The Wild Charge (Dartmoor Book 9)

Two

Reese was adept with a needle and thread. He'd stitched his own wounds closed more than once, and it seemed that Tenny had, too, because when Reese sat down at a table in the common room and began hand-stitching his new patches onto the back of his cut, Tenny joined him, plucked a needle and spool of thick, black thread from the box, and they worked together in amicable silence.

Afterward, Reese stood, and held his cut at arm's length to better inspect his handiwork. The top and bottom rocker neatly framed the running black dog at the center, and, there, below the dog's hind paws, the tiny diamond that proclaimed him "1%."

A real one-percenter. An outlaw.

A Lean Dog.

He slipped it on, and though it wasn't rational, only a perception, he thought the bit of leather weighed more than it had. He felt the weight of that black dog against his back, and Tennessee tugging from below. He was marked out, now – as belonging.

When he glanced up, Tenny was giving him a strange look, and he realized he was smiling.

Mercy walked past, and slapped him heartily on the shoulder. "Looks good. Come on, you two."

The interrogation, right. Reese had been so stunned to have been voted in unanimously that he'd forgotten all about it.

Tenny slipped his own cut on, and rolled his shoulders beneath it; Reese thought it must feel different to him, too; the phantom weight of the patches, of belonging. He glanced up, and his gaze narrowed when it met Reese's. "What?"

Reese shrugged, and turned to follow Mercy.

Spring was fast melting into summer, and it was still light outside, sunset coming on in a slow melting of candy pinks and oranges. Last light dazzled across the surface of the river, and picked out all the shiny bits of flashing along Dartmoor's industrial rooftops. Reese found himself taking a deep breath, and enjoying the scents of hot pavement, and warm river water, and motor oil. He'd grown to like the scent of this place, because it meant...well, it meant home. Familiarity had always been a sort of cold comfort in his life; he liked recognizing his surroundings, knowing all its boundaries and features. But that comfort wasn't so cold, now. It filled him with a peace that left his mouth wanting to tug and spread into a smile.

"Are you smiling?" Tenny asked beside him. A glance proved that he looked delighted by the idea.

"It's a nice evening."

Tenny's expression shifted. "Oh. I thought you were just glad to be out for a bit of torture."

Reese felt his smile twist.

Tenny's eyes went comically wide. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"You smirked at me." He sounded scandalized.

"You told me to work on my face."

Tenny stared at him another moment as they walked, then snorted and looked away, shaking his head.

Surprisingly, things hadn't been all that different since the night they'd – well, they'd fucked. There was no getting around that. The next morning, Reese had woken alone, and found the rumpled sheets beside him cold, but when he'd ventured out into the common room, in the still-shadowy early hours just after dawn, Tenny had met him in the kitchen, a cup of coffee already prepared the way he liked it back: lots of vanilla creamer and even more sugar. Tenny had offered him a very small, very uncertain smile, and they'd drank their coffee in silence, standing up at the kitchen island. Tenny had had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak, and his hair had been wild in a way that left something twisting almost painfully in Reese's chest.