Blay nodded, holding the cigarette out of the way so the male’s beautiful clothes didn’t get burned. “I was going to read the New Yorker and maybe start From the Terrace.”
Saxton smiled, clearly appreciating the appeal of both. “How I envy you. After I’m finished, I’m going to take a few nights off and just relax.”
“Maybe we could go somewhere.”
“Maybe we could.”
The tight expression on that lovely face was quick and sad. Because Saxton knew that they weren’t going anywhere.
And not just because a Sandals all-inclusive was so not in their future.
“Be well,” Saxton said, brushing his knuckle down Blay’s cheek.
Blay nuzzled that hand. “You, too.”
A moment later the door opened and shut…and he was alone. Sitting on the messy bed, in the silence that seemed to crush him from all sides, he smoked his cigarette down to the filter, screwed it out in the ashtray, lit another.
Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the sound of Saxton moaning or the sight of the male’s back arching or the feel of skin on skin.
He could not.
And that was the root of the problem, wasn’t it.
“Let me get this straight,” V drawled over the cell phone connection. “You lost your Hummer.”
Qhuinn wanted to put his head through a plate-glass window. “Yeah. I did. So could you please—”
“How do you lose eight thousand pounds of vehicle?”
“That’s not important—”
“Well, actually, it is if you want me to access the GPS and tell you where to find the damn thing—which is why you’re calling, true? Or do you just think confession without detail is good for the soul or some shit.”
Qhuinn gripped his phone hard. “Ileftthekeysinit.”
“I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
Bullshit. “I left the keys in it.”
“That was a dumb-ass move, son.”
No. Fucking. Kidding. “So can you help me—”
“Just e-mailed you the link. One thing—when you recover the vehicle?”
“Yeah?”
“Check to see if the jackers took a moment to put the seat forward—you know, get comfortable and shit. Because they probably weren’t in a rush, what with having the keys.” The sound of Vishous’s yukking it up was like getting paddled in the nuts with a car fender. “Listen, I gotta go. I need both hands to hold my gut as I laugh my ass off attcha. Later.”
As the call went dead, Qhuinn took a moment to rein in the desire to throw the phone.
Yeah, ’cuz losing that, too, was going to really help the situation.
Going into his Hotmail account, and wondering just how long it was going to take to live this one down, he got a bead on his frickin’ car.
“It’s heading west.” He tilted the phone so John could see. “Let’s do this.”
Dematerializing, Qhuinn was dimly aware that the level of his rage was disproportionate to the problem: As his molecules scattered, he was a lit fuse waiting to connect with some dynamite—and it wasn’t just about him being a dumb-ass, or the missing car, or the fact that he was looking like an idiot to one of the males he respected most in the Brotherhood.
There was so much other shit.
Taking form on a rural road, he checked his phone again and waited for John to show up. When the fighter did, he recalibrated and they went farther west, closing in, cross-referencing the direction…until Qhuinn ghosted onto the precise strip of ice-covered asphalt his fucking Hummer was on.
About a hundred yards ahead of the vehicle.
Whatever SOB was behind the wheel was going sixty miles an hour in the snow, heading for a curve. What a…
Well, calling them stupid was exactly the kind of kettle-black thing the night had devolved into.
Let me shoot the wheels, John signed, like he knew a gun in Qhuinn’s hand was not the best idea.
Before the guy could up-and-out his forty, though, Qhuinn dematerialized…right onto the hood of the SUV.
He landed face-first into the windshield, his ass getting hit with the kind of breeze that turned him into a bug on all that glass. And then it was a case of oh-heeey-gurl-heeeey: Thanks to the glow from the dashboard, he caught the OMG! on the faces of the pair of guys in the front seat…and then his bright idea turned into goat fuck number two of the evening.
Instead of hitting the brakes, the driver wrenched the wheel, like he could maybe avoid what had already landed on the Hummer’s hood. The torque threw Qhuinn free, his body going weightless as he wrenched around in space to keep his eyes on his ride.
Turned out he was the lucky one.
As Hummers were designed and built for things other than aerodynamics and braking facility, the laws of physics grabbed onto all that top-heavy metal and rolled the shit. In the process, and in spite of the snow cover, metal met asphalt, and the high-pitched scream soprano’d out into night—
The thunderous impact of the SUV nailing some kind of solid object the size of a house cut off all that caterwauling. Qhuinn didn’t pay much attention to the crash, however, because he landed as well, the paved road smacking him on the shoulder and hip, his body doing its own version of greased pig down the snow-packed pavement—
CRACK!
His momentum was stopped short as well, something hard catching him in the head—
Cue a spectacular light show, like someone had lit off a firecracker right in front of his face. Then it was Tweety Bird time, little stars going around his vision as pain in various places started to check in.
Pushing against whatever was closest to him—he wasn’t sure whether it was the ground or a tree or that red-suited fatty, Santa Claus, he eased himself over onto his back. As he flopped flat, the cold went to his head and helped to dull things.
He intended to get up. Check the Hummer. Beat the shit out of whoever had taken advantage of his blond moment. But that was just his brain playing with itself. His body had taken over the wheel and accelerator, and it had no intention of going anywhere the fuck.
Laying as still as he could, and breathing out uneven clouds of frost, time slowed down and then began to morph. For a second, he became confused as to what had put him in this at-the-side-of-the-road condition. The accident he’d caused?
Or…that Honor Guard from before the raids?
Was this back-flat on the asphalt thing a memory of his past or something that was actually happening?
The good news was that sorting out reality gave his brain something to do other than continue to hammer away at the get-moving stuff. The bad news was that the memories from the night his family had disavowed him were more painful than anything he currently felt in his body.
God, it was all so clear, the doggen bringing him the official papers and demanding some blood for a cleansing ritual. Him throwing that duffel bag over his shoulder and walking out of that house for the last time. The road stretching in front of him, empty and dark—
This road, he realized. This actual road was the one he’d gone down on. Or…was down on…whatever. When he’d left his parents’ house, he’d intended to head out west, where he’d heard there was a clan of rogue assholes just like him. Instead, four males had shown up in hooded robes and beaten him to death—literally. He had gone to the door of the Fade, and on it, he had seen a future that he hadn’t believed…until it happened. Was happening—right now. With Layla…