“Like the mob?”
Jericho gave a half smile. “No. He’s just a rich dude with friends in high places, who know how to cut through red tape.”
Felix leaned back and looked at him. “Why would a rich dude want to date you? No offense.”
Jericho poked him in the side. “Much offense, dick.” Jericho sighed. “We’re not dating. Not yet. But there’s just something about him. He’s under my skin.”
“Sounds like an STD if you ask me,” Felix said, his judgey expression nailed firmly back in place.
Jericho could handle judgmental Felix over sad Felix any day. “You just don’t like anything that takes my time away from babysitting you and your friends.”
Felix scoffed. “Babysitting? You and I both know you couldn’t do what you do without us. You say it all the time—the trash doesn’t take itself out. And there’s a lot of trash in our neighborhood.”
Sometimes, Jericho felt guilty about dragging his brother and the others into his mission. It wasn’t intentional. After he found the men who assaulted his mother and gave them a taste of their own medicine, people in the neighborhood began to come to him. How could he say no? But he was just one person. One person playing pied piper to a bunch of angry, directionless teens with trauma. He just gave them a target to focus their rage on.
“I know. You’re right. But I need to get downstairs. Customers are going to start showing up at any minute. Maybe let’s just not worry about the arrangements just yet. Okay?”
Felix stared at him hard for a long moment before giving a hesitant nod. “Yeah, okay.”
“Get dressed. Don’t you have classes this morning?”
“I don’t know why you’re so insistent I go to college. I don’t need to have a degree to design clothes. I have a natural talent.”
Jericho snorted. “You know it was important to Ma and Papi. So, get to class, Mr. Natural Talent.”
By the time Jericho got downstairs to open the shop, there were already people waiting. He pushed up the bay doors and was grateful to see Arsen was already in the office, ready to work. He had braided his blue hair down the center of his head, revealing the shaved sides, essentially giving himself a fake mohawk.
“I saw your rich man leaving this morning,” Arsen said by way of greeting, his accent heavier than usual. “Felix said he is very…enthusiastic.”
Jericho rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
Arsen grinned, revealing perfect white teeth. But before he could retort, a girl in a halter top rested her arms and boobs on the counter. “Hi, Arsen,” she said, giving him her bestfuck meeyes. “Can you look at my tire? I think there’s a nail in it.”
Arsen frowned. “Did I not look at your tires last week? Where do you drive with all of these nails and screws?”
Jericho couldn’t help but smirk. Arsen was completely clueless to the girls throwing themselves at him with regularity. Like the other boys that flocked to Jericho’s for shelter, he was same-sex oriented. That was how they’d all ended up there. It was a safe haven for those who had been brave enough—or stupid enough—to come out in a neighborhood that clung to their painfully traditional “family” values.
Arsen gave Jericho a look—letting him know he thought this girl was ridiculous—before stuffing a rag in the back pocket of his coveralls and following the girl around the corner. The girls completely overlooked that Arsen was gay. They just didn’t care. They were determined to win over the Russian boy with his blue hair and aqua eyes that Jericho knew had to be contact lenses.
Unlike Atticus. Those pretty blue eyes were all his. He shook the thought away, forcing himself to go about his day, unwilling to distract himself with memories of last night. He didn’t last long. He spent most of the day getting caught up in not just the things they’d done last night but all the things he planned on doing to him the next time he had him all to himself.
If it happened again. God, he hoped it happened again. Now that he’d had a taste, had been buried inside him, he didn’t think he could go without doing it again. Atticus had his hooks in him. It was alarming how much Jericho liked that. Maybehewas a masochist.
* * *
Two days. Atticus didn’t contact him for two whole days. Not a text or a phone call. Jericho had spent two restless nights hoping for the buzzer at his door to go off, letting him know Atticus had finally given in and wanted more. But there was just…silence.
Jericho tried to keep himself busy with work. He really did. It wasn’t like he didn’t have his own life. His shop was busy from dawn until dusk. People knew Jericho was honest and wouldn’t screw them over. He also let people make payment plans. That made him popular in their middle class neighborhood.
Still, Atticus was never far from his mind. At least twenty times a day, he pulled out his phone to text him. But something always stopped him. He’d lied to Atticus the other night—had lied right to his face. He’d told him he was a touchy-feely guy, that he had sleepovers with his hookups. It was all bullshit. He was affectionate with his brother, his mom, but he’d never been overly doting. It was just Atticus. He was so determined to not feel things for Jericho that it forced him to push back, to find a way to show Atticus that his stubbornness was a guise. He didn’t understand it, this attraction to the other man. Maybe he really did just have a thing for gingers.
Still, if Atticus didn’t contact him soon, he was going to just assume he’d gotten cold feet and had no intention of helping him solve Mercy’s murder. He couldn’t have that looming over him. He felt like she couldn’t be at peace until he found some way to solve the mystery of her disappearance and death.
Jericho had just handed keys over to a customer when his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was a text. From Atticus.Have news. Let’s meet. Lunch time?
Jericho’s stomach dropped. Obviously, this was about Mercy.Yeah, okay. Where?
Jericho watched the dots dance before Atticus finally sent:The morgue.
