“Mom!”
“I’m sorry, Levi, but you can’t expect me to be anything but pleased that those animals finally got what was coming to them.”
“We’re going to sue the pants off the Trenton Police Department too,” said Saul. “In fact, the first thing I’m doing tomorrow morning is calling Al Rosenberg to see if his firm will take the case.”
Getting his parents off the phone was no easy feat, given that they were consumed by their anxieties for him, but by the time they said their goodbyes, Levi was confident that they weren’t about to hop a flight west.
After he hung up, he chewed his lip while he considered his phone. He couldn’t call Alana’s answering service now. If his parents found out he’d sought acute mental health treatment, they’d rush straight to his side regardless of the danger. He couldn’t risk it.
Instead, he scrolled through his phone, scanning his texts and deleting his voice mails. Besides the deluge from his parents, Martine, Natasha, Adriana, and Leila had all attempted to contact him multiple times, though he couldn’t bring himself to return their messages just yet. There were also a few calls from other people he knew through work, as well as some numbers with no names attached that he would bet his last dollar belonged to reporters.
Buried in the middle of his voice mails was one from Stanton.
His eyes flying wide, Levi pressed Play and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Levi, it’s me. I read about what happened online, and I just wanted to see how you’re doing. Bridget said you didn’t want me to call you back after you left those messages a few days ago, but . . . I want to make sure you’re okay. Please call me.”
Levi cleared his aching throat and deleted the voice mail. Seven thirty here meant—what, four thirty in Geneva? He’d call Stanton back in the morning.
In the meantime, he knew he couldn’t sleep any more today, but if he didn’t find some kind of distraction, he really would go insane. He threw back the covers and padded over to the minibar.
Crouched on the floor with a tiny bottle of whiskey in one hand, he hesitated. Nothing said rock bottom like getting drunk alone in a hotel room. He should at least go to a bar, try to preserve some façade of normalcy.
People would stare, but once he had a few drinks in him, he wouldn’t mind so much. It was still preferable to drinking himself into a lonely stupor while mired in self-loathing.
And if someone did try to get in his face—well, that might not be so bad.
The only clothing Levi had was the blood-stained suit he’d left the substation in last night, but Vegas had no shortage of retailers open on Saturday nights. He ran out to stock up on the essentials before returning to his hotel to shower and change.
Even that brief foray made him reconsider his plan. Though nobody approached him, he felt the eyes on him everywhere he went, heard the sudden whispers that sprung up in his path. Many people went out of their way to give him the wide berth they would a medieval leper. Was he really going to subject himself to more of that?
As he wavered by the door, thinking he should drink alone in his room after all, a memory tugged at his brain. The day after he’d found Reddick in his car, Jasmine had called him to see how he was doing. In an effort to cheer him up—an attempt doomed to failure, though he appreciated it nonetheless—she’d chattered on about Adriana learning to ride at her parents’ farm, her wedding plans, her bachelorette party . . .
That was tonight, wasn’t it? Jasmine and Carlos were doing that thing where they started their parties separately and met at the end of the night. She’d mentioned that Dominic had set up one of those party bike pub crawls for the guys after dinner.
That meant Dominic was in a crowded bar right now, distracted by his friends. Which meant Levi could check on him from afar, see how he was doing, and reassure himself that Dominic hadn’t fallen apart after what Levi had done last night, without Dominic ever knowing he was there. If Levi knew Dominic was okay, maybe he’d feel better. He might not need to drink at all.
Once the possibility had occurred to him, there was no talking himself out of it. Those party bikes all traveled the same general route through the city’s touristy bars. He only had to check their websites for the likeliest places, catch an Uber Downtown, and duck into them one by one.
The third location he tried was Atomic Liquors, Las Vegas’s oldest freestanding bar and possibly its most famous. The place was packed from wall to wall, making progress through the crowd difficult, but he received no more than the occasional double take as he wove his way toward the bar. Of course, tourists would be less likely to recognize him than the city’s year-round residents.
