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Asa narrowed his gaze. “He doesn’t like to feelcrowded,”he repeated slowly.
Something that looked like shame flickered in Zara’s eyes and he immediately wanted to change how he’d said that.
She huffed a sigh. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said dismissively. “I texted Cas and told him where I am. He’s my head of security.”
The remaining weight of the unknown consequences of his actions disappeared and he felt his shoulders relax.
“You have your phone?” he verified, mostly for his own mental wellbeing.
She patted the side of her thigh. “I turned it off because Logan kept calling.” She curled her lip in disgust even as fresh tears welled in her eyes. Quickly she swiped them away.
He held his hands in his lap, unsure how to respond. He’d never been great at the comforting. Women crying always made him feel helpless and therefore frustrated.
To put a finer point on it, crying was frustrating. Whether it was a stranger, someone he cared about, or himself. When he cried, he both wanted to be alone and absolutely did not want to be alone. He had no idea if anyone else felt that way. He could ask, but it seemed inappropriate to ask while someone was crying.
He was much better at shit talking. Ask Nikki. If Zara wanted to talk shit about Logan Black, Asa could do that all day every day. But if she was still in the crying stage, then she wasn’t ready to hear Asa’s prepared list of Logan’s worst qualities. Starting with his smug fucking attitude and moving swiftly into his mediocre vocal work.
But Asa was well aware that his opinion had been born from the few moments he’d witnessed Logan and Zara’s argument. And the even more superficial segments he’d witnessed as any other bystander.
The thing was, Asa wasn’t usually wrong about his most scathing judgments. If he pinned someone as a dick, they were a dick.
André had been the one and only exception.
But the most irredeemable thing Logan had done as far as Asa was concerned, was be mean to Zara.
He didn’t know Zara. Not personally. Not even professionally. But he knew Nikki. And his best friend of more than two decades loved the woman sitting beside him.
Nikki had once told him that Zara was basically a stressed-out angel masquerading as a human.
Those words had stuck to his insides like honey-covered fingerprints.
He’d never found evidence to contradict it either. Not that he’d looked very hard.
From his point of view, Zara had made Nikki’s dreams a reality. And she’d treated her well in the process. That went a long way in Asa’s book.
It went so far as to make him feel protective of that person.
“Is it okay if I don’t talk about it?” Zara asked, her voice just above a whisper.
He reared back. “Of course it’s okay. It’s none of my business. It’s nobody’s business. You keep that shit locked up.”
Besides, he’d heard enough. Too much really. And it wasn’t like he was going to start talking about the shit that went down with him and Shelby and Gemma.
Unless you were there, you couldn’t know.
Zara hummed a noise. He didn’t know if it was gratitude or confusion. Maybe a bit of both.
He hated that she had to ask if she could keep her personal thoughts to herself. It really pissed him off actually. People shouldn’t be forced to talk about anything, but especially not those things that exposed their hearts and souls out of context.
“Everyone is going to have so many questions,” she whispered, sounding resigned.
“Do you have to answer them?” he asked against his better judgement.
She didn’t answer. But maybe that was an answer of its own.
“It’s no one’s business,” he repeated mostly to himself.
They had no rights to her. They didn’townher.
