He clapped me on the shoulder with enough force to make me sway and stood up. “Gotta go. See you early Monday,” he said as he walked away. “Drive home safe.”
“Yeah. Okay. Um. Same to you,” I called, all casual and shit.
But his taste lingered on my lips, even after I left the bar.
Alone.
Chapter Four
Micah
As I satin my delivery van on Monday morning with the window rolled down, watching the first hints of pinkish-gray tinge the sky over the alley behind my shop, I was struggling to figure out how the fuck I'd gotten here.
I mean, not literally. I remembered every stupid moment of Saturday with blinding clarity—Constantine joking at my expense, Constantine being vulnerable when he didn’t know I could hear him, the brilliantly idiotic idea to employ Constantine Ross that had leapt into my brain in a way that made me rethink all my grandmother’s ideas about religion because demonic possession wasreal, goddammit.
I remembered thinking I’d talked myself out of it, too, after going back to the shop and looking around my office—at the invoices and the bills and the fuckinglogowith my name on it, at the pictures of my family scattered across the desk—and reminding myself that Micah’s Blooms was the most important thing in my personal universe for a reason, and I wasn’t gonna fuck with that just to helpConstantine Rossof all people.
And then I remembered the way I’d somehow found myself freshly showered, standing in front of my mirror as I pulled on my t-shirt, getting ready to go to The Hive, like my body had hijacked my brain and decided to runtowarda burning building.
With no protective gear.
And no fuckingplan.
I sure as fuck remembered standing at a table in the corner, nursing a beer and watching a dejected Constantine out of the corner of my eye as the rational part of my brain tried to talk the rest of me into leaving—fleeing—before I did what I’d gone there to do and offered the man a job.
But most of all, I remembered the way I’d startednoticingall this shit about Constantine that I hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t let myself notice, before.
Like thetirednessbehind his smile.
Like the way he laughed and leaned and smiled and winked and smoldered as if he was playing a role. Following a script.
Like the way he wasn’t objectively the hottest guy in the bar—in fact, the blond who’d cozied up next to him was generally more my speed: smaller, slighter, blonder, calmer, more discreet and pastel—but Con was by far the mostattractiveman I’d ever seen.
He had a kind of force about him, like the magnetism of a neutron star, that drew people into his orbit, closer to his light, whether he was making doomsday predictions on a sunny day, or all sad and cute and folded over the bar. He was…
Okay, fine, he wascharming.
And that curiosity about him that I’d felt earlier in the day? It hadn’t been a temporary thing. Because suddenly I was consumed by this desire to see more of therealConstantine. To cheer him up.
Let me break that down in case it hasn’t fully sunk in.
Me. Micah Bloom. The responsible, business-focused, middle-aged guy.
Wanted an opportunity forongoing interactionwith Constantine. Wanted to make himfeel better.
Him. The menace. The troublemaker. The provoker.
In short, the chaos Constantine had predicted had come to pass.
Rational-Micah had thrown his hands in the air and stomped off in a rage as I’d made my way across the room. And the demon had taken over.
I’d inserted myself between Constantine and his pet like some fucking caveman, feeling a bizarre sense ofrightnesssettle over me the second I’d put my hand on Constantine’s arm—which was the exact moment all the alarm bells in my brainshouldhave been going off because the train to Good Choices had left the station and I was not on board, but they’d all gone silent.
And then, of course, Constantine had been prickly and surprising and vulnerable and, yes,real. Shocking the shit out of me, assuming my opinion of him was worse than anything I’d ever thought, no matter how much he’d pissed me off. Showing me that his cockiness was the hard veneer over something really vulnerable and compelling. Drinking fucking Shirley Temples and fishing the cherries out with his tongue.
I was sunk.
He was old and young, jaded and innocent, shy and bold, fascinating as hell.
