Chapter One: Scumbag

Chapter Author: Sin

Ash

Heel to toe slamming the pavement, Ben and I tore through the night as fast as our legs would carry us. 

I hadn’t expected a rescue.

I learned early in life that the only person you can count on is yourself. As much as I hated to admit it, though, I was well into the frying pan before he intervened.

All I could do now was trust him and hope I hadn’t jumped straight into the fire.

Before I had a chance to react, he grabbed my wrist and turned down an unlit alleyway, nearly yanking my arm out of socket in the process. 

Any other situation and he would’ve ended up with a black eye for his trouble—never in my life had I let a man put his hands on me without making him regret it, but if there’s one thing the bastard had going for him it was his mind. 

He had a plan.

“Careful, stairs,” he grunted as he stopped me in my tracks.

I only nodded as he took his hands off of me. 

I wanted an explanation, and I wanted to cuss him out for the ache in my shoulder, but that could all wait until we were safe behind locked doors. 

He was too focused to notice the way my face screwed up with skepticism, but the situation only got weirder when he pulled a somewhat sticky key from beneath the insole of his worn-out boot.  

When the tumblers clicked into place, he breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the door open.

He stepped in, motioning for me to follow, and against my better judgment…

Well.

It’s not like I had better options.

I let him lead me into a small studio apartment, my eyes scanning the room, looking for anything I could use for a weapon in case this went south. Ben saved me, but I still didn’t know his intentions—for all I knew, he could be working for a higher bidder.  

Much to my surprise, the living room at least seemed fairly nice, save for the near jungle of potted plants that looked about as desperate for a drink as I was. Much to my delight, Mr. Barrett came strolling out of the kitchenette with a bottle of good whisky and two glasses.

My Hero.

“Nice place ya got here,” I mumbled awkwardly, taking a seat when he’d gestured toward the too-plush sofa. 

Benjamin Barrett and I had spent most of our working relationship either at each other’s throats or avoiding each other completely. The domesticity of the moment felt alien, especially in contrast to what he’d just saved me from.

“S’not mine,” he’d said, so casually as he effortlessly popped open the expensive bottle with his roughly calloused hands. “This is my ex’s place.”

An unwelcome pang of jealousy made my heart clench at the mention of another woman, and I looked anywhere but him as he leaned over to pour my drink. “So… you come here often?”

He cracked his signature stupid smirk, but it didn’t meet his eyes this time. “Only when she’s not around.”

That was one more Red Flag.

“Hey, didn’t I just save your life? Don’t look at me like that,” he scoffed, however, the amusement that threatened to split his face into a full-on grin put a scowl on mine.

“Oh, my bad. Didn’t realize one good deed is supposed to cancel out you being a fucking creep.”

I could have knocked his eyes out of his skull the way he rolled them at me. 

“See, that’s your fucking problem,” he sneered.

“My problem? I’m not the one breaking into my ex’s house to drink her booze with another woman!”

“There you go again, twisting the details!” He knocked back the remainder of his glass before slamming it back down onto the table with a loud clack. “You open your mouth and judge people before you know the whole damn story. Bratty little girls like you think that you can hide behind your pretty face and nothing you say has consequences—”

“Girls like Me?” I scoffed, my shoulders tense with annoyance and disbelief at what had just come out of his mouth.

“Yeah, girls like you.” He poured himself another drink.  “But you know what? Maybe you’re right, because you’ve been nothing but a bitch to me since the day we met, and I still risked my ass to save you.”

My chest was heaving mad, but all I could do was sit there in stunned silence across the couch from Ben, who had sunk back into the overstuffed cushions to sip his whisky and brood. 

A minute ago, I had wanted to tear his throat out, but the fact of the matter is, he did save my life.

“Why?” My voice wavered, my best attempt to be calm sounding strangled in my throat.

He grunted, shifting on the couch somewhat awkwardly, eyes suddenly preoccupied elsewhere.

“Why did you save me?” I demanded more than asked, conviction building in my voice.

He let out a deep sigh before fixing his gaze on me. “Because you didn’t deserve that.” He sets his glass on the table, much more gently this time, his hands shaking with what looked like rage. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but what that piece of human garbage was going to do to you?” He looked lost, like he wasn’t used to being the good guy. “Nobody deserves that.”

It was a lot to swallow. 

Benjamin Barrett was not a good man, and everyone knew that. 

Hell, he knew that.

But lucky for me, even he had to draw the line somewhere.

“Hey.” He stood, pointing his finger at me. “Don’t you go thinking we’re friends now.  Not five minutes ago, you essentially accused me of stalking my ex. There’s no whisky fueled heart to heart that’s gonna make things any less antagonistic between us.”

It was a strange kind of relief to hear him snip at me again, a splash of normalcy in this porcelain bowl of a night. 

I smirked at him. “Okay, Scumbag, since you brought it up again… why do you still have the keys to her place?”

Bottle in hand, he leaned against the wall with an amused scoff. “Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. I had this made shortly before we broke up.” He saw my mouth fall open and gestured for me to let him finish. “She’s gone an awful lot—lot of vacations. I keep tabs on when she’s gone so if I need a place to hide out for a while, I can sneak in here.”

Shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I took a nervous sip of whisky. “You’re not worried about her finding out and calling the cops?” 

The fucker who thought he owned me had half the city’s police force in his pocket. I really couldn’t afford a run-in, and frankly, neither could Ben in his line of work.

He laughed, and I barely opened my mouth to cuss him out before he cut me off.

“Ash, this is my ex we’re talking about. Do you really think the kind of people who can call the cops hang around me?”

“No. No, they don’t.”

I let out a sigh of relief, finally letting my head fall back against the cushions. 

I’d been running on pure adrenaline for so long now that having this time to relax made me aware of the heavy exhaustion weighing on my bones. It was tempting to settle in for a nap, but I couldn’t help catching my new accomplice staring at me.

“What are you looking at?”

He shoots me a smirk before knocking back a few glugs of the booze. “Maybe it’s the whisky talking, but you’re kind of cute when you’re not at my throat.”

My cheeks burned hot, but I’d also blame that on the whisky. 

Barrett had a way of getting under my skin, but whatever this feeling was… I knew it didn’t mean anything. 

I’d been through enough in life to be familiar with trauma bonding, and it never went well. 

Both of us, clothes plastered in our own sweat and blood… We were out of place in this cute little apartment. 

Domesticity didn’t suit us. 

Still, the sour taste of an adrenaline-drunk fantasy was hard to shake from my mouth.  

Almost as if he could hear my thoughts, Barrett handed me the bottle, resting his hands on the back of the couch behind me. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not letting that sick fuck get his hands on you.”

After a good long chug, I let the bottle rest in my lap and laid my head back between his hands. I gazed up at him. “How did I get here, Barrett? How’d I wind up this way?”

He froze for a moment, and I wondered if his chest was as tight as mine. When he finally spoke, it nearly broke me. 

“I dunno, Ash, how do any of us?” He backed away from the couch, eyeing me in a way that was more gentle than I’d have thought the man was capable of. “Sometimes life just fucking sucks, and we don’t ever get to know why.”

In spite of myself, a sob tore its way through my throat. 

I hated it. 

I hated looking weak, and more than that, I hated looking weak in front of him. 

Instead of mocking me, however, Ben just grabbed a pair of beers from the fridge and handed me one.

When I tried to take it, though, he didn’t let go immediately.

“We’re in this together now. We’ll figure this out, Ash. You just need to trust me.”