Hunter

HUNTER

To say my night was turning out to be magical would be underselling it to the point of it being criminal. True, it had been difficult keeping my sexual thoughts as…well, just thoughts for the past week. I still hadn't expected them to get the better of me until I was trying to grope Kai and get him to grope me. And yet that's precisely what happened, and only moments before he was to escort me to some restaurant he supposedly pulled strings at to get reservations.

I thought he had just been lucky, but that kind of luck came in handy, so I wasn't going to complain.

The restaurant was beautiful in a subdued way that screamed expensive but tasteful. Soft white cloths covered the tables, golden flickering lanterns bathed the table with light, while more dangled on delicate chains from the ceiling. White and gold drapes separated tables, though you could still see the occasional glimpse of a face.

"I have to say," I piped up after a moment of drawn-out silence. "These? Not really my thing."

He chuckled as he eyed the nugget of meat I held up, butter glistening off its surface. "I'm surprised you never tried them before."

I raised a brow. "And when the hell did you have escargot?"

"Believe it or not, I didn't spend the entire time in the desert. We were occasionally given leave, and we went places."

It surprised me he'd never brought it up. "Huh, I guess I never realized. You never really talked about it."

He grinned. "Probably because that was an excuse for the younger guys to sample the local delicacies…which were booze and whatever woman would crawl into bed with them."

"Uh, weren't some of your guys married?"

"Mhmm."

"And that…didn't bother you?"

He paused, popping a snail into his mouth and chewing slowly, watching me. I knew right then he was deciding what to say and how to say it. It was something he'd always done right before touching on a subject he wasn't sure how I would handle.

The brutal reality of our life growing up was that morality was…tricky to grasp.

Kai had been…choosy. I wouldn't go so far as to say amoral, but a certain looseness to his moral code always bothered me.

"I know infidelity is a big thing for you," he said, clearly thinking of an ex or two of mine and probably his as well. "But there wasn't much I could do about it. Sure, I could have pulled rank, but for what? To piss off everyone and hurt the group cohesion? Plus, nothing I said was going to stop those guys. They would have made even more stupid decisions when they were out of my sight."

"So you what…babysat them while they cheated?"

"I made sure they wrapped their shit so they didn't take home any ‘surprises.' I made sure if someone looked shifty, I didn't let them go off to get mugged or killed because all they saw was a beautiful woman who wanted them. I also made sure they didn't get rowdy or cause too much trouble that would get us all in trouble and probably locked up for the night or longer."

"Squad Dad," I said with a chuckle. "One who wasn't too worried about their moral health."

"Sometimes," he said, poking at another snail. "Sometimes, their mental well-being was more important than their morals. Sometimes those guys needed to…not remember who they were or what they had waiting for them."

"Did you ever feel that way?" I wondered, taking another snail out of its shell. It tasted good. I had no idea what seasoning they used, but the food was packed with a richness that exploded in your mouth. The problem was, I didn't know if they were just overcooked or if it was me, but I did not like the chewy texture. "Wanting to forget everything back here, even me?"

At that, he looked startled and looked away. "There are times when thinking about home, about what you left behind, is too much to bear. It can be a great comfort, but sometimes it's the worst torture you can put yourself through because they're miles and miles away, weeks and months away."

"So thinking about me hurt sometimes?"

"This feels like a dangerous line of questioning."

I chuckled, reaching across the table to take his hand in mine, squeezing. "I'm just wondering. I'm trying to understand as best I can."

"Fine," he said with a smile that didn't quite feel genuine. "Then yeah, sometimes thinking about you was the worst thing I could do. And I understood those guys when they decided they wanted to get fucked-up and get fucked rather than think about their family and friends."

It had to be lonely in a foreign land hostile to your very existence. You didn't know if you or someone close to you would end up wounded or killed or if you'd be able to come back when you were told. Even when you were ‘let loose,' you were still on a chain that kept you tied to the very place you didn't want to return to.

How did that knowledge, that yearning, affect someone? Could I blame any of them for what they did so far from home?

