Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
March
Trav
I’m here because I’m a jealous man. I have only myself to blame.
“You can never breathe a word about this, Elkington,” I threaten.
Maxwell smiles demurely, entertained by my reluctance.
“A man never divulges another man’s beauty secrets.
” He swings the door open, gesturing me on ahead of him.
Everything gleams, including the front desk staff who give me a questionable look—fair, they must be wondering how the beast before them escaped from the Vancouver Zoo—but light the fuck up when they set their gazes on Maxwell.
“Mayor Elkington, we’ve booked your preferred therapists and estheticians.”
“And I appreciate it, but I insist you pair my friend with them. I want Travis, here, to have an epic spa experience. It’s his first time,” he says, and I detect the faintest undercurrent of amusement. It couldn’t be more obvious that it’s my first time.
Now that they know I’m with Elkington and didn’t wander in off the street, I’m treated to the same glowing smiles.
“You must be Mr. Nolan. We have a robe for you right this way.”
I arch a brow at Maxwell. “Robe?”
“Go with it, Nolan. I promise, when you leave here, you’ll have ten years off that roguish face of yours.”
That is the goal. Looking younger. Sigh.
I noticed the passionate fandom Dirk seems to have collected this season.
Has he always had it, and I failed to notice?
Or is it due to the sudden influx of college hockey romance books to hit the market?
Hard to say. But even though the league Dirk plays for isn’t a college league, they’re in that age range, so it seems to count.
Anyway, he’s been noticed in a big way. Lots of beautiful young men and women with signs bearing Dirk’s name and jersey number three.
The irrational fear that he’d explore other options, his own age, haunted me until I found myself texting Maxwell, asking about moisturizer creams—aka, the extent of my knowledge on skincare.
Instead of a reply with a recommendation, I got a date and time to meet him at this spa. Why didn’t I tell him to fuck right off? Because my gorgeous boyfriend-husband sent me nudes, and a little voice told me it couldn’t hurt to give this a shot.
I didn’t realize Maxwell and I would be doing this together.
“I’m fucking excited,” he says once we’re in a changeroom that’s coated in steam and eucalyptus. He strips down, unveiling his perfect body, and slips into his robe. “This is the beginning of a beautiful bromance.”
Sadly, I can’t even argue. Who else do you go to a spa with other than a buddy you want to get to know? None of my biker brethren would be caught dead here, that’s for sure. But damn. The eucalyptus steam does smell nice.
Undressing, I reach for the fluffy white spa robe a tiny woman named Tina left for me.
“Dayum, Nolan. That body. No wonder you snagged yourself a young one.”
“Not so fucking loud,” I hiss. He might not have a care in the world, but I do.
“Don’t worry. No one else is here. Do you think I’d book a spa day without booking the whole place to ourselves?”
Of course, he did.
“The staff—”
“I own this spa, did I forget to mention that? Anyone working for Elkington Enterprises signs an NDA. I often bring people here to talk shop.”
He’s still raking his eyes up and down my body. I pull my robe around me, tying it in firm tugs. Maybe he can trust his staff, but I can’t trust him.
Maxwell fiddles with my hair. “We’ve got to do something about this. It’s mangy like a dog that’s been out in the wild too long.”
I bat his hands away. “No touching me, Elkington.”
“Right, I apologize. Your man might take offense. I’ll leave the touching to the professionals. Come along then … oh, wait. Almost forgot.”
He pulls slippers from a basket. The ones for me are somehow my size—not an easy feat.
I don’t have a standard foot size. But fuck are they ever comfortable.
I might have to keep these. My toes can’t resist scrunching deep into the soft faux fur.
These are faux fur, right? They’d better be fucking fake, but they’re too heavenly for me to ask a question I probably don’t want to know the answer to.
“Let’s go,” Elkington says. “Time to make the beast a beauty.”
Idon’t know what I was expecting. Maybe some creams, a few fancy potions …
Instead, I was given something called a vampire facelift.
I almost left the damn room, but once again I was swayed by the promise of a fountain of youth.
From that point on, I resigned myself. It didn’t end there.
Things were injected into my face. I had to sit under some red-light thing for an hour.
I’ll admit that the full-body massage was fucking incredible, but I could have done without the mud bath.
And then my hair.
The hairdresser looked afraid to touch me, probably because I was giving “touch and I’ll stab” vibes after a day of being poked and prodded like a lab rat.
