Shine - Part Fourteen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Spring is rainy season in Ketterbridge, but the morning dawns chilly and bright, shafts of golden sunlight spilling down through the clean-swept air. A fresh wind brushes across my face and pushes its cold fingers through my hair as I walk. The sky overhead is blue like ice beneath a clear ocean.
I’m walking slowly, letting my admiring eyes drift over everything. Maybe I’m just appreciating it all because I slept so deeply last night, sharing a dream with Aiden. I woke up with crystalline clarity in my head and a serious sense of serenity in my heart.
Or maybe it’s because I’m in such a good mood after my talk with Aiden. I keep having random bursts of laughing quietly to myself. The words he said to me keep coming back in little flashes, lightning bolts of happiness that make my heart flutter wildly.
I take a deep, full breath, my eyes lifting to the mountains on the horizon line. The closest ones are vividly green beneath their leafy blankets, the distant ones indigo.
Beautiful. It’s all so beautiful.
I’m so distracted by the breathtaking view that I don’t see the guy standing on Ralph’s porch until I stop at the end of the gravel driveway.
I blink, drawn back into the present. Realizing all at once that there are more cars parked around Ralph’s house than usual. I had to park kind of far down. Most of the cars look unassuming, but I’m noticing that all of them have dark-tinted windows.
The man on the porch is someone I don’t know, a big guy with his arms folded over his chest. He’s watching me closely.
I hesitate for a second, folding my hands a little better around the brown cardboard box in my hands. Then I set off up the gravel driveway, keeping a close eye on the man standing on the porch. He returns the favor, leaning back against the wall right beside the door. He doesn’t move at all, and his expression doesn’t change.
I stop in front of him, not sure what’s going on, but starting to feel faintly alarmed. I give him a nervous nod, then reach for the door.
“Hey,” the guy says quietly, keeping his eyes out on the horizon line. “Store’s closed, pal. Come back another time.”
“What-?” I begin, then break off as I understand. “Oh, no, I’m not here to buy anything. Thanks for letting me know, though.”
I reach for the doorknob again, then stop as the guy abruptly straightens up from the wall.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he asks, very quietly. “Come back another time.”
I blink at him, taken aback. He stands much taller than me, a built guy, with a small scar showing through the short beard on his face. And he’s looking down at me with no expression, but somehow I get the sense that he’d be happy to kick my ass.
I’m now starting to get seriously concerned about what’s going on here, though. Is Ralph in some kind of trouble?
I take a deep breath, trying to hold myself up to my full height.
“Listen, I’m really not here for that,” I tell the guy again, doing my best not to sound intimidated. “I’m just here to-”
The door of Ralph’s house opens, and another guy steps outside, brushes past me.
“See you, Shawn,” he says to the guy on the porch, then strides off towards the cars parked along the road.
He left the door open, and now I can see into Ralph’s living room. To my immense relief, I catch sight of Ralph inside, and he looks fine.
Actually, he looks like the thing at the center of the orbit. There are a few other guys in his living room, talking to each other. Three more gathered up around Ralph.
He’s standing behind his desk, his hands resting on its surface as he leans over it to read something. A cigarette is slowly burning between his fingers, his sage green eyes fixed on what he’s looking at.
He doesn’t look up or say anything, and he’s in his usual simple, threadbare clothes, but somehow he dominates the entire room. All eyes keep flitting back to him nervously. One of the three guys at his back is leaning down to speak quietly and urgently into his ear.
“Did you not hear me, man?” Shawn says, sharply and suddenly, snapping my attention back to him. He nods meaningfully in the direction of the road. “Get lost, already. You know who lives in this house?”
“Yeah, I do, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I’m just here to say hi to Ralph, I’m his…” I break off in surprise as the startling realization breaks over me. “I’m his friend.”
Shawn’s unchanging expression finally breaks. His eyebrows arch all the way up in disbelief. He runs his skeptical eyes up and down me, scrutinizing me.
“You’re his friend?” he repeats.
“Yeah, can you just - tell him that I’m here? He’ll tell you.”