It wasn't like I hadn't had a similar sense of unmooring. After the attack, I'd looked at everything in my life and felt…nothing. Everything had been so surreal, so distant and without meaning. Even when I finally found the strength to pick myself up and begin trying to put my life back together, I had been doing it because it was the only thing I could do, not because it was something I wanted.

It was only piece by piece that things began to make sense again. At some point, the color started to come back gradually into my world. At some point, I stopped smiling at the cats because they were cute in a way I could faintly remember but because the goofy twirl of their tails as they chased it was funny. I stopped showing warmth to people because that was what I'd always done, but because those people made me happy.

But before that? Nothing, just a desperate attempt to know something other than the world of gray pain I lived in.

I was pulled from my thoughts when the waiter reappeared. Despite the French influence on the menu, everyone spoke English. The woman was the epitome of dignified and classy. If she cared the slightest about Kai butchering the language while ordering, not one hint showed on her face as she took his order. I wasn't willing to risk it, so I simply held the menu out to her, pointing to what I wanted.

"And anything to drink?" she asked.

"I'll be honest; neither of us is a wine drinker or knows much about it," I said, glancing toward Kai.

"So," he said slowly. "If there's anything you'd recommend, we'll take it."

"A far wiser choice than some who come in here," she said softly, winking. "Would you like another aperitif while you wait?"

"I don't think…" I began, but Kai interrupted.

"That would be great, thank you," he said.

I knew better than to say anything, so I waited until she left before leaning in close and dropping my voice. "This place doesn't have prices on anything. These cocktails are probably twenty bucks."

"My bank account can handle it."

"Oh yeah, because the military is so well known for being generous with their pay."

"You'd be surprised when you keep getting bonuses. And over the past several years, I haven't spent much money while I was here. I stayed at the barracks or with friends. Got my meals there, for the most part, didn't do much shopping," he explained with a shrug. "You'd be surprised how much money I've built up. I'm not going to the poor house just because I spend…quite a lot of money tonight."

Quite a lot of money? The amount of money he was pouring into this night was going to be absurd. Not one thing on that menu sounded like it would be a reasonable price. Yet there was truth to what he said. More than once, I'd made a comment to him over the years that he was allowed to spend money and maybe get an apartment.

He'd always insisted on staying at the barracks or with someone else and throwing them money to cover his expenses. He'd never been a big spender. That had always been my thing. We'd grown up dirt poor, but where I enjoyed my money, he was content to leave his alone and live off a comfortable minimum.

"Quit worrying about my finances," he said with a chuckle. "We're supposed to enjoy the night, not worry about stupid things."

"Your money is not a stupid thing," I told him dryly.

"It would be if I were scraping by and trying to pay for something like this," he said with a shrug. "But I'm not, so it's stupid."

I rolled my eyes, trying to let it go even as the worry still wriggled in my gut. "Sorry, Lucas was better with money and budgeting. Ever since…well, ever since he died, I've been in charge of everything."

"Weren't you the business side of things?" Kai asked, not unfairly.

I laughed. "Well, I meant with personal finances. Weird as it sounds, I'm great at managing the business. But my finances? Forget it. I'm like a kid in a candy store with way too much money in his pocket."

Kai laughed softly and nodded his head. "No, that makes sense. It's easier for people to be responsible with someone else's money than their own. And since that's the business' money instead of yours, you're better with it. It tracks."

"Glad it does for you," I said, taking another sip of my drink to finish it before the refills showed up. "It always confused the hell out of me."

"So," he began, pausing when the woman returned with our drinks, whisking away the empty glasses and plates speedily and deftly.

"So," I repeated, sipping the new drink. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I'd had a dirty martini, but none had ever been as good as this one, that was for sure.

"When did you realize you had a whole thing for me?" he asked with a curve of his lips.

"Oh? Is that what we're going to talk about over dinner?"

"Well, I figured we could talk in code about what happened earlier over desserts. It seemed more appropriate."

I snorted. "I was like…twelve when it really hit me. I kind of always knew something was up with the way I felt about you. From what I could tell, you weren't supposed to think about holding your friend's hand all the time or about what it would be like to be married."

"Marriage?" he asked, sounding a little startled.

