Low Sided by A.J. Downey (best detective novels of all time txt) 📕

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” I said and felt the shock wash over and through me.

“I didn’t either, but then there it was. Can you really blame me?” he asked.

“Uh… yes?” I asked. “I don’t have any control over your feelings and I…” I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head back and forth. “I’m no prized pig, Sauley.”

He smiled at that and laughed a little. Nodding, he said, “You are too. Don’t talk about yourself like that – and I’ll get over it. I promise. It’s just a little crush and I wouldn’t dream of getting in Mace’s way. Plus, I see the way you look at him. I just hope someday a woman looks at me like that.”

I blinked once, long, slow, and stupid. I literally had no idea.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

Sauley shrugged.

“Don’t make it weird,” he said. “Just… if shit does fall through with Mace, I guess I just wanted to be on your radar.”

Again, with that long stare in his direction with an equally long, slow, stupid blink.

“I’m not sure what to say…”

“Don’t say anything,” he said with a shrug. “You got a customer.”

I shuddered as if coming awake and looked up the bar where one of the patron’s had his hand raised, beckoning to me before lifting his empty glass.

I uncrossed and put my arms flat to the bar, gave Sauley one last wide-eyed and mystified look and pushed myself up to standing to stride down to refill the longshoreman’s glass. He wanted to get salty with me about the wait and I just raised an eyebrow at him. His buddies shut him up. They knew the look, the one that said I was about to declare salty boy had enough to drink and it was time for him to move on.

Longshoremen were assholes, and I’d learned pretty quick, they wouldn’t respect you unless you had no fucks to give about it and threw their shit right back at ‘em. Plus, with the recent revelation from the biker prospect down the bar, I really wasn’t in the mood. I was still honestly reeling a bit.

True to his word, Sauley hung around until after closing to walk me home. He even pitched in a bit and helped me close up. Once outside, I took a deep, refreshing breath of clean air.

“So, about Mace…” he said and that deep pang of resentment mixed with anger hit me dead center of the chest again, like a physical blow.

I shrugged one shoulder and wouldn’t look at Sauley as I asked, “What about him?”

“He have any way to redeem himself?” he asked.

I looked up the street, away from the prospect, and sighed out, saying honestly, “I don’t know. He violated my trust in a huge way. Went behind my back…” I turned back to Sauley and told the truth. “I just don’t know.”

He searched my face and nodded slowly and asked, turning to set the pace back to my place at a sedate and leisurely walk, “Even though he did it to protect you?”

“I don’t know if that holds water, to be honest,” I said.

“How’s that?”

I buried my hands into the pockets of my felt asymmetrical and fairy-like hoodie and shrugged.

“He violates my trust and I’m supposed to trust that his intentions were pure simply because he says so?” I asked.

Sauley nodded and said, “Yeah, I can see how that cyclical thinking would be enough to drive you nuts… but you know Mace. You think he’s honestly lying about something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured. “That’s what kills me. How am I supposed to believe?”

“And around and around she goes,” he muttered under his breath. I smiled and laughed a little at that, knocking my shoulder into his.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure what other direction to go in.” I looked over at him and cocked my head slightly. “You confuse me,” I confessed. “Not just you, but all of you.”

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Just an hour or so ago, you tell me you’re crushing on me, and here you are now, and it sounds like you’re actually rooting for me and Mace to get back together.”

He smiled, bowed his head and nodded, letting it bounce on his neck a little before saying, “It’s funny, sometimes, how loyalty works.”

“To Mace or to the club?” I asked quietly.

“To both in this case, I guess.”

I stopped and looked at him and he stopped too.

“You said he got his ass kicked because of me,” I said and shifted on my feet uncomfortably.

Sauley shook his head.

“No, Mace got his ass kicked because of Mace and his own decisions and as far as ass kicking goes? It wasn’t much of one. Not like the one that brought you two together.” I felt the tension leave my shoulders as relief flooded my veins.

“He fucked up, he owned it, he took his licks – end of story on that.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

Sauley shook his head. “That’s club business, and the less you know the better.” He raised his hand to stop me as I drew a breath to protest.

“It’s not that we don’t trust our women – far from it. It’s that we love you, and part of loving you means keeping you in the dark about certain things to protect you. At least that’s the way I’ve always understood it.”

“A bunch of white knights falling on your swords?” I asked.

He shrugged, and it wasn’t quite as gallic as Major’s had been the night before, but it was equally as infuriating.

“Hey,” he called as I went to spin on my heel and make my way up the sidewalk without him. I paused and looked back over my shoulder.

“Believe me, I get it,” he said. “The need to have or be in some kind of control of your own destiny. How everything feels like it’s spinning out of control around you and how you wish you could grab onto just anything to make