He’s on a different path, though. One I didn’t ask him to go on, but one he’s determined to take. I respect that about him.
“I’m okay. I’ll be okay,” I say, not really believing my words.
The me from last night is not the me walking around today. That changed after Barrett left last night, and everything that’s happened recently caught up with me.
Asher could have been killed, and not just because of Monty. But because of the bounty on my head. Even now he’s risking his life to be with me.
Barrett’s tailing me though. I don’t know if Asher has spotted him, but I know he’s there, two cars back, ready to get me out if something happens.
“Hey.” Asher squeezes my hands, and I glance at him sitting next to me, looking worse for wear.
Shit.
A few purple and yellow bruises tint his face, and there’s a cut running through his brow, but it’s his paler than normal skin that twists at my heart.
“I wish you had stayed home. You need to rest.”
He shakes his head. “Where you go, I go.”
I sigh. “You’re impossible.”
“Impossibly good looking.”
A laugh bursts from my lips, and I slap my hand over them, feeling a little ashamed that I laughed when we are about to attend a funeral.
“You’re impossibly cocky,” I snicker, and Asher grins that playful way he does, yet it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
He’s in pain.
The traffic slows as we turn up the cemetery road, and my heart feels like it’s going to crack wide open with grief as I prepare for what we are here for.
To bury Joel. My poor employee who was nothing but collateral for those fuckers that tried to take me out.
The car slows as the line of cars flows into the parking lot. I don’t want to get out and face Joel’s parents, even though I was with them only a couple of days ago helping to plan the funeral.
They think it was a random gang-related drive by shooting that killed their son, but there was nothing random about it.
They were there for me, and instead, their son died.
The driver pulls the car up at the drop zone, and I almost ask him to keep driving until Asher weaves his fingers with mine.
“I’ve got you, Lil. We’ll do this, and then I’ll get you home where I can hold you in my arms all night.”
Shit.
Tears pool in my eyes as I stare at him, his whisky gaze so sincere as he looks at me like he loves me.
My lip wobbles, and I can’t speak, so I nod, leaning into his lips as they press to my forehead.
Oh Asher Scott. I’m in deep when it comes to you, and I don’t even know what to do about it.
I wish I could tell him that, but I can’t.
It won’t change the situation.
He’ll still be seventeen years younger than me, and my sons’ best mate. Nothing will change that.
Instead of dwelling on it, I accept the here and now, letting him lead me out of the car and into the quiet crowd of people walking into the chapel.
