15
The comfort was discomforting
Kit traced stars in the rings of condensation. The physical movement helped his nerves. He’d stopped himself from sipping the entire glass of water, because he didn’t need to spend the whole lunch in the restaurant bathroom.
Bishop was charged with supervising today’s outing. Darius was off doing… something. Assassinating someone or visiting his sister or pretending to be a financial consultant or whatever.
James was doubtless still enthroned in his home office, poring over his mom’s mirrored hard drives. Searching for evidence to prove a negative. He had been reserved in the two weeks since the hostage incident.
The quiet hurt was harder to handle than rage. Kit couldn’t fix it. All he could do was wait. Just being there would have to be enough.
Time certainly wasn’t helping Kit with Bishop.
Maybe Kit was imagining the tension ricocheting between them. Every other glance, it was gone. But Kit had far more pressing matters to worry about today.
Any minute now, Holden’s parents were going to walk through the front door.
They were going to be disappointed—at best.
Kit touched his wrist, finding bruises by touch through his thin sweatshirt. He pressed into them, the sweet pain a distraction. His condensation-wet fingertips were cold. This bruise was from James. This one was from Darius. The bite mark on his chest was from Holden.
There were no bruises on his throat today. Nothing visible above the collar. Everyone had been so careful of his neck this week, without any explanation. Like a secret, unspoken agreement not to humiliate Kit for today’s challenge.
Thoughtful of them. Kit was perfectly capable of humiliating himself.
“Don’t be nervous,” Holden said, nudging Kit’s knee under the table. Kit had been very clear about the parental meeting ground rules: no blatant groping during lunch. “But you can cling to me if you are. I’ll protect you from the big, bad suburbanites.”
“They’re going to hate me,” Kit said, using his dramatic whine to cover up his real concerns. “I’m a high school dropout leeching off my three boyfriends. That’s not even counting the sort-of part-time job with the guy I want to…”
Kit sipped his water, not daring to look at Bishop. Could Bishop read lips? Bishop could probably read lips. What a fucking bastard.
“Your three boyfriends are murderers,” Holden pointed out calmly. “You look saintly in comparison.”
“Your parents don’t know that!” Kit protested.
Holden switched Kit’s near-empty cup with his own. “They’re still going to love you. Especially since you’re not—oh, shit, they’re here.”
Holden blew a kiss towards Kit, then made his way across the restaurant. The fluttering neon Butterfly Burgers logo danced above the door, illuminating two people who looked exactly as Kit had imagined.
Quentin Radley—tall, thin, blond—clapped Holden on the shoulder and said something about parking.
Ursula Radley—also tall, thin, blond—stared intently at Kit. Her narrow features drew together, then cleared. As if a ray of hope had lightened her mood.
As if a skinny high school dropout with dire emo-adjacent fashion sense was exactly what she wanted to see.
Kit attempted eye contact with Bishop, but Bishop appeared intent on his tablet. Then Kit’s phone buzzed.
Bishop: We can leave at any time.
Which relaxed Kit just in time for the gaggle of tall blond people to descend upon him.
“Kit, this is my mom and dad, Ursula and Quentin,” Holden said, sliding back into his seat. His knee nudged Kit’s once again. “Mom and Dad, this is my boyfriend, Kit.”
“So lovely to meet you,” Ursula said, her smile exactly like Holden’s genuine, not-psycho smile. “Have you eaten here before? What’s good? Quentin, do you want to split a mushroom burger with me?”
There was a brief reprieve as everyone debated orders, and the waiter stopped by in the middle of it. Kit sat in a daze, letting Holden order for him.
Fucking hell. They were so normal.
Like, actually normal. Not the sort Kit was used to.
Once the waiter left, Quentin leaned forward. “What are you majoring in, Kit? And what year are you again?”
“Quentin!” Ursula said. “The last thing these boys want to talk about is school. Let them have the afternoon off.”
It was okay. Kit had decided how to handle this part. An answer weighted more towards truth than lies. “I’m actually not in school.”
Both sets of parental eyes zeroed in.
Kit shrugged. “I took a gap year to save money, and I got a job as a private detective’s assistant. I might get a degree later, but right now, I really enjoy the work.”
