Page 7 of Snowbirds
She stuck out her hand. “Chris is so quiet about his life. Fair warning, I plan on interrogating you. I want to hear everything. Let’s be best friends before they get back,” she said mischievously. “Expect to be plied with lemonade and cookies.”
Morrison’s grin widened. Two could play this game, and Hatch wasn’t here to stop him or Hatch’s mother. He’d deal with the fallout later.
“I love cookies. I think we’re going to get along just fine,” he agreed, locking the car and following Susie to the front door of seven-sixteen. “I can’t imagine why Hatch hasn’t introduced us before now.”
Several hours later,Ivan and “Call me Susie” were comfortably ensconced on the Hatches’ backyard patio, chatting like they’d known each other forever. Morrison was on his third lemonade but only the first with alcohol—mostly alcohol if he was being honest.
But he wasn’t driving, was he? No, he was flipping through a photo album dedicated to Christopher Hatch as a teenager. There were several of them; he’d already been through Chris Hatch, the Early Years.
Hatchwasgoing to kill him and Morrison didn’t care one iota. It wasn’t as if he’d begged Susie to break out the photo albums. She’d gone inside to refill the pitcher of lemonade—“Adding a little vodka this time!”—and brought them back outside with her.
Leaning closer, he peered at High School Hatch, who’d been on the debate team as well as track. Past Christopher Hatchseemed to be just as moody as current-day Hatch. Morrison wanted to travel back in time and give him a much-needed hug.
He flipped the page, and another, and another.
Toward the end of that album was a snapshot of Hatch with his parents. They stood on either side of him, their arms wrapped around his shoulders and huge smiles on their faces—Susie and Lance’s faces, at least. Chris was scowling and decked out in black jeans, a black sweater, and black shoes. His parents, on the other hand, were dressed in blindingly colorful tie-dye, one in a shirt that said Whirled Peas on the front and the other in one emblazoned with Grateful Peace. Susie also had on a bright purple skirt while Lance sported baggy cargo shorts. They both wore Birkenstocks. With socks.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Did you and Lance”—he hadn’t met the man yet and they were already on a first-name basis too—“purposefully torture Chris by wearing cheerful clothing?”
“Oh.” Susie giggled. “Sort of? Okay, yes. I can’t lie. Don’t tell him though. We’ve never admitted it to him. He’s just always so serious, and we have a bad habit of trying to make him laugh.”
“Does it work?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Not as often as we’d like. He’s a good boy though.”
Morrison liked to make Hatch laugh too. It didn’t happen nearly often enough.
He started to say something, but the rumble and roar of many motorcycles drowned him out. The noise was so deafening and close that it could only be coming from the street directly out front. Susie rolled her eyes.
“Those people,” was what Morrison thought she said.
It was too loud for conversation. Then the roaring ended abruptly, and the silence that followed was a relief.
“That might be Ray Walker and his”—she used air quotes—“motorcycle club. Ray and his friends are more annoying than anything. But.” She shook her head in awhat can you dokind of way.
Morrison felt there might be a story he needed to know. “But what?”
Susie rolled her eyes. “Now you really sound like Chris. But nothing. Ray is just an old man who always wanted to be a tough guy. When he retired, he bought himself a badass motorcycle, gathered up a few friends, and now they ride together. Their motto is Ride or Die, which I find hilarious and ironic seeing as everyone living here is closer to death than we’d like. They’re all over seventy, and they’re going to die sooner rather than later.”
She laughed and Morrison laughed along with her, but he also made a mental note to ask Chris what his opinion was regardless of the riders’ ages. Not all MCs dabbled in the illegal unless you counted speeding—and Morrison could totally understand the need for speed—but being analmost-formerDEA agent meant he’d been involved in more cases involving illegal MCs than he could count on two hands. A nervous shiver rolled down his spine.
“More lemonade?” Susie asked. “It’s happy hour after all, and we have plenty of vodka.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Morrison said agreeably.
FOUR
Hatch
Chris squinted through his dad’s windshield, not sure he believed what his eyes were seeing, but regardless how many times he blinked, they kept telling him the same thing.
A matte black Ford Taurus was parked in front of Frank’s place. What were the chances that his parents’ friend—or anyone else in their lives down here—owned a car that looked exactly like Ivan Morrison’s?
And had Oregon plates?
None.
