Unlike everyone else in my life, he doesn’t seem concerned for my soul—or anything for that matter.
“What are you thinking about?” he wonders, watching me in silence while I wait for the punchline to land. He’ll laugh next, snicker, or make some snide joke to negate any real concern. No one ever means that question.
So I wait, and I wait.
Until he finally scoffs, kicking one of his heels against the floor. “You that damn paranoid, Frey?”
I wince at the insinuation. “No. I just... I’m thinking about whether or not ‘rock bottom’ is when you’re sitting next to a stranger in an empty room with no shirt on.”
“No. I’ve been lower.” He sounds way too grim.
To distract myself, I pose another question, picked at random. “There was blood on your hands before. Are you an escaped convict?”
“I ain’tescaped. They let me out for good behavior.”
“Oh...” I suck in air and release it through clenched teeth. It’s harder to decipher whether he’s joking or telling the truth. “Did you do your time for murder or petty theft?”
I sound like I’m joking.
But he’s not. His eyes tell me everything I need to know.
“All of the above, sweetheart. You’re doing that thing again, by the way.”
“What thing?” Confused, I look up to catch him staring.
“Wandering off. Daydreaming isn’t productive, you know. I bet you’re imagining how I look naked or some shit. Hate to break it to ya, but you couldn’t handle it—”
“You’re right,” I admit. “I am imagining how you’d look naked. You might have even more gang tattoos.”
“Touché.” His wince tells me I hit a soft spot. “And I bet you, on the other hand, don’t have a mark on you. Nothing to explain why you were standing on the edge of a bridge.”
“Maybe...” I lick my lips to find enough traction to keep talking. “Maybe I wasn’t going to jump.”
I don’t know where the admission comes from. I could be feeding off his bravado, though it could be something about how damn bluntly he speaks. The man has no filter, and I find that mine is being worn away the longer I humor him.
“I can’t swim,” I admit.
“Which is kind of the point,” he says, teasing. I think, anyway.
His lips quirk up into the shadow of a smile. My stomach squirms the longer I stare, and I’m realizing that I don’t like the feeling. Just like everything else about him, his smile comes without warning, gone in a flash. I only have a second to judge it—way too pretty for a tattooed guy to possess.
“Someone like you, I wonder why you didn’t just overdose?” he adds. “You look like a rich little princess. I’m sure you have access to the right pills.”
Like the painkillers my stepmother keeps in the master bathroom medicine cabinet.
My teeth sink into my lower lip to combat the sharp, prickling sensation creeping behind my eyelids. “Hale overdosed,” I hear myself croak.
I think the coroner’s report officially read “respiratory distress,” but that wasn’t it. No. Hale’s veins got injected with lies, fed to his heart until it finally stopped beating.
“I don’t know what happened. He used to hate drugs. Our Mom…” I trail off and shake my head. “He was a sponsor, you know? For addicts. He did a lot of work on behalf of Father’s church, Covenant. He volunteered at our outreach program, Salvation. He was so… Good. Everyone thought he was perfect.”
I certainly did.
“Hewasperfect…”
“Hey. Earth to Frey.”
I blink, yanked back to the present. Daze is eyeing me again, his smile gone, his expression almost serious. For all his tough talk, he doesn’t like being ignored. He gives himself away in little moments like this, reminding me of a guy at a bar constantly demanding a stream of booze.Keep it coming,he’d beg the bartender. Talking is like that for him. A vice.