by Tate James
"Well shit, now I'm curious," he said with a laugh. "What did the recruiter say for him to respond like that?"
I snickered. "He said that they recruited and trained mercenaries. Or rather, that's their adopted term for assassins and spies. But he wanted highly skilled killers who could be controlled, not psychopaths or serial killers."
Lucas gaped at me in horror as he popped the Shelby door open and slid inside. "He called you a psychopath? To Zed?"
I nodded. "Sure did. It was luckily over the phone, or the Guild would have been looking for a new recruitment agent that day."
Lucas gave an easy laugh as he turned his cap backward again—groan—and started the car up. "Man, I'd love to have seen that interaction. Zed would have burst a blood vessel."
We drove for a few minutes in comfortable silence, the radio playing some 90s rock station that Zed always listened to, but I could tell Lucas had something on his mind.
"What's up?" I asked after some time. "I feel like you've got something to say."
He flicked a quick glance over at me and gave a small smile. "You're good at reading people."
I shrugged. "It comes in useful with my line of work. So?"
He drummed his finger against the steering wheel a couple of times, clearly thinking about his phrasing before speaking.
"You're good at reading people," he repeated, giving me a pointed look, "so why are you being so hard on Zed? It's clear to anyone with eyes how painfully in love with you he is. I don't believe for a second you haven't noticed."
Words failed me as I tried to formulate a reply to that. My eyes widened in surprise at his candidness, and my first instinct was to slam my walls up and retreat into Hades mode. But just one gentle look from Lucas had those same walls crumbling and leaving me open and vulnerable. Fuck.
"Look, don't get me wrong," he continued, throwing me a bone by giving me a hot second to gather my thoughts, "I love reaping the benefits of all that sexual tension, and I know Cass does too. But... I dunno. You guys love each other so much it hurts just watching you sometimes. And it's not even a question of picking someone. Cass and I have already proven we're happy to share. I think there's probably not much Zed wouldn't do for you too."
A hard lump of guilt formed in my throat, and I had to swallow before I could reply. "It's not that easy, Lucas."
He glanced over at me, his gaze calm and totally free of judgement. "I know. But that's why I'm asking, because I care about you, I love you, and Zed..." He trailed off and blew out a long breath. "Zed's not the worst, I guess. He's an okay dude. And he totally worships you, so I have to give some credit for good taste."
I bit the edge of my lip as a smile crossed my face. Lucas was so damn skilled at putting me at ease. Right at the point where a conversation turned way too personal, way too real, he somehow managed to relax me. It made the heavy subject feel like a casual chat. I loved that about him.
"It's not that easy," I repeated with a sigh, running my hand through my hair and staring out the window, "because I'm scared."
Oh fuck, did I seriously just admit that out loud?
"That's understandable," Lucas murmured. "But the best chances are always scary. If you could have seen how fast my heart was racing when I approached you at 7th Circle that night..." He flashed me a blinding smile when I glanced over at him, and I melted.
I didn't reply for a few minutes, and he placed his hand on my leg as he drove, silently reminding me that he was there for me, physically and emotionally.
"I'm scared," I whispered eventually, "that I'll lose my best friend. Zed's my safe place. He's the only person who has always had my back, no matter what. Even Demi questioned me when I came to her with the evidence of what my father was doing with the Lockharts, and Seph... well, Seph doesn't know any of it. But Zed never questioned me. Never made me second-guess myself. Never made me feel alone in my fight. He's my best friend, and I can't—" My voice cracked, and I drew a shaky breath. "I can't lose that. I'm terrified that without Zed, I'll lose myself. Even in my darkest days, he held onto my sanity—my humanity—for me, safeguarding it until I'd done what needed doing, then put it back where it belonged. What the fuck would I be today without him?"
Lucas didn't respond immediately, instead taking the time to really think about what I'd just confessed. He gave my opinion, my feelings, the respect of really listening to them and considering them before he formulated a thoughtful response.
"Why would that ever change?" he finally asked.
