Chapter 12
-Dylan Drake-
Lorne’s only too happy to see me. He suggests the Shadow Garden as a location to meet.
Dare Wilde’s private club transforms from a hedonistic paradise in the evening to a haven of tranquillity in the daytime.
There’s a cleaning lady flitting about, and a lone member of the bar staff bottling up behind the counter when Kira escorts me down into the cavernous basement the club occupies.
Her insistence on shadowing me is why I arranged to meet Lorne on neutral territory.
I didn’t actually want her to know where I might end up staying.
Lorne appears within a couple of minutes of us being served coffee; it’s good stuff—kicks like a mule.
My fellow Sunsetter is looking spry today, his glossy blonde hair grown long enough to rest on his shoulders, and I swear he’s been bleaching his smile.
He envelops me in a masculine scented hug.
“Glad to see you’re in one piece. I saw the footage on the news. Scary stuff.”
“Footage?”
“Your car. The mangled wreck.”
I exchange glances with Kira. How is it even possible that footage of the moment exists?
No one knew the car was about to detonate.
I assume he means some member of the public filmed the aftermath on their phone and sent it to the networks, because otherwise I have to entertain the possibility that my stalker was in the vicinity of the blast. The thought obviously occurs to Kira too, as she immediately palms the burner phone Johns gave us and dials her boss.
I suppose it could have been CCTV footage.
While Kira’s distracted on the line to Falchard, I give Lorne a nod, and we take our conversation off to one of the private booths towards the rear of the club.
Lorne has a bunch of papers spread across the central table of the U-shaped booth, at first I think he’s totting up the monthly accounts for the club, until I realise he’s annotating lines on a script. He gathers the pages up into a pile before I have the chance to see what the show’s about.
“So what’s up, Dylan. Haven’t seen you in a while, your mug’s plastered all over the news, and suddenly you’re arranging clandestine meetings with me.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want anyone to know my whereabouts in case they take it upon themselves to make another attempt at blowing me sky-high. I need a place to stay.”
Lorne shoots me an “Oh, really! You don’t say,” sort of look, both blue eyes open wide and one brow twitching. “I daresay you do, but what are you actually here for.”
“A place to stay,” I re-emphasize. As in there aren’t any ulterior motives…
Well, not many. “I have some dangerous lunatic after me. It started with stupid notes, but I’ve been shot at, and had my car blown to smithereens since.
I hoped that as Dare’s not around anymore, you might be okay with me imposing for a bit. ”
Lorne patiently nods. “If my place is safe enough to occupy, why the fuck did you insist on us meeting here?”
Curse this dude and his fucking legendary powers of perception. I chew my tongue for a while, prompting him to cross his arms.
“I’ve a problem.” The admission eventually oozes from me.
“Clearly.”
He cocks his head, anticipating further revelations.
“A tall blonde problem.” I nod my head back the way we’ve come, and Lorne’s gaze follows the trajectory.
“A currently standing at the bar problem?”
Yup, that’s the one. Bravo Lorne. He cottons on quick. Maybe the fact he’s perceptive isn’t such a bad thing.
“Who is she?”
“My security detail.”
“Okay,” he drawls, flooding his voice with scepticism. “Surely a bodyguard is handy at a time like this. If you have someone gunning for you—”
“I do, and her being a close protection officer isn’t really the issue. It’s her, person her, that’s the problem.”
“You don’t get along?”
“We get along way too well.” Aw, shit! I sit on my hands in order to prevent myself from covering my face, like I need a screen to hide behind. Seriously, I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not a crime to fall for someone, and want to be around them, and touch them.
“Sorry, nope, still not really following. You’re going to have to spell it out.”
I bow my head, almost to my knees. It’s a good position for dealing with the vertigo threatening my vision. “I’m sleeping with her.”
Somehow the ground doesn’t loom up and swallow me whole. I risk a peep at Lorne. He’s staring at me with his face screwed into an indecipherable pout. Then an explosive laugh bursts out. “You what? You’re slee—you’re fucking her? What, is she a pre-op transsexual?”
“Fuck you! No.”
Lorne sits with his fingertips pressed to his mouth, hands clasped as if in prayer. “So what you’re saying is that you’ve discovered a taste for pussy. The man, who was one hundred per cent dick all the way, has discovered the first law of the universe—there are always alternatives.”
“Not for me there hasn’t been. There still aren’t. Not really. It’s just her, Lorne. It doesn’t make any goddamned sense.”
