“A couple of reasons. I really do need another bartender, and I remember you. You have all the values I demand in an employee.”
I sniffed. “Values?” Spreading my arms, I motioned to his demolished office. “Did you not see what I just did?”
Pick glanced at his broken things impassively, then returned his attention to me. “What I saw was a man full of a lot of anger and resentment over the injustice he’s been served, over learning the woman he loves hasn’t had the easiest time of it. But I also saw a man who pulled back as soon as he struck out at one of my boys. I’ve seen someone gentle with my children, patient with my nosey wife, and respectful in my home. So, trust me. I’m pretty confident I have you pegged right, Parker.”
I snorted and glanced away, but the fucker kept talking.
“Let’s see. You came across a pregnant girl in trouble and got her help. Then, when you were left alone with her car, you didn’t take off with it even though you could’ve used the cash it would’ve brought you. Instead, you used the rest of all the money you had to clean it. Then you returned it to the hospital to see how she was doing.”
I grumbled under my breath that none of that made me full of such great values.
Pick’s lips quirked as if he knew something I didn’t, then he kept talking. “There’s also another reason I took you in. I owed you one for something you probably don’t even know you did for me.”
I glanced at him, frowning in confusion. “What’s that?”
The secretive smile kept playing around his mouth. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. But not yet.”
My eyes narrowed even more. I didn’t like how mysterious he was being. He didn’t seem to mind, though. He kept talking.
“Aside from that, there’s the fact I had to be the asshole who told you about your family.”
I flinched, not wanting to go there.
“I feel like shit about that, man. And you had nowhere to go, no one to contact for help, no money for...fuck, anything. I wanted to make it up to you somehow. So I took you in and offered you a job because it was the first thing I could think to do. It was what you needed most.”
I started to tell him he didn’t owe me shit—even if I had unknowingly done him a favor once upon a time—I could take care of myself. But he held up a hand. “And then I also felt inclined to keep tabs on you in case Felicity wanted to know where to find you when I told her you were out.”
Just hearing her name slayed me. I winced and kept my eyes averted. “I can’t keep you from telling her, can I?”
“Nope.” He shook his head.
I sniffed, irritated that I couldn’t control this; she was going to find out about my release and whereabouts. Soon. But I still tried to fight it. “Well, I don’t see how she’d care to know.”
“Don’t you?” Pick murmured. “I do.”
I looked up at him, wondering what the hell that meant. He’d used the words friendship and loyalty when talking about her, but just how the hell close were they?
What had she told him about us?
Did this mean she wanted to see me again?
A crazy, anxious hope raced through me, but I swallowed it down. Didn’t matter what she wanted. Didn’t matter what I wanted. After what I’d become, the safest place for her was as far away from me as I could keep her.
“Don’t ever let me work with her,” I growled, piercing Pick with a deadly serious glare.
He opened his mouth as if to argue, so I waved a hand toward the dent in his wall. “Just look at what I did. I’m fucked up. I don’t want her anywhere near that.” I didn’t want her to see me like this; I didn’t even want her to know I was like this.
Pick blinked away an expression of shock, but then nodded as if he understood. “Don’t worry. I’ve already scheduled it so none of your shifts coincide.”
I nodded. “Good.” That was all I needed to hear. “I’ll find some homeless shelter or something to stay in tonight.”
Not bothering to wait until I was dismissed, I stormed toward the door, but he called, “No, you won’t. I trust you, Knox. I trust you to sleep in the same apartment as my family, the same bed with my little boy and girl.”
I glanced back at him, shocked, and he nodded. “Yeah, we saw that they’d crawled in with you in the middle of the night, and we didn’t move them. Because both Tinker Bell and I trust you. We know you’d never hurt them. Don’t take that lightly.”
I gulped and looked away, because shit, I didn’t take such conviction lightly. It humbled me, yet made me feel worse, because I knew I didn’t deserve it. Just what did he think he saw in me that was so reliable, and how in the hell could he have any kind of faith in me when I had none in myself? After what I’d just done? When my biggest fear these days was myself? How could he be so sure?
Something dark dwelled inside me now, something black and violent and ugly, like a stain on my soul that could never be washed away. I hadn’t been in control of myself at all when I’d destroyed his office. That scared me.