“Yes, please. I need to soak some of this up.”
Kit tossed the bag to him, then faced forward again.
“My place is closer,” Darius said, pulling away from the curb.
James didn’t answer, engrossed with his phone screen. Kit curled up in his seat and bowed his head, and the tension suddenly unwound from his body. His lungs hurt, his breathing still too quick. His hands shook until he pinned them between his knees. Fuck. What was more alarming—someone maybe watching him, or how absolutely incapacitated Kit was by that possibility?
Weak, pathetic, short-sighted idiot.
“Hey,” Darius said quietly as he pulled out of the parking lot. “You did the right thing texting us.”
His attention remained on the traffic around them, with barely a glance at Kit. But the deep certainty in his voice, the relaxed way he held the wheel, his sheer reassuring confidence made Kit relax too. Like Darius was some sort of meditation incense candle thing.
If meditation incense candle things were tall, dark, and sexy as fuck.
“Thanks.” Kit slouched in his seat, watching Darius and James in the rearview mirror in turn.
Kit didn’t know much about architecture, but Darius’s place was probably expensive. The sleek, understated apartment building was located in the heart of San Corvo. Darius kept a protective hand on Kit’s shoulder as they ascended the elevator, while James remained glued to his phone screen.
The apartment itself was comfortable. Tidy. Bare wood and charcoal grays and pops of rust and teal accents. Kit figured an interior designer had been involved at some point, but the place looked far more lived-in than James’s picture-perfect mansion.
“I think the camera flash was a dad taking a picture of his toddler,” James said. He had lost his red flush and softly slurred voice.
Darius dropped his keys in an ornamental bowl by the door and drew a handgun from under his jacket. “Stay here,” he said, moving forward and disappearing down a hallway.
Kit froze. “What the fuck?”
“At least, I assume it’s the guy’s toddler,” James said. “Maybe he just found it somewhere?”
“I meant the gun, not the toddler!”
“Oh, Darius is sweeping for intruders. Don’t worry, he always does this.” Ignoring Darius’s instructions, James toed off his shoes and headed into the living room.
Kit kicked off his own shoes, then followed. “Did you find anything on the cameras?”
James flopped onto the plush gray couch. “Yeah, I found way too many people looking at you. You’re too fucking cute, you know that? This middle school girl is checking you out.”
“She’s probably not stalking me.”
“Can’t be too careful,” James muttered darkly, and reached out to tug Kit’s wrist. “Come here, babe.”
“All clear,” Darius called, as Kit landed half on top of James.
Something about those words of reassurance and the sudden contact with James’s body triggered a wave of calm. It crashed over Kit as powerfully as his initial fear, and he curled up under James’s arm. That jittery paranoia became distant, muffled, like it belonged to someone else. Another person, a past life. There was a stillness inside Kit now, a different sort of quiet than the numb high he’d been chasing before he met James and the rest.
Something like safety.
James played with Kit’s sweatshirt sleeve. Images moved on his phone screen, but Kit couldn’t see them well. “I went back a bit more,” James said. “Who’s this guy you’re talking to in line? Do you know him?”
“That’s Holden,” Kit said. “The SCU student I told you about. He left before the camera flash.”
“I really think the flash was this dad. Based on the angle, you might be in the background of the photo, though, so I’ll figure out who he is and look into him to be safe. And this Holden guy. And this middle schooler leering at you. But I don’t see anything else weird.”
Kit sighed, still floating on his newfound exhausted calm. “So, I was just being paranoid. Sorry for calling you guys out there for nothing.”
“You did the right thing,” Darius said, returning from the hallway. He’d shed his jacket, revealing the shoulder harness over his t-shirt. The gun wasn’t on him anymore, though—at least, not that Kit could see. Darius sat in the armchair angled to face the couch. “Especially given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” James asked, swiping between camera feeds.
