Running From Empty (Men of the Vault Book 3)

by Aria Grace

  I reach for the box of tea and hold it up. “You want a cup of tea?”

  “Sure.” He slides onto the stool in front of the breakfast bar and folds his hands in front of himself as if he doesn’t know what else to do with them.

  With his shaggy bangs falling into his eyes, he reminds me of myself at his age. I always hated getting haircuts. Now I’m religious about them, but as a kid, grooming was the last thing on my mind.

  Ian manages to avoid eye contact for a full three minutes before opening his mouth again. He gapes for a moment as if he’s finally ready to speak, but that’s exactly the same moment the kettle whistles, interrupting whatever he’s about to say.

  After pouring the boiling water over the tea pouches to steep, I pull a stool around the counter and have a seat across from Ian. Staring, I just watch him until he finally opens his mouth again.

  “This is a nice apartment. Cool view.”

  “Thank you.” I glance out the window, completely in agreement with him. The view of the bustling city below us is the whole reason I bought this place. “There’s top-notch security on every floor and at every exit.” I raise an eyebrow in his direction, only half teasing. “It’s reassuring to know that nothing will ever go missing while I’ve got my back turned.”

  The neutral expression on Ian‘s face quickly morphs into a frown. “I’m not gonna steal anything. I wouldn’t do that. I swear.”

  “Good. I’m glad we agree on that.” I hold the steaming cup to my lips and gently blow across the top, dissipating some of the heat so I can take a sip. “So, what’s your story?”

  His eyes go wide and he looks terrified. “What are you talking about? I already told you my story.”

  “No, you told me what you thought I expected to hear. What’s your real story?” I cock my head and look right at him. “And don’t bullshit me. I see hundreds of kids like you coming in and out of my office. I know you haven’t been on the streets for long. So why are you here now?”

  His mouth opens again but this time, words actually come out. “My mom died. She was my only real family, so I figured I’d come out here and start a new life.”

  I can tell there’s some truth to what he’s saying, but he’s not telling me everything. He’s holding something back, but the hurt in his eyes isn’t an act. He’s definitely lost someone he loved.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. But starting over isn’t as easy or glamorous as it sounds. You must have friends back home who will support you through this tough time. You should be in school right now.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I graduated high school in June, a week before Mom died. And any plans I had for going to college were shot when my grades started to slip because I was trying to take care of her.”

  Shit. This kid has had it pretty rough. A different kind of rough than I experienced at his age, but not necessarily easier or better. Being disowned by my family was hard, but there was a certain comfort in knowing they were still alive. I can’t imagine what Ian went through, losing his only relative while trying to finish high school. “She didn’t leave you anything?”

  His eyes drop down to the mug in front of him. “She left a few things, and but not anything really useful.” Ian’s eyes quickly connect with mine before he tucks his chin to his neck and looks away.

  “What about your dad?”

  Ian‘s fingers flex and bend as he adjusts his grip on the hot mug. “He doesn’t want me.”

  “You guys don’t get along? Where have you been staying since your mom died?”

  “With my fake dad. Well, my stepdad, I guess you would call him.” He sighs and puts the mug down. “Look, if things get bad, I can go back to his place, but that’s a last resort.”

  “Why is that? Does he hurt you?” This kid didn’t seem abused. I’ve seen a lot of abuse victims and they all wear the scars—either on their bodies or in their mannerisms. And other than not getting along with his stepdad, it sounds like Ian has had a decent life. It makes me wonder if his stepdad is worried sick about him right now.

  Ian rolls his eyes like I’m being obtuse. “No, not physically. But he’s lied to me my whole life, and when I needed him to be honest with me, he refused.”

  “Honest about what?”

  Ian just stares at me for a moment as if trying to convey something with just his eyes. Unfortunately, I have no clue what he wants to tell me. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t trust him, and I’m sure he’s happy that I’m finally out of his hair. I’ve been living with him full-time since Mom died in June, and let’s just say that things have been tense.”

  “Will you at least tell him you’re okay? You don’t have to tell him where you’re at, but if he’s got some missing person report out on you, I don’t want to go to jail because you’re staying in my place.”

  When Ian sits up a little straighter, I realize my mistake. Replaying the words in my head, it did sound like that was an offer to let him stay longer than one night. Technically I wasn’t, but now that it’s out there, I can’t exactly take it back. Besides. I don’t think I can put him out on the street. He doesn’t seem to have the kind of street cred that you need to survive on your own in a place like Vegas.

  “I think I’ll be fine for just one night…” he says quietly, but the hope in his eyes is unmistakable.

  “The thing is, I’ll probably only be here for a night or two until I’m feeling better. Then I have to go back to the compound. I don’t like to be away for more than a few days at a time.”

  Ian’s posture relaxes, and he leans back in the chair. “Yeah, of course. Don’t worry about my stepdad. I’m sure he’s already forgotten about me.”

  “How long have you been gone?”

  He takes another step of his tea then focuses on the steam still rising from his mug. “About a week.”

