Page 26 of A Brother At My Back

“Eh, there are worse things. I like it here, too… and I got to meet you.”

Wow, that was actually a pretty sweet thing to say.

“Are you flirting with me?” I asked, to make sure. I was almost certain he was, but he laughed, nervously dispelling the notion.

“Nah, I didn’t mean it like that. I just think you’re interesting, Girl.”

“Me? Interesting?” I asked over the shower spray. I thrust my face into the water and listened intently for his answer.

“Yeah, you. I wonder a bit, what’s yourstory?”

“You know my story, I told you the other night at the diner.”

“No, you told me about how you got your warrior’s mark. That’s something that happened to you, not your whole story. That’s just a singular moment in time. A bad one, I reckon, but just a footnote in a chapter. Not the whole book.”

“You like to read?” I asked, massaging the soap into my long hair, the question more to buy myself some time to process what he’d just said. I mean, it was awfully profound. I hadn’t expected it to come from someone packaged like him. Of course, speaking of books, that whole adage of never judging one by its cover came to mind again.

“Yeah, I think it’s where I got such big ideas that I could change things back home. I got myself to thinking that I was smarter than everybody around me.”

“So what happened?” I asked, rinsing my head with the shower spray, listening intently for his answer.

“I learned that no matter how smart you think you are, there’s always a bloke out there smarter than you.”

“That’s all?”

“That and it’s never a good idea to try and get one over on a gang boss as powerful as the one I tried to fool. There’s a reason he’s boss. I’d like to think I’m over being that young and dumb.”

I wanted to ask him, what did you do exactly, but it was none of my business. Just like there were certain things about me that were none of his.

So he’d gone from outsmarting crime bosses to escorting and protecting a whore. I honestly would consider that a downgrade in lifestyle, but thinking on it, whatever he’d done that was viewed as a betrayal, it was probably a downgrade he was more than happy to live with, considering he got to live.

Live and learn. It was honestly all any of us could do.

“So,” he called out, interrupting my introspective silence, “What’s your story?”

“I’m just a girl trying to crawl out from under the mountain of debt her poor choices left her buried under,” I said. Which was true.

“Alright, I’ll give you that,” he called. “But you know something I like, so what about you? Name something you like.”

He liked to read, I liked to read, too but I had a feeling if I said that it would come across as evasive, or like I was trying to purposefully be difficult.

“I… I guess it’s been a long time since I thought about what I like, or what makes me happy,” I said finally.

“That’s a bit depressing, isn’t it?” he asked carefully, and I couldn’t disagree, but wondered at the change in his tone.

“I like to dance,” I said finally. “Delia is the one that convinced me to take pole dancing as a means to stay fit and have fun after…” I trailed off and finished with a bitter, “Well, after Silas.”

“You like your job, then? That’s good.”

“I like parts of my job, not all of it.”

“Yeah, I could see that. What parts do you like best?”

“I like the creativity part. I like coming up with new dances and new moves. I like the music and finding the perfect song. That’s the fun part.”

“I can see it,” he said and I smiled.

“I liked today,” I said honestly. “Downstairs, the learning new things… I think it was a good idea. I wish I had done it sooner but I never really felt right going to the self-defense classes around here.”

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