I blinked at him in confusion, my lips parting. "Because..." I had no quick reply. Why would that change? Because that's what happened when friends fucked. Everything changed.
"I'm only saying, Zed's already in love with you. He's probably been in love with you this whole time. And you with him. Finally admitting those feelings, finally accepting them... that's not going to change things. Not in the way you're afraid of, I don't think." Lucas drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove, his eyes on the road ahead. "In fact, I'd bet it would only strengthen what you've got. If you're worried he only wants to hit it and quit it, you're so, so wrong."
I spluttered a sound of shock at that statement, and Lucas shot me a wolfish grin.
"What?" he teased. "I know, first-hand, there's no man alive that would only want one night with you."
I gave a short laugh, shaking my head. "You're only saying that because you're madly in love with me." I was teasing, trying to lighten the intense mood in the car, but Lucas's gaze was dead serious when he turned his face to meet my eyes.
"Hell yeah, I am," he murmured. Then he licked his lips, and my nipples hardened. Shit's sake. "Anyway, just my perspective."
We drove in silence for a while, and his words rolled over and over in my mind, making me experience a whole rollercoaster of emotions. Eventually, I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
"You'd probably make a good psychologist one day," I told him. "You've got an impressive way of opening my—"
"Legs?" he guessed, grinning wide and shooting me a wink.
I rolled my eyes. "I was going to say my mind. But yeah, that too."
"It'd be an interesting area to study, for sure," he agreed. "I never really had a career plan before."
I smiled. "Well, you're almost finished with senior year... Do you want to go to SGU? I can get you enrolled."
Lucas arched a brow at me and gave a short laugh. "Nice subject change, babe. Subtle. So, so smooth."
We'd reached Zed's front gate and paused briefly to wait for the gates to open before continuing up to the house. Surely the guys’d had enough time to set up our little surprise for Lucas because I'd already kept him away several hours longer than planned. I sent a quick text to Zed letting him know we were back, just in case.
"Why do you look so mischievous?" Lucas asked suspiciously as we got out of the car.
"Hmm?" I batted my lashes up at him. "I'm not."
He clearly didn't believe me but didn't push the issue as we headed into the house. When we got to the courtyard, I pushed the doors open with dramatic flair.
"Happy Birthday!" I announced with a wide smile. The courtyard was all decorated as I'd instructed Cass and Zed with balloons everywhere and a huge cake from Nadia's on the table. No one else yelled happy birthday with me, though, and I glared death at Zed and Cass, who sat on the lounge with drinks in hand and unamused expressions on their faces.
"Seriously?" I glowered. "That's all the enthusiasm you could muster up?"
Zed and Cass exchanged a look, then Zed sighed. He sat forward and snagged a pair of pointed party hats from the table and placed one on Cass's head and one on his own. Meanwhile, Cass pulled a party blower from the seat beside him and gave it a loud honk as the sparkly streamer unfurled. All the while maintaining a dead straight face.
I glared at him, then shifted my attention to Zed, who was now waving a little flag that read "Happy tenth birthday" with colorful gumdrops all over it.
"You suck."
&nbs
p; An amused smile cracked his straight face. "You love it."
With a groan, I spun around to face Lucas and looped my arms around his neck. "They both suck. Happy late birthday, Lucas."
The grin on his face damn near lit up the night sky, and he kissed me hard. "This is incredible. You guys are amazing. I've never had a birthday party before."
Cass honked his blower again, the streamer smacking Zed in the cheek. "Well, you're in luck then. Red even sorted out presents." He held the blower between his teeth as he spoke, and it was ridiculously attractive. Actually ridiculous, with his party hat still on.
Lucas wrapped his arms around me, tucked his face into my neck, and kissed my skin. "Thank you, Hayden. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. No one can ever say otherwise."
I knew he was thinking about his mom, and it tightened my chest. But I couldn't even feel bad. I loved that he thought that about me. I loved Lucas. And I'd go to the ends of the earth to make him smile like that every damn day.