I smirked. "Yeah. I know."

"Most guys our age were not dreaming about getting married."

"And even less were dreaming about getting married to their male best friend, but there I was."

Kai swirled his glass with a fond smile. "I remember how much you used to love those romance movies. Always confused the hell out of me."

"You were the only one who knew about that," I said with a shrug. "Anyone else would have given me so much hell. But you…you I could trust with that. You never gave me hell. Maybe some shit here and there, but that's not the same."

"I don't know. I guess it never occurred to me that what you were doing was wrong. Weird as hell sometimes, but you've always been kind of weird, so it suited you."

"Wow," I said with a soft laugh. "You really know how to make someone feel special."

He grinned. "I liked that you were weird. It meant you weren't like the people we knew growing up. When you wanted to get out of our shitty apartments, it was because you wanted to go walk the public beaches and find pretty shells or go through the parks because you wanted to see animals that weren't scraggly strays, pigeons, or seagulls. Not because you wanted to find someone to go fight, break a bunch of shit, or whatever the hell else everyone got up to when they were bored."

"I didn't see you going out and doing stuff like that," I pointed out. "So if I was weird, so were you."

"Of course I was fucking weird," he snorted. "Look at every other kid who was my size or looked like me. They were always causing trouble or starting fights, and I never wanted to do that shit."

The irony was that he almost always got pulled into fights he never wanted anything to do with. It wasn't so much his ‘mean' look that drew people in as his size and obvious strength. He'd never been afraid to work out, clearly getting enjoyment out of pushing himself, but that wasn't the same reason other people tried to get stronger.

"Yeah," I agreed with a sad smile. "But you were pulled into fights anyway. And you always hated it."

"I hated that I enjoyed it," he said with a sullen shrug. "I tried to stay out of fights or people's way because I was just like them."

"Just because you got a kick out of beating someone's ass because they kept messing with you isn't the same thing as going out and trying to find it."

"You don't get it, . You never did because you weren't programmed that way."

I raised a brow. "Well, try me. In case you missed it, some things have changed in the past few years to shift how I'm programmed."

He stared at me for a moment before sighing. "I just…I wanted to fight people, to hurt them. Hurting other people made me hurt a little less. And I hated that I felt like that because I kept seeing so many other people do that shit, and it just…feeds on itself. I enjoyed it and hated myself for that part of me that wanted to lash out at the world, anyone responsible for my life, or just…a good target for all that hurt."

"You were partially right," I said softly after he finished.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I wouldn't have understood it," I admitted, taking another sip of my drink. "Once upon a time. But now? Now I get it. I get it more than you might think."

Because something inside me was made of teeth and claws. I'd always resisted that side of me, never really blaming myself for its existence. Who would grow up the way I did, with the parents I did, and not end up filled with anger and hate that constantly wanted to find its way to the surface? Yet, like Kai, I had resisted it, refusing to let that side of me take over. Unlike him, however, I could actually hold it back and restrain it.

That was until a week ago. True, two years ago had set everything into place for it to happen, but the internal dam had held. Maybe it was because I'd spent so long denying all that pain and rage that I didn't know how to acknowledge it, let alone express it. And then came that asshole dealer with his fancy knife and his sadism. Now his sadism was gone from the world, and his knife? Well, that was tucked away from anyone else's eyes, and sometimes I liked to pull it out and look at it, contemplating what other uses it might have.

So yes, I understood his position more than he knew.

"Sheesh," he said, shaking his head. "It always frustrated me that you could never understand where I was coming from."

"Well, now you can let go of that frustration. Because that's twice tonight, I've finally understood where you were coming from."

"And surprise, surprise, I hate it."

"Hate that I understand?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's just confusing."

He sighed, setting his glass down and looking uncomfortable. "Because it means something has changed so much inside you that you can understand. It might have frustrated me, but it also meant there was…I don't know, some innocence left I guess? Some part of you that still held on to basic human decency and being a good person."

I eyed him, frowning slightly. "You realize you're still a good person, right?"

"Someone clearly wasn't listening to me."

