Chapter 4 #2
Walker made him strip, taking all but his shoes and socks with him.
By the time he had Kota under the water, the boy looked dazed but sated.
Walker hated how much he liked it.
The truck stop parking lot was slick with rain that must have started while they were occupied in the showers, the air cool against his overheated skin as Walker stepped out of the shower building. Diesel fumes mingled with wet asphalt. Somewhere nearby, an engine rattled to life.
The scent of Kota still clung stubbornly to his skin, refusing to be washed away by the damp night air.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and read the message in the app. It was from bugreport404.
Bugreport404
Call me. It’s important.
He could already feel a throbbing behind his left eye as he signed into the encrypted app and pressed the green call button. He listened to the digital ring of the phone, a headache forming pre-emptively. One that intensified the moment he heard the voice on the other end.
“Howdy, Tex,” Tris answered breathlessly.
Walker rolled his eyes at the ridiculous nickname. It was insane to him how such a simple name could always lead to the same moniker. He’d never even seen the show.
“I’ve asked you not to call me that,” Walker said flatly.
“Noted,” Tris said, voice strained. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Walker frowned. “Are you busy?”
“Exercising,” Tris said, clearly winded.
This was why he tried to avoid telephone calls. He didn’t have the personality to carry conversations. He found the niceties of society exhausting.
He continued to pace around his truck, scanning his surroundings, ever cognizant of anyone who might overhear the conversation. Not that anyone would be able to follow it. Half of Tris’s conversations sounded like the ramblings of a man experiencing a medical emergency.
Walker glanced up at the sky. Thick gray clouds hung low, blocking out the moon, letting him know the rain wasn’t finished yet.
The only light came from the hollow yellow streetlights dotted along the massive parking lot, amplified only by the reflection in the oily pools of rainwater gathering in the potholes.
Rows of sleeping tractor trailers stretched into the darkness, their running lights glowing red and amber like watchful eyes.
He sighed. “Where’s your husband?”
“Uh, he’s here,” Tris managed, voice rising on the last syllable before ending in a sharp inhalation. “We’re…exercising together.”
The rhythmic thumping on the other side of the line fell off, followed by what sounded suspiciously like muffled laughter and the squeak of bed springs.
“How nice for you. Can I talk to him instead?” Walker asked.
“Hand me that phone and I’m hanging up,” Cade said, voice muffled.
There was another huffed-out laugh, followed by a low, drawn-out moan.
“I’m hanging up,” Walker grumbled.
“No. No. No. No. No,” Tris begged, clearly shifting position.
Tris’s chant had Walker thinking about moments ago. The memory arrived uninvited: Kota pinned against the wall of the shower, pleading with Walker to keep going. Kota flushed and breathless, eyes glassy.
His cock hardened almost instantly, reminding him that only one of them had gotten off.
Maybe that was why Cade and Tris’s sexcapades were annoying him more than usual.
“Then put Cade on the phone,” Walker stated.
“My husband doesn’t know shit about anything.
Unless you’ve finally decided to use the matchmaker feature again?
Is that it? Are you trying to get my husband to do a job with you?
Oh, wow. That’s not where I thought that would go.
I thought it could be like a murder mate feature.
A meet-cute for killers.” The throbbing in Walker’s skull intensified.
“Just to be clear, you’re not Cade’s type.
You know that, right? He’s not into those jacked-up Iowa farm boys. I’m his type. Me. He likes me.”
Somewhere in the background, Cade made a noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement.
Walker pinched the bridge of his nose.
This conversation had somehow become less productive than talking to Carrot Cake, and Carrot Cake’s primary form of communication was screaming at him when her food bowl was half empty.
“A twink with verbal diarrhea and a sugar addiction?” Walker questioned.
“Hey!” Tris cried, then deflated. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but still.”
“Please, can I talk to Cade?” Walker said, exasperated.
“No. Don’t be rude,” Tris panted. “He’ll kick your ass. My husband is very protective of me. Isn’t that right, baby?”
“Yes,” Cade growled, entirely too close to the speaker for Walker’s comfort. “Very.”
There was a brief silence, followed by a noise Walker very deliberately chose not to identify.
Tris gasped, then made some kind of half-bitten off sound that made Walker huff out a breath through his nose.
“See?” Tris said smugly.
“Christ, you’re annoying,” Walker said. “Can you two stop fucking for five minutes so we can have this conversation?”
Tris cackled. Walker heard a rustling of fabric, then Tris saying to Cade, “Take five, baby. We’ll pick this up in a minute.”
There was a low snarl of frustration before Cade grumbled, “Hurry up.” This was followed by a sharp slap of skin-on-skin and Tris yelping in pain.
“I’m serious,” Cade said menacingly.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tris retorted dismissively.
Walker could practically hear the eye-roll.
Rainwater dripped onto the brim of his hat as he circled around the truck, weaving between puddles. The headache behind his eye had spread to encompass most of his skull.
Finally, Tris returned his attention to Walker.
“Why are you calling instead of using the app, anyway? You never call in, not even when you’re driving.
You didn’t get got, did you? You didn’t, right?
You know the rules. If you did, we can’t help you.
Did the kid turn you in? Oh, shit. Did you kill him?
Is that what this is about? It is, isn’t—”
“Mouse, why don’t you let him speak and then you’ll know why he’s calling,” Cade said, now from a distance.
“Oh, right,” Tris said, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “So…what’s up?” he asked, tone overly casual.
“You messaged me,” Walker said through gritted teeth, pressing the palm of his hand to his eye, trying to stop the pounding.
Tris giggled. “Oh, yeah. A site opened up on your route, so you can butcher…that deer you’re hauling.”
Subtle.
“This is why you messaged me? I would have seen it in the app,” Walker snarled.
He hated wasting time. Especially when he still had a body in his truck and a half-dressed Kota waiting for him in the shower.
“Can’t I just check in with a friend?” Tris asked.
“We’re not friends.”