Low Sided A.J. Downey (ebook reader macos TXT) 📖

for the first few days for sure. Canadian Tylenol after that.”

“The good shit,” Fenris grunted.

“The good shit,” Eulogy agreed.

“Thanks for coming up all this way,” I said quietly.

“Any time, but let’s try and make this the last time if you know what I mean.” He raked his hand back through his brown hair which was getting a little long and was going prematurely silver.

“Yeah, I’m with you there,” I grunted.

“Talk to you?” he asked Mav, hefting his med pack and Mav nodded. They went for the doorway and Raven turned sideways so they could get out. They stood by the front door to her apartment and spoke in low tones. Mav looked her way and over her considering. I could see the wheels turning and was grateful the swelling had gone down enough I could see again.

“How you hanging in there?” Glassjaw asked from the only chair in the corner.

“Could use something for the pain,” I admitted. It’d been grinding on me long enough now that I was tired.

“I’ll get you some water,” Raven murmured, and I heard her shuffle off. She’d made this tea earlier and had Glassjaw help me drink some. While tea wasn’t my thing, it’d somehow helped take the edge off. I wondered if it was some sort of hippy-chick homeopathic shit, but I didn’t want to be rude and ask.

“Here, man.” Fenris came near and put a couple of round pills in my hand.

“You came prepared. Gotta like that.” I let him help me sit up and put the pills in my mouth, wincing. Raven came back and pressed a cold glass into my hand, and I chased the tablets down with several cool drinks.

“You shouldn’t move if you can avoid it for at least a few days. You can stay here; I don’t mind. I just have to go to work. I can sleep on the couch or whatever.”

“You sure about that?” Fenris asked her, and she nodded. He gave a nod and looked at me. “It’s honestly probably the best thing, bro.”

“I don’t want to upend your life, sweetheart,” I told her, and she smiled.

“Might be nice to have some company,” she said glibly. “It gets kind of lonely up here all by myself.”

I smiled and fought not to chuckle, coughing a couple of times and wincing which was almost worse.

“Don’t make me laugh,” I begged, and her expression smoothed.

“Get some rest,” she murmured and pulled the thin blankets up a little higher on me.

“I’m going to talk to Mav and Jack.” Fenris got to his feet.

I closed my eyes and waited for the damn pills to take effect. Let the grownups sort it out.

I slept. I didn’t know how long, but when I woke back up, Raven was gone and Fenris was sitting with his back against the wall beside the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him, booted feet crossed at the ankle while he fucked around on his phone.

“Shit, bro, how long you been sitting there?” I asked, groggily.

“Ah, it’s been a fuckin’ minute,” he said, stretching.

“What time is it?” I asked. It was dark outside the glimpse of kitchen window that I could see through the bedroom door and in through the kitchen door. The only window in the fuckin’ place that I could tell.

“Getting on toward three.”

“In the morning?”

He chuckled. “Yeah.”

“What the fuck you doing here then? Shouldn’t you be home with your lady?”

He put his phone in his jacket pocket and nodded, the long braid of his blond mohawk dragging across the leather of his cut.

“Yeah, I should, but Aspen’s cool. She knows what’s up and Jack said we shouldn’t leave you alone for the first twenty-four or so.”

“Got it,” I muttered and sighed out, closing my eyes.

“Need anything?” he asked.

“Yeah, help up. I gotta take a leak. Some water maybe.”

“I got you,” Fen agreed, and he helped leverage me up off the mattress on the floor and into a standing position. My head swam, dizzy from the painkillers or a concussion, I didn’t fuckin’ know. It throbbed as I staggered into the bathroom and I had to brace myself against the wall over the john like I was drunk as fuck still to get my aim right.

Taking that leak was grim. Pretty sure there was blood, but with the blows to the kidneys I’d taken from those fuckers kicking the shit out of my back, I wasn’t really surprised. It’d happened before and I wasn’t dead yet, so I wasn’t going to fucking worry about it too much.

I went back and laid down again after washing my hands with the bar of herbal smelling raw soap on the edge of the old-school cracked-pedestal sink. I heard Fenris in the kitchen, the tap running. He came in and scoffed.

“This place is a fuckin’ dump,” he said, and I nodded.

“Yeah, I noticed.” What did he expect from an apartment in Rat City?

He sat back down and handed me the glass of water. “Have to run the tap for a while just to get clear water.”

“Pipes are old as fuck,” I muttered and drank the cold water down greedily.

“Why she would wanna live here is beyond me,” he said, looking around at the cracked and water-stained ceiling, the equally cracked and yellowed plaster walls – and I do mean plaster. The building was old, like 1940s old and the walls still original. It was all hard original plaster not more modern drywall.

Before my stint in prison, I had worked for one of those contractor places that would come clean up after fire and water damage. It was shitty work, but it paid pretty decent. I wanted to go back, but the boss I had been under was a dick. The evangelical type. Missed the whole point of what it was to be a good Christian.

An actual follower of Christ would have taken me back in a heartbeat. I’d been one of his best employees. This guy, though? Said not only no but hell no. How