Shawn narrows his eyes at me. “Wait here.”
I watch Shawn cross the living room. He stops behind Ralph and quietly says something into his ear. Ralph very slightly tilts his head towards Shawn to listen, then looks up, blinking hard. His dark green eyes find me waiting in the doorway.
I hold my hand up, give him a nervous little wave.
Ralph stares at me for a second, then lets out a quiet laugh. He beckons with a toss of his head for me to come in.
Shawn comes back to walk with me, snatching the small cardboard box from my hands as we go. I let out a sputter of protest, which goes completely ignored.
“He had this on him, boss,” Shawn tells Ralph, holding up the box as we stop before the desk.
Ralph takes it from Shawn, then makes a quick gesture of dismissal. Shawn turns and heads back towards the door, watching me suspiciously. Ralph makes the same gesture at the three guys around him, who all disperse, joining the others hanging out in Ralph’s living room.
“You know what Shawn just said to me?” Ralph asks, softly enough that only I can hear him.
“What?”
“He said, there’s some cute little guy outside claiming to be your friend.”
Ralph lets out a snicker of laughter, then another when he sees the indignant expression on my face.
“The fuck are you doing here, Keane?” He straightens up, surveying me through the smoke winding up from his cigarette. He holds up the little box that I brought. “And what’s this?”
He opens it before I can answer, then stares down at what he finds inside. Big, fat blueberries, still wet from being washed off.
“They’re wild blueberries from our garden,” I explain. “I thought I’d bring you some, come over to say hi.”
Ralph stares at me in silence for a long moment, one eyebrow arched. Then he tips his head back, supposedly deeply annoyed.
“Goddamnit, Jamie, I’m working. You can’t just roll up to my house with blueberries.”
“I knew you were working,” I tell him, looking around at the room full of ominous, intimidating guys. “You texted Aiden about it this morning, and he told me. I thought I’d come over and check it out. I’ve seen Raj and Noah at work, and Aiden, and Ripley, but not you. And I was curious, so...”
Ralph narrows his eyes at me in disbelief, then plunks the blueberries down on his desk.
“So you know I work a dangerous job,” he says, like he’s trying to reason out my thought process, “And you decided you’d show up to say hi while I’m right in the middle of it, and bring me some fucking blueberries while you’re at it?”
“They’re good blueberries,” I protest, my cheeks burning. “I picked them myself, this morning!”
“That’s not the-” Ralph stops and lets out a heavy exhale, pressing his palms over his eyes. “I swear to god, Jamie, your head is full of sand.”
But he kinda seems happy about it, and he doesn’t give the blueberries back to me.
I smile brightly at him, then come around to join him behind the desk. “So, what are you doing? You want to come with me to pick up some of the floral supplies for Noah, Raj, and Mel’s wedding when you’re done? We have to go before morning is over, though, or the place will close.”
Ralph makes a face at me like he has no interest, but then looks down at his watch in a regretful way.
“I don’t know when I’m gonna be done here, is the thing. There’s - kind of a crisis going on right now, actually. One I’m trying to manage.” Ralph hesitates, then takes me by the elbow and draws me further towards the window, away from the others in the living room. “Listen, Jamie, I’m trying to be myself around you guys. But here, when I’m doing this, it’s different. I have to lie about shit sometimes, I have to be-”
“Hey, it’s okay.” I spread my hands at him. “I get it. You’re working. Do your thing, Warlord.”
Ralph pauses, blinking at me, then lets out a little laugh and slaps my back.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Keane?” He takes a puff on his cigarette, shaking his head. “Should’ve known that as soon as I caught you doing a fucking heist.”
I smile at him, then hesitate, just now processing something he said.
“There’s a crisis going on?” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Is that why you’ve got a guy on the door? I don’t remember you ever doing that before now.”
“You don’t remember because the guy on the door was usually Grant,” Ralph says, then stops, a guilty look crossing his face. He drops his gaze to his cigarette, rolls it between his fingers. “Nobody ever thought twice about him being out there. But he’s gone, so. You know. I’m working with what I have. And I do need someone on the door, today.”
