Chapter 5 #2
“Who the fuck is Donel Broim?”
“Jojo, that is a very good question because he definitely doesn’t seem to be showing up anywhere,” Frankie said absentmindedly.
His long, elegant fingers flew over the keyboard, and I let myself get momentarily distracted by a memory of him doing the same thing when we were kids.
I’d always thought he was fancy. I was fat fingers and fighting in the street, but he never did any of that.
His dad made sure the rest of us kids knew Frankie was above all that bullshit, but every once in a while, I’d catch him on the sidewalk watching us fuck around, and he’d almost look sad that he couldn’t join us.
Which was probably wishful thinking on my part, but now wasn’t the time because we needed to figure out who the goddamn fuck this guy was. He appeared to be a ghost.
With Frankie occupied on his laptop, I pulled out my phone and started flipping through social media. It was a long shot, but it was all I had to make myself feel useful. Then I found his name on an account that just so happened to follow the strip joint Connor’s uncle used to spend time at.
“Frankie, check this out. The dumbass forgot he was on the burner account.”
I shifted my phone toward Frankie. The man cracked a smile, grabbed my T-shirt, and yanked me forward. He planted a firm, sadly tongue-less kiss on my mouth.
“Jojo, you’re a goddamn genius.”
That one hit opened the floodgates. Within minutes, Frankie had figured out who he was, and Mr. Donel Broim’s actual name was Cathel Cille, and he wasn’t unknown at all.
There were petty thefts and bar fights, a metric crap ton of unpaid parking tickets, and a life centered around a sleazy strip joint on the far side of town that was well known for additional trade in the parking lot for the girls, and guys, who couldn’t get a job anywhere else.
He was exactly the kind of guy Connor’s asshole uncle would spend time with.
“Jojo, look at this,” Frankie half-whispered before turning the laptop and showing me the glowing screen. “He’s running books.”
“How’d you get that?”
“This idiot used the strip club name as his password.”
“He did not. You’re lying.”
“Hand to God.” Frankie scrolled through Cille’s nonencrypted drive with names, dates, and times. “Oh, here we go… He has a list.”
“A list?”
“Is there an echo in here?” Frankie smirked, then chuckled.
All I did was roll my eyes, but it was enough for him to yank me onto his lap and continue working.
“If you’re going to be rude, you’re going to do it up close and personal.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“This is dumb. Let me up.”
“No.”
“Seriously, Frankie. Let me up.”
His arms turned into bands that imprisoned me. The asshole knew I couldn’t do much with my arm, but he was also incredibly careful not to jostle it. Gah, I hated when he was considerate.
“No.”
That got another groan, and I couldn’t help squirming, trying to get free.
“Stop wiggling. You’re worse than a child. And you’re going to hurt yourself. Relax.”
The sound of his voice pissed me off, but it was hard to remember why when his long fingers trailed up and down my spine. And when they kept it up and teased the bare skin of my nape? Fuck me. I lost the plot entirely.
“So, what’s next? My vote says we go pay him a visit.”
I needed a distraction from his hands on me before I forgot that I hated his ass because I sure as shit hated the way I felt sitting in his lap while his hands did whatever magical thing they were doing through my T-shirt.
My very uncooperative dick had already gone semi-hard, and I knew he knew because his chuckle made me want to punch him.
“Your shoulder’s all fucked up. What are you going to do about it?”
Frankie wasn’t mocking me. He was matter-of-fact, and that might’ve been worse because he wasn’t wrong. But there was no goddamn way I was going to sit at home and let him handle business that should’ve been mine in the first place.
“Even with one arm, I’m better than you’ve ever been in the field. I can handle myself, thanks.” It was hard to get the sarcasm up to full steam when I was plopped on this man’s lap with his arm casually thrown across me, but I was doing my goddamn best to make it happen.
“Jojo, I’m not trying to insult you…”
His arched brow at my snort spoke volumes. Fuck that. It was still an insult.
“If I let you get into something and you don’t come out of it, Matteo will kick my ass. You and I both know you’re his favorite.”
“Oh my God. It was ninth grade, and it was a fucking basketball team, and we all sucked.”
“He still picked you over me,” Frankie said dryly.
“Jesus, you need to let things go. Nobody holds on to that shit.”
Frankie stared at me like he was trying to solve all the mysteries of the universe and somehow thought they’d be found in my face.
Spoiler alert: they would not because I barely knew what the fuck I was doing when it came to him.
“It’s who I am.”
“Frankie, I’m serious. Let me the fuck out of his goddamn holding pattern. I know goddamn well you weren’t trying to hurt me that day. I also know you did what your dad wanted because you were terrified he’d know you were a goddamn queer. It’s fine. Nobody’s pissed off about it.”
“Why do we act like we are?”
“Fuck if I know.” I shrugged. “Can we just call a truce and get this shit taken care of? That’s literally all I want. I just want to get this handled, and then we can go back and figure out all our shit. Deal?”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
I’m not exactly sure how the mechanics of it worked, but we sealed our decision with a kiss.
A hard kiss that was all tongue and hands and knees, and it made me regret that we were sitting in the shoebox office and not back at the cabin where he could’ve pushed me down on the bed and just dicked me down.
“Let’s go see Matteo on the way to our visit.”
Goddamn, I needed a vacation.