7. Theo Glass

Chapter 7

Theo Glass

I watched Jace from across the street as he settled into his usual corner seat at the café he appeared to love: Morning Brew, a cute little shop with a bright blue sign and a few tables out on the street. The scent of dark roast and cinnamon drifted out from the door every time someone opened it. We were pushing into October, so the season for pumpkin spice lattes and shitty weather was beginning to start. He had a routine: same time every morning, black coffee and a plain bagel, no cream cheese.

Predictable. Comforting, even. It made planning this encounter all the more straightforward.

Dangerous—as always—but easy. I liked that.

I liked watching him. I enjoyed watching people in general. Even as a child, I was always observing, always looking at the crowds, wondering about the individual lives that made up the web of this twisted society. It had gotten me in trouble before. Once, when we were still living in Hawaii, I had gotten the habit of sneaking a pair of binoculars into my bedroom. We lived across the street from an upscale hotel that brought in people from all over the world, people who didn’t think twice about closing the blinds or seeking more privacy. There was something about having the beach only a street away with perpetual sunlight shining down on you that instantly lowered the guard.

It allowed me endless hours’ worth of entertainment. I’d scope out each room, trying to find the people that appeared the most interesting. I’d witnessed fights, idle chatter, lots (and lots and lots) of sex—of all kinds, too: group sex, wild sex, rough sex, straight sex, gay sex, self-love sex. It was like having a secret television with an infinite amount of channels, ever-changing, always entertaining. I even witnessed a couple getting engaged on their hotel balcony.

It all ended one day when someone complained to the hotel manager about a teenage boy spying on them from the home across the street. They showed up at my front door and told it all to my father.

The punishment after that was brutal. He had said, “You want to be a little freak? You want to watch people fuck? Then have fun sleeping in the bathtub for a week. And all you have to watch is this.” He rolled up a porn magazine and smacked me across the face with it, repeatedly, until he tossed it into the bathroom and locked me in there with it.

Fun times.

I took a breath, adjusted the collar of my jacket, and crossed the street. The morning rush had tapered off, leaving the café sparsely populated—ideal for what I had in mind. The bell above the door chimed softly as I entered, the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee beans wrapping around me. A couple of NYU students sat wearing their sorority letters, ignoring the books that were left open on the small round table in favor of showing each other TikToks instead. One of them started to laugh enough to bring herself to tears.

Jace was engrossed in something on his laptop, brow furrowed in concentration. Probably case files, given his relentless dedication. I joined the short line at the counter, ordering an Americano. As I waited, I stole glances in his direction, noting the way the light caught the strands of his dark hair, the way his fingers tapped absently against the mug.

His jacket was hanging off the back of his chair. He sat at a far corner, next to a built-in bookshelf holding a variety of beat-up board games. His foot tapped on the ground. Up and down, up and down. He wore a slightly wrinkled white T-shirt and a pair of dark black jeans, rolled at the ankles. His white sneakers looked like they needed to be put out of their misery.

Same white sneakers I had stopped from getting smashed down onto the concrete.

“Order for Theo,” the barista called out.

Perfect timing.

Jace looked up. His eyebrows jerked halfway toward his hairline. I acted just as surprised.

This wasn’t smart. It wasn’t a good idea.

But it was fun. And it was necessary. I’d been dreaming about this man ever since our singular encounter in the bathhouse. Nothing could shake him from my psyche. Not even planning my next kill could help me clear my mind of him. Jace had become a tumor I needed to excise, and I hoped that through this encounter, I could do exactly that. I could demystify him. Find something that repulsed me. A trait that sent me running in the opposite direction.

At the very least, maybe I could get him to fuck me in the bathroom one last time and scratch that persistent itch that left me with a constant erection.

I waved at Jace, grabbed my coffee, and walked to his table. “Fancy seeing you here,” I said, sounding as close as I could to a middle-aged housewife stumbling upon her kid’s science teacher out in the wild. Innocent. Aloof. Not predatory in the slightest.

