Chapter 2 Xaden #6
Their conversation drifts down the bar, as familiar as the smell of stale peanuts.
“Don’t know what I’m payin’ those property taxes for. Still got the same damn potholes out front.”
“Well, at least they finally fixed the streetlight.”
“Working here’s a goddamn Groundhog Day,” the bartender mutters, collecting empties from nearby tables.
“Mickey in?” I ask, casual. She jerks a thumb toward a door near the pool table, giving me an appreciative once-over when I walk past her.
Mickey is behind a desk, hunched over invoices. His scarred brow twitches when he sees me. “Well, shit. If it isn’t Eli Bailey’s boy.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Can I come in?”
He jerks his chin toward the chair across from him. “I don’t need new staff.”
“Not why I’m here. Willard bothers me.”
He lets out a humorless laugh. “He bothers us all.”
I wait. Silence stretches until Mickey sighs, rubbing a hand down his jaw.
“Look, son, I don’t know what your game is.
And those Craven cousins you hang around?
Sayin’ they’re trouble doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I’m only tellin’ you this because I liked your dad.
Trusted him once. He pulled me out of a bad loan when I was drownin’, and I never forgot that.
But what I say stays here. You keep my nephew out of it. ”
I keep my expression flat. “Go on.”
“He’s a computer geek. Bright kid, though he should spend more time in the fresh air than in that damn room.”
Mickey shakes his head, but there’s a flicker of pride under the grumble.
“Anyway, for reasons I still don’t get, he hacked into security coverage for the Lost Anchor.
Thought I needed to scout my competition or some crap like that.
I told him to knock it off, but he said maybe I should take a look.
So I did. And what do I see? Sheriff Willard, in the back room, with two guys sportin’ Marine tattoos and nosin’ around crates that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Military-grade stuff, if you catch my drift. ”
My pulse spikes. Holy shit. This is it. I keep my face neutral. “When?”
“Six, seven months ago.”
I nod once. “Thanks, Mickey. This is more than helpful.”
His gaze lingers, steady. “Remember what I said about my nephew.”
“Yeah. I will.”
Then he leans back, eyes narrowing. “I saw you at karaoke night.” My shoulders tense before I can stop them.
“Yeah,” he goes on, voice dry as gravel. “You were halfway out the door until Hudson started singin’. Then you stayed. Whole damn song. Hell, half the bar nearly caught fire from the way you two were lookin’ at each other.”
I keep my face blank, but heat creeps up the back of my neck.
Mickey grunts, satisfied. “Don’t bother denyin’ it. I’ve run bars long enough to know when two people are about to set the wallpaper smolderin’. You and Hudson? You were the only ones in that room, and everybody knew it.”
I let out a short breath through my nose, sharp enough to pass for a laugh.
The nondescript SBI field office is lit like it’s allergic to comfort. Keller looks up from the whiteboard. He’s mid-fifties, built like an aging linebacker, pale blue eyes sharp as winter.
“Bailey,” he says, giving me that shrewd look of his. “You look happy. Why?”
“I didn’t know happiness was frowned upon at SBI,” I answer dryly.
Julie Richardson, perched on the edge of a desk, smirks. “Keller prefers us miserable and grumpy. Makes him feel at home.”
“There’s coffee,” Keller says, nodding toward the kitchenette. “Why are you happy?”
I pour a mug. “Got something. A local bar owner’s nephew can place Willard at the Lost Anchor with sealed military supply crates.”
The room stills for half a beat. That’s how I know it’s big.
“That bar’s been coming up in chatter, but no solid leads until now,” Keller says slowly. “If these crates are military surplus, that’s a whole new layer.”
“Exactly,” I say. “What’s next?”
Keller and Julie exchange a look. Something heavy.
“What?” I ask.
Keller leans on the desk. “We’ve been reviewing your father’s file. A few days ago, Julie had a rookie comb through evidence in old cold cases. He found something in the SBI warehouse.”
I freeze. “My dad’s case?”
Keller’s voice drops, like he’s making a decision. “You were right. The jack on the car Eli Bailey was working on wasn't faulty. It was disengaged. Manually.”
The words slam into me. My grip on the coffee mug tightens until the ceramic squeaks. Heat floods my chest, followed by a rush of cold that makes it hard to breathe. It’s not new information — I’ve suspected it for years — but hearing it confirmed carves the suspicion into fact. Into loss.
Keller meets my eyes. “You ready to finish what your dad started?”
I swallow, steady my breath, and nod once.
“More than ready.”
