Chapter 15 Prague #5
“Hunter,” Liam said grimly. “Because Grace won. He told the grownups they were all too stupid to be trusted, and Carl, Chuck, and me that we were too tired from doing real work, and that Hunter was the only one he had faith in.” He shrugged.
“I am not exactly sure how that young man does it, but he does seem to drive the team when we’re too big to steer. ”
“I hate emotional meltdowns,” Josh said, his throat too raspy for I-told-you-sos. “How’s Danny?”
“Looks like he swam through seven layers of hell to be your whipping boy,” Liam told him. “What did you two say to each other?”
Josh tried to chuckle. Couldn’t. “He said I was mad at him and I had a right to be.”
“Mm.” Liam took his hand as it lay on the bed, and threaded their fingers together. “And what did you say?”
“Mostly I reverted to a ten-year-old and screamed, ‘You left me,’” Josh told him, the embarrassment trying to swamp him, but no. Still that curious, quiet emptiness. That anger had been driving him for so long. What would drive him now?
Liam kissed Josh’s knuckles, and Josh felt the slippery heat of his tears. “What you said to him,” he whispered. “Did it give you peace?”
Josh closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he admitted, after searching himself for a moment.
Liam’s hand, hard and grounding, and the softness of his lips on Josh’s skin.
The last six weeks came flooding back. Honeymooning, Josh had said.
And God, they’d had fun doing it. He opened his eyes again.
“But I still want in on the game.” At Liam’s pained expression, he added hastily, “In a slightly less intense capacity. As long as….” He swallowed, suddenly nervous.
“What?” Liam asked, and his fingers had grown tighter, as though he was afraid.
“As long as you’re with me. Us. But mostly me. I’m not in the game to prove anything anymore. Not to Danny, not to Felix or Julia. But I still love it. And I love you. Can we… can we still do this, be in this together?”
Liam’s crooked smile, with the slight gap of the front two teeth, the charming freckles, the calm acceptance, the willingness to play the game with them, the drive to use all his knowledge for good—it was all, Josh thought achingly, he’d ever wanted. All he’d ever needed in his life.
“God yes,” Liam answered, and then he lowered his face to Josh’s, and Josh felt, for real, for the first time since he’d awakened.
And what he really felt was he wanted to kiss Liam Craig until the planets turned to dust.
THE CREW didn’t seem to want to disperse as they left the hospital, which was frustrating because Tor wanted to talk to Marco alone.
And Marco was being stubborn.
“Tell them,” he said as they hit the street.
“Marco,” Tor muttered, “can we just, you know, have a minute to talk about this?”
“No,” Marco said. “It’s a perfect opportunity. Tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Carl asked, and Tor glared at him, trying hard not to remember that Carl’s level-headed advice had helped him actually win Marco that winter, when Tor had been dragging his heels.
“It’s an idea,” Tor told him, fighting the urge to check his cuffs or the lay of his suit jacket or for lint on his turtleneck. They were situated near the river, and it was the first day of September. Turtlenecks were perfectly fine in Prague.
“It’s making him squidgy,” Stirling said, a stealth observation from their quietest member.
They were walking down the street, practically en masse, the adults taking a car to Danny’s apartment with Josh. Tor was wondering how all five of them fit in the car when Danny, seemingly coming from nowhere, said, “Squidgy’s a good word for it, my boy. Torrance, why are you squidgy?”
Tor startled so badly he would have turned an ankle and gone down, humiliatingly enough, on the walk, if Marco hadn’t caught his elbow and said, “Steady there, cowboy.”
Tor shot him an irritated glance and tried to regain his cool.
“Can we not talk about it here?” he asked. “Jesus, Danny, I thought you were on your way to—”
“The hotel,” Felix said. “And we will be. But first they’re dropping Josh and Liam off at Danny’s flat.”
“Oh shit,” Grace said. “I should be there. I made Hunter go to carry Josh, and—”
“And Hunter will join us at the Mozart for lunch,” Felix said. “We’re having a buffet sent to the suite in half an hour, and then Torrance and Marco can tell us whatever has been brewing between them since they arrived at the hospital this morning.”
Tor shot Marco a dark glance, but Marco, curly hair blowing in the breeze from the river and dark eyes sparkling with “I told you so,” gave him a sunny smile in return.
They hadn’t eaten at the Mozart that morning, although the food was very good.