Jace blinked away his shock. I stood next to the empty seat across from him.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I added with a wink.

Laying it on too thick. Calm the fuck down.

Jace chuckled at that. Good. Laughter was a way to chip away at someone’s defenses. A tiger couldn’t get a rabbit to laugh. But a rabbit pulled out of a hat could get even the most frightened child to laugh, to open their eyes wide with wonder.

That’s all this was. A show of illusions. Sleight of hands. Make Jace look there while the real danger was right here, standing directly in front of him.

Smoke and bloody mirrors.

“Want to sit?” Jace asked. He shut his laptop, straightened his back. An artery throbbed in his neck, pulsing. He had nicked himself shaving. The skin was still red and agitated where the razor blade had cut too close.

“Sure. I don’t have a meeting until three today. I’ve got some time to kill.”

“Do you come to this coffee shop often?” Jace asked.

I could immediately sense him slipping into detective mode. The underlying question there was: why the hell haven’t I seen you around here before?

“No,” I answered. I sipped on my Americano. The sorority girls behind us found another video that set them off, cackling like a cluster of overly excited crows. Fuck, they were annoying. “I recently moved into the neighborhood and decided to do some exploring. Do you come here often?”

Of course you do, almost every day.

“Practically every day,” Jace said. “My office is down the street from here. I don’t like sitting at a desk for too long, so I bring my work here.”

“Oh, is it? What do you do?”

“A detective at Stonewall Investigations.”

Wow, that’s news to me.

“Damn, a detective, huh? Sounds intense.”

Jace chuckled. That sound did something to me. I’d never thought laughter could be hot, but Jace was blowing away all my assumptions. “It can be. Most of the time, the cases aren’t too out of this world. But every once in a while, a big one lands in your lap.” Jace cocked his head. There was a subtext there. He licked his bottom lip, flashed his perfect white teeth.

I became rock hard. My cock throbbed against my thigh. I squeezed my legs together, doing nothing to alleviate the growing pressure.

“What do you do when a big one falls in your lap?” I lobbed the suggestive ball back in his direction.

“Handle it.” He leaned back in the chair. He was cocky. I liked that in my men. I wanted them to ooze confidence. Wanted them to walk in a way that told everyone around they had a thick cock hanging between their legs. That they didn’t fear life, that they weren’t timid or quiet. Men who commanded attention.

I swallowed another sip of my coffee. I dropped a hand on my lap, rubbing myself with my forearm. Subtle enough so that no one could tell what I was doing. I could feel precum beading at the tip. I wasn’t wearing any underwear. I glanced down and could see it darkening my khaki shorts.

“And what do you do?” Jace asked. “Besides moonlight as a knight in shining armor, of course.”

“I’m the marketing manager at a tech company. Spend my days making pitch decks, monitoring ad spend, and dealing with influencers.”

“Nice, nice. And how do you spend your nights?”

“I think you’ve got a good idea,” I said. My cock pulsed against my forearm. Fucking hell. Jace liked to play, didn’t he?

“I think I might.” Jace leaned forward. His eyes searched mine. For what, I wasn’t sure, but I allowed him. I met his gaze. He had an intense look to him. I wondered what his expression was when he was busting his load inside me. Next time, I’d make sure I was facing him.

“That night was one of the best I ever had there.”

My eyes dropped to his full lips. A five-o’clock shadow framed them, even though it was still morning. “Same,” I admitted. “I still think about it.”

“You do?”

I nodded. The precum stain only grew. If I had to stand up, people would think I had pissed myself. What would he do if he knew I was leaking for him? Would he throw all caution to the wind and take me back to his place? Would I even allow that? My thoughts were clouded with lust. Stepping into his home would only place me closer to his web. One wrong move and I’d be trapped. “I’m glad I bumped into you.”

“And I’m glad you keep bumping into me.” Jace chuckled. “What are the chances? This city is big. I barely see my neighbor more than once a month.”

“Fate’s funny that way.”

“It is.” Jace’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you should bump into me again at Chains. I don’t go often, but, well, maybe I might be there this Friday.”

