His eyes fell on a tall, slender woman in a green dress. She was twirling on the dance floor, making the last six or eight inches of fabric look like a tulip opening. Beside the woman was a man wearing a shirt and tie and a worn leather jacket. He was on her level when it came to looks, but not in the dance department. His movements were jerky and uncoordinated, yet this didn’t seem to bother him. He smiled broadly as he struggled to keep up with the woman.
“Your drink,” a voice said from behind him. Tobin turned and grabbed the glass, replacing its spot on the bar with his ten-dollar bill. As he sipped, he turned back to the dance floor, eager to watch the hypnotic woman again, but she was gone.
“Excuse me?”
Tobin frowned and looked over his shoulder at the bartender. The man was holding the ten in his hand.
“Just keep the change. It’s all good.”
He was about to turn back again, but the bartender’s stern expression convinced him otherwise.
“What?”
“Your vodka soda is twelve dollars… without tip.”
Tobin’s eyes bulged, which sent a wave of pins and needles to the crown of his head.
And that’s why the bar was empty…
“Oh, uh, I, uh…”
Tobin didn’t know what to do. He was hoping that the bartender would just make up the difference using the tip jar tucked just out of arm’s reach, but this seemed unlikely. And he didn’t even have a single dollar to his name anymore.
When their silent exchange bore on for several drumbeats, there was only one thing he could do.
His face and ears burning, Tobin placed the drink back on the bar and pushed it away from him. The bartender, however, made no attempt to grab it.
“You already took a sip.”
“Oh, no—no, I didn’t,” Tobin protested.
Do you even know who the fuck I am?
“Yeah, I saw you. Please pay up.”
Swallowing hard, Tobin glanced around desperately.
“I need to hit the ATM,” he said softly.
“What’s that?”
“I need to hit the ATM.”
The bartender, his expression smug, lifted his dark eyebrows.
“Sure. I’ll call the bouncer and have him escort you. Just gimme—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
The voice, rich and deep, came from Tobin’s right. Even though the bouncer outside hadn’t utter a single word, he was convinced that the voice belonged to him.
Oh, shit.
In a second, he expected to be hoisted up by his waist and carried out of Focal like a disobedient child. Beyond humiliated, Lucas would be ruined, destroyed.
Tobin would have no other option but to burn that persona as he had so many others in the past.
But when his feet remained firmly planted on the floor, he mustered the courage to look over at the man who had spoken.
Tall, muscular, but no juice monkey, he had blond hair pushed back away from his forehead. He was in his mid-forties, Tobin guessed, and while good-looking, he wasn’t quite hot.
The man’s confidence made up the difference, however.
“This is for his drink,” the stranger said, handing over a twenty.
Tobin resisted the urge to ask for his ten-dollar bill back and instead turned his attention to the man who had saved him from further humiliation.
“Thanks, I lost my wallet the other—” he began, but the stranger held out his hand, effectively interrupting him.
“My name’s Caine,” he said.
Tobin shook the man’s hand, noting how smooth his skin was. It was clear that Caine took care of himself.
Tobin liked that.
“Luca—” Tobin caught himself. “Chad. I’m Chad.”
He had no idea where this name had come from, but he liked it. Maybe it was the fact that Caine sounded like it was made up, or maybe it was just that ‘Lucas’ was in need of an upgrade. For whatever reason, it just fit.
It was a new persona.
A better persona.
Tobin was so lost in thought that it took him a few seconds to realize that Caine had slipped something into his palm when they had shaken hands.
Taking his eyes off the handsome man for the first time, he looked down.
And then, as Tobin stared at the small baggie of white powder, he started to laugh.
Caine, yeah, I get it—Caine, as in Cocaine.
Chapter 20
Tobin snorted the powder off the underside of Caine’s wrist. Then he leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked rapidly to prevent his eyes from watering.
The drug hit him immediately, sending a jolt of euphoria-laced energy throughout his entire body.
“Goddamn, Caine,” Tobin exclaimed. He was so excited that he forgot to deepen his voice. “This is some good shit.”
Caine laughed, a deep rumbling sound, which resonated throughout the small bathroom stall. The man wasn’t Tobin’s typical type—he was a top—but there was something attractive about Caine. Something alluring, magnetic.
“One more?” Tobin asked with a grin.
Caine stopped laughing and sized him up. Tobin let the man look; it seemed a fair trade for the drink and coke. Eventually, Caine chuckled and pulled another baggie of powder out of his pocket.
“Sure, why not,” he replied, mimicking Tobin’s coquettish expression. The heap that he put on the back of his wrist this time was even larger than the first. Eyes wide, Tobin bent in for the kill, but Caine beat him to it. After another braying laugh, the man made a third small pile of powder and offered it to Tobin. If nothing else, Caine was living up to his name; the man seemed to have an infinite supply of cocaine.
So, he likes games, huh?
Tobin snorted the coke eagerly. It was his drug of choice, more so than even Oxy. It wasn’t as dissociating as ketamine nor as debilitating as heroin, the latter of which he’d only tried once in his life, but it was more electric.
“Wow,” Tobin said, falling back against the closed stall door. This shit was powerful.
