Page 70 of Five for Silver

Chad snorted. “It’s funny. Michael asked thesame. I don’t know, they’re … cute I guess.”

“No, they’re not. If I was to get a tattoo,it would have to mean something.”

“I’d already know what you’d get.”

Romeo glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

“Magpies. Thirteen probably.”

Romeo’s face cracked with a smile, then helaughed, a boom of a sound that echoed across the outhouse. “Youmade me laugh.”

Chad pressed his hand to his chest. “I feelhonored.”

“Come on, tell me what you think aboutCandice’s revelations.”

“We have a motive, or more of a motive than‘sisters sometimes fight’.”

“Love rivals,” Romeo mused, plucking Gavin’sphotograph off the board.

He certainly had the shaggy haired mulletand bad boy look going on with his ripped at the arms vest, and thecigarette poking from his lips. He’d gone for a smolderingexpression in the photograph.

“Is that a barbed wire necklace he’swearing?”

Chad nodded. “I think so.”

“They both wantedthis?”

“Hey, my crush when I was sixteen was ArnoldFritz.”

Romeo’s head snapped up. “Arnold Fritz, leadsinger of that terrible punk rock bandSnake andSpikes?”

Chad pressed his lips together not to laughat the outrage in Romeo’s voice.

“They weren’t terrible.”

“They were awful, Chad.” Romeo twistedaround to glare. “I’m having doubts about this.”

“About what?”

“You and me if you had a thing for ArnoldFritz.”

“What was wrong with him?”

“He looked like he’dneverhad ashower, his hair was matted, he was always stoned, and barelylucid, and there was more vocal talent in a crinkling crisppacket.”

“Wow.” Chad chuckled. “You either reallyhated Arnold Fritz or really hate that I just admitted I used tohave a crush on him. When I wassixteen.”

“It’s both.”

Chad shrugged. “He was a bad boy, and openlybisexual.”

“You didn’t buy a magazine with his picturein it so you could get off to him, right?”

“Like I could afford magazines.” Chad shookhis head. He bit his lip, before muttering nonchalant, “I had tosteal the poster out of one in the shop.”

“You better be joking.”

Romeo kept staring at him until Chadcouldn’t hold in his smile.

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