“Because of the crisis?” I ask quietly, increasingly concerned. “Is everything okay? Can I help?”
Ralph lets out a quiet laugh, then shoves my shoulder. “It’s adorable that you think you can-”
“Shut up, dude!”
“-but no, you can’t. I’m trying to figure out how to solve a few problems at once. A major player in the game got scratched out last night-”
“Holy shit!”
“-which means there’s gonna be a fight between his kids for control of his empire. And there’s this other thing, a territory feud going on that’s steadily getting w-”
“Boss,” someone interrupts softly.
Ralph lifts his gaze to Shawn, who leans in close to confer with him in a low voice.
“There was another skirmish in the disputed territory,” Shawn murmurs.
Ralph blinks, once.
“Anyone down?” he asks, in a perfectly calm voice.
“Two in the hospital, but none of ours. We had someone there, but only to keep an eye on things, like you said. He’s fine.”
Ralph absorbs that for a moment, then nods. “What’s going on with the Flynn family? Anyone made it onto the throne yet?”
“Word is that the son and daughter are getting ready to go to war with each other for it.”
Ralph nibbles on his thumbnail, staring past Shawn as he thinks it over, then nods again. Shawn melts back into the crowd, returns to the door.
“See what I mean?” Ralph tells me, then lets out a frustrated breath. “My people aren’t even involved in the territory feud, and it’s not even in Ketterbridge, but I’m trying to prevent some bloodshed, here. And if Flynn’s son takes over his empire, shit’s gonna go haywire. He’s been dying to start his own war for ages.”
“Shit, Ralph!” I sputter, my eyes wide with alarm. “Um - no offense, but how are you possibly gonna solve a situation like th-?”
“Boss,” someone else says.
Ralph looks up, exasperated by the interruption. “What?”
“Victoria Flynn is here to see you.”
Ralph freezes, then slowly lowers the cigarette he was lifting to his mouth.
“That’s interesting,” he says softly, then glances at me and winces. “Shit, Jamie - you so shouldn’t be here for a sit-down - can you get out through the-?”
Ralph breaks off as a tall woman steps in through the door, brushing right past Shawn.
The living room instantly falls silent at her arrival.
She’s wearing a simple dress and heels, all of it subtly but extremely expensive. All black, but that’s the only evidence that she’s in mourning. Her makeup is immaculate, her hair sweeping down over her shoulders in neat waves, her posture high and upright. She looks serious and collected, all business.
She has that same kind of apex predator presence that Ralph does when he’s in big boss mode.
Her cool, steady gaze roams over the room, then stops on Ralph.
He holds still for a moment, then snaps his fingers and gestures to the door.
All the guys in the room move to leave at once. The woman steps aside to let them out. Everyone leaves but the three men I’d seen clustered around Ralph when I got here. They move to stand at his back, their eyes trained on the woman at the door.
I don’t know what to do, so I just stand there with them. Frozen, trying not to draw attention to myself.
Ralph, on the other hand, looks perfectly at ease. He slowly comes around his desk, stops before it, and leans easily back against it.
“Victoria.” He folds his arms over his chest, gives her a cold smile. “You came all the way to Ketterbridge to see me? I’m honored.”
“I wouldn’t just show up like this.” Victoria strides across Ralph’s living room, comes to a stop before him. “But time is of the essence.”
“I was sorry to hear about your father,” Ralph tells her, tossing a stray strand of blonde out of his eyes. “I hope you’re doing alright?”
“What I’m doing is trying to protect his legacy, and avoid a pointless war.” Victoria levels her unwavering gaze on Ralph’s face. “You know who should be running the show, Ralph. We both know what will happen if everything ends up in the hands of my brother, don’t we?”
Ralph doesn’t answer that.
“I’m waiting, Victoria,” he says instead, watching her closely. “What’s the ask?”
“Your support,” she says, without hesitation. “If my brother knows that the Warlord is backing me for the throne, he’ll let it go. Even he knows better than to pick that fight.”
