Page 86 of Javier

“Wowzers.” I visualized King shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “That’s a fucked-up take of your occupation and mine. My definition is opposite of yours. As to that screwed up shit about hurting your passenger, you make her sound like she’s brainless.”

“What? No!” I was offended on her behalf. “She’s one of the smartest people I know.”

“Did you do stuff to make her dislike you?” King asked.

I’d been stellar at that, but I kept mum on the subject.

“Yeah, you did,” King concluded without my help. “That’s what you do when you wanna push people away. You act like an asshole. You destroy any chance for good stuff to happen.”

“You’re overlooking the obvious here.”

“Yeah, sure, tell me about that.”

“Our worlds don’t gel,” I said. “Not to mention that I’m a fucked-up asshole. Assholes and nice passengers don’t end up well.”

“Huh.” Coming from King, I hated the skeptical sound. “You just threw a bunch of stupid labels at me. Hard to accept your designations. You’re not an asshole, although you act like one at times.”

“Same difference.”

“You could choose to ramp down your assholic levels.”

“Right,” I spat. “Because I can snap my fingers, erase my past, and become a paragon of fucking virtue.”

“Dude, slow it down,” he said. “Who says you’ve gotta be a paragon of virtue?”

“Did you hear the part where she’s who she is?”

“Someone who chose to live in poverty for three fucking years.”

Point to King.I grunted something obscene.

“She’s nice,” I argued. “A good, kind person.”

“And what are you, chopped liver?”

“If you’re looking for a list of my vices, you ain’t got the time to hear it.”

“We’re all works in progress. Can you just work on being the person you wanna be?”

I looked at the moon hanging on the sky. “Where would Ieven begin?”

“Not where, when, and the answer is now.” King didn’t give me a break. “The now is the only thing we have. As to the nice person category, I doubt your passenger would love hearing herself so narrowly defined.”

On the dance floor, Missy proved King right, her sensual moves showing me that my definition of her was too narrow. I clamped down on my teeth and forced myself not to drag her off the dance floor like a caveman, but it was a close thing.

“I’m gonna hang up now.”

“Don’t hang up on me, dumbass,” he snapped. “Seems to me you have junk to unpack. What’s the problem?”

“She’s young,” I muttered for lack of a better answer.

“Seven, eight years?” King considered that. “It’s a decent range. She might be younger than you, but maturity levels count.”

“Are you calling me Peter Pan, too?” I lashed out with a snarl.

“I’m not, but apparently someone did.”

Shit. This conversation wasn’t helping anything.

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