11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
I feel more rested than I have in a very long time, and I could definitely get used to this. The twitchy, nervous energy that controls me whenever I’m awake is still there, for sure. But it’s dulled. Like there’s a piece of fabric sitting in between me and the electric sparks that power that part of my brain.
The awkwardness that I’ve gotten used to is missing when Gunnar and I wake up. And all through the normal morning—well, afternoon technically, but morning for us—things like teeth-brushing and whatever, it never makes itself known. We’re both quiet. But it’s a peaceful quiet.
I keep eying Gunnar for signs that he’s about to freak out. There’s been a constant sense of push and pull with him from the start. Which I get. I kind of crash-landed into his life, and he doesn’t owe me shit. Especially not just because no matter how much I deny it, I really do follow him around like a desperate teenager with a crush.
It’s humiliating but inexorable, so I’ve learned to accept it. And if he’s going to insist on standing there in the kitchen, barefoot but still wearing slacks and that stupid wrinkled button-down, with the shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows so I can see the way the muscles and tendons in his forearms flex as he gently cracks some eggs into a frying pan… All deep olive skin and the kind of dark body hair that isn’t overwhelming but reeks of masculinity…
I can’t be held responsible for my actions.
I’m only human. And not a very strong one at that.
So, I sit at the table in the oversized loungewear that I’ve come to live in permanently, openly ogling whenever I get a glimpse of the veins protruding from the side of his forearm.
I’ve suffered in life, and I deserve a little something in return. The horny police can’t stop me.
“Tobias?”
The voice snaps me out of my daze. Apparently, I wasn’t paying attention to Gunnar actually speaking to me while I was too busy objectifying him.
“Mm?”
“Do you want coffee?” He’s staring at me like I’m being weird, so I probably am, but what else is new? At least I don’t have drool on my face.
I think.
“I can get it. You’re fine.”
Hopping up, I busy myself with getting coffee for both of us. Focusing on the physical task helps me order my thoughts and pull them back in line. Away from the pervy place, which is harmless but also a little pathetic. Especially considering it’s not like I have a chance with someone like Gunnar for anything more than pity snuggles until he eventually releases me back into the wild.
And also away from the paranoid place that still sees Eamon lurking in every corner. Which is less abrasive now than a few days ago. But I think that’s because I’ve acclimated to the constant sense of dread, not because it’s actually lessened. I still think I see him, hear him, smell him, or whatever, a hundred times a day. But my body was already used to coasting on the jagged edge of an adrenaline rush from one minute to the next, so shifting to this particular kind of adrenaline rush hasn’t been too much of an adjustment.
It’s fine. It’s a feeling I know how to work with. If it never goes away, I can deal with that. As long as Eamon goes away.
The reality of that happening isn’t great, but I’m not ready to seriously think through that yet.
I do, however, have something else to distract the both of us with for a little while. Something where I can be useful for a change.
“I was thinking last night while you were at work.”
I turn around and lean back against the kitchen counter, resting on my hands while the coffee sputters and percolates behind me. Gunnar continues to poke at the eggs and sausage, which are apparently the only non-microwavable foods he keeps in the house, but he gives me a wary look all the same.
When I don’t get a verbal response, I take that as a sign to continue.
“I think I have a plan to help Kasia.”
Gunnar frowns. “That’s not what I thought you were going to say, but okay. Hit me.”
“You said he was a pedophile, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, his frown deepening as his gaze returns to the eggs. “She found awful shit on his phone. I know she still feels guilty about not being able to do anything to stop him, but she did everything she could. She filed reports, tried to get other people to file, made anonymous complaints. There was never enough evidence. And she couldn’t exactly stalk him when she filed for an order of protection that prevented contact between them.”
I nod along, because all that tracks.
“Totally. I get it. I probably would have felt responsible, too, if I were her. Because he’s this piece of shit, and she’s been the one serving him breakfast all those years. Knowing he was a scumbucket and having made her peace with the repercussions that had for her, but not realizing how much farther it went.”
Gunnar is staring at me instead of the eggs now. I’m not sure if it’s because the breakfast comment was too on the nose considering he’s currently cooking for someone who is technically a criminal squatting in his apartment, or because I let too much of my own thoughts slip out like an unstoppable moron, but I’m going to power through.
“Anyway,” I shake my head, as if that’ll help me focus. “The point is, I get it. But there really was nothing she could do that probably wouldn’t have led to him killing her. People like that protect their secrets closely, because they know how bad it would be if it got out. But also, because they always, always, always have evidence. I think it’s something about the way their minds are broken. They can’t let go, even if they know it makes them more likely to be caught. There’s always evidence if you look hard enough. I’ve seen like a thousand documentaries on sex offenders, and it always ends the same way.”
