Silence

{2.2} Loud

{Aspen's POV}

"What can I do for you Darling?" Arlo's voice questions through the phone.

"A lot of stuff has been happening and if I'm being honest, I just wanted to talk to you." I tell him truthfully. I don't know why, but he's been on my mind a lot lately.

"Is something the matter?" He asks concerned.

"No. I mean not really. Well, maybe. Actually, maybe not. I don't really know. Well-"

"Aspen." He cuts me off.

"Yes and no." I tell him, sitting up in my bed.

"Explain."

"Turns out my brothers are in fact involved in the mafia. Well, I suppose they are the mafia. We had a few close calls with death." I mumble the next part, covering my mouth with my hand "I killed a few people." I talk clearly again, "And I'm not in California, I'm in freaking Canada."

"You what a few people?" 

"Killed." I whisper.

"Damn." There is a long pause. My nerves are going off. He's going to hate me now, which kind of sucks. 

I like him.

As a friend...

"It was self defense. I would've died otherwise." I start to explain, in a slight panic.

"You can relax darling. I don't think any less of you. I understand there was reasoning behind it. I'm not thrilled you did it, but what other option did you have?" He reasons.

"You're not repulsed by me? A murderer?" I ask.

"I would be a hypocrite if I was." He says.

I feel relieved.

Why is he making me feel this way?

Why do I care about his opinion?

I brush it off and decide to change the subject.

"I could use your help with something." I tell him.

"Anything." He replies.

"I have these two phones that I need to break into but they're password protected." I explain.

"Do you know the owners?" He asks.

"Not personally." I tell him honestly. "Just names."

"You being in Canada doesn't make things easy. I could try to hack into them from here." He suggests.

"Whatever you think will work."

"If you could connect them to your computer and send me the information, I could maybe get access to them from my computer." He suggests.

"Sure, could we do it now?" I ask.

"Um yes. I'm not home but there is a computer here I could use." He says, I hear him shuffling things around.

"Where are you?" I ask.

"My suppliers warehouse." He answers. 

"Oh." 

Drugs

I laugh to myself.

What is wrong with me?

"Alright, can you connect them to your computer?" He asks.

Moving off my bed and onto my desk chair, I use a charging cord to connect the first phone to the computer. The more important guy's phone. I send Arlo my computer's information so that he can access the phone.