“What?”
“Something,” Reese said.
He took the lid off a cardboard box and jumped back. “Fuck.”
“What is it? Something dead?”
“Looks like a rat’s nest or something,” Reese said. “Oh, shit, man, that smells bad.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Ellis said. “This place is a dump.”
Reese slipped the lid on the box and turned. “Hey. I didn’t ask you to come here.”
“You asked for the key.”
“That didn’t mean you were coming. This is my fucking stuff here. This is my fucking life.”
“What the hell is a motorcycle doing in here?” Ellis asked. “Why not ride it, bro?”
Reese gritted his teeth. He felt the anger rise up way too quickly. He watched Ellis suck on his smoke and knew that parts of his past weren’t well known by the current members. There had been some turnover for a little while as Levi cleaned up some old scars left behind from a war that Reese had been too young to fight, but old enough to remember.
“If you don’t want to be here, then leave,” Reese said.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I’ll keep my mouth shut on it. You keep looking. I’ll keep talking about Benny. Women, man. They fucking twist you right up. Look at him now, dropping all his money down at the strip club.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Reese asked as he started to climb some boxes and totes. He did so carefully to keep his balance and not fall into the mess of papers, mold, and shit.
“Not for your girl running it,” Ellis said.
Reese snapped his head back. “Hey. Fuck yourself, Ellis. Don’t say shit like that.”
“Sorry again,” Ellis said with a cocky grin. “I’m just saying, she does well because of it.”
“The other girls do better,” Reese said.
“Benny likes them big and curvy, top to bottom.”
“Good for him.”
“Me? I take it all. I’m neutral, you know? I just appreciate women for who they are.”
“You mean, what they look like naked.”
“Yeah, what did I say?” Ellis asked.
Reese laughed.
Balanced with a foot on each tote, Reese peeled the top off another box. He found just what he was looking for. Another messy box of papers. But this one had pictures. The first one Reese could see was of two boys, seven years old, tall and skinny, one blond haired, one brown haired, standing next to a lake. The brown haired kid was holding a big frog in one hand.
He plucked the picture from the pile and stared at it. He felt like if he stared hard enough and long enough, the picture would come to life. Or better yet, maybe he could go into the picture. Sit with those two punk kids and tell them what was going to happen to their lives. And tell the kid with the brown hair to watch his back like he’d been warned so many times. To stay the hell away from the badge, no matter how much it seemed like a friend. And to the kid with the blond hair… don’t fall in love with the pretty girl that lives down the street. Her daddy was a cop and he was going to do everything to tear the blond haired kid’s family apart.
The thing with the past, you could never change it.
Reese knew that.
He wasn’t stupid. And he wasn’t going to get lost in some storage unit and go down memory lane. The place hadn’t been opened in years for good reason.
He flipped the picture upside down and took the newspaper clipping, folding it carefully and tucking it into his pocket.