10
Sitting around the courtyard fire eating birthday cake and drinking Scotch, I could almost convince myself we were just normal people. Normal polyamorous people, not killers, gang leaders, teenaged strippers or ghosts.
"Okay," Cass announced after some time, placing his empty cake plate down on the table. He grimaced as he stood up. "Let's get this shit done before I'm too wasted to see straight lines."
He pulled a joint from his sling as he said that, bringing it to his lips, then indicated for Zed to toss him a lighter.
Lucas gave me a confused look. "Get what shit done?"
I just grinned back at him. "Your present from Cass. He has to leave tomorrow, so we figured tonight was perfect timing."
"C'mon, sport," Cass drawled, indicating with his head. "Time to sort out that scarring." He didn't wait to check if Lucas was following, just swaggered his sexy frame inside the house, and I gave Lucas a jab in the ribs to tell him to go.
Lucas still looked confused as hell, but he trusted us enough—or maybe he was just drunk enough—to follow Cass inside without asking any more questions.
All of a sudden that left Zed and I alone, and the sexual tension, which had started at a pleasant, warm thirty, ramped straight up to one hundred in a matter of seconds. He met my gaze over the fire, and my mouth went as dry as the fucking Sahara. Lucas's wise words were still echoing through my head, but... it was one thing to know a fact. It was a whole other thing to accept it and act on it.
I wasn't there yet. Nope. Not yet. So I took the coward’s path and rose to head inside as well. Except I needed to pass Zed to get around the fire, and he wasn't backing down so easily. He grabbed my wrist as I moved closer, holding me totally immobile with just his fingers.
"Dare, why are you being so fucking stubborn?" he asked in a rough whisper. It was a fair fucking question to any outsider, anyone who didn't know us or everything we'd been through together. But Zed knew. He knew so much more than I’d ever wanted him to know... and I couldn't get that out of my head.
Everything I'd told Lucas in that car had been the truth, but there was more to it. There was so much pain and desperation tangled up in my history with Zed, and I couldn't shake it. I hadn't made peace with my own past enough to take Zed out of the friendzone completely. It was all so much worse now that I knew he'd seen what Chase had done to me on those recordings.
My whole body shuddered as the memory slammed into the front of my mind, and I stifled a gasp. I wasn't... Nope, no way. I wasn't remotely ready to deal with those memories yet, and I couldn't take things further with Zed without addressing those issues.
"Hey," he murmured, standing up but not releasing my wrist. He wasn't holding tight, and his thumb stroked gently over my pulse point as he tilted my face up with his other hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel—"
"It's fine," I croaked, cutting him off before he could elaborate on what emotion he'd just recognized in my eyes. "I'm just..." I trailed off with a small shrug and a bitter laugh. "Really fucking damaged."
Zed gave a small shake of his head, his gaze holding mine as his fingers brushed over my cheek. "That's where you're wrong." His voice was so soft, his lips barely moving as he spoke. "You're a diamond, Dare. All the shit you've gone through, all the damage Chase tried to make stick? It's just revealing more of your shine."
My breath caught as he leaned in, but this time it was just a gentle kiss to my cheek. This time he was the one to walk away. Frozen, I could do nothing but stare after him, then with a long exhale I sank my ass back down to the seat Zed had so recently vacated.
I took a couple of minutes to pull my shit together, pouring another glass of Scotch and downing it in one huge gulp. Shaking off the intense need to scream or cry or... fuck, run after Zed and climb him like a scared cat on a tree, I headed inside to check on Cass and Lucas.
They were already set up in the living room with Cass's professional tattoo gear that Zed had picked up from his apartment a few days earlier. Lucas was shirtless on the padded table, his arms linked behind his head and an easy, excited smile on his face as he chatted to Cass.
My one-armed Grumpy Cat was hunched over the table sketching out a rough outline of the design he'd put together for Lucas. He'd started drawing it weeks ago, and I'd spotted it on his desk when I was at his apartment. There was no mistaking who it'd been for because it was made up of all things that screamed Lucas.