Even among this many people, Dominic would stand out. Levi scanned the crush of tipsy bodies for those unmistakable dimensions, telling himself firmly that he was not a stalker. He’d dealt Dominic a low blow, and it wasn’t the kind of thing he could just call to apologize for. He needed to know he hadn’t done irreparable damage.
A burst of raucous laughter caught his attention. He looked across the bar at a cluster of rowdy men in the far corner and tensed.
Carlos was sitting in the middle of the group with a gaudy plastic crown tilted on one side of his head, his cheeks so red Levi could see the flush even from this distance. And sitting at an angle to him, with his face in profile to Levi, was Dominic. He was talking animatedly, gesturing with the bottle of beer he held. Though there was something off about his body language that Levi couldn’t quite place, he seemed fine. At least he was smiling.
Levi had been wrong. Seeing Dominic didn’t make him feel better. All it did was slam home the reality of what he’d done, the memory of Dominic’s shock and hurt, with such force that it drove him backward.
He had to get out of here. Choking on his remorse, he cleared his throat and turned around—
And his knees buckled, his vision grayed out, and he staggered sideways as he lost consciousness for the briefest of moments.
Fortunately, the crowd was thick enough that several people caught him before he hit the ground. He came back to himself surrounded by exclamations of concern, with two men supporting his arms as they helped him to the bar. A woman there vacated her stool immediately so he could sit down.
“I’m fine,” he said to the blurry sea of worried faces clustered around him. His ears were ringing, so he couldn’t make out their individual words, but he got the gist. “I’m fine, I’m not drunk, I just haven’t eaten—”
He tried to stand up, half in embarrassment that he’d passed out at a bar and half in desperation to get away before Dominic noticed the commotion. All he managed was to fall right back down again.
Someone handed him a glass of water, while someone else pushed a bowl of pretzels toward him. He muttered thanks, his cheeks flushing scarlet, and shot a panicked glance at the corner of the room.
His worst fears were confirmed when he saw both Dominic and Carlos staring at him, eyes wide and mouths open.
Fuck.
Scowling, Dominic lurched to his feet, stumbled, and caught himself on the back of his chair. When Carlos put a hand on Dominic’s arm, Dominic bent down to speak in his ear and pat his shoulder.
Levi was frozen in place, unable to look away as Dominic crossed the room toward him, clutching his beer bottle in one hand and listing from side to side with every step. People tried to get out of his way as best they could, and Levi didn’t blame them. Nobody wanted to be near a man Dominic’s size who was having trouble staying on his feet.
Dominic muscled through the few people still hovering around Levi. “What’re you doing here?” he asked with a distinct slur in his voice.
“You’re drunk,” Levi said incredulously, his own problems forgotten in the face of this startling development.
“It’s a fucking bachelor party.” Dominic flung his arm out to the side, almost clocking a woman in the face with his bottle, and the last of Levi’s Good Samaritans melted away as they caught onto the drama. “Of course I’m dru
nk.”
There was no of course about it. Levi had never seen Dominic drunk before, and that wasn’t a coincidence. Dominic made a point of not drinking to excess, because intoxication worsened his gambling cravings.
The bartender chose that moment to check on Levi. “Hey, man, you okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Fuck it. He was here anyway; he might as well drink. “Can I have an Old Fashioned, please?”
The bartender blinked, but then nodded with a shrug and moved away.
“Wow,” Dominic said. “Petty is such an attractive look on you.”
Levi sighed. Ever since their breakup, he hadn’t been able to stomach a Boulevardier. It depressed him too much.
Dominic pointed his bottle at Levi accusingly. “Seriously, though. Why are you here? You decided last night wasn’t bad enough, so you tracked me down for round two?”