“You ready to dance now?” Caine asked.
The comment threw Tobin for a loop; he didn’t peg the man as a dancer. But hell, the amount of cocaine they’d snorted could turn Stephen Hawking into John Travolta.
“Why not?”
Caine reached around Tobin and opened the stall door. As he stepped into the bathroom proper, Tobin caught a whiff of the man’s scent. It was natural and slightly sweet from sweat, but not entirely unpleasant. As he followed Caine into the club, Tobin was once more struck by the man’s confidence. It was evident in the way he walked, as much as it was in the way people moved out of his way. The man was probably one of the oldest people in Focal, but he didn’t stand out. On the contrary, Caine blended in seamlessly. If it weren’t for the fact that other patrons seemed to be actively avoiding bumping into him, Tobin might have thought that he was just a figment of his imagination.
A cocaine fairy, so to speak.
Caine stepped onto the dance floor, which was surprisingly empty. Tobin tried to locate the woman in the green dress again, but she and her male friend seemed to have taken their little show elsewhere. In fact, the entire club appeared emptier than it had been before he’d followed Caine into the bathroom. This struck Tobin as strange, given how long the lineup had been outside Focal, but before he could offer this any more thought, Caine grabbed his arm and started to sway.
Despite the man’s confidence, he wasn’t much of a dancer. Neither of them was but that didn’t really matter. Tobin closed his eyes and let the music, which, although equally as loud as before, no longer made his skull rattle, wash over him. As he did, he pictured the sound waves bouncing the tiny particles of cocaine in his bloodstream and his veins dilating and constricting with the beat.
Even though he could no longer see Caine, he could sense the man moving in time with him. And then he could feel him.
Caine was behind his back, rubbing against Tobin eve
r so slightly. And yet, the action, as sensual as it was, didn’t feel sexual. It just felt… strange. Tobin had gotten a blowjob once while high and it had brought the experience to new heights. But this wasn’t because of the cocaine, this was different in a way that he couldn’t quite explain.
He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder at Caine who had since backed up a little.
“Chad, you wanna get out of here?” the man asked, his eyes sparkling beneath the psychedelic lights.
Tobin’s mind turned to his shitty apartment and asshole of a roommate.
“Where do you—"
“Let’s go to my place,” Caine answered quickly. “Let’s go to my place and we can keep the party going. What do you say, Chad?”
Tobin pictured the multiple little white pillars of coke he’d snorted off Caine’s wrist.
“What do I think? What do I think? I think that’s a good idea,” he said with a laugh. “One hell of a damn good idea.”
Chapter 21
“This… this is your place?” Tobin tried to play it cool, to sound as if he wasn’t impressed, but the cocaine and alcohol had different ideas.
The truth was, he was floored. Caine’s confidence hinted at a lucrative career or some family money, but Tobin hadn’t expected anything like this.
The Uber dropped them off at the end of a long driveway and they quickly passed through an iron gate that had been left open. Tobin followed closely behind Caine, but his eyes weren’t on the man’s back—they were locked on the massive house that they were hiking towards.
“Sure,” Caine said as they continued up the walk.
The house was at least three stories high, with large columns out front supporting the roof above a wrap-around porch.
“Wow.”
Tobin was staring so hard at a matte black Mercedes off to their right that he almost walked directly into the hood of a silver Bentley.
Imagine an Insta pic with these cars? Let’s see Anon chirp me—
“You coming?”
Tobin lifted his eyes and saw that Caine was standing beside a massive wooden door that he’d opened wide.
“Hell yeah,” he replied a little more enthusiastically than he’d wanted.
Tobin picked up the pace but didn’t move so quickly that he couldn’t take in the rest of the majestic sights around him: perfectly manicured topiary, miles of flawless interlocking bricks, grass that looked as if it were trimmed with nail cutters.
This could be—no, this will be me, Tobin thought. It will. As soon as I see Jan again… it will be me.
By now, Tobin had given up acting cool. He was in absolute awe.
The floor in the central foyer was made of a single massive slab of marble, which butted against the landing of two winding staircases on either side. Hanging between them was a massive chandelier that weighed a thousand pounds if an ounce.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Caine closed the door behind him and chuckled.
“This place… it’s amazing,” Tobin nearly gasped.
Caine said something, but Tobin didn’t even hear the man. He was too busy pretending that this was his home, Chad’s home.
“This way.”
Caine led them down a wide hallway, past a high-end kitchen full of stainless appliances. For some reason, Tobin felt a strong urge to see the kitchen in full light and he reached for the switch located on the wall.
“Naw, let’s keep it dark,” Caine suggested.
Tobin lowered his hand.
“Sure,” he said absently.
As Caine dipped into an adjacent room, Tobin strode forward. He intended to follow Caine, but his eyes were drawn to something reflective in the opposite direction.
It took him a second to realize that it was a mirror. And Tobin never walked by a mirror without at least a quick look.
What is that?
He moved closer, squinting at the reddish-orange stain on his white beanie.
“Chad?”
Tobin shook his head and tore his eyes away from his reflection.
“Coming!”
Maybe I don’t even need to be famous… maybe I just need to stay with this Caine guy.
