Jay Crownover - Asa

I didn’t reply; instead I tried really hard not to move as I felt the tips of his fingers start to play with the end of my long ponytail where it hung over the back of the chair. I don’t think he was even aware that he was doing it. That is, until I glanced at him and noticed the golden glow shining out of his eyes. This was not a guy that ever did anything without being very aware of the effect it was having on the people around him. He wasn’t just trouble, he was potent and more dangerous than most of the stuff I saw on the streets every day.

At some point the monotony of waiting for endless hours long into the night, the quiet murmur of voices, the squeak of rubber shoes on the linoleum floor, all worked together to lull me to sleep. One minute I was thinking about how odd my night had turned out. About how when I felt my absolute worst there was this remarkable foundation of wonderful people to catch me. I wasn’t used to having any kind of safety net aside from Dom, and I had to admit it was really nice to have a soft landing instead of a brutal crash for once in my life.

But of course, like everything in my world lately, drifting off into a little catnap couldn’t just be easy and rejuvenating. As soon as the darkness descended, it was there. The day everything changed forever.

I heard the gunshots. Heard the cops that had been on the scene before us shouting. Heard the people in the neighborhood chattering next to the dilapidated building that had been converted into a monster meth lab. I heard the sirens. I heard my radio squawk that there were several officers down. It was a bad situation all around, but Dom and I were trained. It was our job to go into bad situations and make them better.

I heard Dom telling me we should go into the alley and I blindly agreed. I heard his boots rattle on the metal as he found a fire escape and started to climb up. I told him I was right behind him, we always had each other’s back. Dom barked at me to stay put, to cover him from the group. We had no idea how many shooters there were, had no idea if the building was clear or not, but again, we were trained and this was our job.

I had my gun out. I was watching, staring hard at the space above Dom’s head, making sure no one could get the drop on him. There were more shots fired, I had no idea if they were our guys or the bad guys, and I didn’t care as long as my partner was okay. I heard Dom make a noise as he reached the top of the fire escape. I could swear I heard every single snowflake that was falling that night as it hit the dirty ground around my booted feet.

I heard Dom call an all-clear, saw him move to go through a shattered window, and then I heard it … nothing more than a whisper. A faint sound of a can or some other piece of trash rolling on the asphalt. I moved my attention away from Dom for a split second, half of a heartbeat, not even a full blink, and then hell was unleashed.

A kid, a boy that was barely out of puberty, popped up over the edge of the roof, opened fire from his higher position, and hit Dom. He took two shots in the vest, one ripped through his arm. The force and surprise sent him stumbling backward until he hit the waist-high railing of the fire escape and started to tumble over it. One last bullet had caught him just right in the side, but it was the fall that did the most damage.

Then all I could hear was screaming, my own and Dom’s as he fell. I returned fire, caught the kid dead center in his chest. It didn’t matter. I thought Dom was dead and I couldn’t stop screaming.

I woke up with a jerk. I was covered in a light sheen of sweat and noticeably shaking. Luckily this time I wasn’t making any noise and no one seemed to notice my disheveled state, mostly because Ayden and Jet had arrived and everyone was gathered around saying hello. I watched as Asa pulled his strikingly beautiful little sister into a warm embrace.

And then it was like Shaw and the baby knew, like her and Rule’s baby boy had been waiting for just the right minute to make his grand entrance into the world. He seemed to know the exact moment that his whole family was there to meet him because it wasn’t until the entire gang was present that Reyer Remington Archer made his debut.

I had to say it was the best thing that had ever been waiting for me on the end of the nightmarish visions of that horrible night, and I would forever be grateful I was allowed to be part of it.

About two weeks after the night at the hospital, I walked into the Bar full of trepidation. Rome had called and asked me to come in an hour early because he wanted to talk to me about something. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if I had screwed something up or done something wrong, but his grave tone was more serious than usual and it made my long-honed self-preservation instincts kick in. If he was going to can me, tell me to get lost, I told myself it was no big deal. I could hit the road, I could figure out something else to do, but the Bar had really sort of become the first place that felt like it was solid under my feet, and I didn’t want to admit that losing that scared the hell out of me. Not having this place really would set me adrift, and when I was adrift I got into trouble … lots of trouble.

Ayden and Jet had stayed for a week. My sister wanted to be there when Shaw took baby Ry home and got settled. The nickname was cute and Shaw loved it because she was a huge J. D, Salinger fan, plus knowing who the kid’s dad was, he was bound to have a little Holden Caulfield rebellion in him. It wasn’t enough time with my sister, and even though I could see she was happy, really happy with her choice to move in order to get more time with her man, I missed her and I could see that she was still worrying too much about me. I tried to tell her that I was fine. I tried to explain that if I was going to fuck up, it wouldn’t matter if she was here in Denver or in Austin, but that just made her tawny eyes spark at me in anger. I loved Ayden more than I ever knew I was capable of, but I wasn’t going to try and fool her into believing that I was never going to screw up again. All I could do was try. Try and be better, try and be honest, try staying on the right side of the law and not running when things got hard. Trying was just going to have to be enough. For Ayden and for me.

During the day the Bar was fairly quiet. There was a whole slew of retired veterans that liked to hang out and share old war stories. It never ceased to amaze me how many of them had to do with ex-wives and old lovers rather than any actual war. Rome typically opened the bar up and hung out until I got there in the early evening to run the night shift. He wanted to be home with his family during the evening and I couldn’t say I blamed him for that. Being a retired soldier himself, Rome had an easy way with the grizzled clientele and preferred to leave the more lively and rambunctious party crowd to me.

When I walked in the front doors, he wasn’t around, and Brite, the guy who had sold Rome the Bar in the first place, was standing in my usual spot behind the long wooden bar. Darcy, the Bar’s cook and Brite’s ex-wife, had her head poking out of the kitchen and the two of them appeared to be arguing in low voices.

I don’t think either of them copped to the fact that they might be exes but were still practically married. Wife number three was long gone, and Darcy wasn’t just his only child’s mother, but really the love of his life. I had asked Rome about it once and he just shrugged and told me that good women were complicated and hard to hold on to. I didn’t understand it until I walked into the liquor storeroom unannounced one day between shifts and found Darcy with her legs in the air and Brite’s giant form hovering over her in an unmistakable way. There might not be rings, but there was love and passion still there. Too bad their daughter was a grade-A pain in the ass.