by R. Cayden
“Got it,” Gunner said, nodding eagerly. I could taste his excitement, a feeling I knew well from running jobs when I was young.
“You’ll see me disappear into the building,” I said. “From there, your job is just to keep an eye down both streets. You’ll want to keep a steady pivot.” I turned my head to demonstrate, clocking my line of sight to the left, straight ahead, and to the right. “And never let your attention wander.”
“What exactly is he looking for?” Malcolm asked.
“Anyone who might approach the building,” I answered. “The second someone does, Gunner, you do two things. First you text me code red, and then you drive away.”
“I drive away?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah, right. Not until you get your ass back in the truck.”
I shook my head sharply. “I can get myself out of the building, no problem. But having a truck hanging around out front just looks suspicious, on top of putting you in danger. You drive away, go a couple of miles, and wait to hear from me.” I caught his eye, holding it. “I’ll be fine. And if you follow my instructions, you’ll be fine, too.”
He nodded, seeming to hear me clearly. “Okay, I can do that.”
I made him say it back to me a few times to be sure, then rose to my feet.
“Already?” Malcolm asked. He looked nervous, and he kept fidgeting his hands together.
“Now is the time,” I said. “And don’t worry, Malcolm. No one is going to get hurt.”
He stood up suddenly, his hands falling to his side. “I know that you know what you’re doing,” he said, “and I appreciate it, but I need one thing.”
I nodded, indicating he should continue.
“I need to come with you.”
I shook my head quickly. “No way. There’s no need for you, and that means there’s no need to put you in harm’s way. Having extra company is just a liability.”
“I’m the whole reason you’re doing this in the first place,” Malcolm said, his voice steady. “It’s not right for you to go and for me to stay behind like I’m scared or something.”
Gunner put his arm on Malcolm’s shoulder. “No one thinks you’re scared, my prince. We just want to take care of this for you.”
Malcolm turned to Gunner. “If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for me.”
The determination in his eyes was fierce, something I hadn’t seen before from Malcolm. The more he came out of his shell, the more I thought he really could handle those kinds of situations.
“Okay,” I said. “Sure.”
Gunner looked stunned. “Really?”
I rubbed my chin. “I’ve thought about the plan a million times,” I said. “I’m confident it’s safe and that it will work. I know Malcolm is a reasonable, smart guy.” I nodded, the idea making more sense as I said it. “If he says he can handle the job, I believe him.”
“That’s great,” Malcolm said, grabbing Gunner’s arm. Gunner smiled and pulled Malcolm a little closer.
I rubbed my hands together, glad to give them what they wanted. “Let’s make it happen,” I said. “Do me proud, boys.”
MALCOLM
We pulled up to the old brick building, the street nearly empty. Huge industrial buildings loomed down the street, casting long shadows.
It looked like I’d be hiding another story from my parents at Sunday dinner that evening.
Gunner turned off the ignition but left the key dangling there. Maddox pushed the door open but stayed put for a second, glancing down the street. With his arm thrown over the back of the seat, he looked so damn sexy, I couldn’t stop thinking about how powerfully he had topped Gunner and how the force of his thrusts rocked me to my core.
“Any questions?” he asked.
“Stay here, keep looking,” Gunner answered, pulling out a cigarette. “Got it.”
He rolled down the window and lit his cigarette while Maddox crossed the street, wandering to the side of the building with a casual strut. I held my breath as he pulled open the door and slipped inside, then released it with a puff.
“Cool,” Gunner said to himself, blowing smoke out the window.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice coming out kind of dreamy.
Gunner glanced out of me out of the corner of his eye, then straightened his back. “Do you want to invite him to hang around after we’re done? Maybe try to seduce him back to the bed again?”
I laughed softly. “You ready to take him again?”
Gunner scoffed. “Not quite. Maybe some other time, but I think that’s a special occasion, you know what I mean?”
“Do you think there will be some other times?” I asked. “He hasn’t really said anything to imply that he’s sticking around.”
Gunner turned to me, dangling his cigarette out the window. Then his eyes got wider. “I almost forgot to tell you,” he said. “The other bartender at work has two boyfriends.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! I just met him for a minute last night, but I guess they’ve been together for a while.” He tapped his finger against the wheel. “That’s pretty cool, right?”
I hadn’t even told my parents that I was dating one tattooed guy. I couldn’t imagine how they would flip their lids if I tried to bring home both of them. “I’ve never really considered something like that,” I said. “Not in a real way.”
Gunner reached down, taking my hand and squeezing it. “I mean, I’m into you, Malcolm, no matter what. But if Maddox were up for more, I think I would be, too. Would you?”
I gazed back across the street, studying the brick building. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, what could be hotter than a guy breaking into some dangerous building just to help me out?”
Gunner stared at me for a second after I said that, and it was like the wheels were spinning in his mind. After a moment, he released my hand and pushed the door open.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I asked as he jumped out of the truck, throwing his cigarette to the ground.
“I just want to see inside,” he said. “I just want to get a look.”
