Page 105 of Outside The Wire

I stayed silent, walking over to grab a cup of coffee. I desperately needed it after being up all night at Holly’s. I couldn’t stay in the house with her, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave either. So, I sat outside her house and kept watch from my truck. I was fucking exhausted.

“Asher, I said go home.”

I strode past him and he grabbed my arm, stopping me before I could walk out to the garage.

“What’s going on?”

I shrugged, not saying a word.

“Fuck,” he sighed. “What the hell happened?”

I sighed, taking a step back. I really didn’t want to talk about this, but Wyatt was the closest thing to a friend I had. “She had questions about my past because of how I attacked the asshole who put his hands on her.”

“And you didn’t want to answer those questions,” he surmised.

I shook my head. “It’s in the past. I left that life behind.”

“Did you really?”

My eyes snapped to his. “I did. Everything about the man I used to be is gone.”

“Except when he came out yesterday.”

I ground my teeth and nodded.

“So, what are you gonna do?”

I had no fucking idea. “What she wants…I left that part of me behind for a reason.”

“But is it a good reason?”

I thought about Jade, how my actions had helped lead to her death. Did I cause her to die? No, but that life—that sort of recklessness had played a part. By playing the game with Rafe, I had set myself on a path of destruction, and I never wanted to go back there.

“I don’t know anymore. I just want to leave it behind.”

“Why can’t you leave it behind with her?”

“Because…because she would be connected to it then.”

“Tainted by association,” he nodded.

“Right now, she knows nothing about me during that time. We’re in this bubble of this new life. And if I tell her, my worlds collide and…it’ll be dirty. She’ll see the real me—the one I’ve been trying so desperately to leave behind.”

He clapped me on the shoulder with a sigh. “Asher, the old you can’t be that bad. I think you give yourself too much credit as some kind of demon. But if that were true, you wouldn’t be ableto redeem yourself and be the man you are now. No one can turn around that much. You can’t just become a new person.”

But I had. I was nothing like I used to be. Not really.

“There had to be something good about you before. I have to believe that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t hire assholes. Well, Grady might be the exception, but he’s the exception for a reason.”

I huffed out a laugh, shaking my head at him. “I don’t know what the hell to do.”

“Are you really willing to lose her over this?”

“She probably won’t want me when she finds out the truth.”

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