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Ronan nudged my falling-apart Converse with his boot. “Come on, Frankie. Get up.”
I scowled. “What the fuck for, Wentz? I did my time. We got nothing to say to each other.”
He cracked his neck, deadly casual. “Yeah, we do. Unfinished business.”
Shit.
If Wentz wanted to break me in half, he could. I guessed spending a year in the clink for making a false accusation wasn’t enough. I’d been out for three months, living on the street. Maybe Shiloh had seen me after all.
I got to my feet, struggling with my left leg that always felt like it had fallen asleep and was just waking up. Pins and needles, all goddamn day. Nerve damage, the docs had said. Dad had fucked me up good.
I grabbed the trash bag that held everything I owned in the world and followed Wentz to the Pizza My Heart. He pointed at one of the wrought iron tables out front. “Sit.”
“I’m not your fucking dog, Wentz,” I said but sat down anyway. Mostly because I hadn’t eaten in two days.
Ronan ignored my comment. “Pepperoni?”
I shrugged. If he was going to feed me before he beat my ass, may as well let him.
“My last meal,” I snickered tiredly.
Ronan returned a few minutes later with two large sodas and two slices of pepperoni pizza each. He slapped a plate down in front of me, but it was the soda I went for first. Cold, sugary, fucking heaven. I drank until my forehead ached, then dug in to the pizza.
Ronan ate too, not saying anything, confident and strong, while I felt pathetic and weak. But I was used to that feeling. Ever since I was a kid and my dad saw I wasn’t going to be a big football player like Chance Blaylock. Or Mikey Grimaldi who, last I heard, had finished his six months for filing a false police report and was working the gas station down by the highway.
No more football for him.
I polished off my first slice and started on the second, slower now, to make it last. Ronan, already done, balled up his napkin and tossed it down. He reclined in his chair, his gray eyes—eyes like a shark, back in the day—studying me. I noticed the wedding band on his left hand—black with a vein of gold down the middle.
“Congratulations,” I said, taking a bite of pizza. “Shiloh made that, right?”
Ronan nodded. “Of course.”
“She’s good.”
“She’s the best,” Ronan said, and I knew he wasn’t talking about rings.
“Listen, man—”
He cut in. “Drugs?”
“Huh?”
“It’s noon and you were sleeping. Are you high?”
“Do I look like I can afford dope?” I asked, indicating my stinking worn-out jeans, shirt, and dad’s old windbreaker, so faded now it was gray instead of blue.
Ronan shrugged. “You panhandle for money, then use the money for drugs. Or…?”
“Do other things to score?” I shook my head. “I stay away from that shit.”
I rolled up my sleeves to show him my arms, skinny and white but free of tracks. I didn’t know what the hell I was trying to prove to Wentz anyway. Or why.
“The meds for my headaches make me tired. That okay with you?”
Ronan considered this. “No drugs?”
“No drugs.”
