Cash
“Areyou considering whether to throw that lamp at me?” Cash asked.
Raiden leaned out a window on the second floor of the security building, brandishing an old lamp. He had been unwilling to let Cash inside, but after some begging, Cash had at least had gotten the guy to stick his head out the window.
“Maybe,” Raiden answered.
“It’s a big fucking lamp,” Cash yelled up.
Raiden glared. “You want me to find a bigger one?”
Cash let out a shaky breath. At least the street was quiet, and he was spared an audience for this humiliation. Now that Raiden was stonewalling, with the trust they used to share had evaporated, Cash worried he wasn’t going to be able to reach through.
At his feet, he had dropped the backpack and cardboard box he dragged from Manhattan. It was just a little bit of research he was able to grab before handing everything over to Fox, the most important information from years of tracking the corporation, but he hoped it would be enough. Cash realized that he probably looked desperate, just showing up like that, but the fact was, hewasfucking desperate.
Although a small part of him had shot alive again, now that he was looking up at Raiden. Even though the guy was about a blink away from launching a lamp at his head.
“I think I know where Lawrence is,” Cash blurted out, going for broke.
Raiden’s free hand shot up, and he grabbed the back of his head. “Don’t fuck with me, Cash,” he hollered down.
It’s me, Cash wanted to say.I’m who you thought I was, I swear. But he knew he had lost that right. “I swear that it’s true. I pulled every string I could, and I found out the location of Reed’s black site. Raiden, think about it. Why else would I come looking for you?” He swallowed, then looked up, trying to hold Raiden’s eye. “I need you, Raiden. We need to do this together.”
Could you keep going for broke, once you already went bust? Because that was how Cash felt right then. Like he would gut himself on that sidewalk, if it made Raiden trust him again and helped them to get Lawrence back.
Raiden brandished the lamp, and when he shook it, the big brown shade rattled. “You know what I’d do to you, if you lied to me again?” His voice cracked, sending a pang through Cash’s heart.
“I know,” he said. “I’d smash my own smartass face against that lamp, if I thought it would help.”
Raiden snorted a laugh, and he lowered the lamp slightly. “Fuck you,” he said, like he meant it.
Hesitant, Cash still looked up, hungry for Raiden’s acceptance. He just wanted to be closer to the guy, to feel like they were in this shitty situation together, that they could still be boyfriends even after everything he’d screwed up.
He needed it. He needed Raiden.
“I know it’s hard,” he said. “And I know I’m asking for a lot when everything is already my fault, but we have to move fast. Reed could be doing anything to Lawrence, and there’s no guarantee how long they’ll stick around the black site.”
“You’re acting like I decided to trust you. Why shouldn’t I kick your ass and send you riding home on your motorcycle, Cash-hole?”
Cash almost grinned at the insult, but his heart was pounding too hard. “I don’t even have my motorcycle anymore. I traded it and just about everything else I own for the information on Reed. Do you honestly think I’ve been lying this whole time? Do you honestly think that what happened between you and me and Lawrence was some game?”
Raiden groaned. He started to rise up to full height, but banged the back of his head against the window. “I don’t fucking know, Cash!” he yelled. “I don’t know anything!”
“You know this,” Cash said, gesturing down to himself. “You know me. And I know that I love you, Raiden. I really do.”
Cash’s heart jumped into his throat. He hadn’t expected to say that. Hell, he hadn’t even thought that to himself yet. But looking up at Raiden, desperate to touch him and feel close again, the truth seemed obvious.
He was in love with Raiden, just like he was in love with Lawrence. That love had turned his world upside down, but now that he tasted it, he didn’t know how to go on without them.
Raiden’s breath hitched. “You love me?”
In the heat of the moment, Cash couldn’t deny it, even if he wanted to. He couldn’t imagine saving Lawrence without Raiden, but it wasn’t just because of Raiden’s fighting skills and his experience taking down guys like Reed. It was because Cash couldn’t imagine doing anything without his man, and not without Lawrence, either.
“I know it’s a bad time to tell you,” Cash called up, suddenly nervous. “But it’s true.”
“Damn it,” Raiden grunted. He pulled back into the apartment, then slammed the window down with a bang.
Alone on the street, Cash’s head swirled. Had he finally gone too far? Raiden was as smart as they came, and he didn’t buy anyone’s bullshit. What would stop him from thinking Cash was just making another ploy, an attempt to lure Raiden back into some convoluted game?
