Page 38 of Carry On

“You’re a cocky little shit.”

Are you going to let him go to jail for you?the voice asked.Drag him down with you?

I shoved back the thoughts. I needed a clear head as I processed his proposition, not tainted by my own self-loathing. Was I crazy for even considering it?

Selfish and crazy,the voice replied.

Wasn’t I the same person trying to get the hell out of Seattle just to avoid him?

And now what? I was going to marry him for his insurance? I knew I was crazy, but this would make me certifiable.

CHAPTER 29

NASH

Ihadveryfewpeoplein this life that I’d call a friend, and Jay was it. Every other week, I met the old man on an out-of-the-way bench in one of the local parks. I always brought him a coffee, and he always told me I didn’t have to. It was our song and dance, and we’d been doing so for years. Like me, he was a veteran. There were times he understood me better than I did.

He was also my voice of reason in this crazy fucking world. Only he could break through the voice in my head long enough to help me find some kind of logic.

“You’re quiet,” Jay commented after almost half an hour of just sitting in silence together. I’d barely heard most of what he’d said.

“Just stuck inside my head,” I muttered into my coffee cup.

“Well, get out of your head and get back here, kid,” he said. “What’re you thinking about?”

Lincoln fucking Cassidy.

All my thoughts were about Lincoln. I hadn’t given him an answer in the diner. The more I thought about it, the more I spiraled with my confusion. I just couldn’t understand why he wanted to help me. It’d been two days, and nothing. I didn’t know what answer to give him.

“If someone offered you a way out of this life,” I began as I tried to figure out the right way to word it without including the marriage part, “would you take it?”

“In a heartbeat,” he answered without hesitation. He chuckled when he caught me staring at him. “Kid, this life sucks. You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that. But for as much as it sucks, it’s a hard hole to crawl out of. The cycle of entitlement and greed is brutal.”

Yeah, I did know that.

If you were homeless, you were told to get a job.

But in order to get a job, you needed an address, which meant you needed somewhere to live.

And to have a home of any sort, you needed to pay for it.

Which meant you needed a job.

Most people weren’t homeless because they wanted to be. One bad month had tanked them, and getting back on their feet was damn near impossible with how the system worked against us.

Me? Honestly, I couldn’t imagine being in a normal situation anymore. I’d grown far too comfortable with my lifestyle. Well, maybe comfortable wasn’t the right word, but I was fairly certain I was right where I belonged.

“Listen to me, kid.” Jay’s voice drew me right back out of my spiral. “You’re young. You’ve got your whole damn life ahead of you. I know you’ve been out here a long time, and I know things ain’t been easy, but that’s no reason to stay stuck. If anything, that’s all the more reason to take the help—if you trust the person, of course.”

Did I trust Lincoln? I knew Lincoln was one of the good ones. His heart was in the right place.

That’s questionable, if he’s offering to help you,the voice retorted.

I shoved it away as best I could.

“Yeah, I trust him,” I whispered.

“And he doesn’t want you doing anything sketchy?” he asked. Marrying him and committing insurance fraud probably rode the line of sketchy, but I kept that comment to myself. “I’ve seen an episode or two of thatCriminal Mindsshow, you know? There are some weird people out there. I know you’re tough, but you’re no match for a serial killer.”