But Marco was a classically trained chef, with accolades and apprenticeships up the wazoo.
He could probably be the head chef at the restaurant of his choosing, but he liked his family, and he liked having a life outside of work, so he enjoyed cooking for the Salingers, where he often got to share his gifts with the higher profile names Felix and Julia’s business brought into the mansion.
But when they’d jumped on board with the crew to help this op run, Tor had suggested that since they’d be in Europe, they check out as many places to sample as possible, and Marco had leapt at the chance.
France had been delightful, as had Bavaria, and while Bavarian and Czech cuisine had much in common, Marco was still excited at tasting the differences, which was how they’d ended up having breakfast at the Michaelangelo Grand Hotel that morning.
The dining room had been clean and airy—much of Prague’s architecture was modern—and Tor had enjoyed the impression of great windows overlooking the white linens as they gazed at the river outside.
But it wasn’t the architecture that Tor and Marco needed to talk about.
They’d been waiting for their meal, which was, they’d been told, going to be a bit delayed.
The morning sous chef was expecting his first child, and a replacement had yet to be found.
While they were reassuring their server that all was well and the wait was acceptable, the table behind them was not being nearly so patient.
“I do not care if he’s giving birth to the brat himself or popping it in the pot,” came a thickly accented voice—a brutal voice.
And one that Tor remembered from being on comms the night they’d switched the painting in Chicago.
“If I do not get my food quickly, I shall take my money and my investment from this rathole and rip it like a torn limb until this cesspool starts hemorrhaging money. You tell your boss that, yes? You tell him that Kadjic gets his goddamned eggs benedict—”
“Right now,” came the cheerful voice of another server. He’d added something in Czech that was probably the equivalent of “Here we go, Mr. Kadjic, there’s no reason to overreact.”
Kadjic had glared at the man—and thank God it wasn’t a woman, Tor had thought, because the first server, the one he’d been eviscerating, had been female, and that note of condescension in his voice was galling—but the second server, obviously knowing the way his bread was buttered, had given a chipper wink.
Kadjic had relaxed a little and given the man’s ass a pat as he finished settling the plates and left to fetch some extra sauce.
Tor and Marco had witnessed this—but not watched it. In fact they’d pretended to make polite conversation with their own server, who was looking so uncomfortable Tor thought she was going to be sick, while the scene had gone on beyond them.
Marco had then asked the server if he could speak to their chef before Tor could stop him, and he was left alone at the table to nibble on breadsticks and try hard to listen to Kadjic’s muttered conversation with his two guards, who never left his side.
What he’d learned was interesting.
And then Marco had returned, face flushed with triumph and, after sitting down next to Tor, not across from him, leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I’ll be working here for the next week. We must tell Felix and Julia—we’ve got an in.”
Tor, who had hung out of helicopters to deliver stories and had, just that January, faced down a sitting US Congressmen as he revealed the man’s investiture in his daughter’s trafficking ring, found himself cold to the pit of his balls.
“No,” he’d whispered, but at that moment, Kadjic barked something at his server, something cruel, and Tor had given Marco a thin smile that indicated “We’ll talk about this later.”
Marco—thank God—seemed as cognizant of the danger as Tor now was, and he’d smiled gently, kissed Tor on the cheek, and said, “Don’t worry so much! The chef seemed to think my credentials were completely in line, particularly since it was only breakfast service.”
Tor’s mouth watered, purely a Pavlovian response. “Are you going to make your chocolate cream cheese muffins?”
Marco grinned devilishly. “Oh no—I have a brand-new recipe to try out—you’d better be here to eat!
” And then his eyes had made a completely unconscious dart toward a target neither of them could see, somewhere over Tor’s left ear, and all thoughts of Marco’s rather sublime pastry chef abilities vanished, and so did Tor’s appetite.
“No,” he mouthed, but he swallowed the syllable.
“It will be delicious,” Marco assured gently, and Tor wanted to tell him that it would be dangerous, not delicious, but he couldn’t. They had to wait until they were far away before they even broached the subject.
At that moment, their food arrived, brought by a grateful server, who comped most of their meal to thank Marco for his service the next day.
As they ate—they’d gotten crepes, one savory and the other sweet—and Marco had waxed rhapsodic over the lightness, the texture, the sublime seasoning, both of his strawberry suzette and Tor’s savory Florentine, Tor’s busy brain was at war with itself.