Damn. He was already giving me his schedule. How was I supposed to shake him when he made it so easy to hunt him down?

“I’ll try and keep my schedule clear.”

Jace looked out at the window, his hazel eyes highlighted by a dash of sunlight. I imagined my thumb rubbing the dark beard that was growing into his face, trailing up to his lips, pushing into his mouth. My other hand closing around his throat. His pulse pressing against my palm. The warmth of his body mixing with mine. He’d look so sexy, plunging into me as I gripped his neck, his cock stretching me open while my grip tightened.

I lifted my arm and rested it back on the table. If I kept applying pressure to my rock-hard dick, I would end up coming underneath the table. That would leave a mess in my shorts that’d be too difficult to hide.

“So, you said you just moved to this neighborhood.” Jace smoothly altered the course of the conversation. “Where were you before?”

Same place. Haven’t moved in over three years.

“Used to live Uptown.”

“Really?”

“That’s where I was raised. Mostly. Parents were in the military, so we moved a lot.”

That part wasn’t a lie. I was born in New York to a loving mother and a deadbeat father. One was an alcoholic, and the other turned into one. My mother worked as a housekeeper, and my father was in the navy. Neither of them knew how to manage money; neither had a savings, and neither of them expected to be taking care of one child, much less two. That always shocked me about straight people. They couldn’t comprehend there were consequences to their actions, mainly that a condomless fuck led to about eighteen years of someone draining your bank account dry.

Later, I came to find out it wasn’t that simple. There were darker monsters at play. My father wasn’t just a drunk—he was a twisted man. He got off on abuse, and he drove my mother to the brink. The day she died was the day my father died, even though he still likely walked the Earth .

I didn’t give a single fuck. He was dead to me. And if I ever found out where he actually was, that he was still alive, then I’d make sure his body was as cold and lifeless as my mother and my sister.

“Where are you from?” I asked, wanting to steer this away from my past. No one needed to know about that. Especially not Jace.

“Jersey,” Jace said. “Hoboken. My mom moved from Puerto Rico when she was fifteen and met my dad out there. My dad was a cop. He’s what got me started at being an officer, but, well, there was a bad call. I was supposed to take it, actually. I couldn’t. Got caught up with something else, so my father went. It was an ambush. He was basically executed.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

Fathers are scum anyway. Better off.

“I left the force after that. Tried to find a different way to make money but landed at Stonewall a couple months ago.”

“And your mom? She still in Hoboken?”

“She is. I think, at least. We don’t talk. I couldn’t stay in Jersey, either. Had to leave. Came here and haven’t really looked back.”

“Fair enough. It’s easy to outrun your ghosts in this city.”

“It definitely is.”

I swirled my coffee cup and finished the last of it. I glanced at my watch. It was pushing past twelve. I didn’t have anywhere to go, that meeting I mentioned earlier being a lie, but I felt as though my time here was up. The longer I sat across from Jace, the more I wanted to unravel. That was the complete opposite reason why I followed him here in the first place.

At least, I thought it was.

“I’ve got to head back to the office and prep for later.” I shot a quick glance down at my crotch. The precum stain had mostly dried up. “It was good seeing you again.”

“Hopefully, this won’t be the last time,” Jace said. He pulled out his phone. “Let’s exchange numbers.”

I could have said no. I could have made an excuse about not giving out information to strangers. Could have said a multitude of different things that kept me safe, kept me at arm’s length away from the man currently searching for me.

“Sure,” I said, grabbing his phone from his hand. A last-minute thought made me consider inputting the wrong number. Switching one single digit. Just enough to never allow him to contact me again.

I handed him back the phone after sending myself a text.

“There,” I said. “Maybe now we won’t leave these meetings to chance.”

“Perfect,” he replied. “See ya around, Theo.”

I gave him a smile and left. As I exited the coffee shop, my burner phone dinged in my left pocket. I waited until I was around the corner from the coffee shop and took it out.

A single message flashed across the cracked screen.

“Meet me tonight. Be ready to get fucked.”