I rolled my eyes. "Clearly, I was. And maybe you're right. Maybe you're not a ‘good' person. I mean, you wanted to hurt people, and you enjoyed it. But rather than do that, you fought it every step of the way and got control of yourself."

"Only to join the military, where me hurting people was sanctioned."

"Weren't you the one who told me about guys who looked for trouble, or rather, to hurt people? Why would you care about people like that if you were one of them? Maybe there's more to you and that decision than you're giving yourself credit for."

"There were other things, but sometimes…sometimes that's all I can think about."

"Or…maybe people aren't supposed to be black and white. People are messy. They're hard to pin down sometimes," I said with a frown. "Maybe we're just supposed to have people who live in worlds of gray, and that's okay. You can have those feelings while controlling yourself and trying not to be that person. Some people get the luxury of not worrying about making the right choice, but that doesn't make them better than someone who has to choose to be better."

A bit of irony, if not outright hypocrisy, considering what I had been thinking and planning lately. Not that it was a plan, I was still deciding whether it was the path I wanted to follow. As much as I despised the three remaining men who had taken so much from me, murder wasn't something I could just choose to do like I was making a coffee order.

And what did that say about me? Did that make me a bad person? Or was I sliding firmly into the gray area Kai had lived in his whole life? I had always pushed myself toward what I thought was right, and in many ways, that had come easily to me. Dark thoughts were brewing in my head, pulling me toward things I would have previously thought unthinkable.

Then again, was I considering it seriously, or was it just a revenge fantasy spawned from one ugly moment in an alley? Did I really have it in me to go after a trio of men who'd ruined my life just because they'd got away with it, or was it comforting to think about because it gave some control back to my life?

Maybe it was just a fantasy, or maybe it was like when the dealer had attacked me, I needed one more push to send me over the edge and into the abyss.

I sighed. "Sorry, that got really serious there for a minute, didn't it?"

Kai winked at me. "If it did, then we have no one to blame but me, right?"

"I don't know if blame is the right word," I said with a small smile. "Let's get back to the original topic."

"Oh? You mean how you were dreaming of marrying me before you decided you wanted my dick?"

I snorted. "Yeah, well, even at twelve, I hadn't quite got there yet. All I know is that's when puberty decided to kick in mentally for me, where you had already started physically."

"I remember having a growth spurt that summer," he said with a thoughtful frown. "Right before seventh grade."

"Yeah. We ended up missing the bus back to your place. And we thought we could make the walk back before it was too late. We didn't expect the sudden downpour."

"Oh yeah! That was the year we kept having all those weird ass tropical storms come up from the keys and go along the coast," he said with a chuckle. "Felt like you couldn't go an hour without a sudden downpour."

"Yeah," I said with a snort. "And we got caught in one. You were so annoyed because it was your last good shirt and you didn't know when you'd be able to do laundry, considering how terrible the machines were in our building. And the last time you'd gone to the laundromat?—"

"The owner's daughter kept trying to get me to hang out with her. She was a couple of years older than me, but she didn't care."

"We thought we could get through the rain but had to take shelter. You were so pissed, grumbling to yourself, and you pulled off your shirt to wring it out and?—"

And I had my first understanding that someone taking their shirt off wasn't always going to be an innocent gesture in my mind anymore. The growth spurt had come on over several weeks, and his torso had lengthened while his stomach remained flat. And there it was, what had felt like an eternity's worth of skin to my young mind, not knowing there would be even more to show up as Kai aged. I had felt absurdly hot despite the cooling rain and wind, and like my entire stomach would flip over and disappear if I kept staring at him.

"I realized I really liked you," I said instead of repeating the excessive description. "And that my feelings could be more than just wanting to hold your hand."

He chuckled softly, picking up his glass and watching the light on its surface. "It's actually pretty sweet. And so very you."

"Oh, Lord."

"I mean it!"

"That's what bothers me."

He shook his head. "You were always sweet like that. Innocent, I guess, is the way to put it. You always held onto that when everyone else was waiting to throw theirs away as fast as possible. And it says a lot about you that your first feelings for me didn't even come close to sexual. That came later."