"I'll fill in the details while I work," Cass told him, handing over the rough sketch. For some reason, he wasn't showing Lucas the whole design he'd already completed in his sketchpad, but I wasn't going to call him on it.
Lucas cast his eyes over the paper, then shrugged. "I trust you, bro. You clearly know what you're doing." He indicated to the fact that Cass was pretty much head to toe covered in tattoos, and Cass huffed a sound that was close to a laugh.
"It might hurt a bit over the scar tissue," Cass continued, preparing all his work tools one-handed. "Or shit, maybe it won't hurt at all. Depends how your nerves are healing."
Lucas just grinned. "Can't hurt more than getting the scars in the first place, huh?"
Cass snorted. "Too fucking right, Gumdrop."
I hesitated a moment, unsure whether Cass was cool with me staying to watch him work. But damn, I wanted to.
He raised his head to peer at me when he was finished prepping everything and tipped his head to the vacant seat beside him. "Sit down, Red. I might need your hands."
Biting back a smile, I did as instructed, pulling my seat closer so I could get a good view as he worked. There was no way he actually needed my hands; he was too damn stubborn not to do it all himself. But I was happy to take the excuse.
"I'll do you next," Cass murmured, shooting me a wink as he started his tattoo gun.
I just licked my lips and grinned. I already had a few tattoos, so I sure as fuck wasn't going to refuse that offer. But chances were he was going to wreck himself on the hours of work he had ahead on Lucas.
"We'll see," I replied.
Cass worked in silence for a few minutes, the only sound in the room from the buzz of his tattoo gun as he began inking Lucas's chest. But when Zed joined us, he flicked the sound system on, and Cass grunted his approval at the rock music that poured from the hidden speakers dotted around the room.
I quickly became mesmerized watching Cass create a work of art on Lucas's flesh, and propped my head up on my hands to watch without being a distraction. Lucas gave a heavy yawn about half an hour into the session and closed his eyes.
When he didn't open them again, I grinned and peered closer.
"Is he seriously sleeping through a tattoo?" I asked quietly, and Cass paused to glance up at Lucas's face.
"Huh," he grunted. "That's a first. Gumdrop's a bigger psychopath than I gave him credit for."
"High pain and low boredom tolerance," Zed murmured from the other side of the dining table where he'd been drawing idly in Cass's sketchbook. Zed had never been an art
ist to the level of Cass's tattoo creations, but he'd gone through a graffiti phase as a preteen and still had a tendency to doodle little patterns or create logos in the margins of documents or on my newspapers.
I smiled at Lucas's peaceful face. He really did look like he was properly asleep and totally unbothered by the work Cass was doing on his chest.
"Did you get anything useful from Lucas's mom today?" Zed asked, closing the sketchpad and tossing it back onto the table.
I shook my head slightly. "Not... exactly. She was vehemently against us digging around about the Guild."
Zed nodded. "So she's been threatened."
"Seems that way," I agreed. "But she gave me a small clue. She has a framed picture of Lucas's dad on her dresser. Nicolas Porter. She seemed to very deliberately look at his picture as I was leaving."
"You're thinking her room might be bugged? That's why she was unwilling to talk about the Guild?" Zed leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the table as he stared into space, thinking. "Or at least that's what she believes, whether true or not."
I gave a one-shouldered shrug. "That was my guess. We searched her room at Lucas's house, but there was nothing there."
"They moved around a lot, didn't they?" Cass murmured without raising his head from his work. He was doing it all one handed, so he had to frequently stop and reposition himself to get the angles right.
"Yeah, ever since they left Shadow Grove when Lucas was four." I sat up a bit straighter. "That's a good point. It would make more sense if she had a safety deposit box or something, right?"
Cass flicked a quick look at me, then dropped his eyes back to the tattoo. "Suppose so. Isn't that what people do with valuable things they want to keep hidden?"
Zed and I locked eyes, and he tilted his head to the side, silently telling me he'd look into it.
"What about the whole redacted-IVF-files situation?" Zed asked, glancing at Lucas quickly, then back to me. "Any leads on a potential sibling for the Gumdrop?"