Chapter 12 #2
Besides, Joshy is the only one of my roommates I’d trust this far, and I at least mostly think he’ll pull through.
My doubts in his character stem from life experience and personal paranoia, not because he’s ever lied or stolen from me.
Still, it’s safer to at least half-expect the people you rely on to let you down.
That way, you’re able to land on your feet when you fall.
“Hey, be safe out there,” Joshy calls to my back as I hustle Young-gi back to the door. “I’ll keep your bed here, yeah? Don’t forget about little ol’ me now that you’ve got it good, okay?!”
His voice gets farther away and I close the front door on the slightly sad tone at the end, the sardonic twist of self-deprecating humor. I sigh, feeling the weird urge to just lean against the door and process for a while, but I don’t have time.
“We’ve gotta get the fuck out of here,” I urge, and hustle Young-gi back the way we came. I look over the railing just in time to see five men turn the corner that the scout ran down when we first arrived.
Shit, that was fast. They must’ve been close by. Bad luck.
“Follow me exactly!” I hiss, and Young-gi copies my dance down the stairs. This is the reason Joshy almost never leaves the house. Poor schmuck, he’s stuck up there. I don’t know how he gets his rent money.
We hit the pavement right as the group starts to cross the street to us.
“Oh shit, get in the car. Yosef, get in, go!” I grab Young-gi’s arm and haul ass, while Yosef spins to see what the issue is.
Young-gi is startlingly calm as I drag him into the car with me, maybe not seeing the danger I do. I manage to bundle us both in, almost falling on top of him before scrambling away.
“What the fuck is he doing?!” I ask when I look out the window and realize Yosef hasn’t moved an inch, and is still standing there, ready to face off a group of eager carjackers.
“Handling it,” Young-gi says, sighing like this is all inconvenient. He leans down to grab something under the seat. “The window, Nigel,” he calls to the now half-lowered partition between us and the driver.
My jaw drops in shock and dismay as the back window rolls down, but before I can squawk out any complaints, Young-gi pulls a fucking bazooka out from under the seat.
Okay, not a bazooka, I don’t know what a bazooka looks like, but it’s a big-ass fucking gun and it has a big-ass fucking magazine of bullets.
Looks like one of those guns that shoots more than one round when you touch the trigger.
He holds it out the window and aims at the thugs who are in a Mexican standoff with Yosef–all holding puny handguns and flashing knives at each other.
They see the barrel of Young-gi’s superior weapon and bark out some cuss words before scrambling to flee like a pack of wild dogs, yelping and howling.
Yosef briskly circles the car, not at all like he’s worried for his life, and hops in the front passenger seat while the driver casually puts the car into gear and pulls away from my building, both of them acting like we’re out for a Sunday drive.
“What the fuuuuck…?” I breathe the question and watch as Young-gi expertly removes the ammunition from the weapon before stowing it again, brushing his hands off and sitting back like it was nothing.
And now I’m turned on because holy shit. That was so fucking hot.
Seeing him handle the gun made me half hard in my jeans and I squirm uncomfortably as it quickly deflates, all my emotions getting flipped around by my shame.
It’s a struggle to keep myself together, but I manage it, and breathe through the emotional roller coaster that seems to happen a lot when Young-gi is around.
“I have several meetings this afternoon,” Young-gi pulls out his phone, like he’s checking his calendar. “You said you’d behave. Can you manage to sit still for a couple hours?”
“Sit still?” I ask, a little aghast. “Like, still still? Can’t I wait in the lobby or something?”
“I’ll be keeping my eyes on you, so no. You’ll be in the office with me. Can you behave?”
Shiiiit.
The truth is, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sit still that long, especially in boring meetings where they’ll talk about things I don’t understand or care about at all, but I really like him asking me that, all stern and shit. Damn, he should ask me that while he pins me down and fucks me.
“Yeah,” I almost pant. “I’ll be good.”
Fuck. I hadn’t meant to say it that way. He pauses, I pause. We’re silent in the car, tension eating me alive. Then, slowly and with an obvious electric buzz, the partition between us and the driver closes the rest of the way, like someone in the front decided to give us privacy.
If my dark skin could blush, I’d be beet red right now. I sink into my chair, and look out the window.
