“Wait!” the voice barked.
Jesus, how fucking close was he? Jonah skimmed another look over the sidewalk, but it was half-assed. Neither would find the other unless they wanted to be found. It was one of the reasons Jonah kept taking jobs from them.
“I’ve got a grocery list for you. Just a couple of items. Someexoticfruit.”
Jonah’s brow wrinkled. “Fuck that. I just got off of work. Use Instacart.”
A chuckle. “You’re funny. In your own way.”
“I’m serious, actually. Not interested.” Jonah didn’t want another job right now. He wanted a shower, some sleep, and an orgasm. In any order.
“Instacart makes poor choices in substitutions,” the voice whined. Jonah actually cracked a smile at that. He glanced out the window again, waiting until the voice continued. “I can’t have substitutions this time. Need the brand name. You can toss in a dozendonutsfor yourself. Whatever you like.”
Jonah tilted his head side to side until his neck gave a satisfying crack. “You going to message me the names of these exotic fruits?”
“I’ll courier you a new phone later today.”
“Tomorrow. I need sleep.”
“Fine. Tomorrow.” A pause. “Did you get a new haircut?”
“Fuck off.”
“It was an honest question.”
Jonah hung up the phone, grabbed the bagel bag, and tossed it in the trash on his way back to the counter. This time, the girl’s smile was a little less genuine, a little more plastered on.
“I need to grab a catering order for McClellan, too,” Jonah told her.
The girl swiped her finger across an iPad and nodded. “Already paid for. Alex!” she called over her shoulder. “Do you have the order for McClellan ready?” When she turned back, her gaze snagged on Jonah’s and her head tilted as if she was seeing him for the first time. Jonah reached for the shades he’d tucked into the collar of his tee just as her mouth formed a soft O. “Wow, I’ve never—”
“McClellan, right here! Ethan packed it last night.” The guy’s voice was cheerful as he barreled out of the back, a pastry box balanced on his hand. He stumbled over a mop bucket and careened to the left. Jonah shot an arm out reflexively at the same time the counter girl did, but she was closer.
“Got it, got it!” Alex insisted, steadying himself against the counter. He flashed a warm grin, and Jonah froze. It took a second, but he managed to clear the feeling that prickled through his chest and the back of his throat with a swallow. There was no reason for it. Shit, the boy looked absolutelynothinglike… No, that was yet another name Jonah didn’t allow space for anymore.
“You should be more careful. If you’d dropped it, I’d have made sure you paid for it,” Jonah said as he reached for the box. It was unnecessary and a total dick move born out of his irritation with himself. He regretted the words immediately, though mostly because it made him stand out among the standard milieu of customers.
The guy’s grin fell from his face abruptly as he nodded. “Yessir.”
Once Jonah was safe inside his own car, the burner phone crushed underfoot and scattered over a couple of bins on the way, he unsealed the tape on the pastry box, counted the bills within, then taped up the box again and reclined his seat, too fucking tired to bother driving back to his apartment.
Caspian
Seven Years Ago
Three months. That was how far fifteen hundred dollars would get you in a youth hostel in the middle of the Big Apple. In three months, Cas hadn’t even had a hint of a job, much less one that would pay him to somehow liveandeat in one of the most expensive cities in the country. He was a sixteen-year-old runaway with no ID or social security card. No legal identification of any kind. Honestly, he was lucky he’d managed to make it ninety days without resorting to the jobs other runaways his age did. Dealing. Stealing. Prostitution. The unholy trinity of the forgotten.
Cas had tried panhandling, but in a city where Juilliard-trained dancers, actors, and musicians performed in the subway for cash, Cas was invisible. He had no talent to speak of. Well, none that people would pay him a living wage for, anyway.
It wasn't that Cas was clinging to some moral compass. He wasn’t above a life of crime as long as he didn’t get caught. He wasn’t cut out for prison life. He was too small, too pretty. Besides, he didn’t think video game companies would hire a designer with a criminal record, and Cas had his sights set on someday working forRockstar Games. But that required a degree, which required money. Which was why Cas sat on a bus bench choking on diesel fumes, waiting for a guy with a gold front tooth and a dragon tattoo on his neck as he contemplated how his choices had led him here.
Cas was out of options. He’d tried dealing, but finding a hookup wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped it would be. Cas was a stranger with nobody to vouch for him. After that, he’d tried stealing, but his ADHD made people look at him twice whenever he was in a store with anything of value, and he wasn’t about to stick a gun in somebody’s face and demand their money. With his luck, he’d accidentally squeeze the trigger and go to jail.
Cas clutched his backpack tighter, doing his best to look like a mark. This was where he’d sat three months ago when an older guy had approached him. He’d had a weird name—Thumper. When he’d introduced himself, he’d told Cas to call him Thump and offered him candy, like he was trying to lure him into a white van. After five minutes of conversation, Cas had realized Thump didn’t have a white van but he did want Cas.
Thump had taken one look and seen a lonely, vulnerable kid. Cas wasn’t street smart or anything, but he’d seen about a thousand episodes ofLaw & Order: SVU, and he knew there was only one reason a guy like Thump hung out at a bus station talking to kids like Cas. He’d felt smug brushing Thump off back then, secure in the knowledge he wouldn’t be like other runaways.
It had been two weeks since he’d left the hostel, though. Two weeks without a meal or sleep, and Cas was back at the bus station, no longer cocky but resigned to the idea of doing whatever he had to do to survive. He refused to go home, back to the stepfather who abused him and a mother who chose a paycheck over her own son.
