Asa (Marked Men #6)(30)

I pulled on a pair of jeans sans underwear. I never wore them. I didn’t see the need even though it was cold in Denver and I often cursed myself for not having a layer of something between my dick and the chilly metal of my zipper. I found a black thermal and a hoodie that I tossed to her after I pulled my shirt on over my head. She caught it with a smirk and tossed the phone at me as I sat on the edge of the bed to pull on my black boots.

“You call Nash?” She nodded in answer to my question as she glanced around the bedraggled apartment that looked a hundred times worse during the day.

“This isn’t where I would’ve pictured you living.”

It wasn’t where I ever thought I was going to live either, but shit happened. “I stayed with Cora and Ayden when I first moved here. It was cool for a little while because Jet was gone so much, but then Ayden was on my ass about everything. Then she thought I had something to do with the Bar getting robbed and I knew I had to move out or we would kill each other.”

I rubbed my hands over my damp hair, making it stick straight up and sending water dancing every direction.

“I was laid up, couldn’t work because I had a broken leg and all kinds of other broken junk inside of me. All I could do was limp around the house and mess around on the Internet. I’m dangerous when I don’t have something to focus on.” I couldn’t believe I was about to disclose this to her, not because I was worried about how it would make her think about me, but because she was a cop and I was about to admit to some straight-up illegal activity.

“I started gambling online. I was messing around on Internet poker sites, winning and losing money like crazy. I had no idea how I was going to support myself now that I was determined to stay on the straight and narrow, and at the time it felt like an easy score that wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

I let out a bitter laugh and climbed to my feet as she watched me carefully. “Cora walked in on me more than once and asked what I was up to. I always just shut the computer down or shuffled away before she could see what I was doing, but I think she knew I was up to no good. I made enough to pay off a huge chunk of my medical bills, but instead of doing that …” I made sure she was paying attention, that she really understood how seriously f*cked up I was. “Instead of doing that, I bet it all on one hand because I was on a hot streak. I lost it all.” I waved a hand around the barren room and lackluster decor. “I think that’s why I lost it when Ayden thought I had something to do with the robbery at the Bar. Weeks before I was actually f*cking shit up, but as soon as Rome threw me a lifeline, I took it and realized the only way to stop drowning in my own mistakes was to start living within my actual means.”

I scowled and looked down at the tips of my boots. “All my life, even when I try to help myself or someone else, I screw it up. The day Rome offered me the job at the Bar, I told myself I would live on what I made and that’s it. No more get-rich-quick schemes. No more high-risk endeavors that may or may not pay off. I live here because it’s cheap and close to work. I don’t have a car because I pay off my debt with anything extra I have a month. For once I’m living the life I’m supposed to have instead of doing whatever it takes to try and live the life I always thought I should have. Do you understand?”

It was important that she did. Having the evidence of the kind of man I really was staring her in the face might open her eyes to how risky this thing that dragged and pulled between us could be if she kept chasing after it just so she could feel good for a fleeting moment.

She shrugged into the hoodie and turned to the door. At first I thought she was repulsed or angry at my honesty, but as she shifted to pull her long hair out of her collar, she told me quietly, “I think it’s odd you thought you would just automatically turn into a choirboy after a lifetime of doing whatever you wanted. People aren’t born either good or bad, they have to be taught how to be one way or the other. No one ever took the time to teach you how to be good, Asa.” She walked to the front door and turned to look at me over her shoulder as she pulled it open. Her dark eyes were steady on my own. “It might take some trial and error along the way, but for the most part you seem to be doing okay now.”

I followed her out the door and locked it behind us. I put my hand on her lower back as we walked down the stairs and started to walk the short distance to her car, and I didn’t respond to the faint hint of hope that laced her last words. That was the thing: everyone that cared about me wanted to think I was doing fine, and I was, for now. I wasn’t as sure of myself as the people that cared about me seemed to be and I wasn’t so sure that I hadn’t actually been born bad. The temptation not to do fine was thick and heavy around my shoulders every day, so much that, sometimes, not letting it cover me up and sink me back down to the bottom where I had always been was more work than I would ever openly admit to.

When we reached the Bar’s parking lot, Nash already had her SUV running and warming up. I didn’t say anything as Royal moved away from me without so much as a good-bye hug and went willingly into Nash’s tattooed embrace. She kissed him on the cheek and rubbed her hands along the flames that decorated the sides of his head over his ears. She threw a wave out the window and took off without a word about anything I had disclosed to her or about the fact that we had just screwed each other stupid.

I shifted uneasily as Nash walked over to me, questions swirling bright and clear in his unusual-colored eyes. I thought I could cut him off at the pass by changing the obvious topic before he started in on me.