Then I stiffen up all over again, flinching hard and then freezing solid, as Young-gi leans into my space.
Into my space and then practically on top of me, as he takes the seatbelt and pulls it across my body for me, clicking me in.
The snap of it locking into place shouldn’t make my dick twitch, but it does.
Goddamn, what the fuck even ARE my kinks?!
I swallow hard and barely breathe while Young-gi alternates between working on his phone and staring at me. And, oddly enough, instead of being relieved during those times his eyes are on his phone, I’m kind of…
Kind of…
Antsy? Restless? A mix of things. Horny, disappointed, waiting for his stare again.
This isn’t like me. I don’t get all hung up on some guy’s attention and care, on his opinion of me and the way he treats me. I don’t.
************
Young-gi’s office is shiny and big, but at this point, I expect nothing less. We get a huge swath of some upper floor all to ourselves, and he has Yosef grab a table from somewhere and bring it into the room, with a chair, so I can sit down while Young-gi sits at his desk.
But I don’t sit there yet, because I’m too busy investigating every corner of this office.
He’s got a conference room and a waiting room and a storage closet up here, too, all empty and waiting for him to use.
But the main attraction is the wall of windows that his desk faces; the panoramic view of the city is unreal. I can see Central Park from here!
I look over my shoulder and see that Young-gi is sitting at his desk, documents and his laptop in front of him, but his eyes are on me. His intense stare and the predatory stillness of him reminds me of the first time I met him. The first time I realized the rumors about him were probably true.
“You ever kill anybody in here?” I ask, trotting back over to the desk to press my hands against it and lean over it, facing him down from across the tabletop.
I become immediately aware that if this is my version of flirting, then firstly it’s abysmal and secondly I shouldn’t be doing it with him. But I just can’t seem to stop myself.
He raises one of those silently eloquent eyebrows at me and I roll my eyes, annoyed that I think even his eyebrows are sexy.
“You ever fuck anybody in here?” I ask teasingly, looking around for good spots. I grin and pat the desk underneath my palms. “This is sturdy enough, I’d think. And that conference room table was the right height. You could have all kinds of fun in here.”
“Are you trying to be provocative or are you just bored and rambling?” He leans elegantly on one fist, the other hand drumming a single finger on the desktop in a lazy, unhurried rhythm. “Do you need something to do while you sit? A coloring book, maybe?”
I huff at him, then pause. Narrow-eyed and annoyed, I concede. “I know you’re being a dick and implying that I’m acting childish, but yeah, I’d like something to do. Not a coloring book. But I like to draw, so maybe pens. Paper. A book. Just not nothing.”
“Yosef,” he says immediately, flicking his eyes over my shoulder to the sentry at the door. “Pens and paper. And a puzzle or something similar. Quickly.”
Yosef hustles out the door and I lean back and straighten up, a little startled. “You’re really getting me stuff to do?”
“You asked. Did you expect me to say no?”
“...Maybe?” I shrug. “I don’t know, I figured you’d tell me to stop whining and to get out of your face or something.”
And that would’ve made sense. It would’ve been expected, understandable, and commonplace.
I would feel a lot more comfortable and steady if he just…
If he just stops acting like I matter. Because I don’t, not to him or to anyone, and he needs to stop being weird about everything because it’s confusing me.
He hums thoughtfully. “Why would I set you up to fail, Tommy? If you tell me that you need help sitting still, if you tell me you need help being good–” he emphasizes that, and I squirm, wondering if maybe he’s the one flirting now, but of course he isn’t, that would be ridiculous, “--then I’ll help you.
There’s no… no honesty, no trust, in telling you to behave only to set you up for failure.
That’s not how it’s going to be between us. ”
“Trust?” I balk, both verbally and physically, going back to the windows for some space. “We don’t need trust. This is a business arrangement. A deal. That’s it.”
“As someone who is intimately familiar with business arrangements, I’ll have to disagree. Trust is necessary for a solid deal.”
For some reason, his words have my hackles raising, and I feel my temper rising.
He’s being stupid. Young-gi is too smart to believe such bullshit, so he’s just…
What, making fun of me? Lying to me? Maybe he thinks I’m an idiot, and he can just be a blatant liar and I wouldn’t know. But he’s wrong. I know the truth.