Page 96 of Carson

Her husband laughs harshly. “Don’t know. No one’s talking. Everyone in Trap is a little nervous now that Jesse’s been setting fires again.” He points the tip of his cigarette at her.

“You got a name? What does he look like? Anything? Any fucking thing?” I ask.

She taps around on her phone and slides it over to me.

“He looks like your average Joe,” I say.

“Not Joe, Tim. That’s probably what makes him good at what he does. He looks unassuming.”

“He kind of looks familiar,” I tell them.

“That’s the thing about your average Joe,” Dirk says, pausing when his wife corrects him.

“Tim.”

“Your average Tim,” he says dryly. “They all fucking look alike.”

“Just keep your eyes open,” she says, taking her phone back. “Nyx and Nova can fend for themselves. They might have just moved on down the road. They never had any plans to stick around.”

“Odd she didn’t tell you they were leaving.”

“Odd for most people, but not entirely out of character for Nyx.”

“I suppose not.” I take a deep breath. “So, on another note, I need you to talk to Luna for me.”

“About?”

I scratch my head. “Well, I heard,” I say quietly, leaning across the table. “That she’s having problems …” I make a crude motion with my hands.

The look on her face makes me instantly regret it.

“I’m not trying to be offensive.” I hold my hands up. “I just … I know how to help, but I want you to tell her.”

Dirk stands. “I’m out. You got five minutes … if she lets you live that long.”

Jesse watches him walk away.

“I … hm, she, well, I think she’s having trouble getting her dad out of her head when,” I almost make the motion again, but stop when Jesse flicks her lighter. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, but what I’m wondering is why you’re so worried about her love life.”

“Carson is my brother, one of my best friends, he deserves to get his dick …” Again, poor choice of words on my part. I’m used to hanging out with men, okay? “He deserves to be loved, and so does she,” I say instead.

“So you know what it’s like … to be in her position?” she asks, not even yelling at me about my earlier crude description.

“I didn’t say that.” I bite the inside of my cheek, thinking about how to approach this. “I’ve just made some stupid choices in life, and some of those were …” How should I put this? “Hard to get out of my head.”

She looks over at her husband, who’s now sitting with Raffe, his best friend. They both look over at us.

“I think you should talk to her about it,” she says after a few seconds.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Why?”

“Because you can relate to her.”