"Well, it was bound to come up eventually," I said, embarrassed at his assessment. Calling me innocent was a bit of a stretch. I had never been innocent. It was more that I tried my hardest to see the bright points in life. Not that it was always easy, and while I would never truly get that attitude back, I could still find ways to do it now. "Puberty doesn't leave any survivors."

He chuckled at that. "Yeah. It kinda just…ran me over like a train."

"So."

"What?"

"Well, you asked me when I realized I had a thing for you. Now it's your turn."

"Ah, well, uh…maybe I should have gone first."

"What, why?"

"Because your story starts cute and then endearing."

"Oh yeah, suddenly discovering what it's like to thirst over someone because they took their shirt off. That's endearing and cute."

"Even with you getting all horny about it, it's still cute."

"Uh-huh. And yours isn't?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Even more reason to tell me."

He looked a little uncomfortable but was spared for the moment when our food arrived. I hadn't processed the full description of my meal, but I knew it was medallions of duck with a sauce that had sounded nice. It came with a light salad and some fancy-sounding vinaigrette, probably because the duck was so rich. His was stuffed chicken, and the thing looked like it was ready to burst from everything shoved inside and a small container of gravy to go with it.

"Well, this is amazing," I exclaimed when I took the first bite of duck and sauce. Curious about the wine, I grabbed it and drank it, blinking as the flavors merged in my mouth. "Wow. Always trust the people who work at a restaurant to give good combo recommendations. This is awesome."

"Honestly, I was kind of expecting this to be too rich for my tastes," Kai said after swallowing his bite. "No pun intended. But it's pretty light. There's some citrus and…grass in it that lightens it up."

"Grass," I said with a snort. "That's probably herbs."

"Well, it looks like grass. Wait?—"

"Maybe…lemongrass?"

"Shut up."

I chuckled, taking a bite of the salad and discovering it was there for all the rich, heavy duck on my plate. The combination of meat, salad, and wine proved to be one of the best meals I ever had. There was a lot to like about the food, and I quickly forgot that Kai was forking over a great deal of money for the exquisite meal.

"Alright," I said after we had time to approve our food. "So, spill. I wanna hear."

"This is," he said with a pinched expression. "I come across so much worse than you with this story."

"How old were we?"

"Fourteen."

"Later than me."

"I mean, I always figured it started sooner than that. Not as early as you, of course, but…well, it was different."

"How?"

"I had a lot of the same feelings you did. Wanting to be close to you, wanting to spend all my time with you, wanting to be alone, liking those rare moments when we touched or hugged. It was all wrapped up in my head and had me thinking that we were just really good friends, and that's how good friends were supposed to be."

"Well, they probably are," I snorted, cutting into another medallion. "But this is probably the part where you say you felt those things, but they were different when you realized it was more than that."

"Pretty much."

"And the moment you realized it…was?"

"Well, like I said…it doesn't make me look good."

I could probably argue, considering how good he looked right now. Honestly, he wouldn't have had to take me out to make a good impression. He'd looked like sex in a suit when I first saw him in it, and that hadn't changed. Despite getting off earlier, I could still feel a thread of tension running through me as I looked him over, his shoulders filling his suit beautifully, the way the tailoring managed to make him look debonair without detracting from his generous size.

"Try me," I said instead of admitting that I was starting to drool over him more than the food.

"God," he said softly, shaking his head. "Remember when Donovan and his buddies decided it would be hilarious to take your swimsuit during gym class?"

"Easily," I said in a dry tone, "one of the worst memories of that school. Literally, everyone in the pool and locker room saw everything I had…or didn't have, for that matter."

"Remember how it took me a minute to catch up to you?"

"Yeah, you said you decked Donovan and one of his cronies before Mr. Reckloff split you up."

"Yeah, well, there was a moment before that when you ran off, trying to cover yourself. I froze because I just…well, I saw your ass."

He paused, and I raised my brow. "You…when I was running off?"

"Yeah."

"I…let me get this straight, you saw my bare ass and had yourself a gay awakening?"

"Bi, but yeah."

"One of the worst memories I have at that damn school, and you were turned on?"

"I said it made me look bad!"

