“Thanks for trusting me with her.”
I couldn’t look at him.
So I looked at the floor. “Just, don’t freak her out. She likes to play board games, but you have to move the pieces for her. And the only reason I trust you with her is because…well, you’re you. Besides, she has a thing for guys with light hair and dimples.”
Wes threw his head back and laughed. “She has good taste, that’s what you mean.”
I joined in. “Yeah man, the best.”
“So I’ll see you later at the home then?”
“Yeah.” I scratched the back of my head. Why the hell was I so nervous? I felt like a parent leaving my child for the first time. Is that what Princess had become to me? Wes was the first person other than Saylor who was going to meet her and I wasn’t even going to be there to see it happen. But, the only way I could actually go out tonight and be with Saylor — be the man she needed me to be — was if I had someone I trusted keeping their eye on Princess.
And Wes did kind of come along with two of his best security.
Add them to the security we already had at the Home, and we had six guys who wouldn’t let a soul through the doors if they as much as sneezed in the wrong direction.
“Go.” Wes pointed to the door. “Just make sure your pants are still on by the end of the night.”
“As opposed to what? Down by my ankles?”
“As opposed to what, he asks.” Wes rolled his eyes. “Need I remind you how many compromising positions I’ve walked in on in this room?”
“Oh that.” I waved my hand into the air. “Water under the bridge. I buried that mask.”
“Huh?”
“You said to fuse them together.” I flashed him a triumphant grin and waved goodbye. “So I only put together the good parts. Princess’s favorites, Saylor’s favorites, yours, Lisa’s… the rest of that shit? It was better left behind. Baggage, you would say.”
“Well, well, well.” Wes clapped. “The student becomes the teacher.”
“Bye, Sensei.” The door clicked behind me to Wes’s laughter. I had trouble fighting my own smile as I put on my baseball hat and walked down the hall.
So far, nobody had said much to me. Besides, who actually suspects that they’ve been living next door to a long lost celebrity for four years?
As unbelievable as it sounds, when you live in the real world, outside of Cali or New York, people don’t give a shit. In LA people are constantly looking for famous people, hoping to catch one as if we’re animals you have to trap or something.
But put me in Boise, Idaho? Seattle, Washington? They don’t expect it, so they just see a guy tatted up.
That being said, though, it had only been four years, so I kept the hat low, I didn’t want anything ruining this night with Saylor.
I’d never pursued a girl before.
With Princess it had just happened.
And as for the rest of the girls I slept with — it was the only way to promise myself that Ashton Hyde was gone. He would have never done that. After all, Princess was the second girl I’d ever slept with, and I’d believed I was going to marry her. I’d thought she was it.
Recreating yourself via turning into a monster? Not the smartest idea I’d ever had — especially considering putting my whole body at risk.
Shit. I’d even messed up my own suicide.
I was too naïve to even know what the hell I was doing.
I‘d cut my wrists the wrong way and hadn’t bled out.
My first tattoos covered my scars — as best they could.
Self-consciously I rubbed the scar on my right wrist as the elevator doors closed in front of me.