“Yep.” He pops the P, smirking at me. “You want my ass, Bouche?”
“I want both. All of it. Everything.”
“I can work with that.”
My phone rings through the Bluetooth speaker and my heart races when I see Boone’s name on the display. Wraith looks too, and as uneasy as it makes me, there’s no way anyone can connect Boone to me.
I hit the answer button. “Boone. What’s up?”
“Where are you? At Chirps?”
“Nah. On my way home. Is something wrong?”
“Um, no, I don’t think… no.”
My body stiffens. “Tell me the truth. Are you in trouble?”
He’s silent for a minute. “No.”
I don’t believe him for a second. When I glance at Wraith, he seems like he’s looking out the window in an attempt to give me at least a bit of privacy.
“Boone, come on. If you need help, you need to tell me.”
“Someone’s following me, Pax.”
Adrenaline spreads through me, chilling my blood to the bone. “What do you mean?”
“I kind of did something, but it’s not bad. Well, it’s bad but it was for a good reason.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Hold on. Let me pull over.”
I maneuver across two lanes and pull into the parking lot of a shopping center. Once we’re stopped, Wraith pats my thigh.
“I can get out for a minute,” he offers softly.
I shake my head. “It’s okay.” Wraith won’t get any details out of this, and even if he did, I don’t think he’d do anything with it. What’s he gonna do? Go to the media about my family problems? No. He wouldn’t do that. I don’t know how I know, but I just do.
“You’re with someone,” Boone says. “Shit, Pax. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Okay, so remember the job I got when I first came back to Mistone?”
“Yeah, the construction job.”
“Right. So, um, the owner is into some pretty bad shit. He tried to pull me into it, and when I said no…” Boone stops speaking for a moment and I hear him release a shaky breath.
“Boone?”
“He, um, he had some guys beat me up. That’s why I didn’t see you for a couple of weeks.”
“Fuck. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“’Cause you can’t do anything about it. It’s my problem.”
“Is he still after you?”
“I quit the job, right, but he wasn’t gonna let me just walk away knowing what I knew. I had to go back and pretend everything was good.”
