His smile didn’t meet his eyes, and then he was gone, crossing the street to visit with his mom. She watched as they exchanged a few words, and then he headed into the Roar.
“Faith, psst!”
Looking around for the owner of that voice, she found Mikey Tucker standing in the doorway of The Howler.
“Mikey, what are you doing?”
He slid out and hurried toward her.
“You in trouble again? Need me to pay some drug runner off, or have you stolen something?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “I smoked stuff one time, and you’re still making me pay.” His voice was cracking. Their little boy was growing up. He was tall but had lost that gangly long-legged look. He was maturing into a handsome young man.
Branna and Jake were his surrogate family because his was a waste of time. The rest of them watched over him too. He was leaving Howling next year to study, so Mikey was working in The Howler building up his bank balance.
“Okay, so if you’re not leading a life of crime, what’s the problem? Need help with a girl?”
“No. Now focus, Faith.” He shot her a serious look.
“Acne?” she teased him. “I know a great cream.”
“Do I look like I have acne now? Branna gave me stuff, and that sorted it.”
“Right, good then.” She waited, but he said nothing. “I have to start work in an hour.”
“Ha ha.” He shot a look over her shoulder. “Will you have Ryan Lawrence sign my shirt?”
“Aw, come on, really?”
“I saw you talking to him, and that was after you both ran into town,” Mikey rushed on. “I love Talon, and he’s a really nice guy. I mean, he’s not the lead singer, but I kinda think he’s cooler.”
Faith did too, but she wasn’t saying that out loud.
“How do you know he’s a nice guy?” Faith folded her arms.
“I watch him doing interviews and on YouTube. Fans take videos of him all the time. He’s always just walking about with no bodyguards, and he spends time actually talking to people. Sometimes he’ll go to a restaurant and give them money to make food for the homeless.”
“Sounds like a great publicity stunt to me,” Faith said, always the cynical one.
“You don’t gotta be so mistrusting, Faith.”
“I’m not; I’m just a realist, and that was terrible English.”
He gave her a look that had her toes curling inside her running shoes.
“I am not mistrusting, and what do you know anyway,” she muttered.
“I see a lot,” Mikey said in a voice that sounded like Jake’s.
“This conversation is done with, Michael Tucker. I’m the adult here, not you.”
“Back to Ryan.” He waved a hand in her face. “He doesn’t tell people when he does random acts of kindness, it’s under another name, but it’s always after Talon has played a concert nearby that it happens. So, people worked it out. There’s more, but he denies it.”
“What more?” Faith asked, intrigued.
“Random things. College fees being paid and helping out strangers in the street. One time he saw a guy getting mugged and jumped out of his car and went to help.”
She was impressed, no getting around that fact, and felt her shame deepen that she’d thought him just an arrogant pop star. She’d let her feelings for the old Ryan cloud the way she acted around the new Ryan.