“She’s nice. She seems pretty cool with whatever comes her way.”

Zeb pushed his empty glass at me and ran his hands through his unruly hair. The guy was a contractor, built things for a living, so it kind of fit that he reminded me of a modern-day lumberjack.

“I’ve been flirting with her, teasing her and dropping hints since the day we met. She’s smart. If she was interested she would pick up on what I’m laying down.”

“Maybe.” I braced my arms on the bar and leaned across from him. I gave him a steady look and asked seriously, “But don’t you think she’s probably a little more used to formal invitations from someone that wants to take her out? Everything about Sayer screams country club and formality. Maybe she just doesn’t get what you’re after.”

He blinked at me for a second and then leaned back on his stool. “You think?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. She hired you to work on her house even after you told her you served time. She let you be around Salem’s sister when we all know she’s protecting that girl like a mama bear, so she obviously trusts you and is comfortable around you. Maybe she’s waiting for you to up your game. Not all ladies are gonna start pulling off their clothes and crawl between the covers because you smile at them. I heard you tell Rowdy once that you weren’t afraid of doing the work if the lady is worth it. Sayer is worth it.”

She really was. She had helped me out of a hard spot not too long ago, and when Rowdy’s girlfriend had needed a safe place for her little sister to recover from a really terrible situation, Sayer hadn’t hesitated to take the girl in. She was as kind and generous as she was lovely. She deserved a guy that was willing to go the extra mile for her even if that guy kinda resembled a tattooed Paul Bunyan.

Zeb pushed up off the bar and lifted both of his dark eyebrows at me. “I question taking romantic advice from a guy that’s repeatedly turning down the hottest piece of ass I’ve ever seen. That’s just wasteful, man.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s the whole point: she’s not a piece of ass, and I don’t know why she’s suddenly acting like she is. Besides, any chick that can throw me in jail when I piss her off is off the table.” What I really meant but didn’t say was that I knew I was bound to screw up and piss her off. That was just what I did.

Zeb grunted. “I think I’d risk a night in lockup for her. Saying no to all of that is like a Herculean feat. Someone should nominate you for sainthood.”

I laughed drily and followed him to the front door so I could lock it behind him. “The halo would burst into flames if they got it anywhere near my head.”

He gave me a hard look. “You know I don’t think you’re half as bad as you seem to think you are, Asa. Trust me, I know better than most about screwing up on an epic level, but I’ve never let that define who I was going to be for the rest of my life.”

I might have bounced in and out of jail since I was a teenager, but I had never had to spend more than a few weeks at a time locked down. Zeb, though, had served several years behind bars for his mistake. The difference between us was that Zeb had broken the law because he felt like he didn’t have any other choice. I broke the law because I wanted to. The law got in my way, prevented me from getting what I wanted or what I thought I needed, so I ignored it and pretended like it didn’t matter.

“Some people screw up, and then some people are screw-ups. I fall firmly into the second category.”

There was no other explanation as to how Ayden and I could have half of the same genetic makeup and be so vastly different. Granted there was a good chance I absolutely took after my scumbag of a father, a father we didn’t share. Yet we were so opposite I often had to wonder how we had been brought up in the same house and lived the same hard-knock childhood. I had no clue how she could be as together, as composed and steady, as she was. I don’t know how she had found a space in her new life for me or how she had stayed by my side when I was dying. I knew she had every reason to walk away from me, but instead she had done everything in her power to save me and she had given me a new life of my own. One I was terrified I was going to rip to shreds any second now.

Zeb shook his head a little and yanked the door open. “I think you need to cut yourself some slack.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

I shoved him on his shoulder out the door and closed it in his face. I liked Zeb. We had a lot in common, but he didn’t know the whole story, didn’t know some of the really terrible things I had done. He didn’t know that when I died, when everything went black and I knew I wasn’t coming back to rejoin the mortal coil, every single, terrible, awful, horrible thing I had ever done in my life floated before me live in vivid color.