to go make a store run, and we can get whatever you want if you need anything tonight.” I took a seat on the sectional as well, close enough to touch him but far enough that I hoped I wasn’t crowding him. Roman took a seat beside me.
“That’s one of the things I love most about living right here. Pretty much any kind of take out you want is only a few minutes away. So, like Trey said, you can have pretty much anything you want. You just pick your ultimate comfort food, and I’ll go get it.”
“I don’t really think I could eat tonight,” he said. “I’d already eaten before I went out.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind, just let me know,” Roman said, and Ash nodded in agreement.
“Now, tell us what happened,” I insisted.
“I went to the Neon Parrot because…well just because. I danced a little, but I wasn’t really in the mood for a hook-up. I had a couple of drinks, listened to the music, and then started home.” He told the story like he was writing a report, simply and with no emotion.
“Were you walking?” I asked, then turned to Roman. “He only lives a few blocks from the Neon Parrot. It’s a bar over on the east side.”
“Yeah, it’s so close, you know, and then I don’t have to worry about parking or if I have too much to drink. So I usually walk there.”
“That makes perfect sense, Ash,” Roman said in a reassuring tone.
“It always seemed to anyway” He gave Roman a weak smile and then went back to his story. “So I made it almost to my house, but I had that weird feeling you get when you think someone’s watching you. You know, where the hair on the back of your neck just kind of stands up and you feel the need to run to get home.” We both nodded. “So I popped into the little quick-mart just before my apartment building and browsed around, killing a few minutes and giving whoever was behind me a chance to go on by.
“I thought it worked at first because that creepy feeling was gone when I came back out. But about halfway down the block, I walked past an alley and some guy reached out and grabbed me. It was dark, and I couldn’t get a good look at him, but I have an eerie feeling I’ve seen him before. Maybe at one of the clubs or something, but there was something familiar about him. So anyway, he grabbed me and threw me to the ground. I swear he wasn’t much bigger than I am, but he was super strong.” He seemed lost in thought for a minute remembering the guy throwing him to the ground. He took a deep breath and then looked up at me with tears in his eyes. Forget not crowding him, I moved right up against him and put my arms around him. He buried his face in my chest, and I held him there for a minute, letting him take the time he needed to continue. Then really quietly, he said, “I thought to myself, this is it. He’s going to rape me, all those times Trey warned me about going out alone, and I didn’t listen, and now this guy is going to rape me.”
I held my breath, waiting for him to continue. Praying that wouldn’t be what he said happened. “But he didn’t. He knelt down with one knee in my shoulder, grinding it into the ground”—he moved his shoulder a little and winced—“and put the other knee in the middle of my back so I couldn’t move. He wrapped his hands in my hair, pulled my head back, and slammed my face into the concrete.” He reached up and touched his swollen stitched up face. “He did that a couple of times.”
He sat up away from me and looked at Roman, something passed between them that told me I wasn’t going to like what came next. “Then he said”—he took a deep breath—“he said something about me being a stumbling block to the chosen one and that he’d called me to be the watchman. Whatever that means.”
“The watchman is the one who brings messages from God. Usually warnings of some kind,” I said, not liking where this was going at all.
“Well, I guess that fits, because after that, he got right down in my ear and said, Carry my warning to him. Tell him