“No! I just wanted to make sure you were okay; I didn’t mean for you to see me. Dominic, I . . .” Levi wasn’t sure Dominic would even remember this conversation tomorrow, but he forged ahead anyway. “I’m so sorry for what I did last night. It was unjustified and cruel, and I know an apology isn’t enough, but I want you to know how much I regret it. I’d do anything to take it back.”
“Well, you can’t. And you’re right, an apology doesn’t do shit. You know better than anyone else how I feel about people knowing those things about me, and you just shouted them out for everyone to hear.”
“I’m sorry,” Levi whispered helplessly.
Dominic tried to set his bottle on the bar but ended up knocking it over instead; it rolled away, dribbling beer onto the wooden surface as it went. “I don’t care! Do you have any idea how it feels to have someone you trust betray you that way?”
Levi pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“No, you don’t. Because I’d never do that to you. How would you like it if I’d told all those people what a needy fucking size queen you are?”
His hackles rising, Levi said, “Of course. You save your cruelty for when we’re alone.”
“See, your problem is that you can dish it out, but you can’t take it.” Dominic placed both his hands on Levi’s thighs, looming over him. “Whenever someone gives you a taste of your own medicine, you start playing martyr.”
Levi met Dominic’s glare with one of his own. He wasn’t intimidated by Dominic—never had been, never would be. Even furiously angry and wasted off his ass, Dominic wouldn’t physically harm him.
Too bad Levi would prefer physical pain to what he was feeling now.
“I don’t give a shit how anyone else treats me,” he said. “You’re the only one who makes it hurt so much.”
Dominic’s hands tightened on Levi’s thighs. A soft cough sounded next to them, and they both turned their heads.
“We gotta go, Dom,” Carlos said. “We’re due at the next stop in the tour.”
Dominic released Levi and straightened up, only to overcorrect his balance and sway dangerously backward. Both Levi and Carlos reached out to steady him, but Levi was the only one he jerked away from.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Dominic said to Carlos before tottering off into the crowd.
“I’m sorry,” said Levi. “I didn’t mean to cause problems. I was worried about him, and I meant to get in and out before you guys saw me.”
“It’s okay. Are you gonna be all right? It looked like you fell or something.”
Levi forced a weak smile. “Just stress. I’m fine, I promise. You should get going.”
“If you’re sure.” Carlos squeezed his shoulder and started after Dominic.
“Hey, Carlos? Congratulations.”
Carlos beamed. “Thanks.”
After Carlos and his bachelor party had made their rambunctious way out the door, Levi turned back to the bar to see his drink waiting in front of him. He snatched it up and drained half in one long swallow, then set the glass down and nursed the rest more slowly. He’d already passed out once today; no need for a repeat performance.
He was down to the last drops, his head propped morosely on one hand, when the person on the stool next to him got up and someone else sat down.
“For such an intelligent man, you make a lot of regrettable decisions,” said Sawyer.
Levi jerked his head up, as astonished by Sawyer’s presence as Dominic had been by his own. “Are you following me?”
“I didn’t have to.” Sawyer unbuttoned his suit jacket and rested his elbows on the bar. “People are Tweeting your location. If you don’t get out of here soon, there’s going to be Utopia gangbangers waiting to jump you again when you leave—only this time, you’ll be drunk and without Leila to back you up.”
“I can take care of myself,” Levi muttered.
Sawyer arched an eyebrow. “I really don’t think you can. See, a man who can take care of himself would have eaten today, which I know you haven’t because your face is sheet-white and half those Tweets said you fainted. A man who can take care of himself wouldn’t drink alone in a bar when half the city thinks he’s a serial killer, waiting for someone to pick a fight with him.”
Levi blinked.
“That’s why you’re still sitting here, isn’t it? I’m sure you talked yourself into believing some other reason, but the truth is that you’d love for someone to get in your face and give you an excuse to add some more bruises to your collection.”
Unable to meet Sawyer’s eyes, Levi pushed his empty glass away.