Ralph stares at her, then nods slowly, deep in thought. “And what do I get?”
Victoria bites her lip, then lets out a heavy sigh. “Five percent of the disputed territory.”
Ralph blinks, then leans back a little, his eyebrows arching in surprise.
“Do I want that? Like you said, the territory is disputed. There are people who would say it isn’t yours to offer me.”
“Come on, Ralph. They’ll fall back if they know it’s in the Warlord’s hands. You know that. And I’ll back off, too. It’s yours.”
Ralph thinks for another moment, taking a slow drag of his cigarette, then looks up at Victoria. “Fifty percent. Not five.”
Victoria blinks hard, then lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Ralph-”
“Fifty,” he says again, his voice hard as steel. “And I’ll be there waiting with you the next time your brother comes home.”
Victoria lets out a frustrated breath, falls silent for a moment, then nods slowly. Ralph nods, too, then straightens up.
“I’ll think it over,” he tells her. “Let you know by tonight.”
Victoria’s eyes are traveling over all of us lined up behind the desk.
“Noah isn’t here,” she observes. “I had heard a rumor that you lost your second in command, Ralph. I’ve also heard rumors that others have tried to recruit him for themselves. Apparently no one has even gotten close. Nobody’s even been able to make contact with him before they were stopped.”
Ralph looks up sharply, all pretense of friendliness suddenly dropped.
“Noah retired from the game,” he answers, very slowly and icily. “But it sounds like he must still be under someone’s protection, doesn’t it? Pass that along, in case you know of anyone else who thinks it’d be a good idea to try and recruit him.”
“And who’s this?” Victoria nods at me. “I can’t see him as a replacement. His face is too sweet.”
I blush indignantly, but Ralph answers before I can say anything.
“Don’t worry about who he is. He’s got nothing to do with any of this.” Ralph’s voice has turned spine-chillingly cold, cold enough to burn. “And if anyone lays a hand on him, that’s as good as laying hands on me. The consequences will be the same. Pass that along, too.”
Victoria meets Ralph’s gaze for a moment, then turns and wordlessly makes her exit.
Ralph stands in thoughtful silence for a few seconds, then faces the three guys behind his desk.
“You can go,” he says, with a nod at the door. “Send the others home, too.”
They all head for the door, but Ralph stops, looking like he’s thinking hard about something.
“Hey, Clark,” he says suddenly, and one of the guys stops just short of the door.
“Yeah, boss?”
Ralph turns to face him, folds his arms over his chest. “How long have you been working for Victoria Flynn? You’re her eyes and ears in my business, aren’t you?”
There’s a short, tense silence. The two men flanking Clark exchange a startled look over the top of his head.
Clark is frozen, but he tries to let out a little laugh. “What are you t-?”
Ralph gestures to the guy on Clark’s left, who takes him by the shoulder and shoves him down into the armchair.
Ralph ashes his cigarette into the ashtray on his desk, then slowly walks over to stop before Clark, who sinks down in the armchair, shivering hard, staring up at Ralph with begging eyes.
“Boss,” he begins, in a cracked, near-hysterical voice, “I didn’t want to, I had no choice, she - she has dirt on me, she said that if I didn’t-”
“And you didn’t come to me for help?” Ralph shakes his head, like it’s a shame. “We could’ve solved that together, Clark. Didn’t I always tell all you boys, if you get into trouble, come to me?”
Clark is shivering violently, his voice whimpering. “I - I’m sorry - please-”
“It’s alright.” Ralph takes another drag of his cigarette. “It’s your lucky day, Clark. I’m gonna let it go, because I’ve got a friend here, and I know he probably wants me to be nice about it.”
Ralph casually glances at me for confirmation, and I give him an immediate, silent nod.
Clark freezes, stunned. “You - what?”
“Besides, you’re gonna come in handy.” Ralph smiles down at Clark, slaps his shoulder. “You’re gonna go to Victoria and tell her that her brother offered me sixty percent of the territory in exchange for my support.”
“What - I am? Why?”