He laughs. “Sense rarely has anything to do with it. So, what’s the problem exactly? I’m still not getting why you needed to talk to me here.”
“Because, distance,” I blurt. Shit, this is awkward. The reaction I’m getting makes it clear I’m coming across as barking mad. “I don’t want her to know where I’m going to be. And you bat for both teams, so I thought…”
“What?”
It’s no good. I can’t sit still when I’m this agitated. Pacing is the only option. Lorne watches me through narrowed eyes.
“What, Dylan?”
“I can’t be like you. I’m not. I’m fucking gay. I know that. I’m bloody clear on that. So how the fuck can I be obsessed with a woman?”
“Are you obsessed?”
It’s a pertinent question; cuts to the heart of things.
Am I dabbling in make-believe, or is this something more than that?
“I’ve spent the last fortnight with fuck all else in my head.
Most of it I haven’t even been around her.
We’ve spent two nights together. Two nights out of fourteen…
fifteen… I go completely fucking gaga when she gets close to me. That’s not me. I’m never like that.”
“No, you’re all about the short-term. You’re much like Dare in some regards.
Leastways, how Dare was before Flicka turned him all warm and fuzzy, and devoid of an attention span for anything but her.
All, let’s get everything done and dusted in a night: chase, seduction, consummation, and break up.
That crap allows you to feel wanted without ever having to let anyone get close. ”
The personality analysis I can definitely live without, but he’s building to some sort of point, and I don’t want to interrupt. Except, he stops, and the key bit of wisdom I’m anticipating fails to reach his lips. “And?” I demand.
His shoulders lift and fall. “Sounds as if you need a couple of good shags to put some distance between you. Do that, and I’m sure you’ll forget all about your little anomaly.”
Right at this minute even if I shagged until I dropped and fucked a score of men I don’t think I’d oust her from my head. Of course, knowing that and admitting it to myself that’s two different matters. I’m pretty sure Lorne knows it too—bastard! “I’m not exactly in a position to go on the pull.”
“No,” he remarks, while examining his fingernails. “That’d be why you’re here. The answer’s no, Dylan. Sorry, I’m committed.”
“To Dare,” I blurt in exasperation over being turned down and seen through. “You have to know that he’s never going to fall into your lap. I mean he never was, but now he’s all doe-eyed over that Chinchilla chick.”
“Flicka,” he corrects me. “And she’s nice. I like her. She’s good for him. Besides…” he tucks his hands into his pockets, “…I’m not talking about Dare.”
It’s my turn to do the waggly eyebrow thing.
This is news. Serious news. “You’re dating someone?
A guy someone?” Ladies flock around Lorne, but they never stay around for long.
Even the most mercenary twigs fast enough that his heart’s elsewhere and they’re being led on a merry dance.
Once they grasp that he’s using them in much the same way they’re using him, they’re off.
Kicks, thrills, and freebies, we’re all susceptible to the temptation, but that doesn’t mean we like being called on our behaviour.
“One of them is a guy.”
“You’ve got yourself involved in a couple. Well that’s destined to last.”
“They weren’t a couple before we all decided to make a go of it.”
“So what, you’re a treple?”
He nods. “Something like that.”
“For real.”
“Why not?”
I open my mouth to present a hundred reasons why that sounds like a genuinely terribly idea, but when I pin each of them down, there’s not one of them that I think he should honestly give a damn about. “If it’s working…”
“It is.”
We both fall silent. Lorne is probably contemplating what a monstrous arsehole I am. Me, I’m thinking much the same, until it strikes me that he’s all about taking chances and running the risk of getting crushed, but has advised me to conform to my status quo.
“It’s one option, Dylan,” Lorne remarks, as if he has a window into my head. “I’m not saying it’s what you should do.”
No, he’s saying the exact opposite. He’s highlighting my options, take a chance on something that might lead me somewhere sweet, or conform to the norm—my norm—and risk never knowing what could have been.
“If you were me?”
His chuckle chases away some of the tension that has built between us. “Isn’t what you want to hear, Dylan.”
“Try me.”
He inhales languidly, and briefly closes his eyes.
His lips purse into something halfway between a smile and a scowl, then he opens his baby-blues and spears me with his gaze.
“Shag her. Keep shagging her until it gets old, until it stops meaning anything. Then stop shagging her. If it’s not meant to be, it won’t last. If it is, you get to grow old together. ”