Free Whiskey and Wry (Sinners Series) by Rhys Ford Page A

Grim Reaper than human, his skin almost translucent over jutting bone.
    Cocky as shit, that same man had been standing by a coffee cart across from the pub as the cops milled about, taking interviews and tromping through Damien’s fragile safety. When the blond lifted his paper cup in Damien’s direction, he knew the man was the same one who’d tried to kill him in Montana.
    And now he’d brought the killer to Sionn’s place, practically guilty of placing an apple on the gray-eyed Irishman’s head in a sick game of William Tell.
    The ache along his chest scar bloomed to a full spasm, and he tried rubbing at it through his shirt, wishing he could risk going to a doctor to have the throb checked out. When his heartbeat began to skip back at the pub, Damien began to wonder if he shouldn’t have let the blond man just shoot him through the head back at Skywood.
    He was no closer to finding Miki, and his options were getting limited. There wasn’t anyone he could really trust, and the fragile threads of his memory were knitting in an altogether fucked-up home life and screwed-up family. Leaning his head back against the seat, Damien reached up, pulled his hat off, and rested it on his lap. Working his hands through his hair, his fingers skimmed over the patchwork of scars hidden under the strands. They thrummed as much as his chest did, running hot with the pound of blood in his veins.
    And Sionn. The asshole had shot at Sionn. As much as he hated to, he might have to give up Sionn, and that hurt more than anything else.
    “Hey, don’t I know you?”
    Those words chilled Damien’s bones, and he risked opening his eyes a slice, only enough to take a look at the dark-haired young man sliding onto the bench next to him.
    The guy looked like practically every other college student, complete with beat-up backpack, a Han Shot First T-shirt, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses Damien was pretty certain were used for birth control back in the fifties. Unlike Damien’s own too-lazy-to-shave bristled jaw, the man’s beard was clipped to a nearly mechanical precision, each hair measuring the exact same length across his chin. He was packaged tighter than a gourmet cupcake, a daub of sparkle spread over a cloying, pedestrian sweetness.
    Damien’s head began a different type of throb when he realized the bouncy young man was someone he’d have taken to a back room at a club and fucked back when he’d been playing with the band. He was too much to take in, an eager brush of hands and smile Damien didn’t want to deal with.
    Especially since he’d probably just fucked up any chance he might have had with Sionn by running.
    Thinking on it, Sionn wasn’t really an option either. His life was fucked up, turned inside out by too many what-ifs and maybes. There was still a small part of his brain murmuring doubts about his identity. He wanted to fling off the hat, tie back his hair, swagger onto a talk show, and quit hiding.
    Except you might not be real, his mind whispered. What then? What happens when you find out you’re lying to yourself and Damien Mitchell really is dead? Who are you going to be then?
    There had to be an easier way to handle the mess in his head than what he’d been doing. What he really should have done was stay back at the pub and ask one of the cops to run his prints for him. So fucking what if he ended up back at the Munsters’ loony bin. At least he’d have answers. Frowning, Damien strained through the memories he’d dug out of the fog in his brain, trying to remember if he’d ever been arrested. Hoping he’d at least trashed one local hotel room to have been printed, he shook his head at the young man.
    “Nope.” Damien reached for his cowboy hat, but the man’s hand was quicker, and his fingers closed over Damie’s wrist. Looking down, he moved to pry off the man’s grasp, but he tightened his grip. “Dude, you’ve got about three seconds before I start breaking your hand.”
    “No, I know