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“You know, I was just thinking about my balls shriveling up,” North said, reaching for the bag, “and then I saw you sitting in this van.” He opened one of the containers and was met with a cheesy, sausage-y, and most importantly cheesy croissant. It tasted—
“God,” Emery muttered. “Now I’m going to have that sound in my head for the rest of my life.”
North managed to stifle additional noises, but he took another bite, and then another. Then he paused and said, “It’s still hot.”
“Adults swallow their food before speaking.” Then Emery must have remembered this was an apology-slash-bribe meal, and he gestured to the cup holders. “I assume Shaw wants the unicorn latte. I got you one too, but if you’d like to pretend that you prefer your coffee black, I also bought you a decoy cup.”
North chewed the next bite more slowly, studying Emery. After he swallowed, he said, “You’re a lot.”
To his surprise, Emery laughed quietly. “I think that’s the consensus.”
“It’s hot.”
Emery’s eyes widened, and North gave him a crooked grin and held up the croissant.
“Don’t do that,” Emery said with a weirdly breathy laugh. “John has this insane theory about us—” He stopped whatever he’d been about to say. “It wouldn’t be much of an apology if it were cold.”
“I thought it was a bribe.”
“That too.”
“And you’ve been out here since…?”
“Ten.” A wry smile creased the corner of his mouth. “I think the delivery people are getting sick of me.”
That pulled a laugh from North. He ate some more. And then—because his balls had not shriveled up, not entirely, anyway, and because he was a man, and because he could do this, regardless of what Shaw thought, and definitely not because of those creepy fix-your-relationship VHS tapes Shaw had bought in bulk at an estate sale and then forced North to watch when it was his night to pick something on TV—North said, “I fucked up. I’m sorry.”
Emery nodded. “I fucked up too. And you don’t need to apologize to me. I, on the other hand, definitely need to apologize to you.” He looked out the windshield, and his hands wrapped around the steering wheel again. “John has been under tremendous pressure. First, those kids. Then Dalton and the sheriff. I know that this is personal for you, but I don’t think you can understand.”
“It’s different,” North said. “I get that. The sheriff was your friend. This is your home. John-Henry’s in the spotlight.” He wrestled for a moment with the next bit. “I’m not blaming John-Henry. Sometimes leads don’t pan out; I get that. The Moss family is going to keep their secrets, and Eric Brey’s got a lawyer, and he knows how to terrorize women into being quiet. But that search at the RV park was a cock-up, and it almost got me and Shaw killed. You’re good at what you do, I know that. John-Henry too. But last night, half of those guys didn’t know their ass from their elbow. And then Cassidy—”
“What happened with Cassidy?”
North gave himself a mental kick. And then he told him.
Instead of exploding, Emery said, “I wish you would have told us.”
“That’s it?”
Emery blinked. “Pardon me?”
“Colt told me a story about you punching a tree because a branch almost fell on him.”
“I didn’t punch it, I—” Emery stopped, and that tiny smile flickered again. “I’m not surprised Jonas killed Welch in the way you described. Or, frankly, that he tried to kill you. Jonas is concerned primarily with Jonas, and when it comes to protecting himself, he’ll do whatever he has to.” He was silent for a moment. “It’ll be impossible to use as leverage, unfortunately. It’s your word against his, and you were inside a storage unit. He already admitted to moving Welch’s gun, so there’s an explanation for his prints on it. No, I don’t think there’s anything we can do with it. But it’s good to know. We suspected he was involved; now we know he is, at some level. Even if he doesn’t have a connection back to the Cottonmouth Club, he’s tied up with the Mosses and Brey, and he can’t be trusted.”
North waited for more. “That’s it?”
“I assume that your experience with Jonas and your frustration with the search at the RV park explain why you acted independently when going after Ezell.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Perhaps you could tell John that.”
“What?”
“John is almost unbelievably willing to forgive. He did what he did—”
“Fired our asses.”