I covered my mouth to contain the laugh threatening to burst out of me. "Seriously?"

"You have a nice ass," he muttered into his plate, and unbelievably, he was starting to turn red. "I was just…I saw it, and then I realized you had a nice ass. And then I realized I was realizing you had a nice ass, as a guy. And it was you. And then I…well, I had to take a minute."

"Oh God, you were hard?"

"Jesus."

I snorted, burying my face into my soft napkin and chuckling roughly. "Did you…did you beat their asses before or after the boner went down?"

"I regret ever starting this conversation," he said with a heavy sigh. "And after. It would have been even weirder to beat their asses like that. Plus, they probably would have noticed, and that would have been weird."

"Wait," I said, cocking my head. "That was…right before you started getting a lot of attention from some of the girls in the school."

He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm not sure what that was all about."

I raised a brow. "You don't?"

"No?"

"You have no idea why you might get attention from a bunch of women when you climbed out of the pool after you had a hard-on, and your swimsuit was most definitely sticking to your body like cling wrap? No shrinkage there."

He stared at me, his face entirely still before he closed his eyes and sighed. "Wow, that makes so much sense now."

I had to laugh at his surprise. "Did you think you were getting all those girls talking to you because you grew half a foot in a few months?"

"I didn't think about it too hard," he admitted with a frown. "Sheesh, the things you learn down the road."

"Yeah," I said dryly. "I just found out one of my most traumatic moments was a bi-awakening for you, which is…something."

"And from here on out, I regret telling you about that," he said with a wince. "If it's worth anything, I am sorry. And I was sorry after I realized what had happened. Haven't stopped being sorry about it."

I chuckled, scooping up some of the salad and shaking my head. "There are far worse things in life than a bit of embarrassment from years ago. Plus, we both know that at that age, we can't help when our dicks decide to take over our thinking. I had several moments growing up where I got turned on at the worst possible time. Pretty sure that's a rite of passage for your average teenage boy."

Despite his discomfort, I was genuinely amused by the story. Like I'd said, there wasn't much that was going to deter a teenage boy's hormones or the random boners, usually at the worst times. If anything, it was a way to find something positive in an awful memory.

I could remember the sheer embarrassment that had flooded through me at that moment when my shorts had hit the ground and disappeared before I could retrieve them. All I'd known was that everything was on display, and anyone with any sense would know better than to expect anything impressive after I'd just got out of the chilly pool. At that moment, however, all I'd known was that my naked body was on full display, and no one wanted to see that.

Except my best friend, apparently.

"At least someone was enjoying the view," I said with a chuckle. "Took me a long time to realize my ass was a fantastic asset to have."

To my growing amusement, I saw a flash of heat in his eyes before he ducked his head to conceal it by cutting off another bite of chicken. "Shoulda just asked me. I would've told you that."

"Yes, because I was going to ask my devoted, very straight friend about my ass."

"Not all that straight."

"Well, I didn't know that, now did I?"

"Even if I was straight, I could have told you."

"Well, there are some things you don't ask your friends about."

"Like the quality of your ass?"

"Like the quality of my ass. Your average friend will hype you up, straight guy or not. And I didn't want to be hyped up."

"You wanted to be wanted."

"You know," I said slowly, smiling at him. "Sometimes I forget how connected to human nature you can be. So yes, I wanted to be wanted."

"Well," he said, leaning over the table and dropping his voice to a soft rumble. "You have a nice ass—a nice dick. Your body is hot, and seeing you naked earlier was the greatest thing I've seen in years. So, how does that make you feel?"

"I definitely shouldn't get up from this seat anytime soon," I said with a snort. "And I'm thinking about a different kind of dessert after the actual one."

"So soon?" he asked, brow raising. "Didn't think you'd be down."

"Why? Because of my…issue?"

He gave me a dirty look. "Your understandable issue."

I smiled in return. "Look, what we did was…more than I ever thought I'd ever be able to do. I haven't been into someone for two years, and the idea of doing anything intimate with anyone always left me feeling nauseous. Yet I managed earlier with only a bit of worry. I didn't freak out or get sick; nothing bad happened. As a matter of fact, I had an amazing time."