Holden patted Kit’s thigh under the table. They would have to discuss what counted as ‘blatant groping’ later.
The Radleys considered Kit for a moment. Then a grin spread across Quentin’s face, and Ursula’s eyes lit up with stars.
“Oh, that’s so sensible!” Ursula exclaimed.
Quentin nodded. “I’ve always said the preschool to undergrad pipeline is a racket.”
“You’ve never said that,” Holden said.
Quentin ignored him. “University isn’t right for every student.”
“How are the hours?” Ursula asked. “Not too much, I hope. I read this article about work-life balance recently. Did you know that working fewer hours per day can actually improve—”
Stunned by the approval radiating from both Radleys, Kit barely kept up enough to nod along.
The conversation was easy. Kit didn’t have to say much. Ursula could talk a mile a minute once she got going, leaving Kit to safely work through his Hawaiian burger. Quentin chimed in occasionally with strong opinions—several times contradicting his previous strong opinions.
And it was all… easy.
Until Quentin stood up to pay the bill, and Holden left to use the restroom, and Kit was all alone with Ursula.
She glanced around, then leaned forward. In a hushed, intense tone, she asked, “Do you do drugs?”
“Um.” Kit glanced around, but Holden was nowhere in sight, and Bishop was pretend-concentrating on his fries. “What?”
Ursula neither replied nor moved. Her gaze was eerily like Holden’s. Voices and clattering plates—normal restaurant sounds—swirled around the silent bubble of their table.
“Just weed?” Kit said. “Sometimes?”
Ursula waved dismissively. “Everyone does a little weed sometimes. I have these lovely CBD pills, and Quentin does love himself a—” She cut herself off and wiped her already-clean hands on her napkin. “Do you do real drugs?”
Trying coke once probably didn’t count. “No?”
“Wonderful, wonderful.” Ursula took her husband’s half-finished iced tea, having already finished her own. “I’m so glad Holden’s found such a responsible young man.”
Kit shifted guiltily in his seat. “I wouldn’t call myself that responsible.”
“Such a responsible young man,” Ursula repeated firmly. She beckoned across the table. “Come, give me your phone number. Holden never lets us visit enough. I need an operative in the field to figure out his schedule.”
“He’s been really busy with his internship,” Kit said, out of a strange compulsion to defend Holden.
“See!” Ursula winked. “You’re already giving me such good information.”
Kit shifted in his seat. When was Holden coming to his rescue?
Sure, it was true that Holden avoided his family as much as possible. But it wasn’t for any bad reason, he just didn’t want them to realize what a murderous psycho he was…
Okay. Maybe that was a bad reason.
Kit couldn’t tell up from down anymore. Entering his number into Ursula’s phone, over the remains of his pineapple burger and the fries he’d stolen from Holden, both Radleys’ iced teas rapidly disappearing, the cheerful Butterfly Burgers logo beaming from the coasters—
Kit didn’t hate this.
Ursula and Quentin were nice. Prone to parroting the latest blog post they’d read, but nice. They seemed to like Kit.
A crushing sadness flattened Kit’s heart. For a moment, Kit wished he was the responsible young man Ursula said he was. That Holden was busy with a normal internship, not a glorified hostage situation with one of his killer co-boyfriends.
Kit wished he could introduce Holden and James and Darius and even goddamn Bishop to his parents too.
But Kit didn’t remember his mom, who was probably dead. And he’d rather forget his dad, who was unfortunately alive.
“—should come down to San Diego,” Ursula was saying. “Quentin makes the most exquisite quiche I’ve ever tasted—don’t tell my mother—and I won’t mind if you want to do a little weed. Only edibles in the house, though, the HOA will complain about the smoke if you—”
“I leave for five minutes and you’re offering to do drugs with my boyfriend?” Holden said, leaning against the back of Kit’s chair.
Ursula waved her phone. “I got his phone number, too.”
Holden glowered—and Kit laughed, all that crushing sadness fluttering away.
“What took you so long in the bathroom?” Kit complained as they settled back into Bishop’s car. “I thought you’d abandoned me. Bishop wasn’t any help.”
