He throws the door open and takes off running. "Fuck you, asshole!" the worker yells after him. His heavy boots thunk along the sidewalk as he runs, lungs burning and heart racing and the thrill of it wild under his skin. His jacket is stuffed full and jangling like Santa's sack of toys. The wind toussels his hair; he's overdue for a haircut. He cuts through the park when he hears sirens. He knows this city better than they ever will.
Here’s a little bit of what I’m working on, the sequel to settle down, lightning blood
The house they’d moved into had sat empty for a while, the landlord described it as a ‘fixer-upper’ and she wasn’t wrong. Even once they’d moved in; Ned and Zach, Keith and him, it had seemed so empty. The house stood, alone at the end of a long dead-end street, cavernous with its whitewashed floors and tobacco stained walls, for a year before they walked in the door; it has stood for a year since then, and years to come.
The noise of this, though, all of his friends laughing and Ryan’s voice echoing off the tile in the bathroom and Ned drumming along on the table; Keith screeching out lyrics and making Ryan cut off in an abrupt laugh, like it was startled out of him. It’s all so warm it hits him like a stone; like he’s been falling and falling for years and finally found a place to land. It’s love.
“You all sound terrible,” he says, but the smirk on his face and laugh in his voice betray him. Ryan’s head pokes out of the bathroom, where he’s shaving down the sides of his head, and the music is playing loud through the stereo. Ryan’s face lights up, and Shane is struck by how beautiful he is.