"I just worry about…pushing you too hard."

"Listen, I made the choice, alright? You didn't do that for me; I did it all on my own. And the ability to have that choice? Is beyond amazing to me. It's another piece of my life that I'm getting back, and it's largely because of you. So please, don't worry about me like that."

"I always worry about you, . Always have, always will."

"Well," I said with a soft laugh. "Don't let it get in the way of things, okay? I promised I'd tell you if things were going too far, and I did, and you listened. So I think we're safe."

That seemed to satisfy him, and he lapsed into thoughtful silence as our plates were taken and our desserts arrived. He had gone for a tropical cheesecake but there was no way in hell I was going to pass up the chance to try out some fancy tiramisu. Even the cheap stuff was an indulgence of mine, and as soon as I took a bite of the one before me, I let out a soft moan of pleasure.

"Good Lord," I muttered, shoving another forkful into my mouth. "There's no way yours is anywhere near as good as mine."

"It's still pretty good," he chuckled, watching me devour the dessert. "But clearly, you got the better end of the deal."

I snorted. "It's the best."

"Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it," he said with a smirk as the cake finally disappeared.

I let him finish his as well. "If you think I simply ‘enjoyed' today, you're rusty at reading me. I'm on cloud nine right now."

"Good," he said. "That was the point of tonight. Just the two of us, nothing hanging over us, no demands, just…us."

When it came time to pay, I played nice and didn't look at the bill. I watched his face, but it remained impassive as he paid with his card. Lucas and I had always bickered over who would pay, which grew increasingly funnier when we started sharing a bank account. But tonight had been Kai's idea, and I wouldn't argue with him now we were pretty much done.

I wondered if maybe somewhere in the universe, Lucas was watching us right now. I wondered what he'd say if he could speak to either of us. We had discussed a few times that if one of us died early, then the other should eventually find it in themselves to start dating again. Of course, we hadn't expected it to happen or for it to happen so horribly …but we had made that agreement.

I could picture him being happy I was finally coming out of my shell to date again, and he'd probably have a smartass comment or two about taking so long and wasting a perfectly nice body. I could also picture his knowing smirk upon finding out it was Kai I was on a date with. Despite insisting I was not hung up on Kai, here I was on a date with him after having fooled around the first chance I got.

"I can't tell if that smile is sad or happy," Kai said.

"A bit of both," I admitted with a shrug. "Just found myself thinking about…well, things."

"You were thinking about Lucas."

"Yeah, sorry."

"You're allowed to think about Lucas when you're around me," he said with a frown. "It's not like I'm going to get upset because you're thinking about the man you loved and probably still love. There's nothing wrong with that. It's expected, especially when this is the first date you've been on in two years."

"He'd tell me I certainly took my sweet time."

"He'd probably also give me shit for turning out to, in fact, be into you."

"Not as much shit as he'd give me for going on a date with you when I swore up and down I wasn't that hung up on you."

"For what it's worth, I'm glad you turned out to be that hung up on me," he said with a smile that, while sweet, did have a slight bit of smugness. Even as he was treading rough territory, the dreaded dead lover, he still managed to keep his confidence intact.

"I expected you might need to roll me out of this place," I said as we stood up. "But they managed to portion things out, although all that heavy food and drink is going to my head slightly."

"I'll try not to take advantage of you," he said, holding his arm out.

It surprised me, considering how easily he'd kept his secret about being into guys for years. I suppose it technically didn't count as hiding it since neither I nor anyone else had ever brought up the subject. Yet, I still expected him to want to keep his bisexuality private.

Clearly, that wasn't the case, and with a happy flutter in my chest, I took the offered arm. "Aren't you a gentleman?"

"I managed to learn a few things growing up."

"Like what? How to drink, fight, and screw your life up?"

"Well, more like I learned what not to do. Once you have the worst as an example, it's a lot easier to figure out what you should be doing."

"See? I told you that once, and you told me I was being overly hopeful."

"I was a bitch fifteen-year-old, what do you expect?"

