Toward the Sound of Chaos Read Free Page A

killed him,” she snaps and crouches down in the sand by her kid. She
doesn’t touch him, or offer him physical comfort, which surprises me. “Baby,
are you okay? Are you hurt?”
    “I’m
fine,” he says, impatiently. “What’s your dog’s name, mister?”
    “Nuke.”
    “Oh
my God, you’re bleeding.” She takes his arm to inspect his wounds further, but
the kid pulls away.
    “Don’t
touch me. Don’t like to be touched,” he shouts, covering his arm from her view.
    His
hands make a warding gesture and she nods, speaking slowly and calmly as she
says, “I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
    I
silently observe this exchange. The kid scoops up fistfuls of dry sand and lets
the grains sift through his fingers. Nuke whines and butts his head against my
hand. The woman sits, studying her kid for a beat before rising and turning her
angry glare on me.
    “Your
dog did this.” She points to the scratch along his arm.
    I
feel sick that he got hurt, but I know Nuke didn’t mean no harm. “I’m truly
sorry, ma’am.”
    “Don’t
you dare ‘ma’am’ me.” She pokes her finger at the air in front of me, and I
flinch as if she were really making contact with my skin. “Spencer, we have to
go.”
    The
kid continues sifting sand through his fingers, watching on as if mesmerized, and
I think I understand the peace he finds in that one repetitive motion.
    “Spencer,”
Ellie says, all patience gone and the smallest bit of hopelessness leeching out
of her voice, as if she were battle-weary but summoning the morale to keep on
moving. “Please, baby?”
    He
jolts back to the present and stares at his mother. There’s a vacant kind of
recognition there as he assesses her and the grains of sand sticking to his
hands, and then he brushes them off and slowly gets to his feet.
    “I’ll
pay for the doctor’s visit,” I say, as if that makes up for throwing her on the
ground in one of my episodes and allowing my dog to hurt her son, even if it
was an accident. “For you both. I guess I hit your head pretty hard, and you
should get it checked out after yesterday.”
    She
flushes beet red and glares at me. “I don’t need your help. Just put a leash on
your damn dog.”
    My
dick twitches with her anger. It’s been a long time since I felt anything but
distrust towards another human being, but this woman stirs something within me
that I thought was long dead.
    “Yes,
ma’am.” I grin down at her. The insane urge to invade her space, to lean into
her and provoke her even more, just to see what sort of a reaction I’d get, fucks
with my head, and causes sweat to bead across my brow. She turns on her heel
and stalks away, her little boy waving to me and Nuke, and then trailing along
behind her.
    “You’re
supposed to keep me outta trouble, not in it.” I flex my hand and Nuke butts
his head against it. If he ignores my commands and deserts once more, I’ll have
to speak with Olivia, but I can’t risk anyone taking him away from me. I know
my dog. He charged that kid because he believed he was in distress—sometimes he
just doesn’t know his own strength.
    “Pull
that shit again and I’m gonna head straight to your supervisor,” I say, but I
smile as we set off for home. “Now don’t go gettin’ ahead of yourself. I ain’t
asking for her number. Can you imagine datin’ a woman like that?”
    Nuke
glances up at me as he trots along the beach at my side.
    “Don’t
look at me like that. I’m serious. That kind of woman would have your balls in
her handbag by the time you’d paid the check on your second date.” Even as I say
those words, though, I know they aren’t true. Her mamma bear instincts had been
out in full force, but I’d watched that woman from afar a number of times. I know
she’s fiercely protective of her son, but she don’t strike me as a bitch, even
if she did chew me out like I was back in the Marine Corps.
    I
decide to go easy on Nuke on the way home