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Fuck.
Walking out of the building, I took off on foot, leaving my truck parked out front of the warehouse. It wasn't my place. Plenty of kids liked to use it to drink and fuck and fight. But when my truck was out front, they knew to take their fun elsewhere. It was a dead fuckin' town. There were plenty of other abandoned buildings to break into.
I walked up to the door of the tattoo shop on the corner, slamming my fist into the metal frame until the glass wobbled ominously. It was almost dawn. The place had been closed for hours.
“Better want to fuck or fight if you're showin' up at this hour,” a voice grumbled from inside a few seconds before the door pulled open.
And there was Paine.
And, yeah, that was his real fuckin' name. On his birth certificate and everything. It was an ironic twist of fate that he was a tattoo artist.
He was around my age, three inches taller, and built just about as strong. He was mixed- light skinned but black with startling light green eyes. Shirtless, his entire body was covered in dark black ink up to his jawline. Bitches liked him- partly because he was good looking and partly because he knew exactly what lines to feed them to get them out of their panties in under fifteen minutes.
He took one look at me and sighed. “Drink?” he asked, already moving back in to the shop, past the tattoo rooms, and down a hall that led to his apartment.
Paine liked nice shit. The inside of his studio apartment had been completely redone. Walls skimmed then painted a deep blue. Floors refinished and stained a dark color, just shy of black. The kitchen (which he didn't use) was all state of the art- white subway tile and white cabinets, white marble counter, stainless steel appliances. To the opposite side of the room was his enormous California king bed with a white comforter. In the center of the room, a living area with a deep blue sectional and the biggest flatscreen available.
He walked over to the kitchen where several bottles of booze were standing and poured us each a glass.
I walked over, taking my first round in one shot, and leaning against the counter.
“What you got yourself into now?” he asked, nursing his drink.
“Lex Keith took Shooter.”
The air got noticeably sharper. “What?” he asked, his tone turning lethal.
See... the thing was... me and Shoot went back. Went way back to me finding him sleeping up against my place when I was nineteen. And by “my place” I meant the abandoned storefront I was squatting in. No one gave a shit and I had been there for half a year. Hell, I had the place rigged with cable and electricity by that point.
I walked out my front door, and there he was. Fifteen, small, scrappy.
“Yo,” I said, kicking his creepers with my boots.
His eyes bolted open, his body somehow going from sleeping and sitting to alert and standing in the course of a blink. He wore a pair of black skinny jeans, a white tee, and a leather jacket. The nice kind. The kind that cost a few bucks. He wasn't a street kid. Or he hadn't been for long. His face was on the thin side, his hair a shade of blonde that teetered the edge of brown, cut short, slicked back slightly and dark green eyes.
“What're you...” the rest of my sentence trailed off when, in a blur, his hand went to the waistband of his pants and came back out with a gun. Pointed. Aimed perfectly to put a plug between my eyes. And his fuckin' hand was steady as a sniper.
“Know it's a coward's play, but I'd never beat ya in a fight,” he said, shrugging a shoulder.
“Wasn't gonna fight you, kid,” I said, shaking my head. “Was gonna take you to get some breakfast.”
“Why?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Because I'm hungry,” I said, turning away from him and his gun and making my way down the street.
I didn't get more than five feet before he fell into step beside me.
“You know how to use that gun.” It wasn't a question. Fifteen and he held a gun like a seasoned professional.
“Ain't grow up in Al'Bama without learnin' to use a gun,” he drawled, making it clear he had actively worked to drop his accent.
“Long way from the South,” I remarked, opening the door to the diner up the street.
“Long way from the sonbitch who raised me,” he said easily, giving the waitress who was at least ten years his senior a smile that made her blush. Blush. “So what?” he asked, reading over the menu, “you just a good Samaritan? Helping out the homeless kids on your doorstep?”
“Fuck no,” I said, shaking my head. I had been one of those homeless kids at one point. I knew how important bootstrapping was to their pride. I didn't do hand outs unless someone was really hurting. And even then, half the time it was thrown back in my face. Such was the attitude of the streets. It was something I respected.
“Just the ones who pull guns on you then?” he asked, grinning over his menu.
“Somethin' like that,” I agreed, nodding.
“So you got a name?”
“Breaker,” I said immediately.
At this, I got a brow raise. “Well if you can have a dumb fuck name like Breaker, I can be Shooter.”
From that day on, he was.
“What do you do, man?” he asked a few minutes later, digging into a huge pile of French toast.
“Nothin' I can talk about in a crowded diner,” I said, slipping my eyes toward the table less than two feet from us- an old couple making it no secret they were eavesdropping.
To this, Shooter shrugged. “Need any help?”
And from that day on, he did help.
Fifteen was a lot older in street years. And it was even older when you grew up with a father who used to beat the ever-loving shit out of you anytime he drank. Which was daily. Shooter was fifteen going on thirty. Sharp. Aware. With a surprising control over his emotions. Probably even more so than me. He was funny. Quick with a smartass remark. Even faster with a pickup line. And it always worked. He was a god damn teenage Cassanova.
