He’s in his underwear, sprawled out on the ninnies looking couch, one arm above his head and his hat laying over his face.
I shove him with my knee.
“Wake up now.”
He stirs, pulling his ball cap from his face and looking up at me with hooded eyes.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep here.” He groans. I grab his jeans off the floor.
“Guess you didn’t mean to take your pants off and get comfortable either?” I throw them at him and he gives me a terse look.
Sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, my bottle of water in hand, I tilt my head to the side.
“Why didn’t you go home?”
Pulling his jeans on, he runs his hand through his wreck of a hair and places his hat on. He doesn’t want to answer me.
“We all have a past, come out with it,” I encourage him. Nothing he has to say could be as bad as I’ve seen or done.
“I don’t have a home, is that what you want to hear?” His tone on the edge of angry. He glances up from under the bill of his hat.
“Why’s this?” I continue to press, curious how a normal guy like him could have it so bad.
“Parents threw me out when I was sixteen, they moved to somewhere, I don’t know where. I was staying at a friend’s house but he got a girlfriend and she don’t like me bumming off their place, so I’m homeless.” His puppy dog eyes don’t work on me, I don’t feel sorry for people often. This explains his lack of respect for other people’s property when I met him, and why he hasn’t worked a day in his life. He’s a bum. If he had tried harder earlier on, he would have gotten a job and a place.
“Get a job,” I tell him.
“He scoffs. Yeah, tell that to the dozen of places I applied. I have a record.”
“You’re eighteen, how bad could it be?”
He shrugs before leaning back on the couch. I ask, but I feel like I already know the story. Dad left him as a kid, hooked on drugs, parents threw him out. What?
“Was with an old friend who held up a gas station. He grabbed the loot and bailed, leaving me behind.”
“Ah, and because you ratted him out you got less time.” I put the pieces together.
“No, I didn’t rat. Fuck him. I got some hot chick lawyer that took my case and got me probation for a while. But still, it doesn’t look good when I’m applying for a job,” he tells me and I’m surprised, which doesn’t happen often.
Rubbing my chin, I look him over. I’ve seen people with a much worse record make ends meet, sounds like he’s stuck in feeling sorry for himself. Of course not having a dad to whoop his ass along the way of his fuck-ups doesn’t help. He’s expendable though. No commitment to anyone means he could have the potential to be a good man.
He didn’t rat on a partner that fucked him out of cash and put him at fall for the crime that says something, there’s definitely room for loyalty.
I could put him on my crew back in New York, maybe.
“I might have a place for you if you come back to New York with us,” I offer. My mind still mulling it over. He could start at the bottom, run some drugs here and there. Some light shit until I feel him out a bit more.
His eyes dart to mine with suspicion.
“Your work, from what I can tell it’ll get me back in front of a judge,” he insults my generosity, which makes my jaw tic.
I stand.
“Could, if you’re stupid and don’t follow the rules that are given to you.” I grow annoyed with him and head toward the front door for some more air. “But the more I think about it, you may not be cut out for my line of work, Eddie,” I confess. My own brother was born into a legacy of violence and even he has trouble coping. When you kill someone, you lose a part of yourself. A piece of living that you never get back.
Pulling it open, I’m shoved to the ground and a man in a black mask and clothes aims a semi-automatic around the room, landing on Eddie first. He fires, and instinct kicks in. I kick his feet out from underneath him and he falls to the ground. I lunge for the gun but he wraps an arm above around my neck pulling it backward as far as he can. Twisting my torso I wrap my legs around his head sending him crashing to the floor, causing him to let go of mine neck. I snatch the gun off the floor and point it at the guy firing three shots into his chest and one into the head.