side of the building read SEA DOG BREWING

CO. The river was wide and choppy, with mature trees shooting up on both sides.

It was still raining hard, and night had settled down around us. I had to beat my mom home. I hadn’t told her I was going out because … well, the honest truth was, Patch wasn’t the kind of guy mothers smiled on. He was the kind of guy they changed the house locks for.

“Can we get takeout?” I asked.

Patch opened the driver’s­side door. “Any requests?”

“A turkey sandwich. But no pickles. Oh, and no mayonnaise.”

I could tell I’d earned one of his smiles that never quite made it to the surface. I seemed to earn a lot of those. This time, I couldn’t figure out what I’d said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, sliding out.

Patch left the keys in the ignition and the heater pumping. For the first couple of minutes, I replayed our evening so far in my mind. And then it dawned on me that I was alone in Patch’s Jeep. His private space.

If I were Patch, and I wanted to hide something highly secretive, I wouldn’t hide it in my room, my school locker, or even my backpack, all of which could be confiscated or searched without warning. I’d hide it in my shiny black Jeep with the sophisticated alarm system.

I unbuckled my seat belt and rummaged through the stack of textbooks near my feet, feeling a mysterious smile creep to my mouth at the thought of uncovering one of Patch’s secrets. I wasn’t expecting to find anything in particular; I would have settled for the combination to his locker or his cell phone number. Toeing around old school assignments cluttering the floor mats, I found a faded pine­scented air freshener, an AC/DC Highway to Hell CD, pencil stubs, and a receipt from the 7­

Eleven dated Wednesday at 10:18 p.m. Nothing especially surprising or revealing.

I popped open the glove compartment and sifted through the operating manual and other official documents. There was a gleam of chrome, and my fingertips brushed metal. I pulled out a steel flashlight and turned it on, but nothing happened. I unscrewed the bottom, thinking the flashlight felt a little light, and sure enough, there were no batteries. I wondered why Patch kept a nonworking flashlight stored in his glove compartment. It was the last thought I had before my eyes homed in on the rusty liquid that had dried at one end of the flashlight.

Blood.

Very carefully, I returned the flashlight to the glove compartment and shut it out of sight. I told myself there were lots of things that would leave blood on a flashlight. Like holding it with an injured hand, using it to push a dead animal to the side of the road … swinging it with force against a body repeatedly until it broke skin.

With my heart thundering, I jumped on the first conclusion that presented itself. Patch had lied. He’d attacked Marcie. He’d dropped me off Wednesday evening, traded his motorcycle for the Jeep, and gone out looking for her. Or maybe their paths had intersected by chance and he’d acted on impulse. Either way, Marcie was hurt, the police were involved, and Patch was guilty.

Rationally, I knew it was a quick draw and a big leap, but emotionally, the stakes were too high to step back and think it over. Patch had a frightening past and many, many secrets. If brutal and senseless violence was one of them, I wasn’t safe riding around alone with him.