He forced a smile and leaned back, shaking his head. “It’s some guy, it’s nothing.”
“Scott.”
“Honestly, it’s fine.” Scott chuckled. “How’s it going with Russell?”
Thomas’s nostrils flared. Scott ploughed on regardless.
“It sounded like he cracked a tooth when he saw me kiss you on the cheek. You looked like you were enjoying yourself when I checked on you, though.”
Scott didn’t mean it to sound accusatory and cursed himself. He had no right to be jealous, no right to feel anything. The bell on the front door of The Frog & Toad sounded, and Scott shot an alarmed look in its direction, but it wasn’t Warren leaving the place, it was someone he didn’t recognise.
Thomas checked too, then turned back to Scott, frowning. “We’re leaving.”
“No, Thomas, please.” Scott squeezed his eyes shut in a harsh blink. “I don’t want to mess up your night –”
“Russell invited himself round the mansion tomorrow.”
Fuck.
“Oh.” Scott’s eyes grew round. “I’ll…I’ll spend the day somewhere else.”
“I told him no.”
“Wait? What? Why would you do that?” Scott shook his head. “It worked. I made him jealous, he dumped his boyfriend –”
“I don’t care about any of that. I didn’t want to come here tonight. I don’t know why I did.”
Scott averted his gaze. “You were laughing with him. You looked…happy.”
“I told him about the balloons, then you hiding my eye, and the salon visit.” Thomas held up his hand, twitching his nails. “And these…and I…” He shook his head. “I didn’t know where you’d gone. I went towards the restrooms. Lisa found me. She was worried, told me a guy gave her the creeps when he started talking to you, that something was very wrong.”
The door opened again. Scott couldn’t stop himself from looking to see who’d left. It wasn’t Warren. It felt like his facewas behind every window, somehow able to see Scott through the frosted glass.
“Who is he, Scott?” Thomas’s brow twitched. “Why has he got you so on edge?”
Scott shook his head, refusing to answer.
Thomas stared at him for a long moment, then whispered, “Okay. You don’t want to talk about it, then we won’t, but you want to leave, right?”
Scott nodded.
Thomas looked ahead at one of the alleyways. “Then let’s go home.”
Home.
Thomas took Scott by the hand, not his wrist, and led the way.
Chapter twenty-two
Thomasdidn’taskaboutthe man in The Frog & Toad again, but Scott knew his curiosity was piqued. Warren was Scott’s secret, just as Thomas’s past was his, and nobody was owed someone else’s secret.
Warren’s threat lingered, though. Scott pictured his smiling face when he closed his eyes and heard his smooth voice in his ear, brimming with confidence at the thought of getting away with Scott’s murder.
He’d kept the emails, the same as Scott, but they didn’t condemn Warren; it was Scott chasing, Scott suggesting, Scott writing terrible things, and even when Warren agreed, he’d phrased it in such a way to suggest he was giving Scott the money to help his sister rather than to violently rape him.
Those emails were a nail in his future coffin.
They would ensure Warren walked free if things went too far.
