“Sucks for Gash,” I said unsympathetically.
“Well, what do you think about coming back?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. Marco was one dense fucker. “I’m not slinging that shit—”
“Yeah, yeah, heard you loud and clear. I’m talking about coming back as a scout. Gash knows you’re the best. He’s willing to pay you pretty well to do it, too. A lot more than you were making before.” Marco sniffed and gave my sad apartment a disgusted look. “And it looks like you could use the extra scratch. This place is depressing.”
I opened my mouth to shoot down the offer but stopped.
Because the idea was really tempting.
“Come on, Gash isn’t asking you to dirty your pretty little hands. Just find the location. Maybe show up every now and then and just be your badass self, dude. Compulsion is your playground, man, you know you miss it,” Marco said with a smirk.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, knowing the offer was almost too easy. Too perfect. There had to be a catch. There always was with Gash.
“How about this. I have to go out and find a spot tonight. Right now, actually. Why don’t you come with me? You’ve always had a better eye for the shady shit than I did. It’ll be like old times.” Marco pulled his keys out of his pocket and nodded his head toward the door.
Just like old times.
What could it hurt?
It’s not like I was going to the club. I wasn’t going to put myself back into a situation that could trigger me.
So why not?
I looked down at the newspaper on the coffee table opened to the want ads.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Gash is going to be stoked,” Marco said with a grin as we pulled away from an old mill on the outskirts of town. It was a spot I had found months ago but knew instantly it was perfect for the club. It was out of the way. It was quiet. And best of all, it was far away from the police.
Gash would love it.
“Yeah, well, you just have to know where to look for these places,” I said noncommittally. The truth was that I had enjoyed doing this small thing that had once been a part of my life.
Though it made me crave more than I should. More than was good for me.
“So why don’t you come back? Just to do the scouting thing. You don’t need to do the other stuff unless you want to,” Marco proposed, beating the subject to death. He had repeated this same sentiment at least a dozen times in the two short hours it took us to find the spot for Compulsion. He should have recorded himself so he’d stop wasting his damn breath.
“God, you’re like a fucking broken record, Polo,” I moaned, hating to admit how appealing his suggestion was.
I already found myself justifying it in every way that I could.
I need the money.
It’s better than drudging it at a crappy minimum-wage job.
I don’t have to even go to the club. I wouldn’t be putting myself back in a position where I’d be tempted to do anything like what had gotten me into trouble before.
Marco sensed my hesitation and grinned, knowing he had me. He must have been happy with my lack of denial, because he didn’t threaten to make me swallow my teeth for using my patented piss-off-Marco nickname.
“Yeah, but you want to do it. I just don’t see what the big fucking deal is. You’ve done a total one eighty and it makes no sense. You want to finally tell me what happened? What made you go all straight edge?” he asked me, parking in front of the convenience store where I lived.
Yeah, like that was going to happen.
“Maybe I’m just sick of playing skeevy douche bag,” I told him.
Marco snorted. “But you’re the fucking king of skeevy douche bags, dude.”
