Page 2 of Danny Hall Gets a Lawyer (Goose Run #1)

Okay, so that was how it was. Well, you know what? Good for them.

I congratulated them, and we talked for a while longer, even joking around for a bit about whether I was going to buy Matt his Mountain Dew or his new boyfriend was.

They seemed like cool guys, and okay, it sucked a bit that nothing had come of giving Matt my number, but that was how flirting worked, right?

I put out all the signals and absolutely nothing happened.

At least, that was the pattern so far. But I wasn’t giving up.

I was only on a losing streak of what—three or four years now? Things could turn around any day.

Any day now.

And it wasn’t as though I didn’t have any offers at all. I just had standards too, and I wasn’t quite desperate enough to follow any of the skeevy truckers into the bathroom when they gave me the nod. As the guy who had to clean the bathrooms, there was no way.

When Matt and his boyfriend left, I went and grabbed a bag of chips and ate them behind the counter, dreaming of what my life might look like if I got in my truck and just drove.

It would probably look exactly as it did now since I’d be lucky if my truck made it five miles down the highway without shitting itself.

And yes, there was a certain amount of irony in the fact that I worked at a gas station but knew next to nothing about cars. If I did, I’d have fixed my truck’s oil leak by now. As it was, I kept promising myself I’d get around to looking at it next week and topping up the oil in the meantime.

I’d been getting to it next week for around a year now. It was like the yardwork—annoying, but it wasn’t like taking care of it was gonna change much, so I didn’t stress too much.

“Hey,” Chase said, strolling out of the stockroom with his hair plastered against one side of his head. Definitely napping then. “Cash just texted. That asshole next door came over and started hassling him about the mess in the yard and that tree branch.”

“Shit. What did Cash say to him?”

“What does Cash ever say to anyone? He slammed the door in his face and went back to bed.”

That sounded on brand for Chase’s twin. Cash didn’t speak much, but his facial expressions were a language all of their own, so I didn’t doubt that he’d managed to let Harlan know exactly how he felt about being woken up after a night shift.

Or, y’know, he might have gone old school and flipped him the bird.

I frowned. Harlan had always been a cranky old bastard, but it seemed like lately he was getting worse.

Or maybe we were? Fuck if I could tell. But he usually reserved his outbursts for when we were leaving the house.

Knocking on the door was a new development and not a good one.

Wilder’s theory was that things had gone downhill ever since Grandma had moved out a couple years back, and now instead of having a charming Southern lady with a sparkle in her eye for a neighbor, he had us assholes. Wilder might have been onto something.

Regardless of the reason, I was getting sick of his shit.

Problem was, I had no idea how to stop it.

Because even if we cleaned up the yard, and that was definitely on the list, he’d just find something new to bitch about.

He was that kind of guy. Whenever he mowed his lawn, he spent the entire time glaring at our house, like he was trying to burn it down with the power of his mind.

“Is Cash okay?” I asked.

“He’s fine,” Chase said. “He was just pissed he got woken up.”

I rubbed a hand over my forehead. “Well, hopefully Harlan’s got it out of his system for now and he’ll crawl back under his rock.”

Chase shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. Hey, did you know we have a raccoon in the storeroom?”

“What?”

“Well, something has chewed through the side of a box of Cool Ranch Doritos and eaten half the bags. And since that’s where I go to nap, I’m gonna pretend it’s a raccoon and not a whole bunch of rats. Raccoons are cute.”

“Maybe it’s a cat,” I suggested. “Cats are cute too.”

“Cats don’t eat Doritos, dumbass.”

“Emma-Lee’s cat loves Doritos,” I said. “I’ve seen it on her Instagram.”

My older sister Emma-Lee was a nurse in Richmond, and we mostly kept in touch over social media. I missed her, but she worked long hours the same as me and had even less time to visit than I did. She tried to get down to see Grandma every couple of months, though.

“It’s not a cat, Danny,” Chase said.

He was probably right. I’d have to let Bobby know, and maybe he’d get some pest guys in or at least put some traps down. Because I was pretty sure it wasn’t a raccoon either.

The rest of my shift passed slowly, which gave me the chance to read all the magazines we carried. Wade came back at six to take over for the night shift, and I waved goodbye to Chase and headed home, praying my truck would make it.

