Page 92 of Shades of Henry
“I am not sure what Malachi would do if he knew about you,” Henry said. “I… I would rather nothing bad happen to you, right?”
Lance heard the quiver in his voice and gripped Henry’s hand tight.
“You know I bench press as much as you do, right?”
Henry rolled his eyes. “You know Mal and I were trained in combat. It didn’t stop him from getting the better of me. Emotional warfare works because the bad guys play to win.”
There was no arguing with that, so they ate dinner instead.
Turkeyburger, lettuce, tomato, pickles, some ketchup, no bun. Lance checked his calorie diary and saw that he was under, so he took a teeny bit of fruit salad and settled in. Henry watched him put his phone away and stroked his thigh. A team. They were doing this as a team. It made it easier.
“You got room on that phone for cake?” Dex asked hopefully. “We made little cupcakes with applesauce for you guys.”
“I get white sugar and butter,” Frances said smugly. “Because Uncle Dex says I’m so sweet.”
“I get them because I eat whatever the hell I want,” Kane said without compunction. “But you guys feel free to have applesauce without sugar, because I can see where that would be fun.”
“Subtle, Carlos, real subtle,” Dex teased, and the conversation devolved into good-natured kidding about all manner of subjects as they finished dinner.
Henry and Lance were cleaning up when Kane went into the house to get dessert. They all heard the hard, almost frantic knock at the front door, and Lance and Henry met eyes right as Kane hollered, “Dexter, keep Frances where you are, ’kay?”
Henry set down his dishes and ran out the side gate to the driveway, Lance hot on his heels.
Lance remembered to shut the gate, and he was pulling his cell phone out right as he witnessed poetry in violence.
A tall, lanky, brown-haired man came flying off the porch to land, flat on his back, on the small patch of lawn in front of the house. Kane leaped off the porch to stand over the guy when Henry got there, staring in confusion at the wild-eyed stranger on the ground.
“Malachi?” he asked, puzzled.
“Henry, get this motherfucker off—”
Kane bent down and grabbed the guy’s ear, then, while Malachi’s arms windmilled, he pulled him up very slowly, Malachi howling all the way. When he got him up, Kane locked Mal’s arms behind him, hauling them up against his shoulders until his struggling stopped.
Dex’s husband was nobody to mess with, and Lance would never forget that again.
“You will use good fuckin’ language in my house,” Kane said flatly. “And nobody’s leaving you alone with Henry.” He looked over to Henry and shook Malachi hard enough to make him whimper. “Right?”
Henry’s mouth twisted up at the corners. “Right, Carlos,” he said. “Lance, can you get K-ski’s number?”
“Yup.”
“Text him and tell him to get the MPs over here. We’ve got an AWOL soldier.”
Lance’s fingers flew, and the response came so fast, he was pretty sure Kryzynski had been sitting on his phone.Three-minute arrival. They were going to case the place anyway.
Thanks, sir.
Tell Henry to hang in there.
“Henry!” Malachi begged. “Man, I came all this way just to talk to you.” He sent Kane a fulminating look. “Alone. Don’t I deserve to talk to you alone? After all we been through?”
Henry’s mouth parted, and his eyes grew shiny bright. “Kane, you can let go of him. It’ll be fine.”
Lance’s heart crashed to his feet.
Malachi gave an arrogant grin, and Kane let his arms fall to his sides. Mal drew his elbow back quickly, like he was trying to get Kane in the kidneys with it, but Kane grabbed it between his forefinger and thumb. “I will crush your skull like a walnut,” he said easily, and Malachi took a few hurried steps away, yanking his arm from Kane’s apparently painful grip.
“Henry, come here,” he said. “We need to talk.”
