Risk Assessment

by Parker St John

  He was weaving on his feet from exhaustion, but he closed his eyes and remained still for a moment. A sense of peace washed over him. This was what he’d been searching for all his adult life, since the moment he came out to his family and home had stopped feeling like home.

  “That you?” Lucas called.

  “Yeah,” Elliot croaked. He forced his legs to unfreeze and headed over to peer into the living room.

  Lucas was freshly showered, his hair still damp and curling against his neck. He was wearing Elliot’s old U of O sweatshirt and jeans so faded and soft looking that Elliot wanted to rub his face on them. He was beautiful. Elliot could stare at him for hours.

  He wanted to thank him for staying through Julio’s arrest, but speech was lost to him. All he could do was inhale shakily and try to shore up his tattered reserves by drinking in the sight of him.

  Lucas did a double take when he spotted him. “You look like shit. Did you break him out of the hoosegow single-handedly?”

  “If only it were that easy. But I didn’t have time to bake a file inside a pie.” He watched with a lump in his throat as Lucas stood and stretched every long line of his delicious body.

  Now that Elliot got a better look at him, he thought he appeared tired, too. His expression was neutral, but there were lines of strain around his beautiful blue eyes. He was probably worried about the garage. Elliot had promised him Julio would stay out of trouble, and now Lucas was short staffed again. He’d invested all that effort into him for nothing.

  “Good thing I had the foresight to make it a pizza and beer night.” Lucas’s smile was faint, but he strolled up, grabbed Elliot by the hand, and tugged him toward the kitchen.

  “Change it to bourbon and I’ll take you up on it.”

  “Cripes.”

  Elliot sat at the table while Lucas grabbed the dusty bottle of bourbon from the top of the fridge. He popped some ice cubes in a glass and poured a couple generous fingers of liquor before setting it down. “Here, get started on that while you tell me what happened. I’ll reheat the pizza.”

  He moved around the kitchen with such familiarity that it made Elliot’s throat tighten. In just a few short weeks, Lucas had made enough changes that it felt like an actual living space rather than just a place to store leftover takeout. Elliot sipped the whiskey. His neck slowly unknotted as heat settled in his belly.

  “Did you eat?”

  “Nah.”

  “You didn’t have to wait.”

  Lucas didn’t reply. He never addressed his own kindnesses. “How is Julio?” he asked.

  Elliot sighed. “Julio is fucked. He swears up and down he’s innocent, but he has no alibi and no explanation for why the other kids involved pointed the finger at him. He’s remanded until the hearing due to the violent nature of the crime, and because his co-conspirators are known members of the Surenos street gang.”

  “But he isn’t. What, they think another gangbanger might shoot him to keep his mouth shut?”

  “It’s likely.”

  “What exactly are they trying to pin on him?”

  “A convenience store off 82nd was robbed by three kids earlier this evening. When the clerk couldn’t open the register fast enough, the one with the gun got twitchy and shot him in the throat. He died before EMS could get to him.”

  “Fuck. Do the cameras show it was Julio?”

  “Their faces were hidden. But two Surenos members dressed in the same clothes were caught fleeing the scene. No weapon was recovered. They said Julio had it.”

  “They were caught running, but Julio made it all the way home, changed his clothes, and sat down to dinner with his gran?” Lucas asked skeptically.

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  Lucas set two plates on the table. He put three slices on a plate for Elliot and five for himself. It took a lot of calories to keep up that muscle. “Poor fucking kid.”

  Elliot grunted. They said no more until they’d devoured a couple slices each. Elliot finished his bourbon and was pouring a second glass when the disappointment he’d bottled up all day finally came gushing to the surface.

  “I just can’t believe he was so fucking stupid!” he vented. “I was this close to getting his record expunged!” He held up his thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart. “He has a family and a decent job. He was on his way to a fresh start. Do you know how few ex-cons get a chance like that?”

  “Yes,” Lucas said flatly, “I do.”

  Elliot winced. “Sorry,” he muttered. “But that just means you get it. You understand what a giant waste of his future this is. It’s tragic.”

