Jon nods. “Special occasion?”

“Yep. Got engaged . Make it classy. None of the cheap shit.” I head toward the front door and I hear Jon laugh. When I turn around, the fucker is still smiling. “Something funny?” I ask, walking back into the kitchen.

He shakes his head. “Is there anything not funny about you getting married, Asa?”

I laugh. And then I fuck up the left side of his face.

Fucking excess.

 CARTER-25

Carter

I make it to my car in the parking lot. Somehow. I grip the steering wheel and lean my head back.

I have no idea where the line is drawn now, it’s so fucking blurred. I’m trying to do the job I’m here to do, but at the same time Sloan is making me question whether this is really the life I want at all. I have no idea if I was Carter just now or if that was all Luke. Luke is becoming Carter.

I’m pulling too much of myself into this job, but I have no idea how to not be myself when I’m with her. All the things I want to say to her. The things I wish I could do to her. The truth I wish I could tell her.

If I told her the truth about who I am and what I’m here to do, though, I’d be risking everything. My life. Ryan’s life. Possibly her life. The less she knows, the better.

I press my forehead against the steering wheel and try to foresee the inevitable shitstorm that’s coming our way.

I want to be with her. I want to be with her as Luke. But that can’t happen until we have enough on Asa to put him away for good. And we won’t be able to put him away for good until he slips up. He’s careful right now. He’s smarter than I initially thought.

But the more time it takes to get where we need to be in this investigation, the more danger Sloan is in. And knowing what I know now about Asa, leaving him is the worst thing she could do. There’s no way he’d let her leave peacefully. He’d hurt her. And I wouldn’t put it past him that he’d hurt her brother, too.

She’s stuck until he’s gone, and that could be months.

I lean back in my seat again and pick up my phone. As if I’m being punked, I have two texts from Asa.

Asa: Where are you?

Asa: Meet me for lunch at noon. Peralta’s. I’m fucking hungry.

I stare at the texts for several seconds. This is out of character for him. He doesn’t text on his regular phone when it has to do with a job, so…he literally just wants lunch?

Me: Be there in ten.

***

Twelve minutes later I’m weaving my way through the restaurant to where Asa is seated. He’s staring down at his phone when I take my seat.

“Hey,” he says, not even glancing up. He finishes the text and then sets his phone aside. “You busy tonight?” he asks.

I shake my head and pick up the menu. “Nope. Why?”

I look over the menu, but I don’t have to make eye contact to see that he’s smiling. He reaches behind him and then sets something on the table. I lower the menu and my eyes land on a box.

A jewelry box.

What the fuck?

He opens it and holds it out for me to take. I stare down at the ring, the dread making my skin itch. He’s proposing?

I try not to laugh. He’s fucking delusional if he thinks she’s going to agree to this. He also doesn’t know Sloan as well as he thinks he does, because this ring is nothing like Sloan. This ring is gaudy and showy. She’ll fucking hate it.

“You’re proposing?” I hand him back the box and pick up my menu again like I’m not really interested.

“No, I did that already. Tonight’s the celebration.”

My eyes flick away from the menu and straight to his. “She said yes?” I had no idea nods could be cocky until just now. I force myself to smile. “Congrats, man. She seems like a keeper.”

Why did she not mention this to me this morning? Did she think I’d be mad? She should know that I’d understand why she would have said yes. She can’t very well say no to Asa with the position she’s in. Agreeing to it was the safe thing to do.

I just don’t know why she didn’t warn me.

He puts the box back in his coat pocket. “She is a keeper. She’s heroin.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Heroin?”

He shakes off my question and calls over the waiter. “I want a beer. Whatever you have on tap. And a cheeseburger, all the way.”

The waiter looks at me. “Same,” I say.

We hand over the menus and I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. It’s probably Dalton. I texted him on the way here to let him know I was having lunch with Asa. I have no idea what this lunch is about, but I want to make sure the team knows where I am. Especially after Sloan said my name in her sleep. I half expected my agreeing to this lunch was a suicide mission.

I take a sip of the water already sitting on the table. “So when’s the big day?”

Asa shrugs. “No idea. Soon. I want to get her out of that fucking house before she gets hurt. I don’t trust a single goddamn person around her.”

How thoughtful of him. He’s about a day late, though, but I’m sure Jon failed to tell him that.

“I figured she liked it there,” I lie. “Don’t you guys have some kind of open relationship? How does that work?”

Asa’s eyes narrow. “No, we don’t have a fucking open relationship. Why the fuck would you think that?”

I laugh and casually bring up all the reasons why someone in my position should think that, even though I know better. “Jess? The chick you fucked in your bedroom last week? The girl in the pool two nights ago?”

Asa laughs. “You have a lot to learn about relationships, Carter.”

I lean back in my seat. I try to keep this conversation going without seeming too interested, but I want to know every detail about why he’s wasting Sloan’s time.

“Maybe so. I assumed most relationships were between two people, but I guess I’m wrong. Relationships confuse me. As does yours.”

“As does yours?” he repeats. “Who the fuck talks like that?”

We’re interrupted by the waiter delivering our beers. We both take drinks and then he pushes his beer aside and leans forward, tapping his index finger against the table. “Let me teach you about relationships, Carter. In case you ever find yourself in one.”

This should be interesting.

“Is your father alive?” Asa asks.

“Nope. Died when I was two.” That’s a lie. He died three years ago.

“Well that’s your first problem. You were raised by a woman.”

“That’s a problem?”

He nods. “You learned about life from a woman. Lots of men do, it’s fine. But that’s what’s wrong with most men. Men need to learn from men. We work differently than society leads women to believe.”

I don’t respond. I wait for him to continue this rare display of charitable “genius.”

“Men weren’t designed by nature to be monogamous. It’s engrained in us to spread our seed. To keep the population going. We’re breeders by default, and no matter what society tries to force upon us, we’ll be breeders until we kill ourselves off. That’s why we’re so fucking horny all the time.”

I glance to my left, at two older women whose mouths are hung open, eavesdropping on Asa’s definition of the male species.

“Women are the ones who give birth,” I point out. “Are they not also considered breeders? Would it not also be in their chemical makeup to populate the world?”

He shakes his head. “They’re nurturers. It’s their duty to keep the species alive. Not to create it. Besides, women aren’t into sex like men are.”

I wish I were recording this. “They aren’t?”

“Fuck no. They crave the expression of thoughts…emotions…feelings. They want to form a bond…a lifelong connection. That’s why they push for marriage, because it’s in their biological makeup to crave a protector. A provider. They need stability, a home, a place to raise their children. Women don’t have physical cravings like we do. So it’s only fair that we create the families for the women, but we also need an outlet to partake in our natural urges. When men fuck around, it’s different than when the women fuck around.”