He started walking across the street, and I jumped out of the truck. “Gunner!” I said. “That isn’t the plan!”
Gunner glanced down both streets, which were each as empty as when we arrived. “No one is going to show up,” he said. “Anyway, Maddox is probably done.” He turned to grab my hands, looking me in the eye. “It’s chill,” he said. “I’m just going to stick my head inside and make sure he doesn’t need help moving stuff out or whatever.”
I scrunched up my face and let out a whiny noise. “Gunnerrrrr,” I said, drawing his name out as long as I could. “It’s a bad idea.”
He squeezed my hands, then leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. “Don’t worry,” he said again. “I just need to be inside. With Maddox. Okay?”
He turned, releasing my hands and hurrying across the road. I watched, my lip trembling, as he followed Maddox’s steps into the building, his hips swaying as he slid through the door. For a moment I stood there, alone in the middle of the street, listening to the distant sounds of trucks passing. When my heart kept thumping in my chest and I started to feel like I was about to panic, I did the only thing that made sense.
I rushed to my guys.
The old metal door creaked when I pulled it open, and I saw a single light on at the end of the dark hallway inside. I sucked in a deep breath of air, then stepped inside. “Gunner,” I whispered. “Gunner! Come back out now!”
“Hey!’ he whispered sharply, appearing from the shadows in front of me. “I’m right here!”
I pointed down the hall. “Why aren’t you with Maddox?” I hissed.
His eyes flashed in the dim light, and I was struck all over by how handsome he looked. “Come look at this,” he said. “Look what I found.”
Gunner had the light on his cell phone pointed into one of the small offices. I could tell from the plastic card stuck in the lock that he had found his own way to break in, just lik
e Maddox had down the hall. I followed the circle of light made by his phone, gasping when I saw what it landed on.
Gunner had opened a small briefcase on the table. Shoved inside were stacks of cash, with a very large plastic bag of white powder laying on top of the bills.
“What the hell!” I whispered. “Gunner! We shouldn’t be here!”
“The guys who own your building are running drugs, too!” he said. “We have to tell Maddox!”
“What!” Maddox announced suddenly. His body blocked the doorway, and unlike us, he wasn’t whispering. “What are you doing in here?”
Gunner gestured to the briefcase again. “I found this!” he said, so excited he seemed to have forgotten he broke Maddox’s rules. “I found something we can use.”
“Fuck,” Maddox growled, a stack of manila folders tucked under his arm. “Fuck!”
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry that we came inside. We shouldn’t have done that, Maddox.” With everything going on, for some reason, the only thing I was worried about was making him angry. I knew what it looked like when I impressed him, and I did not want to see his face when he was disappointed in me.
Maddox crossed over, flinging the briefcase shut. “Where did you find this?” he asked.
Gunner pointed behind the desk. “It was just sitting there,” he said softly.
“Put it back exactly as you found it,” Maddox commanded. “If there’s no one on lookout, we have to get out of here immediately.”
Gunner fumbled with the suitcase for a minute, shoving it back behind the desk. When he was done, Maddox grabbed us by the elbows, hurrying us outside. He kept cursing under his breath, scolding himself for making the wrong call. When he kicked the door to the outside open, the sunlight made me flinch.
“Thank god,” Maddox said. “No one.”
He hurried us across the street, not saying a word. I hopped into the middle seat, and Gunner started the truck up. We caught each other’s eyes for just a minute. Gunner looked tense, like he had really messed up.
We drove in silence, the air thick with tension. Maddox kept grinding his jaw and tapping his knuckles on the window. I felt sweat pouring down my neck, and it took all my strength not to start hyperventilating.
Gunner pulled onto the highway, speeding down an incline. Finally, he broke through the silence. “Maddox, I want you to know—”
“Wait,” Maddox said sharply. “Drive to the Steel Rose. It’s too risky to go straight to your place. We’ll talk at the bar.”
I felt horrible on the drive. I failed Maddox, and I failed Gunner, too. I should have stopped him from going inside, and now Maddox was realizing that Gunner and I weren’t the men he thought we were. My insides were ripping with guilt, but all I could do was sit there, biting my lip and waiting.
When we entered the bar, Maddox pointed at a table in the back. He ordered himself a beer from the tattooed man working while Gunner and I sat there, anxiously holding hands and waiting for him.
“Fuck,” Gunner said. “I screwed it up.”
I squeezed his hand, but before I had a chance to say anything, Maddox joined us again. He took a deep gulp from his mug of beer, and when he lowered it, there were droplets of foam on his stubble.
“You’re damn lucky my uncle doesn’t bother with security cameras,” he said flatly.
I breathed out a sigh, relieved just to hear his voice. “No one saw us,” I said.
Maddox nodded. “I know that. But even so…” He tightened his hand into a fist, then bumped it against the table. “I didn’t know he was moving cocaine,” he said. “I didn’t know the money would be there, either. That changes everything.”
“We can use it, though,” Gunner said. “We can blackmail him or something.”
