7

Jadon

They lucked into street parking on Delmar before Jadon realized he might have miscalculated.

“Dang it. I didn’t even ask about dietary restrictions.”

Nico gave him a sidelong look, but all he said was “That’s all right, because I don’t have any.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I know a couple of good vegan places, and there’s this great spot that does clean food.”

Dusk was settling into dark, and all along the street, lights hung in hazy spheres. The Delmar Loop, as it was called (which was not, as far as Jadon could tell, a loop in any discernible fashion), was a strip that featured restaurants, vintage clothing boutiques, a (mostly shuttered) old theater, boba, and more. It catered to the college students at Wash U and Chouteau, but people from all over the metro area drove here for a night out. Fortunately, on a Wednesday, it wasn’t too busy. Already, traffic was starting to thin, the sidewalks beginning to empty.

“I’m fine with whatever you picked,” Nico said. The words sounded a bit stiff. “Let’s eat.”

“Is there something you like to eat when you’re traveling or—”

Nico made a noise in his throat, unbuckled himself, and got out of the car.

Jadon got out more slowly. He joined Nico on the sidewalk, waited a beat for both of them to catch their balance, so to speak, and then said, in as even a tone as he could manage, “It’s right up here.”

He led the way, and Nico walked with him, chafing his arms through the thin cardigan. He looked, well, stunning. Still. Even at the end of a long day. The wavy black hair. The dark coals of his eyes. Coppery skin and the long, slender lines of a dancer. The cardigan and button-up accentuated his build, and Jadon caught himself thinking about Nico’s waist, about how his hands would look there, wrapped around his hips, his thumbs pressing lightly into the pale brass sheen of Nico’s belly.

Jadon pulled his thoughts away from that and promised himself, for the millionth time, he would unfollow Nico on Instagram and delete his account. Permanently.

“What are these stars?” Nico asked. And then, “Tina Turner is from St. Louis?”

“I think that one might be a stretch,” Jadon said. “She went to high school here.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Nico’s stride turned into an amble, and although he continued to chafe his arms, his hands slowed. They moved from star to star in silence, Nico reading each entry in St. Louis’s Walk of Fame. And then Jadon had an idea. A change of plans. A pivot.

Ahead of them, Blueberry Hill’s enormous sign flashed WELCOME TO THE LOOP. Above the words, the images of a man and woman, both dressed in old-fashioned clothes, were frozen in a dance. When Jadon touched Nico’s arm, he looked up, and then he said, “Here?”

“I bet we can get a salad—”

Nico pulled away from him and headed for the door.

Inside, music played loudly from speakers overhead—classic rock, something by the Grateful Dead, even though Jadon couldn’t remember the name of the song. It was a large space, the lighting low, filled with bodies and voices and air that felt hot and close after the ripped-open cool of the October evening. Jadon’s stomach grumbled at the smell of seared onions and ground beef, but he pushed that thought down. A salad. No dressing. Extra protein.

The wait for a table was almost an hour. When the hostess offered them a seat at the bar instead, Nico said yes before Jadon could answer, and the hostess swam off into the crowd. They found themselves sitting side by side, shouting to be heard by the young Black woman tending bar. After some back and forth, Nico ordered a 4 Hands, one of their IPAs. Jadon got the Urban Chestnut STILPA.

Nico sat, looking straight ahead. He took a long drink of the beer, his throat moving with each swallow, his Adam’s apple prominent against his slender profile. I’ve got to get out of here, Jadon thought. The music got louder and louder until it seemed like the only thing he could hear. He couldn’t tell Nico this was a mistake, but he could say—what? He had an emergency?

But he heard himself ask over the din, “How was your seminar?”

For a moment, he thought Nico hadn’t heard; he stayed as he was, unmoving, the glass hovering at his lips. Then he turned, the movement abrupt, almost hostile. “We talked for two hours about whether Augustine could be called a Sartrian existentialist or if that was anachronistic.”

Jadon took a drink. Augustine. Sartrian existentialist. Maybe ask a question, his brain suggested. Maybe say, Tell me more.

But before he could, a mocking little smile raked across Nico’s face, and he said, “How was your seminar?”

“Good.”

Nico cocked his head.

“Good,” Jadon said again more loudly.

Annoyance streaked across Nico’s face and was gone again as he nodded.

“It’s important,” Jadon said.

“What?”

“It’s important!”

Again, that slight tightening around Nico’s eyes and mouth. “I’m sure it is.”

Before Jadon could ask what that meant, though, the bartender was back, asking for their order. Nico turned his attention to the menu again, so when the woman looked at Jadon, he said, “I’ll do this house salad, no dressing, add chicken.”

Nico’s head came up. He must have heard him over the music because he turned slowly toward Jadon and said, “You don’t have to get a salad.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not getting a salad.”

“Okay?” It shouldn’t have sounded so much like a question, but it did.

“I can eat whatever I want.”