  “You’re talking like it’s a foregone conclusion that he’s going back to prison.”

  “He’s a previously convicted felon and both the other kids involved tell the same story. If someone’s going to get him off, they’ll need to get really damn lucky.”

  “You’re not defending him?” Lucas asked in surprise.

  Elliot was in the midst of an enormous swallow. He forced it down with a grimace, then set down the glass with extreme care. He splayed his hands against the countertop and stared down at them until they blurred in his fatigued vision. His emotions were a muddle, but floating to the top of the pile were the dual reactions of guilt and fury. Any attempt to separate the two emotions exhausted him. “I spent so much of my life getting guilty clients off scot free,” he said wearily. “I specialize in appeals now so I don’t have to do that anymore.”

  Lucas had a strange expression. “Are you so sure he did it?”

  “Of course, he did it! The little idiot. He should have told me if he needed money that badly.”

  “I gave him the full advance he asked for.”

  “I know.” Elliot glared moodily out the window. “I guess it wasn’t enough.”

  But it really felt like he wasn’t enough. What was it Alex had said to him once? Whether he won or lost a case, he gave his clients back their self worth? What a laugh. Julio hadn’t even trusted him enough to tell him he needed money.

  He closed his eyes, but it didn’t stop the wave of failure from slamming into him once again. All he wanted was Lucas to come to him and wrap those strong arms around him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask for it. He should be stronger than this. He shouldn’t need the way he did. His clinginess had been one of his biggest turn-offs, according to Greg, and Elliot agreed with him on that point.

  So he bit the inside of his cheek, balled up his fists on the counter, and waited for the feeling of uselessness to pass.

  Lucas watched Elliot from across the kitchen. The longer he stared, the less he liked what he heard. Elliot was giving up? Elliot? The naïve, hopeful idiot who had swallowed his pride and begged Lucas to give Julio a job in the first place? Lucas had never pegged him as the type to just wash his hands of a situation when things got difficult. But then, isn’t that what he’d done with his life as a fancy attorney? He’d given it all up and moved on. It looked like Julio was just as easy to throw away, and undoubtedly so was Lucas.

  “He told you he did it for the money?” he asked pointedly.

  “No.” Elliot sighed. “He insists he’s innocent.”

  “Why don’t you believe him?”

  It was dumb to make that the sticking point, because Lucas didn’t really believe it himself. But Lucas already knew he was a cynical bastard. Elliot was supposed to be better than that. He was supposed to believe in people, dammit.

  Elliot raked his hands through his hair until it stuck out at odd angles like a haystack. “Look, I get it. You bonded with the kid. I’m sorry that I’m the one who got you involved in the first place. But I work with these people every day. The recidivism is unreal.”

  These people? Lucas narrowed his eyes. It suddenly didn’t feel right to be sitting while Elliot loomed at the counter, so he carried his plate to the sink. Then he turned, planted his ass against the sink, and folded his arms across his chest. “What people? Cons?”

  Elliot opened
his mouth in a reflexive response, caught himself, and frowned. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t make this about you. You know I didn’t mean you.”

  “Do I?” He quirked a brow and settled in as if he was ready for a show. “Aren’t I exactly the kind of person at risk for recidivism? Isn’t that why I’ve been pissing in a cup for years while my parole officer watches?”

  Elliot rolled his eyes. “You’re stronger than that. You aren’t an impulsive kid like Julio.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Lucas gritted his teeth. “Back in the day, I would have been one of your clients, and you wouldn’t have given me a second glance. You would have tossed me to the curb, just like you’re doing with Julio.”

  Elliot threw up his hands. “What the hell is your point? Your past has nothing to do with this. You’re not Julio!”

  “I was Julio!” Lucas exploded. “Fuck! I am him!”

  “No, you’re not! Stop being an asshole!”

  “I’m an asshole for pointing out what a hypocrite you’re being?” Lucas scoffed.