Maddox shot air through his nose, obviously struggling to bury his anger. “That’s not happening,” he said through clenched teeth. “I got the papers I needed. There’s no way we could use the drugs against him, anyway. There’s no proof, and trying to move on it would just tip him off that someone was in his building.”
“But we’re safe,” I said quickly. “That’s what matters, right?”
Maddox started to nod his response. Then his eyes went wide, his gaze trained right to Gunner’s jacket. “What’s in your jacket pocket?” he asked.
Gunner’s jaw tightened, and he shook his head quickly. “What?”
“You heard me,” Maddox said, pointing at him across the table. “What’s in your jacket pocket?”
Gunner took a deep breath, then released it through his nose. He pulled his hand from mine, reached into his leather jacket, and pulled out a large bundle of cash.
Maddox’s hand shot across the table, covering the cash and pushing it back into Gunner’s jacket. “Keep that out of sight,” he whispered. He glanced around the room, then back to us. He was squinting, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. “Fuck,” he said to himself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Gunner turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed.
I felt dizzy trying to process what had just happened, and when I turned back to Maddox, he was already rising to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” Gunner repeated with his full voice. “You don’t have to leave, Maddox.”
Maddox waved his hand in the air. His eyes still looked worn with strain, and his face was crumpled into a frown. “I have to go,” he said. “I’m not making the right choices.”
“It’s okay,” I said, urgency rising up in my voice. “Gunner is sorry. You don’t have to leave, Maddox. It was just a mistake.”
“It was,” he said. “It was a mistake, and I’m sorry for that.”
Maddox paused for a moment, towering over the table and staring down at us with an ache in his eyes. After a few breaths, he leaned in and brushed each of our cheeks with a quick kiss. “I’ll find you when the time is right.”
“Wait,” Gunner said. “Let me drive you back to your bike, at least. We have more to talk about.”
But Maddox just turned on his heel and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Gunner
Malcolm and I sat across from each other on my mattress, the stack of cash between us.
Holy shit. That’s so much money.
Like, change my life kind of money.
I had gotten all excited when Lilith handed me a small stack of ones after barbacking Friday and Saturday, but this was out of control.
Malcolm adjusted his glasses, staring straight at it. “You really shouldn’t have done this,” he said.
“I know,” I groaned. “You keep saying that.”
“But now is not the time to focus on the mistakes we made,” he continued, talking to himself as much as to me. “Now we need to figure out what to do next.”
“Maybe Maddox’s uncle won’t realize the money is gone?” I said. “Maybe there are lots of suitcases full of money and drugs floating around the building?”
Malcolm kept staring at the cash, his eyes burning with intense concentration.
It was sexy. I could just imagine the way his big brain was working, puzzling out different ways we could deal with the money.
“There’s no way to return it,” he continued. “And if Maddox is confident that there weren’t any security cameras, I trust that we got away without anyone noticing us.”
I grabbed my cigarettes from the windowsill, my anxious energy building. When Malcolm wrinkled his nose a little, though, I put them back, figuring it was better to smoke outside anyway. “It sounds like you’re saying we got away with it,” I said, feeling a little proud.
Malcolm frowned. “Except that Maddox is mad now.”
I sighed, my heart tightening to think of the look on his face when he left the bar. “He’s just teaching us a lesson or something,” I said, only half-believing it.
“I just don’t understand why he didn’t take the money on his way out. Why would he leave it with us? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to take care of it himse
lf?”
I reached out to take Malcolm’s hand. He looked so worried and stressed. I just wanted to make him smile again. “I understand that he’s going to be mad at me,” I said, catching his eye. “But you don’t need to worry. He’s not going to hold what I did against you. Maddox is intense, but he’s fair, too.”
Malcolm stared at the ground, still frowning. “Why’d you do it, though?” he asked, turning back to look me in the eye. “Why didn’t you just put the briefcase back and leave?”
My heart tightened again. I’d already made a big enough mess of everything. I didn’t want to lie to Malcolm on top of it. “I don’t know,” I said as honestly as I could. “It was just so much money, more than I’ve ever seen. And I felt kind of high on the thrill of what we were doing, I guess. My heart was pounding, and I felt this urgent need to do something big, as big as what Maddox was doing for us.” I shook my head, trying to figure out how to explain the impulse to a guy like Malcolm. “It was just there. I knew I could take it, and I thought of how hard I’d always had to work, and I thought about the asshole who owned that suitcase…” I winced. “I wanted you to think I was every bit as much of a man as Maddox is.”
Malcolm’s face softened as I talked. All of a sudden, he pounced forward, landing against me and pulling me to the bed. His weight felt warm in my arms, and I let out a short laugh from the surprise of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Malcolm sat up, putting his glasses back on straight. “You know you don’t have to have a lot of money to impress me,” he said. “And you definitely don’t have to commit some major crime. I’m impressed by you all the time.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, moving the stack of money aside carefully as I sat back up.
“Yeah. You’re totally independent. You do what you want to do, instead of trying to make other people happy. You’re not afraid to take risks, and your heart is always in the right place.”