It was only a short drive, and I spent it listening for any new rattles or whines coming from my truck that would drain my tiny savings account yet again.

I counted it as a win when I pulled into the driveway with the engine still running and made it into the house without getting waylaid by Harlan.

Cash and Wilder were sitting at the tiny kitchen table when I walked in. Cash was dressed in his scrubs and eating a stack of toast and peanut butter. His meal schedule was all fucked to hell from working shifts, so breakfast for dinner wasn’t unusual. Plus, he couldn’t cook for shit.

“That bread was still okay?” I asked him. “I thought it might have gone moldy.”

Cash’s eyes widened, and he took a piece of toast out of his mouth and inspected it. Then he shrugged and shoved it back in his face.

It was weird how the twins looked exactly the same but were so different.

Chase was loud and snarky and told you exactly what he thought, even if you hadn’t asked, but Cash?

The guy hardly ever said a word. Didn’t mean he didn’t pay attention to what was going on around him, though.

It was probably a survival skill or something from when they were growing up.

Chase always said they left home because it was methed up.

You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out it had been fucked up, not when they’d been dumpster diving out back of Goose Run Gas when I first met them.

Wilder looked up from his phone. “I found chicken wings in the freezer.”

“When did we buy chicken wings?”

“I can’t even remember. But they’re probably still good, right?” He nodded toward the sink where a soggy paper-wrapped package was sitting. “I think they’re defrosted. I’m gonna put them on the grill. You in?”

“Yeah. Want me to make a salad?”

Wilder blinked, then grinned. “Fuck off. You can’t even spell salad. Besides, protein is good for building muscles.” He patted his abs.

“You know eating vegetables doesn’t negate that, right?”

“Okay, Mom,” he said and rolled his eyes.

Wilder and I had been friends since elementary school.

In high school, we’d become best friends.

When his parents had kicked him out, Grandma had offered him Emma-Lee’s old room.

He’d moved in and never left. Since he worked in construction, it meant that he took care of any minor repairs around the place, which was a bonus. Plus, he was a half-decent cook.

“What did that asshole next door want?” I said, sliding into the chair next to Cash.

He rolled his eyes and shrugged and then shoved another piece of toast in his mouth.

“Okay, but he must have wanted something. He doesn’t normally come to the door.”

Cash heaved a giant sigh like I was torturing him and said, “The tree drops leaves.”

“Yeah,” Wilder said. “That’s what trees fucking do. Besides, it’s summer. It ain’t dropping shit right now.”

Cash nodded.

“Hey,” Wilder said, “you want to stick around for chicken? I’m gonna put the grill on now.”

Cash shook his head. He stood up and put his plate beside the sink. “Got work.”

“Say hey to Grandma for me,” I said. Cash worked as a janitor at Sunny Fields, the senior living community over in Brodnax where Grandma lived.

He gave me a rare smile and nodded. Cash had a soft spot for Grandma, and she had one for him.

Cash left soon after, and Wilder and I went and sat on the back porch with a couple of beers and waited for the chicken to grill.

“Work good?” he asked me.

“Work’s work.”

He snorted. “Fucking A.” He pulled out his phone and started scrolling, then held it out to me. “I swear she’s grown like a weed in a week.”

A photograph of his daughter, Gracie, beamed out at me.

She was a cutie. She’d inherited her dad’s blue eyes and blond hair.

It was sometimes weird to think that Wilder was a dad to a four-year-old when we’d only been able to start buying beer this year.

Legally, at least. And it was still funny how Wilder did that dad thing where every second word he dropped around us was “fuck” but when Gracie was staying here, he said “flip” instead.

Except he forgot a lot of the time, so now Gracie thought “fu-lip” was a word.

Which was kind of hilarious when she was muttering it under her breath while she was trying to put her shoes on.

“She coming for the weekend?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Shit. Maybe it really was time we cleaned up the yard. The weeds were half-dead but the stalks were still tall enough that we could lose Gracie in them, and they were probably hiding all sorts of critters.

“We gotta clear the backyard before then,” I said.

Wilder squinted at the weeds. “Yeah. We can start tomorrow after work. We’ll get most of it done before the weekend if we all pitch in.”

It was a solid plan.

Except the next morning, when the sun was barely over the horizon, I woke up to the roar of a chainsaw.