Page 46 of His Virgin Vessel

"Well, okay. What then? We settle down in a place together in the city? You paint, and I get a job? Is that what you're thinking?"

"Maybe."

Asa half-smiled. "And then, on the streets of the big city, you meet a mugger, or a drug dealer, or someone else who awakens that thrill-seeker inside you, and I never see you again."

"That won't happen!"

"You don't know that." Asa shrugged. "You're encouraging me to stop being the thing that you found attractive in the first place."

"That was bad Corinne,'" I argued. "You told me that she's not real anyway."

"There may be no such thing as bad Corinne," agreed Asa. "But good Corinne has a thing for bad Asa, and bad boys in general. Are you going to tell me that's not the case?"

I pouted a bit and kicked at the carpet. "I don't know."

"That's because you won't look inside yourself. You don't want to examine yourself too closely because you're afraid of what you might find."

"Well, listen who's talking!" I wasn't just going accept that level of hypocrisy. "How many years have you been on the wrong side of the law? Are you going to tell me that was because you were happier, or because you weren't willing to take a good look at yourself?"

"My childhood ..." Asa began, but I interrupted.

"Ended like fifteen years ago. You've got to stop using that as an excuse."

Now it was Asa's turn to hit back at me. "I use my childhood as an excuse? At least my parents deserve to be blamed. You blame a man who loved you, looked after you, and gave you everything you wanted."

"I'm so sorry my childhood wasn't as bad as yours, but everyone has an equal right to be screwed up by their parents, even if those parents were good. And I still had a bad mom. You can't take that away from me."

"You don't want to end up like her," said Asa firmly, saying something that my dad must have said to me a hundred times.

"I should end up like my dad?"

"Not necessarily. You should end up like Corinne. And the only way to do that is to stop running, and look at yourself. You run away from your dad, toward this memory of your mom, toward danger, toward bad influences, like me. You're always running, when you should be settling down. Stop flying by the seat of your pants. The right thing won't just bump into you. You've got to look for it."

"Didn't you just bump into me?"

Asa paused. "Okay, maybe that was a bad example. But I was just a lucky chance. Generally speaking, the good things in life don't just fall into your lap. You've got to make them happen."

I gave him a hard look. "I take it this is 'do as I say and not as I do' type of advice?"

"I learned the hard way," Asa said. "I don't want you to have to."

I shook my head. "Are you reading this stuff from The Big Book of Brian Dugas Quotes?"

"Is that your way of telling me that I sound like your dad?"

He really did. Except that I was listening to him. "I'm just saying that you're being pretty damn judgmental about the decisions I've made in my life, given that you're turning yourself into the police tomorrow, and there's still a fifty percent chance of you going to jail for crimes you did commit. How about understanding rather than judging?"

Asa sat back down on the bed. "That's a totally fair comment."

I went and sat beside him. "I bet there were times when you enjoyed being a part of War Cry. Times when it was a thrill, like nothing else you've ever felt, and when it was good to be part of something. Hell, I'll bet there were times when it felt good to be bad."

Asa couldn't suppress a smile that spread across his face. "Okay, while I'm not saying it's a good thing, or endorsing criminality as a lifestyle—hell, yeah! There were times when I loved it."

"But you're happy to step away from it?"

He turned to look at me tenderly. "Of course. The good times with War Cry were fleeting, a surface thrill. Deep down, there was always an emptiness. Even when you're surrounded by people, you can still be pretty lonely. I could have quit years ago, but I guess I didn't know what I would have left if I did. Now I've found something better."

"If you can accept all that about yourself, why can't you accept it in me?" I asked, fervently. "I know I have ... let's call it a 'thing' for bad boys. I get a thrill when I'm doing something that I know I shouldn't be. But, like you said, it's fleeting. And it's nothing compared to the thrill I get when I'm with you. You, Asa. The real you. Not just some bad boy with a cool bike and an attitude, but a man who I ..." I shied away from finishing the sentence. I wasn't cagey about how I felt for Asa. I knew what I felt, but I wasn't sure yet how he felt, and I knew that if I said the word, then he would feel pressured to say it back, and that wasn't how I wanted it to happen.

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