Gunnar’s eyes narrow at that. “So, in addition to watching every piece of fictional cinema that’s been designed to deep-fry your brain cells in human misery, you also watch documentaries about pedophiles. That’s what you’re telling me? Is that the next stage in how you’re planning on taking my television’s virtue?”
It’s not really funny because of the topic of the conversation, but it kind of is. Also, he just looks so fucking serious as he says it. Spatula in one hand, the other on his hip, those forearms still working hard to distract me, and just a teeny tiny bit of sweat beading on his forehead from the oven. One of the only imperfections I’ve ever seen on him, and it still looks like spray on. The perfectly formed sweat droplets of someone who always has their shit together.
So fuck it. I laugh. I laugh and turn to pour us the coffee before I finally get to the point.
“I’ll tell you what, if you go along with my genius plan, we can watch something boring about baby panda bears or whatever normal people like. Promise. But hear me out first.”
“I know I’m not going to like this,” he grumbles, but doesn’t object.
“There has to be evidence. That’s my point. And he knows that she can’t touch him and she’s also the only one who probably knows this about him, or at least believes it. So, he thinks he’s safe. Arrogance is also a common theme with these guys.”
Gunnar rolls his eyes, but I’m assuming it’s directed at Jorden and everyone like him rather than me.
“So, let’s go get it.”
Now I have his attention.
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘let’s go get it’?”
“Exactly that.” I put his coffee on the counter next to him while he unfreezes his brain enough to plate up the food. “Let’s go get it. This man cannot possibly live in a fortress. He’ll have evidence of his horrific federal crimes somewhere in his home, I would bet anything on it. And I’m literally a professional cat burglar.”
Gunnar stares at me. This isn’t new information to him, but for whatever reason—either the fact that I’m acknowledging it out loud, or maybe just the playful enthusiasm I’ve got going on now that I finally don’t feel like baked shit for once—his mouth is hanging slightly open, and his synapses can’t seem to form a sentence to reply to me.
I do the only natural thing, clawing the air in front of me very slowly and hissing like a cat to get my point across.
“See?”
Gunnar blinks.
“You want to break into Kasia’s abusive ex’s house to steal evidence of his underage sex-abuse crimes? While you’re currently on the run from your own abusive ex?”
The words come out very slowly, like he knows he has several objections, but he can’t quite articulate them yet.
“Yep.” I nod. When he doesn’t make a move with the plates, I grab them out of his hands and put them on the little table before returning to stand right in front of him. “It’ll be fun. Use my evil powers for good, or whatever. Besides, I’ll have you by my side to protect me, right?”
My tone is teasing, and I tug at the front of his shirt and bat my eyelashes at him coquettishly while I say it, which seems to snap Gunnar out of his shocked daze.
He bats my hand away from his shirt gently, looking at me with a powerful combination of annoyance and indulgence that I kind of want to soak up like a sad, underwatered little houseplant.
“You’re terrible. I can’t decide which is more concerning: the catatonic version of you that makes me worry so much I might drive into a ditch, or this version,” he says, gesturing at me vaguely. Then he smiles, leaning into the ever-shrinking gap between our faces. “You’re dangerous, little one. You know that, right?”
My stomach flip-flops. I may be the one who started flirting, but I wasn’t expecting to get it back in such a real way, and my body was totally unprepared for it.
I’ve been appreciating Gunnar in both a personal and an aesthetic way for months now, and it’s only intensified the last couple of days. But my dick, unsurprisingly, has not been interested in the conversation. He’s been preoccupied with sad shit, and I was happy to let him mope. It’s not like I really needed him for anything.
But right now, with Gunnar looking at me from a few inches away and my clothes still smelling like him after spending the whole night sleeping in his arms, some things are waking up. The chipped and dented connections in that part of my body are finding ways to line themselves back up again, and while the feeling is very fucking abrupt, it’s not unwelcome.
I have completely forgotten what we were talking about. Is it my turn to speak?
Gunnar seems to break from his own lascivious trance around the same time and takes half a step back from me. His face falls, and he scrubs one hand down it.
“Let’s just eat. We can talk about it afterward, okay? I’m not crazy about the idea of putting you in danger, but I’m also very aware that I can be overprotective, and when it comes to catching a child predator, I might need to have some perspective. But first…” he trails off, hesitating for a second before reaching out to touch my cheek. Just for a second. So lightly I can barely feel it. “Fuck it,” he sighs. “Let’s just eat first, and then you can talk me into it.”