“Mayor Elkington had a style in mind, Mr. Nolan, sir.”
I waved a hand and growled, wanting to get the fuck out of there, but my last “handler” had already relayed the message that Maxwell was waiting for me on the terrace with a late spa lunch. I wasn’t getting out of here any time soon.
When the dude did the big reveal, he stepped back, most likely terrified for his life, and with good reason.
The underside of my hair is gone. What’s left is still long, all the way to my shoulders, so the ability to hide my scalp is there, but if I sling one side, I look more like the beast man Dirk says I am.
I … actually fucking like it. But what if he doesn’t? Dammit. I’ll kill Elkington for this.
Storming onto the terrace, I find Maxwell, fully dressed, sipping on a glass of pinot gris with fancy plates of food in front of him. He’s as fresh as a summer day. Is that caviar? Jesus, this guy. I pull out my chair like an angry bull. Maxwell drinks me in.
“Wow. Your man’s going to go wild.”
“What the fuck did you do to me?”
“I got them to highlight what was already there and shave some years away. Once the swelling goes down, everyone will assume you’re your son’s older brother.”
I calm down a bit. Do I really look that much younger?
Fuck, if it were Dash worried about looking a certain way for someone, I’d lecture him on how looks don’t matter and a person should love you for you, yet here I am, playing into vanity.
But, man, my skin’s looking the best it has in years, even with the swelling from that weird vampire facial.
“Let’s just get to the business you wanted to discuss, Maxwell. This was a slice, but I’ve got work to do and a son to call.” Also, a man to have long-distance sex with, but I’m not telling him that. He knows more about Dirk than I’ve ever wanted him to.
“I wanted to suggest a trip in August,” he says.
As it does when I’m with Maxwell, my blood runs cold. I know he’s suggesting that we go on a little Robin hunt.
“You know where he’s going to be?”
“I know where I can make him be,” he says.
I run my fingers across my freshly shorn scalp.
Fucking Maxwell. We are the same. It’s as if he’s plucked the thoughts from my mind and brought them into reality.
I’ve come up with a million solutions for Robin, all of them end with him six feet under.
Unless I can send him to the moon. But if I’m going to take care of him, it’ll be with my brothers, not Maxwell.
All I have to do is ask. My annual summer trip’s not too far away; it would be a great time to discuss it. They were as furious as I was when Dash turned up hurt; they’d love to help me take care of the guy who did it. We don’t need Maxwell.
But Maxwell’s intel would help.
“Don’t answer me now. I can see you need to digest that information. I know what I would do to anyone who ever touched one of my children, so don’t worry. I understand the way you feel.”
I’ve never told him how I feel. This whole fucking thing is messed up.
I get the nagging sensation that I’m just a rat in a lab he’s watching, analyzing.
Setting up vicious little scenarios, seeing how I’ll respond.
Maxwell’s leading me down a bread-crumb trail, and just like Hansel and Gretel, I’m following it right to the witch’s doorstep.
The man who harmed my son is one helluva bread-crumb trail to violence.
Witches are supposed to be ugly, wart-infested, and sound hideous. Maxwell’s soothing voice could lull a pit of vipers.
“What do you want from me, Maxwell? I know your help doesn’t come for free.”
“I told you. A friend. And I wouldn’t mind a good word with my sons.”
I huff, shoving a caviar-filled crostini into my mouth and downing the wine. Maxwell’s quick to refill my glass. “I don’t have any sway over your sons. I don’t know them.”
“You’re connected with their inner circle more than I am. It’s one of the few places I have little sway.”
“And what if I have nothing good to say about you?”
He shrugs. “Then you don’t. But it’s worth trying.”
Leaning back in my chair, I consider him, drinking more wine. “We’ll see about the good word to your sons. I need to know what I’m putting in a good word about. As for the other thing, no. I don’t need to go on a revenge mission.”
Not with him anyway.
“Think about it,” he insists. “And in the meantime, try the crab cakes. You’ll like those, they’re my favorite.”
Well, that was fucked in seventeen different ways, but I have to admit that whatever Maxwell had them do to me at his magical spa of wonders, it worked. My skin’s glowing, and he was right, the haircut and whatever they did to my eyebrows, adds something wolfish to my features.
I get stares as I walk through the restaurant, the hostees and the servers trying to look without me catching them. Don’t really care what they think, I just want Dirk to like it.
My first video call is to Dash. He’s with Syd, but it’s what we could fit in.