Misfits Like Us (Like Us #11)(71)

I had better friends.

Reasons to stay away.

Farrow ensured I’d never get pulled back in by my family. When my dad called from prison, I’d often pass the phone to my friend. Avoiding that spoonful of manipulation—I tried, knowing that some part of me likes to please those around me and they’d take advantage of that.

“He’s busy,” I lie to Colin, who doesn’t need to know I’ve told Farrow jack-shit about this meet-up.

I haven’t wanted my friend to be vacuumed into this ugly rabbit hole. Ever since Farrow married Maximoff Hale, my family has been thinking they’re three-degrees from a mountain of cash, and Farrow doesn’t need to get roped up in that.

It’s for me to figure out.

Quiet unfolds between me and Colin. He has a strange glimmer in his eye. One that quickens my pulse, and I just take another drag.

There’s this feeling in the back of my head that this whole thing has been orchestrated. Like Colin has been preparing for this conversation. Who’s he been talking to? No clue.

At one point, everyone I recognized by name was in prison. My whole family.

Even Colin.

But my dad, uncles, cousins, Mom—they aren’t idiots. They’re smart enough to hide in the shadows for years and years. They get caught. They get out. They get caught again. Like my mom, who got sent back for breaking parole.

My dad is still out.

They’re addicts. The cycle keeps churning, no matter the consequence.

“That’s too bad,” Colin says dryly, “I would’ve liked to talk to him.”

To Farrow? Yeah, right.

Colin can act like the tough guy, but he would’ve resorted to swinging at Farrow, who’s been training in MMA since he was five.

I’m done skirting around what needs to be said. “Why’d you steal the Meadows’ Jeep?” I question.

“I told you, I didn’t. Aiden already confessed to it, if you haven’t heard. He’s been booked.” He must’ve owed Colin for something, or Colin promised him drugs when he gets out.

“Did you know I’d come here to tell you to stop fucking with these families and my job?”

He ponders with the slant of his head. Ash collects on the end of the cigarette. “I hoped you might.”

I tense, the world tilting around me. Maybe I shouldn’t have come and played into their hand. Maybe this was all a mistake. But they feel like my problem to handle first. No one else’s.

“Stay away from them,” I warn, angrier now. “If any of you do anything—”

“You’ll what?” Colin furrows his brows at me, mockingly. Like I’m pretending to be the big bad wolf, the tough guy—I’ve never been that to my family.

I’m the guy who ran away.

Who fled.

Who had reasons to stay away. And those reasons are the same reasons why I’m back.

“You have no leverage, Paul,” he tells me like I’m dense.

“Those families are more powerful than three-hundred of ours,” I remind him. “They’ll chew the Donnellys up and spit ‘em out like they’re nuthin’.”

“You change your last name?” Colin slings back. “Last time I checked, you’re a Donnelly too.”

“Yeah, I am.” Tightness grips my chest, and I suck harder on the cigarette.

“You think they’ll chew you up and spit you out like the rest of us?” Colin asks, leaning forward.

I blow smoke right at his face.

Colin snaps. He shoots forward out of his chair, grips the back of my head—my hair pinched between his fingers. I’m bent over the table, and I jerk against his clutch. I’m stronger but he hoists his cigarette near my eye. So I go deathly still. “They’re not gonna do shit to us,” Colin sneers. “We’ll keep coming back—we always come back.”

“What do you want?” I grit out.

“We need money.” He’s twitchy. “You’re gonna get it for us.”

I glare. “I’m already giving my paycheck to Scottie. Take it up with him.”

“You have connections—”

“I work for a security firm. I don’t talk to anyone,” I lie. “They barely tolerate me when I do.”

“Bullshit.”

“If I could ask for money, I wouldn’t be counting pennies for a coffee while Scottie’s getting everything I earn and spending it on commissary and extra telephone calls.” Of course I wouldn’t tell them I got a raise.

I’m trying, trying, to show him that I’m just a bodyguard. Faceless, nameless in a hierarchy of security that come and go.

That’s all I was ever supposed to be.

And then he says, “You’re dating Beckett Cobalt.”

Fuck me. “I’m not. That’s a rumor.”

“Why’s his name tattooed on your ankle, then?”

I’m an inch from Colin’s face and I grit out, “So is Tom’s name.” I don’t mention Xander’s name, the newest tattoo of the bunch. “They’ve been my clients. They’re not friends.”

“Beckett is differe—”

“It’s fake,” I cut him off.

“Honestly, I don’t care if you fucked Beckett, dated him, made snow angels together in the fucking winter. You need to steal something from him that we’re going to sell—”