Page 73 of The Darkness Within

Always there for me. Checking in without making me feel rushed. Reassuring me. Brewer is an unexpected gift I can never repay. A Godsend, which, granted, He fucking owes me, so it only makes sense that He sent me the best of the best. That’s what Brewer is, the best of the best.

So what the fuck does he want with me?

“So, I heard you met with your buddy’s mom. How’d that go?” West asks, his prosthetic leg propped up on the coffee table, his big body half-sprawled over the vinyl-covered couch in the waiting room, a Mad Libs in his hand.

“It was heavy. But I’m glad that I went.”

We’ve already killed two hours in this lobby, waiting for Mandy’s procedure to wrap up. Most patients who undergo microdermabrasion are in and out of their dermatologist’s office the same day, but with Mandy’s extensive scarring and delicate skin, it’s a much more involved procedure, and his recovery time is almost triple. I feel guilty that I fucked up so badly that I had to move out. He needs a next-door neighbor right now to look after him, like he looked after me when I needed help.

“You gonna see her again?”

“Yeah. I’d like to check up on her often, fix stuff around the house, wash her car, get the oil changed. What if she’s lonely? I mean, she’s got to be, right?”

West stares at me, like he’s staring through me, and a smile spreads slowly across his face. “About as lonely as you are.”

“I don’t have time to be lonely, you Bitches won’t leave me alone. Then I’ve got the guys that I live with, Brewer and Riggs, hell, loneliness sounds really good right about now.”

West laughs. “You wish. People would kill to have friends like us. We’re fucking awesome.”

Shaking my head, I pick up my needles again, trying for the hundredth time to get the stitches right. I suck so bad at knitting it’s not even funny. How does anyone find this therapeutic?

West looks confused. “What the hell is that supposed to be anyways?”

“A plant cozy.” I deserve points for saying that with a straight face.

“What the fuck does a plant cozy do?”

“The fuck if I know, West. It’s decorative. It goes around the pot. It’s all I can manage, a simple circle. I can barely even manage this.” West chuffs, half of a laugh, eyeing all the holes and pulled stitches in my knitting. It’s a fucking mess. “Keeps people’s fingerprints off it,” I mumble under my breath.

I guess he hears me because he’s laughing loudly now, and it’s growing more intense by the second.

“Do you Windex it?”

“Fuck off.”

His laughter dies down to a chuckle, and he returns his attention to his Mad Libs. “Give me a vehicle and a word that rhymes with aloe.”

I have to think for a minute. “Van and woe?”

“I can work with that.” He scratches in his pad, and a moment later, he says, “It’s a poem, you want to hear it?”

“Sure. Entertain me.”

“There once was a man who lived in a van.

He lost his way, but was saved with Narcan.

His best friend was a plant and a kitten the size of an ant,

And a rowdy, but handsome bunch of sycophants.

The man was full of woe because he didn’t plant aloe,

A natural lubricant to prevent blisters whenever he thought of his mister.”

His dark eyes are lit with a wicked glint, his lips twisted in a smirk, and his arm making an obscene gesture like he’s jacking his cock.

“I don’t know how Brandt puts up with you.”

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