Tobias was preoccupied.Only twenty-four hours had passed since Soren had left for his job and it was already throwing Tobias off his rhythm. Tobias liked having a routine and he’d apparently adjusted that routine in a million little ways he’d never noticed while he and Soren were cohabitating, ways that were now glaringly obvious in his absence. Soren wasn’t there to make him his morning veggie omelet, wasn’t there to take Mantis out while Tobias got in a workout. Wasn’t there to shower with him afterwards and make stupid jokes about Tobias’s preppy sweater vests and bowties.
But even though Soren wasn’t there physically, he was making up for it by relentlessly texting Tobias. And his texts were as random as the man himself. It had started yesterday when he’d received a picture of a man dressed like Jesus, dragging a cardboard cross behind him captioned ‘the end is nigh.’ An hour later, he’d sent a meme from the showHannibalwith the caption, ‘Hey, it’s you,’ over Mads Mikkelsen, complete with three laugh cry emojis and one kissy face emoji. A couple hours after that, it had been a woman in a gas station wearing fishnets, a t-shirt, combat boots, and nothing else. Literally nothing. Not even underwear. Soren had captioned that, “all dressed up with no place to go”. And so it had gone all day.
When his phone had vibrated on the nightstand late that night, he’d been prepared for another random Soren musing, but what he got instead was a picture of Soren, naked and splayed across his hotel room bed, his hard and leaking cock in his hand with the caption, “What’s up, Doc?”
Before he could formulate a response, Soren had FaceTimed him and introduced Tobias to the joys of video sexting, even though it was mostly Soren telling Tobias what to do and him eagerly following his commands. Tobias still wasn’t comfortable being as verbal as Soren was, but, somehow, that only seemed to get Soren hotter. He’d said so many times last night. The thought had Tobias getting hot under his overstretched collar.
When they were both sweaty and cum-drunk, Soren didn’t let him go, despite the lateness of the hour. He’d made Tobias tell him all about his day, even though it had mostly consisted of paperwork and taking Mantis for short walks. When he’d asked Soren about his day, he’d surprised him by talking about the man he was tracking and how he’d been forced to sit in a hot, cramped space for hours waiting for the guy before he’d finally done the job. Was this what being in a relationship was like? Tobias hated how much he liked it.
But Tobias was used to getting a certain amount of sleep each night. As much as he’d liked falling asleep with Soren’s voice in his ear, scraping his eyelids open the next morning had taken a Herculean effort. He’d had no appointments for the day but had gone into the office to help with the final cleanup as well as purchasing the few furniture items that needed replacing after the office was trashed.
By the time Tobias left, it was late afternoon and he was functioning on autopilot. He used to enjoy the thought of going home to Mantis and an empty house, but now, he found himself dreading the quiet. His life had certainly taken a turn for the strange since Soren had strolled into it. Though, he supposed it started with John and Akil—whose real names were apparently Madi and Az. His first meeting with them was what had truly set his new life in motion, and now, it seemed to pick up speed with each passing day. Tobias just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was barreling toward something bigger. Hopefully, it wasn’t a train or a school bus.
Tobias had always taken his clients’ temper tantrums in stride, but they had been few and far between. He could handle the strange gifts, veiled threats, and even the occasional slashed tire, but over the last month, he’d been plagued by a series of unfortunate events that were becoming uneconomical, regardless of his trust fund and exorbitant fees. It was maybe time to call his experiment a failure and to set about putting down his research subjects for their own good.
His phone vibrated in his pocket as he walked to his car. He pulled it free and opened it with his fingerprint, smiling at Soren’s handsome face complete with five o’clock shadow and a giant cup of coffee. Tobias didn’t understand how the man could drink coffee so late in the day but it seemed to have little to no effect on his sleep. Soren just closed his eyes and was out. Tobias couldn’t sleep until his brain felt he’d sufficiently processed his day. Only then could he finally drift off.
Tobias was about to hit Soren with a random emoji when he looked across the street and saw Rafferty’s men idling in their big black sedan and got an idea, pulling up his camera and turning so that both his face and the two men in the black car were framed within the shot. The larger bald man extended a hand out the window and raised his middle finger just as Tobias captured the moment. He captioned it, ‘WE wish you were here,’ and then hit send before sliding into his Volvo.
When he pulled away from the curb, they made a show of pulling up behind him. Yeah, the bolder they were, the more comfortable Tobias became with their presence. People who were planning a murder didn’t tend to let cameras capture them tailing their victim, especially not when they were as deep into the criminal underworld as the Rafferty family.
They stayed hot on his tail until he parked alongside his townhouse, giving them a jaunty wave as he isolated his house key and unlocked his door. He snagged the mail from the box beside the door before stepping in and dropping his keys and the mail on the entrance table, gently kicking the door shut behind him. He walked only about ten steps before he stopped, the hairs rising along his spine. His alarm. Whenever he entered his house, his alarm beeped until he disarmed it, but there was no beeping. He’d activated the alarm when he’d left that morning. He always did. Didn’t he? Was he truly so exhausted he’d forgotten to set the alarm?
“Mantis?” he called, relief flooding him when he heard her tiny claws tapping on the floor as she ran towards him. His blood ran cold as he noted the oversized stuffed toy in her mouth. He definitely hadn’t bought that for her.
He felt the presence a split second before the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his head and a familiar voice said, “Long time no see, Dr. Eastman.”
“Just don’t hurt my dog.”
20
Soren
“You fucking a shrink is about the funniest goddamn thing I’ve heard in a long time.” Madigan swiped sweat from his brow as Soren considered punching the smirk off his face.
“About as funny as you shacking up with a man who cost you hundreds of thousands in lost job wages and threatened to kill you more than once.”
“Eh.” Madigan seesawed his hand. “But see, we’re together now, so what’s his is mine. It worked out. We still threaten to kill each other, though, so I’ll consider that a wash.” His smile was tinged with fondness for his assassin boyfriend. “What doyouget in return? Free psychotherapy? Has he figured out yet that you’re beyond repair?”
“Oh, he knew that from day one. He’s not interested in repair. He likes me the way I am.” A smile cracked Soren’s jaw.
Madigan cut him an assessing look, then nodded. “I suppose you do look happy. Happier.And you were pretty happy before, so that’s a feat.”
Soren pulled out his phone and snapped a pic of himself, then fired it off to Toby.
“Did you just take a fucking selfie?” Madigan stared, flabbergasted, as Soren broke into a laugh.
“I might’ve. They’re fun. You should try it sometime.”
“Az sent me a pic of some asshole’s hand he severed once. I guess that was pretty entertaining.”
“Well, there you go.”
Madi curled his fingers over the lip of the flat roof they were squatting on top of and cast a glance over his shoulder. “They’re late.”
“Give it a minute.” Soren followed Madi’s sightline from between the two large AC units where they squatted down the wide lane of the bustling market in Brooklyn. Racks of clothing meshed with shelves of knickknacks and handmade furniture in a cozy hipster hodgepodge. Madigan had requested his assistance with the job since his boyfriend, Azrael, was overseas taking care of another job and apparently, the Red Queen, who had issued the original deadpool list after uncovering a world-wide trafficking ring, had a thorn in their ass about this couple in particular who seemed to be trying to start up operations again. “There they are.”
“Fuckers.” Madigan’s voice curdled.