  Elliot shut his mouth with a hard snap. His teeth ground together so viciously that Lucas could hear it from five feet away. His fingers twitched with the impulse to stroke his unshaven jaw and relax those taut muscles before Elliot did any damage, but something held him back. It suddenly didn’t feel as if he and Elliot were on the same team. Maybe they never had been. He curled his hand into a fist and pressed it against his thigh.

  “Look,” Elliot said tightly, his voice quivering with restraint. “It’s been a rough day… for both of us, I see. Arguments felt just as dire to me when I was your age—”

  Lucas reared back. He gripped the counter so hard the muscles in his forearms began to twitch. “Don’t do that,” he said softly. “Don’t play the age card.”

  “There’s no card, Lucas.” Elliot sounded so tired that part of Lucas just wanted to drop the whole thing, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Something about the precise way Elliot spoke, and the way his body language screamed I’m being reasonable, infuriated Lucas. “I’m older than you. Sometimes I’m going to have different ideas about acceptable behavior.”

  “There it is. Have I been embarrassing you, Mr. Smith?”

  Elliot rolled his eyes. “Not unless you were doing it intentionally, like with that poor waitress on our first date.”

  “What about with good old Greg? You were awfully quick to make sure he knew I don’t just work on cars. Were you embarrassed for him to know you’re fucking a mechanic?”

  “Absolutely not,” Elliot forced between lips that had gone tight with anger. “You’re the one who seems to purposely go out of your way to point out the differences between us.”

  Lucas spread his arms wide, as if inviting Elliot to take a shot at him. “Just confirming your expectations, brother. You’ve confirmed mine, too. Face it, you’ll always see people like me and Julio as beneath you somewhere in the back of your mind.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Elliot threw his hands up in aggravation. “I’m not even going to bother if you twist everything I say.”

  “Too much like a lawyer for you?” He said nastily.

  “I don’t know what I’ve done…” Elliot trailed off helplessly. He didn’t look helpless, though. He looked annoyed and frustrated and expensive. Out of Lucas’s price range, anyway, and — damn it — he still looked sexy as hell with his disheveled hair and scruffy jaw and the dark anger in his eyes. But the way he clenched his teeth and spoke in that perfectly metered, lofty tone was so condescending that it made Lucas see red.

  “Nothing,” he growled. “You’ve done nothing. You’ve sure as hell done nothing for your client. Just sat there on your throne and passed judgment on the poor folk. You made Julio believe you were on his side, but you’re turning tail as soon as things don’t suit you. Just like you did with your family back in Kentucky, just like you did with your fancy life with Greg. Face it, Elliot. You’re a runner.”

  “Jesus, how much did I have to drink?” Elliot gaped. “Do you even hear yourself?”

  “I hear just fine, old man.” Lucas seethed.

  Elliot recoiled. Lucas watched him bow in on himself as if he’d been hammered in the chest, and shame slammed through him. He couldn’t swallow down all the disgust welling up in his throat, and he couldn’t even decide who he was more disgusted with: Elliot or himself. But Elliot hadn’t deserved that. He didn’t deserve someone as vicious as Lucas purposely going for his weak points. Lucas had known from the start that there was no future between them. It wasn’t Elliot’s fault that he’d managed to fool himself for so long.

  None of this would have happened if he’d stuck with his usual habit of erasing cell numbers before the sheets got cold. Why the hell had he stuck around for so long, playing at something he could never have?

  He worked his dry throat enough to grate out, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Elliot cracked his neck. He straightened his shoulders and managed a deep, calming breath. “Maybe we should get some sleep. We can discuss this in the morning when we’re both calmer.”

  “No.” Lucas shook his head. He pushed away from the counter and ran his hands through his hair. Something just beneath his solar plexus twanged, like a hunger pang, or a warning that he was about to vomit, he didn’t even know. All he wanted was to get out into the fresh air and away from those hurt, dark eyes. “I meant I’m sorry I let this go on as long as it did. I’ve got no call to have an opinion on anything you do for work.”

  “You do—”

  “Elliot,” he interrupted wearily, and Elliot’s mouth snapped shut. “This was never supposed to be anything serious. We just got a good reminder why, is all. No harm, no foul. I need to go.”