“I know—”

“I want the Western burger. Can you add an extra onion ring? And what are toasted ravioli?”

The bartender began, “You’ve never had toasted ravioli? They’re a St. Louis thing. It’s like a regular ravioli, but—”

“They’re deep fried,” Jadon said. “Delicious, but super unhealthy, so—”

“Perfect.” Nico shut his menu with a snap. “We’ll have those.”

Jadon took a drink of his beer. A long one.

After that, neither of them had much to say. Jadon tried a few more times to start a conversation—he had no idea who Augustine was or what Sartrian existentialism might be, but he asked how school was going, and he asked about work (one of the things he’d picked up on, during those late-night texts, was that Nico loved his job and loved his boss and still managed to complain about both of them). Nico parried the questions, or answered with scything sarcasm, or—more and more as the meal went on—simply ignored them. By the time the check came, they were both facing forward, and Jadon had ordered a second beer.

“My treat,” Nico said, handing a card to the bartender.

“No, I invited you.”

“I insist.”

They went outside. The street was all closed doors and bleached light, and the cold cut at Jadon’s cheeks. When they got to the car, he went to open the door, but Nico got there first. He yanked on the handle. It didn’t open.

Down the street, leaves skittered along the gutter.

Jadon unlocked the door with the fob. As soon as the car beeped, Nico opened the door and got into his seat. He slammed the door.

In the car, it wasn’t cold enough to see his breath, but Jadon felt it, the cloud of invisible heat brushing his face, like someone was stoking a furnace in his belly.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great. I had a great meal. It was a great night.”

Jadon sat there for a moment, keys in his hand. Then he started the car and drove back to Chouteau.

When he found a parking spot at the edge of campus, he looked at Nico. The cool light from the dash gave him luminous cheekbones, taut, gleaming skin, and the dark coal-fire of his eyes.

“I feel like I did something wrong.”

Nico was already opening the door, and his words ghosted back. “You were a perfect gentleman.”

The door shut hard, and Nico strode off into the night.

Jadon reached for the shifter, watching him go, already chafing his arms. Nico disappeared into a pool of shadow. Then the blue of an emergency light glimmered in his hair. Then he was gone again. Jadon thought of Dalary Lang, going home alone one night. And calling himself every kind of stupid, he killed the engine and got out of the car.

Just making sure, he told himself. until he gets to his dorm.

He kept his distance. Nico already didn’t like him; no point in confirming his fears that Jadon was some sort of stalker. For the first thirty yards, the cold cut through the Chouteau sweats. Then it settled into him, and the pressure in Jadon’s chest eased, and the ache in his head quieted. It was better things had turned out this way, honestly. It had been a clusterfuck of a disaster, in technical terms, but this was actually better because—

Something moved in the darkness.

At first, Jadon thought it was his eyes playing tricks on him. But then a figure took shape in the darkness. The man—Jadon decided it was a man—stepped onto the path and followed Nico. A black hoodie. Dark jeans. It was a college campus, and dark, hooded clothing wasn’t exactly uncommon. But one thing you learned, if you were a detective and you took your job seriously, was that people had all sorts of tricks for disguising themselves, but they often forgot one thing: the way you walked could be as identifying as anything else. And right then, Jadon recognized the gait of the man ahead of him. Confident, almost relaxed. Sure. And moving straight after Nico.

Questions spiraled: why Nico? That one, at least, had a possible answer: now that Jadon thought about it, he could see the physical similarities between Nico and Dalary Lang. But why now?

As quickly as the questions had come, Jadon filed them away. The upper levels of his brain turned off, and what remained was dark, oiled gearwork. He picked up his pace, careful as he set his feet down so that his soles wouldn’t scuff the brick pathway, not quite breaking into a jog, but certainly passing the mark of a power walk.

Ahead, the suspect kept a comfortable distance from Nico. They passed in and out of pools of light. Nico had to be freezing in that ridiculously thin clothing; even at a distance, Jadon could see him huddling into the breeze. But if he noticed the man following him, he gave no sign of it.

Harlow Hall came into view—in the dark, feathered by security lights, shadows seemed to ripple over the buttresses. The suspect started to move faster. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, he was running.

Jadon sprinted after him. His shoes slapped the pavement, but he was past caring. He shouted, “Stop! Police!”

The suspect gave a startled glance back, his pace faltering for a moment. And then he buttonhooked right, darting down a narrow alley between two buildings. Jadon had a glimpse of Nico backlit by one of the security lights, staring. Then his vision tunneled to the alley, and the deeper darkness within it.

A knife coming out of nowhere. The heat of steel opening a path across his belly, up his chest. Hands holding him down. Ropes that wouldn’t give.

They were only memories, but they went off in his head like fireworks. He couldn’t breathe. His heart hurt like someone was squeezing it.

And then, somehow, it was over.

He stood in the alley, in the dark, alone. And the wind was like the flat of a blade.