“Because,” Ralph says, like it’s obvious. “That’s how I take seventy-five percent, which is enough to end the territory dispute, and I’ll still get who I want on the throne. Use your head, yeah?”
Clark stares at him, dazed.
Ralph steps back, makes a dismissive gesture at all three of the guys, then turns away. The man pinning Clark in place lets him go. All three of them look shocked, but no one more than Clark, who scrambles to his feet and rushes for the door.
“Hey,” Ralph says sharply, his eyes landing on his desk. “Where are my blueberries?”
“Were - were those not for everyone?” Clark asks, a guilty note creeping into his voice. “They were so good, we were passing them around-”
“You ate my fucking blueberries?” Ralph sputters, then whips around to level a blistering glare on Clark. “Oh, you better run, Clark, before I change my fucking mind-!”
He doesn’t bother finishing his sentence, because Clark is already sprinting pell-mell down the gravel driveway. One of the other guys follows, but the third hesitates, loops back to us.
“Do we have the manpower to hold that kind of territory?” he quietly asks Ralph. “Seventy-five percent?”
Ralph thinks it over for a moment, pushing a hand through his blonde hair.
“We have people there who work for us small-time, right?” he asks, and the guy nods. “Anyone ready to graduate to running their own racket?”
“I’ve got a few boys in mind.”
“Good. Take someone with you and go talent scout. But don’t only look through the boys, alright? We’ve got no girls working for this operation, it’s a problem. We’ve been overlooking some of our best talent, but not anymore.”
The guy seems surprised, but he gives Ralph a look of confirmation, then heads outside, closing the door after himself.
“Hey, look at that.” Ralph turns to face me, his eyes brightening up. “I’m done in time to go do that wedding stuff, after all. You still want to go? Said we need to get floral supplies, right?”
“Yeah, um.” I’m stammering a little, staring at Ralph with wide eyes and my fingers pressed over my mouth. “Just need to get some - forest moss, and some floral wire, and some - glitter. And I gotta place the order for the actual flowers, since the wedding day is almost here.”
Ralph picks up his dark leather jacket, stubbing out his cigarette. “Okay, where do we go to do that?”
~~~~
“Well, this is - different,” Ralph says, looking around with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
The colorful chaos of the flower market surrounds us on every side. Explosions of multicolored petals blooming from white buckets, thick garlands of flowers hanging from the walls, lush green potted plants in big clusters, displays of hay-colored baskets, of black river rocks and twine and water beads.
The flower market is half in the open air, so the gentle spring breeze flows through, rippling the flowers, casting petals into the sweet-smelling air.
Ralph wrinkles his nose as a small pink petal catches in his blonde hair. I could almost laugh as I watch him irritably pull it free. He looks like a knife against his soft, dreamy surroundings.
“Yeah, my work looks a bit different from yours,” I tell him, suppressing a laugh as we walk along the winding rows of flowers. “You stick out like a sore thumb here, don’t you? Just as bad as I stuck out at your house.”
Ralph shoots me a dark glare, then rolls his green eyes when I grin at him.
“Really, though, you should see this place at 3 AM, when it opens.” I catch Ralph’s eye, then shudder. “It’s like a battleground. You’d feel right at home.”
Ralph lets out a little laugh, shakes his head at me.
I stop to buy a big bundle of forest moss. When I turn around again, Ralph has drifted a little further away, and - he’s taken a camera out of his bag. He’s holding it up, peering through it.
I weave my way back over to him through the crowd, then stop beside him as he lowers the camera to take a look at the picture he just shot.
It’s a photo of the place where the flower market opens up to the outside landscape. In the distant background, the green hills, dotted with bluebells, the turquoise sky above them. And in the foreground, one of the vendor stalls. A beautiful display of vividly green plants spilling down from a table, pretty fabrics hung on the wall behind. All of the fabrics are flowing with the breeze, all the different colors catching the sunlight. Sienna and saffron and apricot, marigold orange.
A few stray flower petals hang in the air, caught there by Ralph’s camera.
“Wow,” I say quietly, staring at the photo with admiring eyes.
