You’re gonna leave me alone and let me go. You’re going to forget my name the way I’m going to forget yours.
Words scrawled in Cas’s handwriting that still echoed in the darkness of Jonah’s mind sometimes when he was lying in bed, words he’d seen against the back of his eyelids as he’d stood in the apartment this morning.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Redford, please.”
Red’s expression vacillated between steely and something softer at the use of his full name—Jonah was one of four who knew it.
Their gazes locked, and Jonah waited. They could both go for hours like this. They had before.
To his surprise, Red relented after a handful of seconds. “I sent him to get a massage with Annie. Don’t ask me why, because I won’t tell you anything else. I have no idea when that’s happening or where he’s going in-between. I don’t want to know.” Red glowered at him. “And don’t ever put me in the middle like this again.”
Jonah gave him a lazy grin as he stood. “Ah, come on, Red. I hear you like being in the middle.”
“See, rumors. Shouldn’t ever listen to ‘em. Now, get the hell out. I’m busy.”
* * *
In the narrowlobby of the massage parlor, a slim man in glasses sat in a club chair reading a book. He set it aside as Jonah stopped in front of a counter with a cash register and a candle display. “Do you have an appointment?”
Jonah shook his head and swept his gaze over the room and to the doorway off of it, getting a feel for the parlor’s layout, noting the split hallway. He spotted one exit sign and a bathroom sign on the wall opposite it. Earlier, he’d called pretending he’d forgotten his appointment time and had used Cas’s nickname. A casual glimpse over the lip of the counter showed the open appointment book, a streak of yellow highlighter through the name Casper in the one p.m. slot.
“Mister?” The man pointed to a laminated placard above his head. “Walk-ins are thirty dollars for a half hour, sixty-five for the full hour.”
“Neither. I need to talk to someone for a few minutes. One of your clients—” When the guy started to slide his hand toward a small key fob on the table, Jonah opened his jacket, flashing the steel grip in his holster. “Don’t do that. No warnings. Like I said, I just need to talk. In and out. I won’t be long, and I’m not here to fuck up your shop.” He reached into an inner pocket, cursing Cas’s name as he pulled out an envelope and slotted it open to show the man the bills within. “For your trouble, if things stay quiet. Will things stay quiet?”
The man considered him for a long moment then nodded. “I’m quiet if you’re quiet.”
“Good. Take me to the room where Casper is and call Annie out.”
As Jonah followed the man down the hallway, he thought long and hard about turning around and going home. Because if he walked in there and saw Cas, talked to Cas, he got the strong sense he’d be setting something in motion it wouldn’t be easy to extricate himself from. Cas was a thread that, once tugged, didn’t unravel but wrapped itself around you. At some point, Jonah had owned the fact that he struggled to keep from reaching out and yanking it. It’d always been like that with Cas, from the second Jonah had spotted him in the bus station, too fucking pretty for his own good and animatedly talking with the kind of scum who would’ve put dark circles under Cas’s eyes in a matter of weeks, would’ve bruised and broken his body, would’ve stolen every ounce of light from the boy’s smile and left him a dead-eyed shell.
Jonah pulled up short, nearly running into the man’s back as he stopped in front of a door and knocked twice before opening it. He put a finger to his lips, and Jonah caught a glimpse of a woman’s face as she looked up. He stepped to one side as Annie glided from the room, near silently. She shot him a curious look as he slid through the door she’d just exited and closed it quietly behind him.
Then he froze.
Jonah wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been expecting. Annie and Cas sitting in armchairs and having a friendly chat over steaming mugs of tea? But he hadn’t at all anticipated Cas stretched out on an actual massage table.
Salt lamps cast the room in a dim pink light. A candle flickered on a side table, and the air smelled like herbs.Lavender,Jonah thought. A soundtrack of a burbling stream and bird chirps came from an overhead speaker. And at the center of it all was Cas. Nude. He was endless bare skin, lean curves, and ink. Ink Jonah had never seen before.
Jonah followed the stark lines of Cas’s body, transfixed by the whorls of color scattered and striped over it. Christ he was… Jonah didn’t have the words, hadn’t paid enough attention in school, hadn’t bothered to finish. Exquisite came to mind, but that sounded too fragile, and the guy on the table in front of him was anything but fragile. He was feverish energy and unbounded chaos.
“Everything okay?” Cas’s voice came out muffled from the headrest as Jonah ran his knuckles along the slope of his calf. He let out a contented sigh. “Ohhh, yeah, definitely more of that. That feels fucking amazing. So, finish telling me about that Metric Bank job. How the hell did you even get in there? Metric has enough walls to make our fucking president jizz his pants.”
Jonah lifted his hand from the back of Cas’s thigh and clamped it around his neck as he leaned in. “You’re already dead.” Cas spluttered and flailed an arm up, but Jonah caught his wrist and held tight as he tried to twist free. “Thought I taught you better than to ever leave your back unguarded.”
Releasing Cas’s wrist, he took a step back, their eyes meeting. For a split second, Cas’s gleamed with raw vulnerability, and then just as quickly darkened with fury.
“Fucking Red. I’ll kill him.”
“Good luck with that,” Jonah deadpanned, though he couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from Cas. It’d been five years, but the man in front of him was a vastly different specimen than the boy he’d last seen stomping out of his apartment, all gangly-limbed and buzzing with self-righteous fury. Cas had been pretty back then. Pretty in a soft way Jonah could recognize from an objective distance. Pretty in a way that had made him feel protective. Now, all Jonah could see were Cas’s full lips, those deep-set, endless eyes, and thick lashes. He still had a boyish appearance, but experience hardened his eyes and gave him an edge, and the former softness of his cheeks had been whittled by time into stark, angular planes. Cas was stunning in a way that made Jonah realize he’d never fully understood the meaning of that word before.
Cas grabbed for the small towel that’d been covering his ass and pinned it in place with one hand as he rose up on the other elbow. “Leave.”
His tone reminded Jonah of a pot about to boil over. He fought to keep his eyes on Cas’s face, ignoring the temptation to get a better look at the tattoos on his chest, the letters on his fingers. “After you answer some questions.”
“I paid for a sixty minute massage, and I’ve got…” Cas glanced over at the wall clock then fixed Jonah with a steely glare that shouldn’t have heated Jonah up as much as it did. “Twenty-four minutes left. So, you either give me what I paid for or get out and send Annie back in.”
Cas arched a brow, and Jonah considered his options. He could walk right back out. He could tell Cas no. Those were smart options. He’d get answers out of Cas eventually. He always had before.
