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It was too quiet. You could hear every cough, every tug of the sheets.
“Meditating?” Damien asks, breaking me out of my memories.
I open my eyes and give him a dirty look. “You don’t know how to shut up, do you?”
He chuckles. “No, man, I haven’t seen you in ages and you’re always so quiet. You’re allowed to talk.”
“Maybe I have nothing to say,” I reply.
“You do, you’re just used to being quiet. Prison has changed you, but you’re not there anymore. You can loosen up. We’re going to get you back to your old self again.”
I shake my head as I fail to suppress a smile. “No, I don’t need to be like my old self. Too reckless. I like the life I’ve built. Kimberly, the house, the baby… I wouldn’t want to change all that, but I’ll try to loosen up a bit.”
Damien pats my shoulder. “That’s right, brother. You’re doing good for yourself. I wish I had a girl too, but I’ve been so busy I don’t feel like I have time for anything but mindless hookups.”
“I’m sure you could make time,” I suggest, feeling for him since we’re pretty much the same age and he’s still without a wife. He’s had all this time to get one, and he’s done nothing with it. Curious.
“Women are distracting,” he says, waving a hand through the air between us. “I just don’t have the capacity to deal with one all the time.”
“Maybe a man,” I suggest.
He rolls his eyes. “Come on, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I have a rolling inventory through my bedroom, I just don’t get caught up on anyone.”
“Have you ever been?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
It’s my turn to put a fire under his ass. After how much he’s grilled me since I got out of prison, I figure I owe him the same treatment. I know there’s something in his past, or someone, that’s bothering him. I just have to push some buttons to find out.
“So, some bitch cheated on your or something, and you swore never to date one again,” I say, picking up my gun and messing with the safety switch again. “Must’ve been bad, but it couldn’t have been that bad because you didn’t end up in prison like me.”
“Nice try, but that wasn’t the case. Just a bad run, and I got tired of it. Everyone wants money, but nobody wants to deal with the other side of it. All the crime, the danger, and the work.”
Hearing him talk about his struggles makes me appreciate Kimberly that much more. She’s stuck around, even through the realization that her life would never be normal with me. I’m going to kiss her long and hard when I get home.
“A bad run in the past thirty years?” I ask, finding immediate holes in his story when I think about it. “You’re telling me that you never tried dating again because of a couple of bad relationships?”
“It was more than that, but I don’t want to talk about it,” he replies looking out the window.
Oh, now I know I’ve discovered something good. The problem is, I don’t think I’m going to get any more out of him until after we put a couple of bullets through Leo’s head.
The thrill of the hunt is nothing compared to the high after the kill. I get the feeling that Damien will be a lot more open about his past after we’ve made a mess out of Leo.
So, I allow the car to fall back into silence, save for the incessant click of my thumb on the safety. Back and forth. On and off. Over and over until Damien tells me to cut it out again.
“You might be the one with the bullet in his head,” he says after just two minutes of clicking.
I chuckle. “I’d still be better off than you. Grumpy about some stale bitch from ten years ago.”
“It wasn’t ten years ago – you know what, I know what you’re doing. I’m not telling you anything,” he growls.
I shrug. “Suit yourself, but I prefer to fill the silence with something, so I’m just going to keep flicking this switch.”
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, yeah, it was a girl. Five years ago. I thought she was the one, but she wasn’t. That’s all. I gave up. No point in dating women who are just going to be wishy washy about the future together.”
“I’m sure there was more to it than that.”
“Maybe I’ll tell you about it once we get rid of this Leo motherfucker. I’m so tired of people like him. I’m just tired of everyone, really. Except you, obviously. You’re alright.”