  I glance at my watch to check the time. It’s the middle of the night so there isn’t much to do right now. After taking a minute to consider I options, I give in to the side of myself that always gets me into trouble. “If you call him in the morning and let him know you’re safe, you can stay for a couple days. I’ll make some calls and see if anyone I know is hiring. That’s the best I can do.”

  Ian bites the inside of his cheek and then gives me a faint smile. “Deal.”

  4

  Ian

  The apartment is silent when I wake up. Slivers of sunlight peek through the drapes, allowing just enough light for me to get to the bathroom without tripping over anything. After a quick shower, I change into the cleanest clothes I can find in the bottom of my bag, then head into the main living area to see if Tanner is awake.

  The drapes are drawn in here, so there’s more light, and my eyes are immediately drawn to a piece of paper and some cash on the dining table.

  Ian,

  Still feel like shit. There’s a drugstore two blocks on the left. I could use some Dayquil and whatever decongestant the pharmacist recommends. Keep the change. By the way, Rosa will come in around noon to clean and leave some food. Don’t be alarmed if you see her.

  – Tanner

  PS we’ll call your dad when I wake up.

  There are three twenty-dollar bills on the table, and I can’t help but feel like this is Tanner’s way of giving me an out. He’s letting me leave before I have to call Landon and even offering me some cash for the trip.

  But I’ve come too far to walk away now. I came here to find my birth father, and now that I have, I’m not going to leave until he makes me. I carefully fold the cash inside the note and slip both into my pocket. With the paper gone, I see a key card that was hidden underneath it. I guess he figured if I wasn’t planning to come back, I wouldn’t find the key. But I’ll prove to him that I’m not the piece of shit he probably thinks I am.

  I’ll prove to him that I can be a son worth wanting—worth keeping.

  The trip to the drugstore is quick, and I don’t spend a penny of his change. When I get back with Tanner’s medicine, I leave the receipt and all
his change on the dining table next to my purchases. I picked up a burger and fries with my own money, so I sit on the couch and eat my breakfast. It’s almost eleven, so it’s closer to lunch, but it’s the first food I’ve had in almost twenty-four hours, so I don’t care about what to call it.

  I’m daydreaming, mesmerized by the people and cars passing on the street below when the door clicks, and a woman walks inside. She’s an older woman with a blue smock and several bags in her arms. Instinctively, I jog over to help her carry the two heaviest bags and set them on the counter.

  “Thank you, mijo. I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.”

  Tanner must have warned her about me because she doesn’t seem surprised to find me in the apartment. “Yeah, I’m Ian, and you must be Rosa.”

  She pulls a small bottle of orange juice from the bag and hands it to me. “Yes, I’m Rosa. Now give this to your brother. He sounded like death when I talked to him this morning.”

  Brother? Where the hell did that come from? “Oh, Tanner isn’t my brother.”

  She stops pulling containers out of the bag and looks intently at my face. “No? You look so much alike. You could be his twin…just a few years younger.”

  My heart starts racing at her assumption. Will she guess the truth before I tell Tanner? I was stupid to assume I could live in his home and keep this secret to myself. But do we really look that much alike? I saw a small resemblance when I first met Tanner, but I didn’t realize I have enough of his features that a stranger would recognize them.

  And, like an idiot, I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling. I shouldn’t be proud of the fact that I look like him. I shouldn’t want our connection to be obvious.

  But I am.

  I do.

  At least until I turn toward Tanner’s bedroom and see him standing in the doorway with a deep scowl on his face.

  Shit.

  Despite having bloodshot eyes and a red nose, the fury and confusion on Tanner’s face is unmistakable.

  He’s starting to get it.

  I walk towards him but stop a few feet away, waiting for him to tell me to get the hell out of his home and his life. The weight of his stare as he inspects every inch of me is almost too much to bear. I want to walk out and never come back just to avoid hearing the rejection I know is coming. I can’t look at him, so I focus my gaze on his bare feet. Damn, I even have his feet.

  At least a full minute passes with me just standing in front of him while Rosa busies herself in the kitchen before Tanner crosses his arms over his wide chest. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  I bite my lip and shake my head. “Maybe I should just go.”

  Tanner steps back and waves his arm toward the sitting area in his room. “Maybe you should have done that yesterday. But you didn’t. So now you’re gonna tell me the truth.”

  My heart is racing so fast I’m afraid it’s going to burst right out of my chest. What will he do when I tell him the truth? Can I even force the truth out of my cowardly lips? I couldn’t tell him yesterday, how the fuck am I going to do it now? He was starting to trust me and I’ve ruined that. He even gave me money and the key to his apartment, for god’s sake.

  That has to mean something, and I’m about to lose whatever tenuous trust he has in me. When he finds out who I really am, I’m sure he’ll never want to speak to me again. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kick my ass and dump me out on the street. But I can’t avoid it any longer.

  I glance back toward Rosa, suddenly grateful for the presence of another adult. She seems nice, and I don’t think he would hurt me in front of her. If I’m lucky, I’ll be walking out of here with my small bag of belongings before she finishes cooking lunch. “I shouldn’t have come. This was a mistake.”

  I take a step back, but Tanner reaches for my wrist and tugs me farther into his room. “We all make mistakes, kid. And right now, you and I are both going to lay ours out on the line.”

