Page 33 of Shrapnel

Rhett looked like he was pained to ask, but he did anyway. “What is celebratory fire?”

Jamie peeled his cheek off the bar top and grinned. “Fireworks, Rhett! Fireworks!” he cackled gleefully.

Owen sighed. He should not have come.

Rhett caught sight of him and looked relieved. “Thank God.”

Jamie followed Rhett’s gaze and turned unsteadily. His eyes were dilated and there was a red flush on his cheeks.

“O Face!” he made to reach for him but ended up falling off the stool. He landed in a twisted heap.

“…why did you callme?” Owen asked Rhett.

The man looked uncomfortable. “He’s a Weaver…he’s not supposed to be drinking. I didn’t want him to get in trouble.”

“That makes it my problem?”

Rhett shrugged. “You’re his friend.”

Owen stared at him.

He was his…what?

What had Rhett been smoking? He barely knew Jamie. At best they were colleagues, at worst Jamie was the guy who called him at 3 AM to ask him if he thought a human could survive having two raccoons shoved up their ass.

The answer was, unfortunately, yes. And it was Jamie’s fault that that piece of information currently lived rent-free in his brain.

Sure, a few nights ago Jamie stayed on his couch. But that wasn’t because they were friends. Owen just happened to be one of the few people who didn’t ask questions when Jamie showed up late at night with a bloody duffel bag.

Jamie was lying boneless on the floor like some kind of intoxicated ferret. Owen should call Elijah and have him scrape his idiot partner off the floor. Or better yet, just turn around and walk away. He had no affiliation with Weaver Syndicate anymore and there was no reason he should have to deal with this.

He was just about to tell Rhett all this when he looked down at Jamie. There was a furrow between his eyebrows and a faraway look in his dark eyes. There was a scab on his lower lip, and it looked irritated like Jamie had been worrying at it. Strands of his dark brown hair were tossed across his face, and it was all so pathetic that Owen found himself bending down.

“C’mon firebug,” he grumbled, sliding his hands under Jamie’s armpits, and lifting him to his feet.

He wobbled and leaned against Owen, arm over his shoulder. Owen gagged at the smell of alcohol mixed with…

“Why do you smell like wasabi?”

Jamie burped. “Evan bet me I couldn’t eat an entire thing of wasabi without crying.” He patted his shirt pocket where the foil from a stick of gum caught the flashing lights from the stage. The reward for obliterating his taste buds, apparently.

“God,” Owen groaned. Jamie was heavier than he looked. His feet dragged behind them and his attention kept wavering as they made their way to the door. Rather than just turning his head to look, Jamie had to shift his entire body every time something caught his interest. Their straight route to the door turned into a zigzag.

“I swear, it’s like you have a death wish.”

Jamie was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. “Everyone dies, O Face. I’m just trying to earn it.”

Owen stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He wasn’t sure if he heard Jamie right. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

When he finally got the door open Jamie inhaled deeply. He took big gulping breaths and seemed to sober up a little with the bracing cold in his lungs. The man was only wearing a thin shirt, but he was radiating heat. Pressed against Owen’s side, with the mix of alcohol and heat coming off Jamie’s skin, he felt like he could get drunk by osmosis.

They made it three steps into the parking lot before Jamie tripped. He didn’t bother to try and catch himself, just fell to the uneven gravel and rolled to his back.

“For fucks sake Jamie—” he stopped when he realized that Jamie wasn’t listening. He was staring up with an expression of consternation. The furrow was back between his brows. Owen had never seen this look on his face before, but more than the atypical silences and the furrowed brows, it was his eyes that worried him.

Deep and dark, Owen wasn’t sure which was more fathomless—the night sky or Jamie’s eyes. Normally they were hidden behind laugh lines. His wide smile and waggling eyebrows acted like a sleight of hand, distractions to keep people from really looking. It had worked on Owen.

Now he was looking. He just didn’t know what he was seeing.