Both Cas and Blondie went still, then Cas slowly angled his face in Jonah’s direction, a tiny flash of guilt streaking through his eyes that Jonah found somehow reassuring.
It didn’t last, though.
“I thought you were gone until Friday.” His fingers were still threaded through Blondie’s hair, Jonah noted, but they gradually slid free the longer Jonah kept his gaze there.
“Friday, Sunday, Monday. Yesterday. It doesn’t matter. I’m home when I’m home.” Jonah turned his attention to Blondie next, who, now that he could actually see his face, was fairly attractive. Around Cas’s age. And also absolutely no one Jonah recalled ever meeting. How long had Cas been hooking up with this guy?
Jonah let the full weight of his stare settle on Blondie. “Go home.”
“This is Perry, Jonah,” Cas supplied, but Jonah didn’t let his attention drift as Perry stood up and smoothed a hand down his shirt.
After a couple of beats when Jonah still didn’t acknowledge the introduction, Perry and Cas exchanged a look, and then Perry turned and closed his laptop. “I’ve gotta go anyway. I’ll ummm—” He started to lean toward Cas again, then seemed to think the better of it and straightened, tucking his laptop under his arm.
“I’ll text you later.” Cas bounced into the corner of the couch and stretched out, watching as Jonah slid an inch to the side when Perry passed him in the hallway.
“I’m not allowed to have friends? That’s new. When were you going to tell me that rule?” Cas asked, once the door had closed.
“How long have the two of you been ‘friends’?” Jonah didn’t mean for his tone to sound so surly, so steely. He’d been going for casual. He knew how this worked, and a softer touch was usually better when trying to get information out of someone. Then again, he was more of a blunt hammer than a savvy interrogator.
“A while.” Cas’s tone was breezy. “He’s fine. Totally harmless and nice.”
Harmless and nice.Was that what Cas liked? Jonah wasn’t about to fucking ask. “Do we need to talk about some shit?” Nor did Jonah want to have this particular conversation with Cas. He’d rather swallow a pile of gunpowder.
“Like what?” Cas’s gaze moved toward the door, then back to Jonah, and he barked out a laugh. “Like, you mean about sex?” Cas let out another incredulous laugh that Jonah thought was meant to make him feel ridiculous or irritated. Cas did that sometimes. He wielded sarcasm and snark like an ice pick, and he was fucking precise with it, too. But instead of being irritated, Jonah found himself amused. Until Cas continued. “You do remember what was about to go down at that bus station two years ago, right? What I was about to do?” He rolled his eyes as Jonah’s amusement circled the drain and vanished, because he remembered all too well.
Jonah swept up his bag and took it to the kitchen table, where he unzipped it and began going through the contents. “You need to be safe.”
“Are you safe?”
Jonah’s fingers went still on a clip. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the metal edge, then released it and turned to fix the boy with a hard stare that Cas met briefly. Jonah felt the urge to correct him, to go over, lift his chin and force his gaze back up. It was the kind of bold fucking question that deserved a level gaze. But Cas had his own methods and surprised him yet again.
“Areyou?”It was more demanding this time.
Jonah turned his focus back on his bag. “What do you think?”
Cas snorted, and Jonah heard the soft shuffle of his feet over the wood floor. “I’m going out.”
Jonah resisted the urge to ask where. He knew how to find Cas if he needed to. Of that he had no doubt. He spoke to the air in front of him. “Next time I’m gone, I’ll have Madigan check on you. No one comes in here except you and me.”
“And fucking Madigan, right?” Cas was next to him suddenly, with far more stealth than Jonah would ever have given him credit for. He dipped his long fingers in Jonah’s bag, retrieved a stack of bills, and thumbed the edges before dropping it heavily to the table. “What happened to your cheek? That doesn’t look like playing it ‘safe.’ Then again, that’s not the kind of safe you meant, huh?” Cas reached a hand out as if he was about to touch the thin red gash, then curled his fingers back into his palm and let his hand drop back to his side.
Before Jonah could drum up a response, Cas spun on his heel and was gone in an instant, slamming the door behind him. He left a palpable sense of emptiness in the apartment, and Jonah stared in the direction he’d gone for long moments, running his fingertips along the gash, which hadn’t been enough to warrant stitches. Then he picked up his phone and hit the topmost contact.
Madigan answered on the first ring. “You back?”
“Yeah.”
“Routine gig?”
“Yeah, it went fine.” Jonah picked up the stack of bills and set them back into the bag, then shoved the whole thing aside and went to the fridge instead. The beer he’d left in there had better still fucking be there. “Listen, next time I’m gone, if you’re here, I need you to check in on Cas. He had some fucker here sniffing around today.”
Madi laughed, a low, rough sound that didn’t do as much for Jonah as it had in the past. “He’s eighteen, isn’t he?”
“Will you or won’t you?”
“Jesus, Jonah. Yeah, I’ll look in on him if that’s what you want.” Madigan paused a beat. “See you tonight?”
“Yeah, maybe, I don’t know.” Earlier, it’d sounded like a better idea. Like just what he needed. Now, Jonah looked around the empty apartment, the bag on the table, and he wasn’t sure.
