Re: Nick & Wren: Fortunes
If we were talking stains on souls, then Nick had a few. Couple of dirt spots that would maybe wash out over time if the rest of him remained squeaky clean but Nick didn't worry so much about his soul as he gave a shit about earthly concerns like jail-time and bail for family members. People did the shit they did to keep soul and body together in this lifetime, and it was all the same to him if he went wherever the hell people went who straddled morality in shades of grey.
He thought about a career choice, and he shrugged beneath tissue-thin red cotton.
"I picked the best way out, because it was the most comprehensive way of staying out of trouble." And it came with benefits, but really, that as a selling point lost its impact when you could hustle more money the illegal kind of way than you ever got back from the city in dental, you know? But if you wanted to get on the up-and-up, you let go of where you came from and bobbed to the surface, like ballast.
Yeah, he could see how she kept the clientele lingering. But it wasn't illegal, that dance and she was legal and what grown adults did inside the law was their own business. She glittered and Nick sat back in shadow and watched her face because if he wanted a show, he could acquaint himself with his brother's business. Besides, he liked blonds.
"Aggressive?" Nick's fingers steepled, a chapel built of prayers or lost promises or something the fuck else when you let go of blood. Anchor, or albatross and he didn't know which one of the two he counted for, but he'd stopped being whatever it was years back. "With him? I used to be able to take him. Not so much anymore, at least not unless they give me a head-start." But he didn't know shit about him anymore. Maybe the kid in deep, raid-in-the-early-morning deep, didn't have shit clinging to his hands anymore. Maybe he was an upstanding citizen.
Yeah, Nick didn't believe it. "We don't really know how to talk non-aggressive, it's sorta lost in translation otherwise. I'm gonna have to learn a new language before I look him up." Nick's jaw was scraped clean and the silver at his temples was kid all grown up and distinguished looking, instead of desiccated but he sounded like he believed it.