Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
What wasn’t normal was finding his ex in the middle of this mess.
That didn’t matter. He was not letting Will Monroe out of his sight until he knew what the hell was going on.
4
WILL MONROE
Getting in the car with Charlie seemed the lesser of two evils, but only by a hair. He had no interest in sticking around the clinic to explain to the police why those men had shot up the place or how they came to suddenly be dead.
But then, he was hoping to avoid any questions from Charlie.
Luckily, they weren’t speaking at all as Charlie drove them to the other end of La Boca while his patient and clinic were left in the capable hands of Edison and Westin.
He glanced over at his companion, and his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel as though he had something to be pissed about. Charlie and his friends were the ones sticking their noses into his affairs. He didn’t ask for them to interfere.
He wasn’t blind to the fact that Francisco probably wouldn’t have made it back to the clinic without their help, though. The man had a fighting chance at surviving, thanks to their actions. It was just a shame about Santino. How had things escalated to the point of a shooting in a restaurant? What a fucking mess!
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. God, he was exhausted to the bone, and parts of him still ached from the beating he’d suffered two days ago. He should just pass out, but he was abuzz with nervous energy, and his stomach twisted into knots that might never be untied.
And now he was stuck in a car with Charlie.
Avoiding him in a city the size of Buenos Aires should have been easy. But no. Charlie walked into his clinic with a man who had been shot.
The more disturbing thing was that he wasn’t all that surprised.
Part of him had always felt that Charlie’s story of being an IT team leader was bullshit. Both Kairo and Soren could talk convincingly about it. Edison wasn’t bad either. It was just that West looked more at ease with a gun in his hand than a computer. And Charlie. Ugh. The guy had a love-hate relationship with his phone. How was he supposed to manage a computer, let alone a team of so-called computer geeks?
There had been nights in Paris when his restless brain had searched for alternative jobs for what Charlie did. Drug dealer. Mob boss. Spy. Serial killer. As time went by, the ideas grew more and more twisted and insane, but Charlie’s kindness and warmth toward him never wavered. Charlie had always made him feel treasured, precious. No matter if they’d bickered and shouted at each other, not once had Will felt unsafe with this man.
Even with the mad fantasies haunting him, Will had kept his mouth shut. He’d been terrified of rocking the boat, afraid that if he opened his mouth and asked questions, Charlie would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble.
In the end, that was exactly what Charlie had decided. Stupid him for thinking they could have a future together. Stupid him for thinking that Charlie might actually love him.
Idiot. Fool.
The only person Charlie loved was himself.
Even after so many years, their last night was so clear in his mind—as if it had been burned into his memory.
Six years ago
Nerves twisted his stomach into knots as he headed back to his apartment in the ninth arrondissement. The hospital where he was completing his residency had just offered him a permanent position. That was on top of the offers he’d already gotten from hospitals back in the States.
Everything was neatly coming together after years of hard work. The plan had always been to return home after he completed his training, but the urge to cross the ocean and see his family again seemed to have dwindled.
And it was all thanks to Charlie.
What should have been a wonderful thing was twisting him up inside. He needed to decide soon what his next step was going to be, but he couldn’t without discussing it with his lover first. Would he even be willing to talk about something like that with him?
Charlie never spoke about the future. He refused to even commit to plans for the weekend. It was always a shrug and a noncommittal “Let’s see how things go.”
He returned home to find Charlie cooking an amazing dinner in his kitchen, which allowed him to buy a little time, to figure out the right words. For now, he was happy to just fall into his arms and pretend that the world they’d carved out for themselves could continue indefinitely.
They sipped wine and chatted about nothing important after dinner, simply enjoying each other’s company.
Will lay with his back against Charlie’s chest, while his lover had his bare feet propped up on the coffee table. Music was playing, soft and low. And Will finally had the courage to open his mouth.