30. Chapter 30 #3
My heart thunders against my ribs like a caged animal, a frenzy of emotions flooding my veins.
I honestly wasn’t sure that Lance and I would ever get to this point.
I thought that we were going to keep ending up in this back-and-forth limbo we were in, stuck in a place where one of us felt jilted or unwanted while the other felt like they were being completely shut out.
It didn’t seem like there was ever going to be a right time with the guy that I was positive was my person.
Finally knowing, without a doubt, that he feels the same way about me is so fucking relieving.
We still have a lot to talk about, but we could actually be on the same page as each other for the first time, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
I push off the wall, tilting his chin up to me when I stop in front of him. “Say it again,” I demand.
“I love—”
A knock on the hotel door cuts him off, both of our eyes darting to the door.
“Open the fuck up, I have shit to do.” Casper yells as he bangs again just a couple seconds later.
“Ughhhh,“ Lance groans dramatically. “Why does this always happen to us?” He pouts as he flops his head back in exasperation.
I chuckle as I release him to let Casper in. When the door swings open, I step back as he strolls inside, too busy typing away on his phone to acknowledge us. Lance glances over at him before turning to me. “Why is he here? I thought we were already done with everything.”
“Casper isn’t just a supplier,” I explain as I wave my hand to direct Casper to the kitchen.
“So what else is Casper?“ Lance asks incredulously.
“You name it, I do it.” He answers for me as he plops himself down onto a stool and slaps down the folder in his hand. He throws it open and starts pulling out paperwork. He slides two pieces to the other side of the island as I step around it.
“Tell me what I’m looking at, Caz.” I demand.
“Sorry that it took so long. Seems your guy intended to disappear, so it was a little more difficult than I anticipated.”
“What guy?” Lance asks as he steps up beside me to look down at the papers. He immediately spots the name on the paperwork in front of us and looks up at me. “Gatlin? He disappeared?”
“Not quite…” Casper answers before Lance can even start panicking, which I’m grateful for. Casper slides another paper across the counter, but this time it’s a photograph. “This is your guy, right?”
Lance picks up the photograph, his shaky hands distorting the imagine. “Blaine…” he whispers under his breath. “He’s with Blaine. He’s safe, yeah?” He asks as he looks up at Casper.
“Seems to be fine. He’s not where we expected him to be, though.
” He says as he fans out of stack of papers in front of himself and starts pointing to things.
“Tried tracking all the kids in the house. Only one of them still seems to be there anymore. These two have done their best to go off the grid completely. All devices that were registered to either of them, computers, phones, even vehicles have been completely abandoned in random places across the city. It’s unusual for people to not forget a single thing, you know?
Everyone makes mistakes, but not these guys. ”
He pushes the stack of papers aside and pulls up a map of the city. There are a mess of red dots scattered around the map, all in locations that mean nothing to me.
“It didn’t make sense to me. It felt like they left breadcrumbs, but I couldn’t piece it together. At first.”
“It’s a star.” Lance declares, just seconds after seeing it, before reaching out to trace the pattern on the map in front of us.
Caz looks up at him in astonishment before turning to me. “He work for Maven?”
“Don’t even think about it. He’s mine,” I growl as I wrap an arm around Lance and tug him closer to me. I peek down at Lance as Casper throws his hands up in defeat, and Lance’s cheeks are bright pink as he glances up at me bashfully.
“Alrighty then. So… yeah, it’s a star. I was thrown off at first because each of them had two phones they planted, but there was also two tablets, two computers, and two cars.
I was stuck on the number of items they had and why they had—” He stops and shakes his head.
“Never mind, that’s irrelevant. It’s a fucking star, but I still wasn’t positive what that meant.
I spent a whole day scouring every location at the points and within its borders and never spotted them. It didn’t make any sense.”
“Sure, it does.” Lance says as he looks up at Casper. “They’d be at the center.”
Casper glares up at me, blinking periodically.
“I know. He’s brilliant. Now, hurry the fuck up. We were in the middle of something.” I demand.
“Yeah, I fucking bet.” Casper mumbles with a chuckle.
“Since I apparently don’t need to explain much of this, the simple answer is that they are indeed at the center.
After a lot of sitting around and watching, I finally spotted the big fella heading out to grab something to eat.
I knocked on the door when he left, but the smaller kid didn’t answer, so I’m not sure if he’s still with him or not. ”
“He will be,” Lance replies confidently as he shifts away from me. “Blaine would’ve told him not to answer the door for anyone else while he was gone, but Gatlin would never go anywhere without Blaine. He’s never been to the city before. He would have no clue where to go or what to do.”
“That’s all the information I could get. My job here is done,” Casper announces as he pushes the pile of paperwork in our direction.
“I don’t see a phone number anywhere,” I reply as I glance down at the mess of shit laying in front of me.
“Didn’t you hear a word I said?” Casper asks sarcastically as he stands up and pushes the barstool in.
“They abandoned all their devices to give us a location, so there’s no way to contact him.” Lance says with defeat lacing every word.
“Nope. Even the hotel phone has been disconnected. The only way to talk to them is to go to them.”
Lance’s eyes dart up to Casper before turning to me. “We have to go. Now. If he knocked on the door, it would’ve spooked Gatlin. They’ll be moving soon, if they haven’t already.“ He explains as he steps back from me.
“Slow down, kid. I’ve still got a guy watching the hotel. He’ll be there for…” he shuffles his wrist to see the watch beneath his jacket sleeve. “Another two hours. If they move, my guy follows and I’ll get notified of their whereabouts immediately.”
Lance tugs at my sleeve, the wariness on his face unmistakable. “We have to go, Roman.”
“Thanks, Caz. As soon as we get there, your guy can head home.”
Casper nods before heading toward the door. He stops with his hand on the knob before glancing back over at me. “You owe me one.”
“Noted,” I reply with a nod.
When I turn my attention back to Lance, his eyes are pleading with me.
I wonder how long it’ll take him to figure out that those puppy dog eyes could make me do just about anything.