  With a slow exhale, I follow him in and drop into the upholstered chair by the window. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  Tanner walks back to the bedroom door and closes it, cutting off my only hope that he’s going to keep things calm.

  As soon as Tanner falls into the chair across from me, he holds out his hand to take the bottle of orange juice I forgot I’m still holding. He opens the bottle and drinks half of it in one breath before putting it down on the table between us.

  Without breaking the intense stare he’s holding me under, he asks the only question necessary to learn why I’m here. “Who is your mother?”

  5

  Tanner

  I know exactly what he’s going to say before he says it, but the sting isn’t any less painful when Ian mutters the name I’ve repressed so deeply in my memory that I hardly recognize it.

  “Melissa Grantham.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and lean back, unable to grasp that this is actually happening. I’ve slept with exactly one woman in my life. One time.

  I didn’t see a strong resemblance when I first met Ian, but now that Rosa has pointed it out, all I can see is myself in the young man in front of me. I can’t even believe this is possible.

  It takes several deep breaths to ground myself before I lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs with my hands clasped between my knees. “And your dad?”

  Ian cocks an eyebrow as if the answer is obvious.

  “Your stepdad,” I growl out, frustrated and terrified by the name I know he’s about to say.

  “Landon Johnson.”

  Fuck.

  My head falls forward as I try to catch my breath. Landon Johnson. The only person I’ve ever loved. The only person I could have left my friends and family to protect. The man who has apparently raised my son when I was too weak to stay in town long enough to know he even existed.

  After a few minutes, I sit up straight and open the bottle of orange juice. It would taste a hell of a lot better with a few fingers of vodka in it, but my head is foggy enough without the added effects of alcohol. And I need to understand every word he has to say so I can figure out where to go from here.

  “Start at the beginning.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Ian pours his heart out to me, starting on the day when he realized Landon wasn’t his biological dad, even though he’d always been treated like the man’s flesh and blood. I’m not surprised by this at all. Landon was a good guy from the day we met on the first day of fifth grade. We were both new to the school that year and immediately gravitated to each other. By the time we were in seventh grade, I knew I was in love with him. And when he kissed me behind the gym after the last dance of that year, I knew he loved me too.

  Of course, even in the generally liberal state of Colorado, our town was still highly religious and coming out wasn’t an option. By the time we were in high school, we both decided it was easier not to be gay. Landon had a girlfriend before Christmas of our freshman year and was on his third before summer.

  I wanted to move on as easily as he did, but I couldn’t. Every time I looked at him, my heart sang with joy. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t feel that kind of happiness with anyone else, especially not a girl. So, when Landon and Melissa got together during our sophomore year, I embraced her, hoping to stay in Landon’s life long enough to figure out how to have him as my own. We were all close friends, and even though Landon’s feelings for me weren’t as strong as mine were for him, I always felt loved by my best friend.

  Then one night, he invited me to a sleepover at his house when his parents were out of town. I thought it was my turn with him and he was finally ready to give in to the feelings we’d been hiding for so long. I showed up at his door with enough lube and condoms to last the entire weekend, expecting to finally get my chance at happiness.

  What I didn’t expect was to find was Melissa, naked in his room, when I followed him in. She said she knew I liked Landon and she liked us both, so if I was game, we could all be together. It wasn’t ideal, but
when I saw the hope and love in Landon’s eyes, I couldn’t say no. If the only way I could have him was with Melissa in the mix, that was okay with me. And despite being awkward kids who didn’t know what we were doing, we made love to each other with delusions of what our future could hold.

  Until Landon’s aunt walked in on us.

  Married to an elder in our church, she wasn’t exactly open-minded when it came to sexual exploration. The old hag nearly had a heart attack when she saw Landon plowing into me while I came inside Melissa. I barely noticed she was there with all my focus on what Landon was doing to me until she started screaming and hitting Landon with her purse. Landon immediately pulled out of me and tried to come up with excuses as to how he accidentally fell into my virgin ass…but the damage was done.

  In the end, my parents were utterly humiliated and gave me the choice of leaving quietly or going to a reprogramming camp for “confused and immoral young men.”

  I begged Landon to leave with me. I had some money saved and knew there were ways to make money in Vegas even before you were a legal adult.

  But he refused to leave. And I never saw him again.

  When Ian gets to the part of his story about walking into The Vault, a rush of shame I’ve never experienced since that day in Landon’s parents’ room washes over me. My son offered to become a prostitute for me. Holy fuck, what had my life become?

  “Hold up.” I stand and walk to the window, needing some distance before having this conversation. “What would you have done if I’d hired you? What if I asked you to bend over my desk and let me fuck you? Do you have any idea what could have happened?” I can’t even look at Ian, too ashamed of myself to see the disgust and embarrassment in his eyes.

  “Obviously, I would have said something before things got to that point. I didn’t think you’d hire me, and I wasn’t actually looking for a job there. I just wanted…you know.”

  I pull my forehead from the warm glass I’m resting it on and turn to look at Ian. His head is bowed, probably feeling just as awkward as I am. “No, Ian. I don’t know.”