COLE
“…and the first time I saw him, I literally forgot how to breathe. Like, my lungs just quit,” Caspian says earnestly. “I thought, okay, this is it. I’m going to die in a restaurant booth, but at least I’ll die knowing I just saw the most beautiful man in the world.”
“It’s not a bad way to go,” I say, smiling at his smitten face.
Caspian stopped by just to talk about Antonio. He waited in the living room while I put Noah to bed, then launched into how he panicked with his order.
“I kept ordering all kinds of random things, because I didn’t want to leave.
Garlic knots, three different coffees, cheesecake, risotto…
His parents spied on me through the curtain, whispering in worried voices.
At one point, Antonio asked if there was someone he could call, like a guardian or something.
Oh God,” Caspian groans, putting his head in his hands.
“That is both the funniest and saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say sincerely. “What was the sugar daddy comment about?”
Caspian blushes. “Last week I went back. I tried to explain I’m not a glutton or someone who needs a guardian… but then he looked at me and I accidentally ordered two lasagnas and a cappuccino. And tipped him two hundred percent.”
Listening to him makes me think of the one time Xaden and I tried to have a real date in an actual restaurant.
We’d both dressed up like we were meeting the Queen, then spent the entire meal pretending we were very sophisticated adults who totally knew things about wine.
The waiter kept calling us “sir” in this booming, over-the-top voice, which only made it harder not to laugh.
We made it through dinner without breaking — until dessert, when Xaden accidentally set his napkin on fire with the candle.
We called each other “sir” for the rest of the night and ended up kissing for half an hour on my parents’ porch while saying things like, “Sir, allow me to kiss you,” and “Sir, I insist.”
I sigh. All that feels like a lifetime ago, yet I can picture us doing something like that again. Only this time we’d actually be adults.
After Caspian’s left, I spend fifteen minutes rummaging for a notebook and a pen. The job I’m about to do feels like it demands real paper, not a phone screen.
The notebook I find has a balloon on the cover, but it’ll have to do. The pen’s barely working, but at least it’s not one of Noah’s crayons.
I sit down with a cup of tea and stare at the blank page.
I kind of feel like a Baywood version of Sherlock Holmes.
I picture myself in a deerstalker and trench coat, striding briskly down Main Street, intimidating suspects into confessing with my sharp intellect and top-notch interrogative techniques.
I notice I’ve doodled a lopsided deerstalker on the page. That’ll be helpful to Xaden, I’m sure.
Eventually, I write one word in the center: WILLARD .
Because somehow all the odd little details lead to him. Next, I draw lines out like a spiderweb and start adding what I think I know.
DAD : Secretive talks with Willard. Weird behavior. Mom said: You have to come clean.
JJ & RONNIE : Xaden’s so-called friends. Mean. Obnoxious. Smell bad. Saw them talking with Willard in South Ridge. Why?
ELI : Died in an “accident involving a motor vehicle.” Case closed. No real investigation.
I pause and chew the back of my pen.
XADEN : What is he doing???
In the corner, I write in smaller letters:
Could he end up in jail again? God, I hope not.
I couldn’t be his boyfriend then.
Not that I have any intention to be his boyfriend in any case.
I mean, I could consider it, if there weren’t JJ and Ronnie.
And then, without meaning to, I add one more line before I can stop myself:
The truth is, I’ve never stopped being his.
I stare at the words until the pen ink starts to blur. Then I scratch them away, close the notebook and sit in silence, more thoughtful than I’ve been in a long time.
XADEN
Baywood’s lakeside path winds between trees, quiet except for the sound of my shoes hitting the ground. I’m on my first mile, when I hear another set of footsteps catching up. I glance back.
Caspian Stone. Of course. “Didn’t know they allowed leisurely strollers on this trail,” he calls, not even winded.
I snort. “Didn’t know designer shirts came with sweat-wicking technology.”
He smirks. Then, without warning, picks up the pace.
Fine. Two can play that game.
By the second mile, I realize this isn’t a game. It’s a battle. Every time I edge ahead, Caspian lengthens his stride. He’s not sweating so much as glistening. In the end, we’re both sucking air. We stumble to a stop by the lake, bent double.
“Protein shakes,” Caspian pants. “My place. Five minutes.”
I want to tell him to shove it. But my tongue feels like sandpaper, so I follow.
His flat is glass and steel perched above the water, but warmer than I expected. Books line the walls. A photo on a side table catches my eye. Cole and Noah, both grinning happily. I look away fast.
Caspian hands me a shaker. It’s filled with something swamp-colored. “It’s not poisonous,” he says.
I sip. It’s terrible.