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“Yeah, that’s it.”

“How do you getOceanfromLake?” Grady asked. “That’s not even a name!” He shook himself. If he got caught up in semantics with Gideon, he could be there for a while. “What about him, Gid?”

“He’s fine,” Gideon said hastily. “Like I said. Just extremely fucking lucky. You have no idea. But there isn’t a scratch on him. I asked him if he had someone to come and get him, or if he wanted me to call him a taxi, and he said he wanted you.”

“Why didn’t he call me himself?”

“His phone was in the passenger seat, and it got crushed.”

Crushed.Grady gripped his phone tighter. Gideon had said Lake hadn’t been hurt, but using the wordcrushedwas not making Grady feel better.

Gideon gave him an address that was only roughly fifteen minutes from them, thank fuck. He didn’t ask why Lake was asking for him and not someone else, because it didn’t matter. “I’m on my way.”

Quinn tilted his head in question as Grady approached. “Everything okay?”

“I need to go. Lake was in an accident. I’ll drop you off at the station on my way”—luckily it was on the way, otherwise he would have been asking Quinn to call someone to come get him—“and then I’ll go.”

“Of course. Is he okay?”

“Gideon says he is.”

“Can I just go, then? You guys look busy,” Riley said hopefully.

“Don’t even think about it,” Grady said. “Get in the car, keep your head down, and shut up.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a bossy motherfucker?”

“Watch your language,” Quinn said.

Grady snorted as he opened the passenger door and gestured for Riley to get in. “You’re driving in style today, kid.”

“Right.” He didn’t look like he believed a word of that. Grady might have been offended if he’d cared enough. He was a great driver. It was a good thing he didn’t care about other people’s opinions.

“Seatbelt,” Quinn threw to the backseat as he did his own up.

“Yes,mum,” Riley said sarcastically. “I know how cars work.”

“Are you still talking to Lake?” Quinn asked as Grady guided them back onto the road.

“So?”

“It was just a question; no need to get snippy. I thought he was—”

“He is. We’re just friends,” Grady said. He hadn’t had a lot of “normal” friends, so he had no idea if what they were doing was a regular kind of friendship. Constant texting, seeing each other more nights than not, and Lake taking up half his bed on those nights, but he wasn’t going to ask Quinn about it. And especially not in front of the punk in the back seat.

Quinn turned in his seat to better face Riley. “What school do you go to?”

“Bite me high.”

“Matches your name,” Grady said lightly, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

Riley crossed his arms over his chest with a huff and stared out the window, a tightness to his jaw that Grady knew Quinn interpreted the same way he did: they weren’t getting anything else out of him for the car ride.

The car doors had barely closed behind Quinn and Riley before Grady was on the road again, calculating the quickest route to Lake’s location.

Laketappedhistoeimpatiently and gripped the bottom of his camo top to stop his hands from curling into fists and planting one in the asshole that was trying to get in his face. The guy that had fuckingT-bonedhis car was pretty mouthy for someone who was in the wrong and had almost killed someone.

“You think that uniform means you get to drive however you want?” the guy spat at him.