Bishop was going to drop Kit and Holden off at Darius’s. James would swing by later and pick up Kit, or send Carla. Sometimes dating so many men felt like another part time job, arranging all the meetups and sleepovers.
The gray sedan felt cramped but cozy, breathless until the AC kicked in and drove out the hour-of-parking-lot heat.
They sat in their usual arrangement—Bishop driving, Kit in the passenger seat, Holden in the back and squeezing Kit’s shoulder before he buckled up.
It was disorienting to realize they had a usual arrangement.
Patterns repeating into habits. Habits repeating into expectations.
The comfort was discomforting, which might be why Kit was leaning into his mostly feigned petulance. He planted his lime-green sneakers on the seat, knees up.
“Had Ursula Radley proven as dangerous as her son…” Bishop tapped Kit’s knee, then started the car. “I would have been very surprised but prepared to rescue you.”
Sighing, Kit obediently moved his feet to the floor. He still slouched, though. He wasn’t about to sit up straight or something appalling like that.
“You did take a while,” Bishop added. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”
Holden chuckled. “I wanted to give my mom and Kit some bonding time.” He touched the back of Kit’s neck—the sound of his breath warning enough that Kit didn’t even flinch. “And yeah, I wanted to fuck with you a bit, Detective B.”
Bishop didn’t even twitch at the nickname. Impressive.
As the parking lot gave way to city streets, San Corvo’s billboards zipping by, Kit leaned into Holden’s massage. Gentle, soothing. He’d like it a little harder but didn’t have the courage to say so with Bishop in the driver’s seat.
Besides, a harder massage would feel too good. Kit had other things to focus on.
“That went well, I think, right?” Kit asked. “They seemed to like me?”
“You sound so surprised,” Holden said fondly. “I told you they would.”
Kit squirmed. “There are so many reasons they shouldn’t like me.”
Bishop glanced over. “You’re very likable.” Which Kit almost protested, before Bishop added, “And good at lying.”
That was more like it. “Your mom asked if I did drugs,” Kit said. “She was like, weirdly insistent about it.”
“Oh.” Holden sat back, with an uncharacteristic awkward laugh. “That.”
“Oh, that?” Kit swiveled to glare—but Bishop tapped his knee again, and he slumped facing forward.
Holden leaned over the console. Bishop didn’t care about his posture, apparently. “When I was a sophomore, I pretended I had a meth-head girlfriend taking all my money.”
They merged onto the freeway, traffic light and breezy at this hour of the afternoon.
“What,” Kit said after a moment.
“She wasn’t real,” Holden said quickly, as if that made it better. “You’re the first real person I’ve ever dated.”
“Not something I was concerned about until this exact moment,” Kit said faintly. “How many pretend people have you dated?”
“Just the one,” Holden assured him. “I only talked about her with my parents. It’s not like I was actually pretending to date her.”
“I’m not jealous.” Kit contemplated, then decided that it was true. This was too weird to be jealous about. “Were you just fucking with your parents?”
Holden laughed, his usual composure back. “Fucking with them was a bonus, but it wasn’t the point. That was when I started really building up my murder caches, and I needed an explanation for where all the money was going.”
“Your murder caches,” Kit said. “Right, of course.”
Totally sensible to make up a meth-head girlfriend to obscure the stashes of weapons, cleanup supplies, and other equipment Holden had hidden around San Corvo.
Christ, how did Kit ever mistake Holden for normal?
“Besides,” Holden said cheerfully. “Now all my other choices look wonderful in comparison. Mom was so thrilled when I broke up with her. I rode that wave of goodwill for like a year.”
“Wow, that’s…” Kit struggled for the words.
“Pretty smart,” Bishop chimed in.
Kit stared. “Not what I was going to say.”
Bishop just grinned. They shared a sideways glance, and the instant of connection was a gut punch of familiarity. Like there wasn’t any awkward unfinished business between them.
When they reached Darius’s block, Bishop slowed way down. “What’s James’s car doing here?”
“I asked him to come over,” Holden said, and his sly grin was liquid fire in his voice. “I’m calling a very important meeting.”