“You’re both my firstandlast resort.”
Something barked in the darkness. Scott shuddered and huddled closer to the intercom. “Come on, Thomas, there arewolvesout here.”
“There are no fucking wolves, Scott. You probably heard a deer.”
“As I said, there are vicious man-eating deer out here.”
Thomas groaned. “I’m going back to bed now.”
Scott rattled the gate. “Let me in first.”
“No. The only reason you’re here is because you’ve found out I live in a huge mansion and I have more money than I know what to do with it. That’s why you’re here. To scrounge off me. To take advantage.”
“That’s not it –”
“Isn’t it?”
Scott took a step back and ran his eyes up the colossal gate. A tall wall surrounded the property, tipped with savage-looking spikes. The place looked safe. That’s why Scott was there, to feel safer, which was exploiting Thomas’s wealth in some way.
Maybe he was taking advantage, or at least attempting to.
Scott pressed the button. “Thomas, I…I’m sorry.”
He released the button, grabbed the long strap of his duffel bag and eased it onto his shoulder with a dull groan.
Scott didn’t have a plan B, but he didn’t want to stand outside Thomas’s mansion all night, and he didn’t want to walk in the direction the weird bark had come from. He set off withhis head down, hoping to find an accommodating bush or a park bench.
The speaker crackled. “Wait!”
Scott stopped and turned around. He shook his head, unsure whether he was still in sight of the camera. He’d come up with something – something that didn’t involve Thomas.
Scott took a step.
“I told you to wait!”
Scott held up placating hands and did his best mime of a man saying it was okay, he understood, and he was leaving and never should’ve bothered Thomas in the first place.
“Not one more step,” Thomas hissed. “I’m coming down, and you’d better still be there.”
Scott scrunched his face in an exaggerated frown and squared off to the only camera that could possibly see him in an ‘or what?’ gesture.
“OrI’ll get in my 4x4 and run your arse down.”
Scott snorted softly as he strolled back over to the gate. He dropped his bag onto the ground and rested his forehead against the bars while he waited.
He heard Thomas before he saw him. Thomas’s Crocs clacked as he walked. He had his arms folded across a black silk dressing gown, and his expression lacked any warmth. It was always hard to gauge emotion in Thomas’s face thanks to the snake-skin tattoo that even went part-way up his nostrils. His thin lips were tattooed in a shapeless black line, and they weren’t smiling.
“Scott,” he murmured, coming to a stop on the other side of the gate.
Scott looked up at him. Only one of Thomas’s eyes resembled a snake eye; his other, the one he had vision in, shone an icy blue. It was tired, and hard, and instinctively Scott backed up a step.
“It’s fine, I’ll find somewhere else.”
Thomas answered by pulling a huge key from his pocket and unlocking the padlock around the gate.
“Inside,” Thomas ordered.
There was another bark in the darkness, and Scott jolted, bursting through the gate. Thomas rolled his eye, sighed tiredly, then refastened the padlock.
