Damn Good Reasons **DISCONTINUED - SEE NEW VER!**

Chapter 12 - The Whole Package

"What's got your goat? You've been suckin' sour grapes ever since I picked you up." Ace grabbed a beer from his fridge and then leaned back against his kitchen bench to glare at me. "Are you pissed about this morning? Because that little dipshit-"

"How could you nearly kill a twelve-year-old kid?" I looked him in the eyes for the first time that night, and I looked daggers.

"Did he tell you that?"

"He said you held a blade to his throat and almost used it."

Ace's eyes narrowed like a storm was brewing way down deep. "You hear his side of the story, and right away I'm the bad guy because little Chrissy can do no wrong. Well, fuck you, Cassie."

I was taken aback with the realization that I hadn't actually considered hearing Ace's side. "OK, I'm listening."

"That little fuck provoked me."

"Oh, come on," I scoffed at him. "What could he have possibly done? Call you an 'asshole' or something?"

"Worse than that. He knew all the right buttons to push to wind me up and make me do it."

"This is bullshit. You're making it sound like he wanted you to kill him!"

"He did." Ace's stare was so deadly serious that it was hard to believe he was telling anything but the truth. "You ask anyone who was there - even that Lachance kid. Chris had options. He coulda left. He coulda run. But he didn't. Maybe he didn't want it before all the shit went down, and maybe he was relieved to be alive afterward. But, I'm telling you, in that moment, he was ready to leave his scummy, shithole of a life behind, and he wanted to take me down with him."

It was hurtful to hear Chris's life being talked about like that. He'd told me about how unhappy he was at home, and now I wondered if things were ever so dire that he might have had a death wish.

"Chris knows not to fuck with me like that, Cass. But he did it anyway."

I wiped at a couple of stray teardrops with the sleeve of my jacket. "Whatever he did doesn't justify you-"

"I didn't kill him, so stop looking at me like I'm a murderer."

That didn't make any of this OK - at all - but I did feel a little relieved to hear him say that. Chris was alive and well. Ace didn't kill him. Thank God.

"And besides," Ace continued, "I don't see the difference between me pulling a knife on Chris and Lachance pulling a gun on me."

"What?" I was stunned. The imagery blew my mind.

"Lachance was about as close to pulling that trigger as I was to taking Chris out."

"What is it between you two? Why do you hate Chris so much?"

Ace leaned in close to look me straight in the eyes. "He brings it on himself. He mouths off. He gets under my feet. He yaps to people about shit they shouldn't know. You think I'm too hard on him? Maybe I'm not hard enough. 'Cause if I was, maybe he wouldn't keep pulling this shit."

"Chris isn't afraid of you, no matter what you do to him."

"Well, he should be. 'Cause next time he gets me in a rage like that, it might just cost him."

"What on earth were you lot doing to cause all of this... mayhem?"

Ace stared at me. "We gotta get down to business. Now, are you still on board or are you gonna jump and handle all this shit on your own?"

I rubbed my eyes with my palms and took a deep, calming breath as I tried to regain focus - although, my head felt like it had just been blitzed in a milkshake mixer.