“I’m sure that would make you feel better,” Sawyer said. “For a few minutes, anyway. But those few minutes of relief wouldn’t be worth the consequences, Levi. For one thing, you’d do irreparable damage to your IA investigation.”
It was rare for Sawyer to address Levi by his first name, rarer still for him to be this serious, and Levi couldn’t quite muster up any outrage at the interference. “So you came here to make sure I don’t make your job more difficult?”
“Damn straight.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Levi’s mouth. “Well, you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to get in any fights.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. Last night, you punched a cop in a police station just because he was kind of a dick. You expect me to believe that if a stranger accosted you in this mood, you wouldn’t rip his head off? And that’s not even taking into account how Utopia is gunning for you after yesterday.” Sawyer cut Levi off before he could argue. “I’m not leaving you alone in this bar. End of discussion.”
Levi slumped on his stool, raking his fingers through his hair. He knew it would be monumentally stupid for him to get into any kind of physical altercation now, when his reputation, career, and possibly freedom hung in the balance. It would be just as stupid for him to get drunk on an empty stomach while he was this vulnerable. He just . . . he didn’t want to feel this way anymore, and he couldn’t think of any other way to dull the pain.
“Do you want to fuck me?” he said abruptly.
He had the unprecedented pleasure of seeing Sawyer speechless for a full five seconds. “Are you already drunk?” Sawyer said once he recovered.
“No. I’ve only had one drink tonight.” Levi pointed to his empty glass. “Look, you’ve been trying to get me on my back for years. Was that all talk, or is it something you actually want?”
Sawyer shook his head, though not in denial. “I can’t. You’re upset. It—it would be taking advantage.”
Levi snorted. “Let me break this down for you. There are two possible paths this night will take for me. One, I sit at this bar and keep drinking until I pass out. Two, you bring me home and screw me into the mattress—again, until I pass out. You see the common theme.”
“I . . .” Tapping his fingers on the bar, Sawyer looked at the surrounding crowd. “It’s not safe for you here.”
“Then take me to your place.”
Sawyer worried at his lower lip, studying Levi’s face. Then he nodded. “All right, let’s get out of here.”
/> Sawyer’s apartment was as showy and over-the-top as the man himself, every inch of the grand space boasting his wealth. Levi turned in a slow circle in the main room before looking at him expectantly.
Sawyer, who had been uncharacteristically reticent during the drive over, was still hanging back by the front door. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Levi crossed the room toward him in three long strides, grasped his lapels, and pulled him into a kiss—though he was momentarily thrown by the fact that he didn’t have to tip his head back to do so. He and Sawyer were the same height.
Sawyer moaned into the kiss, cupping Levi’s face with both hands. Levi let his own hands wander over Sawyer’s body, adjusting to the sensation of lean muscles and a narrow build not unlike his own.
When the kiss broke, he pressed his hips to Sawyer’s and said, “Where’s your bedroom?”
Sawyer proved to be an incredible lover —but then, Levi had expected nothing else. The man was far too vain to allow himself to be less than exceptional at anything he did.
He brought Levi off twice, first with his hands and mouth, then by giving Levi a long, hard fuck on elbows and knees until all of Levi’s muscles turned to jelly. The physical pleasure was undeniable, the orgasms truly satisfying.
But when it was over, Levi was left empty and cold, like all his insides had been scooped out and replaced with sawdust. Though the sex had been good, it hadn’t been anything close to what he wanted.
It hadn’t been Dominic.
Lying in the wreck of the giant bed, Levi glanced at the man beside him. Sawyer had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow next to Levi’s; he was snoring a little, blissfully oblivious to everything else in the room.
As Levi slipped out of bed and tiptoed around to gather his clothes, he realized this was the second time in a week that he’d snuck out after sex. That didn’t do much for his battered self-esteem.
At least he didn’t need to feel guilty about not waking Sawyer to say goodbye—if anything, a guy like Sawyer would appreciate being spared the awkward morning after.
One-Eyed Royals Page 20