  Elliot didn’t reply. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He followed as Lucas searched for his socks and shoes and dug his jacket out of the closet where it was nestled beside Elliot’s Burberry. He watched silently, arms crossed, as Lucas fumbled for his keys like a fool.

  Lucas’s discomfort and resentment grew as each awkward moment ticked by.

  “I think you’re making a mistake.” Elliot tried once more. The pain in his voice was almost enough to stop Lucas in his tracks, but he propelled himself onward. Looking at him for too long only made the ache in Lucas’s gut worse.

  “Nope.” Lucas finished lacing a boot and snatched up his helmet. “I’m saving us from one. It’s okay, Elliot. We were both slumming, that’s all.”

  He stepped out into the rain.

  Elliot closed the door behind him so quietly that Lucas barely heard the click. He felt it, though. It reverberated through his heart like a nuclear blast.

  The Yamaha started up with a low growl that echoed the snarl of Lucas’s blown out emotions. He pulled onto the rain-slicked streets, thankful for the rain and the cold and the dark. It gave him something to seethe against, something to battle, besides the beautiful, wounded man he’d just left behind.

  17

  Elliot

  It was one of those frosty, sunny days that occasionally came to the Pacific Northwest as a reminder of what residents would miss for the next five months. Chickadees were chattering an unholy racket in the eaves above Elliot’s office window.

  Chicka-DEE-DEE-DEE.

  It was the equivalent of taking an electric drill to his pounding temples. He grimly thought how fortunate it was that he didn’t have a weapons permit, or he would have shot the little fuckers after the first shrill chorus. That wasn’t a great indicator of his mental state, so he asked Stella to field all his calls.

  He didn’t know why he’d bothered to come into work. He could have taken a sick day from the obscene amount he’d accrued over the past year. Downing a fifth of bourbon the night before might not be contagious, but it was enough to reduce him to a state of worthless growling whenever somebody approached. But sitting alone in his silent house was even worse than listening to the damn
birds.

  He couldn’t look anywhere in his own home without being reminded of Lucas. How had that happened? How had the man inserted himself so effortlessly into Elliot’s life in such a short time? His soap was on the shelf in Elliot’s shower, the weird neon orange kind that melted away a day’s worth of sweat and grease. His food was in Elliot’s refrigerator. Real, healthy food, made up of ingredients Elliot couldn’t just yank out and pop in the microwave. Lucas had helped pick out the giant television in the living room. The pillow beside Elliot’s head when he’d finally collapsed in the wee hours of the morning had smelled like Lucas. It had been less than a month, yet the man had left his mark on everything he touched.

  Including Elliot. Especially Elliot.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and sniffed hard, but after a moment’s panic, the sting in his sinuses retreated. Blinking rapidly, he refocused on the arrest report in front of him. He’d run through it multiple times but still couldn’t recall a damn thing written on it. His mind kept drifting back to Lucas and the coldness in his eyes when he’d walked out the door. He’d looked like a stranger.

  He’d considered calling him that morning. Perhaps he’d only needed time to cool down. Perhaps his parting wasn’t as final as it had sounded in the dead of night. Except Elliot had never known anyone as forthright as Lucas. The man was as solid as an oak. He meant what he said.

  Besides, hadn’t he been telling the truth? Not regarding all that bullshit about Elliot viewing him as a criminal. That was utter nonsense. But hadn’t he been right when he’d said it wasn’t serious between them? Elliot had known from the start that washed up has-beens like him didn’t end up with young, vital men with their lives ahead of them. Lucas was intelligent, confident, hardworking, and he had the body of a god. He could have anyone he wanted at the snap of his fingers. The end had been inevitable. So why did it hurt so fucking much?

  Elliot buried his face in his hands.

  Chika-DEE-DEE-DEE.

  “El?” A soft rap on his door brought his head up. Stella opened the door just enough to poke her perfectly coifed head through. There was a line of concern between her brows. “How are you feeling?”