We stepped out of the restaurant, and the immediate change in noise was jarring. The soft quiet of the restaurant was replaced by the honking of horns and someone talking loudly on the opposite corner. I pulled closer to him, feeling a little like our bubble had popped. He was warm against my body and smiled down at me in a way that might make me melt.

"I'll get us a ride…unless you wanna walk," he said, wrinkling his nose. "Mmm, not in these shoes."

I laughed as he pulled out his phone. "At least neither of us is the heels type. That would be even worse."

A flash of movement above us pulled my eyes to the screen on one of the nearby buildings. They had popped up in Port Dale over the past few years. Namely, they were just used as ad space, but now and then, the news would flash onto the screen, like the blond woman smiling widely.

"And in other news, a respected member of the [Last Name] family has spoken with us today to announce his intention to run for Mayor in the upcoming election," she said in a clear, pleasant voice.

Hearing [Last Name] made my blood go cold as I whispered. "Please, not him."

"Callum [Last Name] announced that his time on the city council has given him a great deal of experience in politics and dealing with the public," she said, and my stomach rolled as a video began to play.

"?" I heard beside me, but Kai might as well have been a million miles away.

There he was, somehow managing to pull off those boyish good looks, his blue eyes glinting with amusement as he talked to someone else on the screen. It didn't look like he'd aged at all, as though nothing had touched him in the past couple of years.

"The [Last Name] family has been involved in the development of Port Dale from the beginning," I heard him say through a sound bite. My vision swam before me as his smooth voice continued. "And I intend to keep that tradition alive. I hope to bring great things to this city and eventually this state."

"So you plan to aim even higher?" came another voice, clearly interviewing him.

"Eventually, but you have to start from the bottom and work your way up," he said, his chuckle making the food in my stomach feel sour and acidic. "And what better place than to try for mayor of our fine city? I feel confident the people of Port Dale will show their trust in me and let me guide them to even greater heights than we already have."

"You son of a bitch," I hissed as I stared at the screen, feeling my disgust and horror give way to the rage I'd felt in that alley as I stabbed the dealer. "You absolute rotten, horrible, vile piece of shit."

"!" My eyes snapped away from the screen to see Kai staring intensely at me, worry written into every line on his face. "What is it?"

"That's one of them," I said, fury bubbling inside me. "That was the one you'd call the head fucker in charge of the whole thing."

"I…" he glanced toward the screen as the interview ended. The woman talked about something else, but I'd already stopped listening. "Really? He's in politics?"

"Why not?" I said with a bitter laugh. "Perfect for the lying little snake. I bet his life has been nothing but blessed for the past couple of years. I didn't even know he was on the city council. I was too busy looking up other things about him. I didn't even check what he was doing for a living."

"Shit, and he's going to be mayor?" Kai asked, his face creasing even further.

There were no words to explain the hate that burned inside me, filling what felt like every inch of my being. I'd never thought about what I'd do if I saw him again because I'd avoided anything that might come close to putting him in front of me. But there he was. Sure, it was on screen, but happy, healthy, and seemingly without a care in the world.

Why did he get to be alright when I had been fighting for the slightest taste of normalcy, of safety? Why was he permitted not just to live but to flourish?

That first part took me by surprise as we walked, my head down as my thoughts overwhelmed me. Without the slightest hesitation, I'd decided he no longer had the right to life. And not just him but the others as well. Hadn't my research shown they, too, were living their lives in the best way while I was left to scrape together what I could from the gutter and Lucas was left to rot?

Wasn't that what the research had been all along? Not merely to fulfill a curiosity or poke at a wound. Deep down, though not that deep, I'd known what I was looking to do…soon. Or maybe I knew I was waiting for something like the dealer confronting me. Something to give me the push I needed to finally commit to the dark act that had been steadily growing in the back of my mind.

Well, I'd found it in another unexpected place…the news. His face was all I could see. That smarmy, arrogant, self-satisfied smile that I'd once found slightly attractive now filled me with a disgust far blacker and more dangerous than any rage.

He was going to be mayor?

"No, he's not," I said in a low voice, watching my hands ball into fists. "He most certainly will not."

Because I was going to fucking kill him.