Page 50 of Apex of the Curve
I nodded but wouldn’t look at him.
“I don’t like that look,” he said plaintively. “What’d you just think about?”
Honestly, as serious as I was about Aspen, as much as I liked her, I was worried that I wasn’t good for her. She’d already been through so much fuckin’ pain. I didn’t want to end up the cause of more.
“Talk to me,” DT said, like he was trying to sooth an angry dog. He wasn’t terribly far off the mark. I wasn’t the best at processing feelings without lashing out or having anger enter into the equation – usually at myself for not being, I don’t know, normal. As fuckin’ boring as that was, you pretty much always wanted what you couldn’t have and there was no way living this life I would ever have normal… but what if that was what Aspen wanted?
A normal life.
She was so damn low-key, I kind of figured it was her default.
Dump Truck swung the door to the chapel closed and I sighed.
“Talk to me, bro,” he repeated and he crossed his arms over his chest.
“I’m a fuckin’ monster on a bad day, and an oddity – a freak – on a good one,” I said coming clean.
He gave me a crooked grin.
“And?”
“And what if that’s not what she wants?” I asked. “What if it’s not what she needs right now?”
“You really like this woman.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what it is, but yeah. She sort of soothes the beast, you know what I mean?”
“Special kind of woman to sooth the rage and pain,” he agreed. “My Little Bird is like that for me.”
“She’s also a kind of project for you,” I said without thinking, but Dump Truck was an analytical short. He didn’t get pissed or snap off, that was my modus operandi, no he thought about what I said and finally nodded.
“I can see what you’re saying there. You’re not wrong. I like putting broken things back together just as much as I enjoy breaking ‘em.”
I nodded, relieved. “That’s exactly what I meant, Dude.”
“Not your usual thing, though. Is it?”
I shook my head. “Nah, not really.”
“Scared you’re gonna do more harm than good?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Good,” he said judiciously.
“The fuck?” I asked.
“You stop bein’ scared about that kind of shit, that’s the minute you do somethin’ stupid to fuck it up,” he said. “So, hang onto that. Let it be a net positive in that regard. In the meantime, enjoy, my brother. There’s nothing better than a beautiful woman in your bed and by your side making you better.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and opened up the door to the chapel to let us out.
“I don’t know. I’m still finding that last part out,” I said, thoughts consumed by Aspen and just how much I wanted to do with her, not just to her.