Ralph turns the camera off and makes a face at me, but keeps it out in his hands as we start walking through the flower market again.
“You should show Ripley,” I tell him, and he lets out a soft laugh, raising the camera to his eye again.
“Aiden and Noah said that, too. Maybe I will. Eventually. I dunno.”
“Speaking of Ripley, I’ve been meaning to thank you, dude.”
Ralph arches a confused eyebrow at me. “For what?”
“For not telling anyone that he’s Transgressive.”
“Shit, man, of course. Don’t be stupid.”
“How’d you know that Aiden and I knew about that, by the way?”
“Mmm.” Ralph shrugs his shoulders. “Aiden looked proud of the artwork Transgressive did for Bright Future. I could tell right then that he knew, and I assume that he tells you everything, so - you had to know, too.”
“God! Your brain scares me, man.” I look sidelong at Ralph, narrowing my eyes. “You - seem like you’re in a good mood.”
Ralph shrugs his shoulders again, looking decidedly relaxed. “Work was good today.”
“It was? That, what I just saw? That’s a good day at work, for you?”
Ralph gives me a small, diabolical smile, and I let out a dazed laugh.
“And you say something is wrong with my brain.”
“Some would call what I do a time-honored tradition, Keane. I’m allowed to like my work. And I’m allowed to be happy when things wrap up nice and neat.”
“It all did, didn’t it? And you found a way to make it so that no one got hurt in the process.” I look over at Ralph, more than a little impressed. Then I fall silent for a second, thinking hard. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just - I finally got to see the Warlord at work, and what I watched you do was end one war, and prevent another. Actually, maybe that’s - why you’re in such a good mood?”
Ralph blinks at me, caught off-guard. He turns his gaze back over the sea of flowers, then closes his eyes and slowly shakes his head in an exasperated kind of way.
“Fuck off, Sharpshooter.” He gives my shoulder a little shove. “You don’t want to make me lose my temper.”
“Yeah, okay.” I let out a snicker of laughter, then push the giant ball of moss into his arms. “Here, hold that. I’ve gotta place an order with this vendor for some of the wedding flowers.”
“Christ, Jamie, at least let me get the lens cap back on my camera.”
I take the camera and the cap from Ralph’s hand, go to put the cap on, and stop. I lift the camera and frame Ralph against the flower market, the big bundle of soft green moss in his arms.
“Smile, Ralph. Always with the long face, dude, I swear.”
“Are you fucking serious, right now?”
“Speaking of the wedding,” I say, breezing right past that, still holding the camera to my eye - “All the guys are getting ready at mine and Aiden’s house beforehand. You wanna come hang? Noah suggested it, he told me to ask.”
Ralph blinks in surprise, then scowls when I snap a photo of him with the sudden smile on his face.
“Goddamn you, Keane! I ought to smash this moss over your head! Did you say that just to get the picture?”
“Nope, that was a real invite,” I tell him, capping the camera. “You want to come?”
The scowl quickly falls from Ralph’s face, despite his best efforts. He bites his lip, then nods at me.
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll be there.”
I give him a little smile, then turn around and pluck an order form from the tray on the vendor’s stand.
I hesitate with my pen over the form, suddenly anxious.
“Once I order the flowers, I really can’t change the designs,” I murmur, half to myself. “I hope I can execute them how I wanted. As beautifully as I’ve been picturing them.”
“I don’t have any doubts,” Ralph says absently, adjusting his grip on the moss.
I stop for a second, caught by surprise. I open my mouth to tell Ralph what a nice thing that was of him to say, but before I can -
“I mean, you better execute it right. Make it perfect for Noah, or I’ll kick your ass.”
I twist to look at Ralph over my shoulder. He meets my gaze very seriously, but we both break and laugh a little at the same time.
“You’re less intimidating holding the moss,” I tell him, turning back to the form.
“Yeah, yeah. Hurry up.”
Smiling to myself, lifted by a sudden burst of newfound confidence - and strangely enough, a burst of newfound affection - I put my pen to the paper, and fill out the form.
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