Tobin was smiling when he hurried into the room that he’d seen Caine duck into.
Only the man wasn’t there. In his place was a massive, hairy beast and at more than eight feet tall, it towered over him. Tobin stumbled backward, only to have his progress blocked by something— or someone—behind him.
Tobin shrieked.
“Relax,” Caine said in a calm tone. “It’s not real.”
Confused, Tobin moved toward Caine’s voice, but didn’t dare take his eyes off the huge shape that had accosted him.
“It’s stuffed,” the man informed him.
Tobin cautiously craned his neck forward to get a better look.
Caine was right; it was a bear, a gigantic black bear rearing up on its hind legs, and it was indeed stuffed. This made it no less terrifying, however. The animal’s mouth was spread wide, revealing long yellow teeth. Moonlight crept in from a bay of sliding doors and reflected off the solid black eyes.
Tobin shuddered and looked away, only for his gaze to fall on another stuffed beast. This one was some sort of warthog or a similarly disgusting animal.
“What the hell? What is all this stuff?”
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, Tobin realized in horror that the entire room was filled with stuffed wildlife. Everything from a fox to what might have been a tiger, to a ten-point buck.
“Oh, just a little hobby of mine,” Caine said from behind Tobin. “Freelance taxidermist,” he added, with a chuckle.
“Mad creepy, is what it is,” Tobin replied without thinking. After the words left his mouth, he looked nervously over his shoulder at Caine, hoping that he hadn’t offended the man.
Don’t fuck this up, Chad. Don’t you dare fuck this up.
But Caine looked anything but upset. He still had a grin plastered on his handsome face.
Tobin swallowed, trying to persuade his heart to stop pounding through his ribcage.
“Maybe we should—”
“—have another bump?” Caine finished for him.
Tobin was going to suggest that they get out of this room, but the man’s idea was equally as appealing.
Caine gently guided Tobin away from the animals, which had been oddly lined up near a wall of foldaway glass doors. If it weren’t for the fact that they were all positioned with their faces inward, Tobin might have thought they were arranged that way as some sort of highly effective theft deterrent.
Shit, he couldn’t even imagine trying to break into this place and come across these wild beasts. Even the most hardened of B and E experts would be running for the hills.
“Come on, they’re not going to bite.”
Caine directed Tobin to a table on the other side of the room, far from the stuffed animals. One look at the leather couch in front of it, and Tobin couldn’t resist plopping himself down.
On the center of the table was a mirror. On the center of the mirror was a pile of white powder.
The sight of all this cocaine—at least a couple thousand dollars’ worth—was enough to make him forget about voyeuristic taxidermized animals.
Tobin reached forward, but then stopped. Caine was still behind him, hovering.
“Can I… can I have some?” he asked.
Caine chuckled again but made no move to join Tobin on the couch.
“Of course. That’s why it’s here. To enjoy.”
Tobin was having a hard time getting a read on the man. The idea of someone of Caine’s wealth picking him up at a club and then bringing him back here was a little strange, to say the least. Tobin figured that people like Caine used discrete high-end services to satisfy their… needs.
He probably never does this… he just saw me and knew.
With these thoughts running through his head, Tobin helped himself to another bump of cocaine. It
was just as good, if not better, than the coke at the club.
Tobin licked his finger, collected the remnants of the line of coke he’d just snorted, and rubbed it on his gums.
They instantly went numb.
“You’re strange, you know that?” he said, closing his eyes and slumping back into the comfortable cushions.
“Sure do.”
Eyes still closed, Tobin reached up with both hands. His seeking fingers found Caine’s short hair and he gently pulled the man’s face down to meet his.
The kiss was sloppy and awkward, something that Tobin attributed to the angle and his numb lips and gums.
Still, it felt good and left Tobin wanting more.
How long has it been since I’ve had any action?
The last sexual encounter Tobin could remember was a sloppy blowjob in the back seat of a Chevy he’d gotten after a horrible Grindr date.
To his surprise, Caine took Tobin’s wrists in his hands and eased them away from his face and hair.
Then the man pulled back and stood up straight.
“What’s wrong?” Tobin asked, swiveling his head around.
“Nothing, I just need to get something. A surprise. Wait here a sec?”
Tobin made a face.
“Hell no.” He gestured toward the stuffed animals. “Don’t leave me here with these creepy things.”
Caine laughed. Whereas before this sound was soothing, now it was dry and brittle like frozen leaves.
“Just a second,” the man pleaded. His eyes were dark like those of the bear that had nearly given Tobin a heart attack. “It’s a surprise. Just help yourself to some more coke and I’ll be right back.”
Tobin started to rise, but Caine was already backing away from him. Within seconds he lost the man in the shadows.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered.
His radar, previously muted by everything that had happened to him over the past week or so, was now on high alert.
Tobin didn’t like surprises, and he didn’t like rejection, either. And that’s what this felt like… like Caine was rejecting him.
But why bring me here, then? To his home? Why go to all that trouble just to turn me down?
Tobin’s eyes drifted to the stuffed bear and he shuddered.
Almost Infamous (Detective Damien Drake Book 9) Page 8
