“Oh, hell no.” Evan’s eyebrows slammed down.
“Yeah, time to interfere,” Donny said, coming down as quickly as he went up.
“Penis Bandit Vigilantes,” Asher said. Connor, next to him, chuckled.
Donovan hit the ground, landing on his feet and brushing the bark from his jeans. Then the four of them headed around the lawn to the front of the library. Asher had envisioned a group of kids spray-painting penises on the library’s brick wall. Not so.
Three teenage boys—by the sounds of their punchy laughter, he assumed they’d been drinking or smoking something—stood in front of the library, but they weren’t holding cans of spray paint. They had rolls of toilet paper.
White streamers dripped down the trees’ branches, mummified the hedges, and wound around a line of new saplings like Maypoles.
“You have got to be shittin’ me,” Connor growled. “If they stomped my hostas, or bruised my lavender…”
“And you called me grandpa?” Evan joked. Then he shook his head as he looked around at the bits of tissue littering the normally impeccably manicured library lawn. “Mrs. Anderson is going to have a grand mal seizure when she looks out her front door and finds this.”
In sync, they turned to Mrs. Anderson’s house across the street. The porch light was on, but the windows were dark. Ash guessed she and Mr. Anderson had hit the sack after Jeopardy! was over.
For now at least, it appeared the kids hadn’t been made.
“Wrap it up, guys,” Donny announced, his baritone voice infused with authority. Like he hadn’t just been trespassing and climbing a tree while three sheets to the wind.
Asher scrubbed his face to hide a smile.
The boys turned, startled at first but green enough that they didn’t know who they were dealing with.
“Yeah?” the scrappier one called out. “What’re you gonna do about it?”
“He isn’t going to do anything about it,” Connor said, balling his fists at his sides. “But I will. I dealt with rebels in Afghanistan, so believe me when I say I have ways of making you talk.” His voice was steel and ice, and he wasn’t lying about his experience.
Asher bit down on his lip to keep from losing it, but he had to commend Connor on his choice of threats. Asking them to stop trampling his tulips wouldn’t have gone over nearly as well.
“I won’t let him torture you,” Evan said. “But I will supervise while you clean this up.”
Two of the boys bent their heads close, whispering to each other. Then one of them grabbed a third boy, the scrappy ringleader, and pointed at Asher.
“Holy crap.” The scrappy one stepped forward, reverence in his round eyes. He pointed at Asher with the toilet paper roll in his hand. “You’re Asher Knight. You’re the lead singer of Knight Time. Holy crap, I can’t believe it.” He turned to his buddies, a grin splitting his face. “Fucking Asher Knight, you guys!”
Evan, Donovan, and Connor wore matching expressions of burden.
Asher shrugged. Not his fault. It was gonna be harder to bust the kid’s balls when he was this starstruck, though. And then the kid hit Asher’s soft spot.
“I play guitar,” the kid said. “I know the opening to ‘Unchained’ and I started writing a song. You can ask these guys. I play it all the time.”
The kids behind him nodded in tandem, muttering, “Totally,” and “All the time.”
“Oh, man, I can’t believe it’s you!”
Way starstruck.
“Calm down, dude.” Asher held out a palm and looked over his shoulder. “Listen. I get that you guys need to unwind and there isn’t a heck of a lot to do in this boring, rich-folks town, but you can’t be decorating the library or Mrs. Anderson is gonna have an aneurism. Know her?”
The boys shook their heads.
“She’s the librarian and she lives there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and the three boys followed his gesture. “She comes out here and busts you guys, you’re going to wish you’d found something better to do with your night.”
Hard telling if any of it was sinking in.
The scrappy ringleader smiled widely and took a step toward Asher. “Can I get your autograph?”
Yeah, so it probably hadn’t sunk in.
“Sure. Pen?” Ash held out a hand. He didn’t even want to know why the kid behind them had a Sharpie in his back pocket. One of those monster ones used to make the signs in the grocery store. He accepted the gargantuan marker and a roll of toilet paper to sign.
Yes, being a celebrity was truly glamorous.
Asher signed a roll for each of them. They took off, a spring in their steps and still talking about the autographed rolls in their hands.
“They were supposed to clean up this mess, genius,” Evan said.
“They were drinking,” Asher said, realizing he still had the Sharpie in his hand. He pointed at Evan with it. “Do you know what a vacation ruiner it is to be busted for underage drinking?”