“What is it, kid? What’s wrong?”
“I’m her barista,” Josie says, seriously. “I have to make her crackhead latte.”
“Her what?” Crash says.
“Hey, if it’s anything like it sounds, count me in,” Snake says, downing his mug and setting it — empty — on the table in front of him.
“It’s not,” I say. “Not anything like that. She’s eight, Snake. It’s just really good and Josie makes them special.”
“Would you like one too, Crash?” She says.
“Sure, kid,” he replies, smiling.
“Me too, Josie,” Blaze says. “And put one in a thermos, too. I’ll bring it to Mack later at Max’s place.”
Josie is beaming. And she turns into a whirlwind of milk and coffee and a tornado of sugar as she mixes drinks. In seconds, my kitchen counters are coated in a snowstorm of sugar, but I’ve rarely seen Josie as happy, or as proud, as she is when she sets down four full mugs of her coffee concoction. Each of the men picks up a cup, takes a drink, and showers her with praise.
I sip mine and take a seat, happy and content.
“So, was I interrupting a story earlier?” I say.
Crash shrugs and looks about to say something, but Josie pipes up. “Crash was going to tell me how he got his name.”
Crash shrugs. “It’s nothing.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you, Crash,” I say.
“Yeah, please finish your story, Crash,” Josie says, bouncing in her chair and giving Crash some of the widest puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Fine, fine. Kid, you get any better at those eyes and you will raise a bunch of hell when you get older,” Crash says.
“My mom says the same thing. But finish your story.”
Crash smiles and rolls his eyes at me and then turns back to the stove, where he’s preparing breakfast. It’s as he turns that I see something dark around his throat. Bruises, maybe. Whatever they are, they definitely weren’t there when we finally went to sleep, and neither of us choked the other that hard that there should be any marks.
I frown.
Then Crash, clearing his throat, starts back into his story.
“I was prospecting. Do you know what that is, Josie? No, you probably don’t. It’s like I was trying out to join the club. Every member has to do it — they put you through some tests, make you do a bunch of busywork like cleaning and dumb errands, and they tease the heck out of you trying to get you to break. There’s more to it, but I won’t bore you with the details. Anyway, I was just a young kid, and I thought I was the best at everything. And, to tell you the truth, I was darn good at a lot of it; I was, and still am, the best racer in the club.”
“Bull crap,” Blaze says, laughing. “I’ve dusted you tons of times, brother.”
Crash turns and glares at him, and Blaze quickly closes his mouth. For a moment, I get another look at the bruising around his throat. It’s well hidden by the collar of his shirt — this morning, he’s wearing a full-collard flannel — and by his cut, but it’s unmistakable. Those are fingerprints. What happened last night? Was I that rough with him?
“Anyway Josie, I was pretty fast at racing and we were on a charity ride — it’s this thing Mack puts on once a year to raise money for some kid’s groups — and the whole club was driving in this big line down this long stretch of highway. And I thought I would show off and prove to everyone just how good I was. So I revved my engine, pulled into the opposite lane, sped by everyone in the whole club, even popped a wheelie for a while, and it was as I was looking over my shoulder to see just how impressed everyone was with my amazing stunts that I lost track of what was in front of me. When I turned my head around, what do you think I saw?”
“Was it the stupid cops?” Josie says.
“Stupid? Josie, what do you mean stupid?” I say.
Crash and Blaze both look directly at Snake.
“No more unsupervised conversations with the kid, brother,” Crash says.
“Sorry,” Snake says, looking down at the table.
“Damn, dude, what else did you tell her?” Blaze says.
“Nothing weird, I promise.”
“He told me the best way to stab someone in the face. You know, in case zombies attack,” Josie says.
“Snake…” Crash says.
I pick up a butter knife from the table and glare at him. “Any more from you and you won’t be allowed within a hundred yards of her. I’ll have you put on one of those lists. You got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
Crash turns his focus back to Josie. “Like I was saying, kid, I was trying to show off. I turned around and, from out of nowhere, there’s this ice cream truck barreling down the highway. I had just seconds to react, so I swerved my bike and went flying off the road, I went down into this ditch and then shot up high on the other side, like a jump. Man, kid, I soared through the air like a bird. Got a serious case of road rash, too. Still have the scars to this day,” he says.
“Can I see them?” Josie says.
Crash nods and lifts his shirt, showing a line of small gravel-sized scars running up his back.
“Oh, cool. I got a scar, too. When I was six, I built a jump ramp at a bottom of a hill and I went down it on my bike. I jumped super far. But I didn’t land so good. But I got this,” she says, pointing to the bridge of her nose, where there’s a slight scar barely bigger
