Chapter Eight
Asher
I woke up to the sound of a familiar car horn, blasting on the street outside the apartment.
Daryl? Could that be you?
I kicked out of the sheets and pulled my naked ass to the window to peer through the blinds while I scratched my balls. And sure enough, there was Daryl, chilling in his old Mustang.
I yanked up the window, then stuck my head outside. “Hey! What the hell?”
Daryl stuck his head out the window, his face obscured by a big pair of sunglasses. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”
I groaned. “Hold up!” I shouted. “I’ll be right out!”
I cursed as I shoved on a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved tee, then stumbled my way toward the street. It was typical of him to just show up at my place out of nowhere, making whatever fucked-up demands he wanted to make that day. But last I saw Daryl, he was still in Los Angeles, lingering to deal with the fallout of our last job while I skipped town.
I came to Seattle to get away from all that, so why the fuck was my old partner waking up half the neighborhood on a Thursday morning?
I walked out to the street, and Daryl was leaning back on the hood of his car. He had the same sandy brown hair I did, but his was buzzed down so short you could see his scalp, and he carried a lot more muscle on his body than I did. With a black tank on, his colorful tattoos were visible in the morning light, and as I approached, he popped a cigarette between his lips and flicked a lighter.
“You miss me so much you had to drive up the coast just to say hi? You could have tried to call first. Maybe send a postcard.”
“Trying to tell me you missed my voice?”
I stared at him for a second, my vision still bleary from sleep, and then we both broke out in laughter. I pulled him in for a quick hug, and we slapped each other’s backs before parting again.
Daryl was bad news, I knew that. But still I couldn’t help but feel happy to see him. We’d grown up together outside of this city, after all, and made our way in the world together as a team, first to Seattle and soon after to Los Angeles. Growing up, he’d been the rich kid down the street, with a respectable family who was actually just as fucked up and abusive as my own parents had been. As much trouble as he got me in, I couldn’t deny that he was still my oldest friend in this world, and we’d always kept each other alive.
“So what the fuck?” I asked. “You didn’t really come up here to see me, did you?”
Daryl shrugged as he sucked on his cigarette. “You sweetened the deal. But no, I’m up here on business.”
“Business?” My stomach tightened, and a voice in my head told me to just walk back inside now. To just go in the apartment, lock the door, and turn off my phone until Daryl disappeared and took his business with him.
“Nothing I’m going to bother you about,” he said quickly. “Although I could have used a driver for the trip up here. I brought some deliveries on behalf of our former employer, had them stashed in the trunk the whole way.”
“Your former employer,” I reminded him. “I worked for you, remember?”
I always clung to the fact, like it made whatever we did right. Daryl did the shady business. He negotiated with the men who paid us, and he knew what we carried in the duffle bags and suitcases that I sped around town.
But me? I was just a driver.
I just went from one place to the next, never saying a word.
I just did what Daryl told me to. It wasn’t the smartest way to act, and I wasn’t proud of myself for it. Hell, every man wanted to see himself as independent, strong, and taking orders from nobody. But I learned pretty quickly: when you’re in a desperate situation, you don’t always make the smartest decisions.
Especially not when there was so much fucking money involved.
“Whatever you want to call it,” he said with a grin.
I rolled my eyes, definitely not awake enough yet to counter Daryl’s bullshit. “You want to come inside? Have some coffee? Lilith should be up soon. We can have a hometown reunion.”
“Throw in some hash browns, and I’ll think we’re back in high school,” he said, flicking his cigarette.
I caught Daryl up on at my life as we walked, and when we entered the apartment, Lilith was standing there in an old bath robe, yawning.
“Daryl?” she asked, bugging her eyes out when he walked through the door. “That you?”