I feel like I’ve been spun around and turned inside out, but the smile comes to my face, anyway. I’ll win this fight. He knows it; I know it. It’s only a matter of time.
Six hours later, we’re parked in Gunnar’s car down a shitty back road behind Mishicot. Mishicot is not far from the bar and is essentially the trailer park version of a ‘town’, with a population of 196.
I’ve managed to avoid it the entire time I lived in Possum Hollow, despite being a fifteen-minute drive away. And now I’m here, because this is my stupid plan, and I talked Gunnar into going along with it approximately four and a half minutes after we finished breakfast.
Kasia and Sav are watching the bar. Kasia knows we’re doing something, but doesn’t have the details, so she can’t be implicated. Sav, we decided, got all the details, just in case we needed rescuing. Then it took a long time for me to piece together something from Gunnar’s closet that I could actually do crime in—very old, too-small black work-out pants that he should have thrown away a long time ago, with the cuffs rolled up, along with a t-shirt I will be daring him to still fit into later and a black sweatshirt that Kasia lent me. Because if you account for my broader shoulders and her heftier chest coming out in a wash, we’re kind of the same size.
“It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.”
Gunnar looks at me from the driver’s seat, the same grave-but-kind look in his eye that I’ve come to recognize. He almost always seems to pull that expression when he’s more worried for you than about you, but it’s cute either way. I’ll take it.
“I’m not changing my mind. This is important. I’ll get whatever I can find, like a laptop or a secret hard drive. They always have a secret hard drive. Leave it out, leave the door open and call the cops. He gets busted, goes to jail, Kasia lives happily ever after, and I get rid of a tiny little percentage of my karmic debt. It’s simple.”
“And what if you can’t get in?”
I snort. “Please. The man lives in a trailer. If I can’t break in without leaving a trace, I deserve to get caught.”
The skin around Gunnar’s eyes tightens, but he doesn’t say anything.
“You’re my look out. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine.”
He pauses before turning even more in his seat to look at me and reaching out like he’s going to touch my cheek again, but then quickly pulling his hand back in.
“Then why do you look nervous?”
I freeze for a second, but then let out all my tension with a huff. I guess I can tell him? Otherwise, he’ll just assume it’s about this, which it really isn’t. This is kiddie-league level theft.
I roll my eyes, because I know it’s going to sound so stupid when I say it, but I also know he won’t leave it alone until I tell him.
“It’s nothing. I’m not nervous about this. I’ve just never been to Mishicot before. I’ve always avoided it because it’s where my shitty sperm donor is from.”
Gunnar raises his eyebrows as the information sinks in. “Is he still here?”
Shaking my head, I avoid his gaze. “No, he bounced a long fucking time ago. I don’t think anyone knows where he is. I’ve never even met him.” Gunnar is waiting for the other shoe to drop, clearly, so I give it to him. “But I do have a half-brother that I’ve also never met, and he lives here.”
There’s a long silence. It’s fine. I wouldn’t know what to say to that either.
“Do you wanna meet him?”
That was the last thing I expected him to ask, and the question makes me freeze.
“Um… I don’t know. No? I don’t hate him or anything. He’s just some random guy whose mom also got knocked up by a scumbag. It’s not like we mean anything to each other, though. And there’s a chance he could have turned out just like our father, which means he’s not someone I want to be around. What’s the point?”
Gunnar seems to take his time considering this. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, and his words seem to be carefully chosen.
“I’m not one of those people that believes you owe your family everything just because you’re blood related. Family is more complicated than that, and no one should have to keep people in their life that are hurting them. In whatever way. But,” he takes a deep breath and then he really does touch me, tilting my chin up to force me to look at him. It makes me feel small and shivery, but in the best possible way. “Just because he doesn’t mean anything to you now doesn’t mean he couldn’t one day. If you did want to meet him eventually, there’s nothing wrong with that. Family can be thin on the ground sometimes, and it’s not embarrassing to want a little more.”
The words tumble in my head out of order, not totally making sense. The thought makes my gut twist, though. I don’t have the capacity for this right now. I file it away as something to deal with later.
Much later.
“Yeah, sure. Maybe.” I shrug. “Come on, let’s get this show on the road. We have some sneaking to do before we get to his place, and I think you might be too tall to be stealthy. If you’re not a good look-out, I’ll have to fire you and replace you with Kasia. Just saying. She seems like she would be an excellent guard dog.”
Gunnar really does roll his eyes at me this time, but he drops the subject. We both seem to take a few more seconds to look at each other before finally, silently, slipping out of the car.