But with Rafael in front of me, who recognizes me plenty well, all of it exists. I don’t know how to deal with that.
It doesn’t help having the filthy sounds of the club around us. It’s affecting me differently now that I don’t have Elias to focus on and reshape sex around. I don’t have my role. I don’t have any of my roles, not with Rafael. He knows what I am.
Rafael waits for me to say something, but I don’t. I fucking can’t.
He asks, “What’s going on, Andre?”
“I—” The word breaks free of my throat almost painfully. If I could focus, I would speak differently, but right now it’s all I can do to get words out, so I say the simplest, truest thing. “I need your help.”
I can see in Rafael’s eyes that he’s kind of an asshole. He always was, even back then. But for some reason, he wasn’t an asshole to me two years ago when I met Peter Grange upstairs, and he’s not an asshole to me now.
I almost wish that he would be. It would be easier if I could hate him.
But he motions for me to follow him. “We can talk in the office.”
I get my feet moving, but my body feels weird and clumsy as I walk with Rafael past the bar to a discreet door in the far wall. He opens it, letting me into a sophisticated office with good lighting, more erotic photographs, and a desk with several expensive monitors.
Rafael closes the door, but he barely has his hand off the handle before it flies open again and the dark, intense man thatRafael was with storms inside. He’s dressed in black, contrasting Rafael’s white and silver. He throws a brief, vicious look at me before pivoting toward Rafael. He grabs Rafael by the throat and slams him into the wall by the door.
“What kind of game do you think you’re playing, Angel?” he growls.
Angel.All the men used to call Rafael that. But this man is too young to have been one of those men in order to know that. He’s about my age. Mine and Rafael’s.
Rafael’s eyelashes flutter. He grabs the man’s ass and pulls him in tight. “Dominic, you’re taking this all wrong.”
Dominic.
That name is somewhere deep in my mind, locked away with other things.
He growls at Rafael, “You led a man into your office and closed the door. You knew exactly how I would take it. You like him, Angel? You think he’s pretty? What if I think he’s pretty too?”
I should be reacting, getting angry, hostile, aggressive. But I’m stuck inside myself, weirdly removed. It’s not like dissociation. Dissociation feels good. Safe. This doesn’t. I don’t know what the fuck this is.
“Dominic, don’t,” Rafael says. The playfulness is gone from his tone. It’s gone from his body language too. “It’s not like that.”
Dominic stills. He steps back from Rafael, releasing his throat. He looks at me, trying to figure out what’s going on. His eyebrows are drawn low. He doesn’t recognize me. I don’t recognize him either, but his name …
I feel it in the huge, dark, empty space with all the other things that don’t exist.
But they do, of course, along with the version of me that spent those years on the Island with Rafael and the others.
Rafael is still leaning against the wall. He repeats his earlier question. “What’s going on, Andre?”
Hearing my name, Dominic frowns, still trying to figure it out. Maybe a lot of it is a blank for him too. Or maybe I look too different now.
Somehow I manage to function. I still have a weird, disjointed feeling, like I’m somehow here but not here, but whatever part of me is functioning pulls out my phone. I bring up the still from the security feed and turn the screen toward Rafael.
“This man was in here tonight. I need to know who he is.” Fuck, I sound weird. Robotic.
Rafael pushes away from the wall and comes to take my phone. Dominic watches him, and me, but doesn’t interfere.
Rafael frowns at the image. “I can’t tell shit from this.”
I say, “I’ll recognize him if you can find him on your security feed.”
“Andre, you’re gonna have to tell me what this is about.”
“When I was here earlier, I caught this asshole watching the man that I was … with.”
