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“Me?”
“When was the last time you lived in the moment? Aside from when I was fucking your brains out just now, of course.”
“The arrogance police are taking you into custody.”
I grin. “You’re not avoiding the living in the moment subject. Do you do that or are you as theoretical as your mentally unstable idol?”
“I…”
“What?”
“I watchedFriendswith Caroline the other night.” She winces as soon as she says the sentence.
“Wow. That’s as badass as bungee jumping.”
“You don’t get to lecture me when all you do is destruction, revenge, and more destruction.”
“Either that or dabbling in some disgusting territory like peace, love, and curing world hunger.”
She chuckles and the sound is light and air-like in quality. “What blasphemy.”
“I know. The worst.”
We stare at each other for a beat, the only sound echoing in the air is my Zippo’s opening and closing motion.
Aspen swiftly slides her attention to the uneventful ceiling and its wooden pillars. “We should probably go before someone reports us for trespassing on their property.”
“Unless I can report myself, that’s highly unlikely.”
Her head whips in my direction. “You own this?”
“And a hundred other properties. Admittedly, it’s the most Halloween-themed of the bunch and could be used for some satanic rituals.”
She runs her gaze over the older than dirt window frames, the shabby decor that belongs in a low-budget motel set for a cowboy movie, and the faint light from the fixture that’s threatening to fall beside us.
“You never said you owned this place.”
“Never said I didn’t. Technically, it was my father’s at the time.” My lips twist. “A birthday present to my mother, a vacation cottage where we could come for the weekends.”
“It must’ve been nice.”
“Fuckinghorribleis the word you’re looking for. There was nothing nice about Benjamin and Liliana Shaw’s marriage. All they did was pretend they were the next American king and queen while simultaneously drowning in other things besides each other. He, in pussy. She, in any pills she could get her hands on—painkillers, sedatives, antidepressants.” I pause, not knowing what the hell came over me to talk about my parents. “But hey, a genius child with godlike looks came out of their unfortunate union, so it wasn’t a useless pairing, after all.”
She doesn’t buy my attempt to lighten the mood and frowns. “Have you abandoned this place because it reminds you of your parents? Or maybe because it reminds you of the child you were with your parents? You called it the yang to your yin, not yin to your yang as it’s commonly known. Because you’re the yin, the black side of the sphere, so is the child version of you perhaps that yang?”
“You have so many questions for someone who was begging me to stop or they would faint not ten minutes ago. I liked you better when you were mute.”
“Your attempts at being an asshole to make me drop the subject are the definition of a failure.”
“You’re fucking infuriating.”
“I know, you tell me that every chance you get. For the record, you’re way past the infuriating stage and well into the obnoxious one. Now, answer my question.”
“Add a please and I might consider it.”
She purses her lips. “No.”
“Good talk.”
