Page 20 of A Real Good Lie

Another hour passed in silence, and then they began their descent, wheels were down, and Callahan still hadn’t said a word. The plane reached the gate and the flight attendant opened the door. Callahan stood, grabbing his messenger bag out from beneath the seat.

“Are you coming?” he asked, and Jace scampered behind him like an eager puppy with legs too long and clumsy.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if you were going to leave me behind or not.” Jace looped his bag over his shoulder and followed Callahan off the airplane.

“I can’t leave you behind.”

Jace barely heard him as he chased after Callahan down the concourse toward baggage claim. He caught up in front of the bathrooms and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him to a halt.

“Callahan.” He snapped his fingers, and Callahan stopped walking. He turned and blinked a couple times, not meeting Jace’s gaze.

“What?”

“Callahan, I don’t even know your last name.”

“McMillian,” Callahan said. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands, just like he had at the bar. Jace wondered if it was a nervous response or something. He reached up and gently extracted Callahan’s hands from his face, not missing his flushed cheeks and lips.Callahan had said to not touch without permission, and he knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t not.

“That’s a nice name.”

“So is yours,” Callahan grumbled.

Jace smirked and rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to give me a compliment just because I gave you one.”

“No. That’s not it.” Callahan took his hands out of Jace’s hold. “It fits you.”

“I don’t know if that’s really a compliment after all.”

Callahan didn’t answer, which led him to believe it wasn’t. He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and cracked his neck. He needed to get out of his head. He’d spent so long thinking about the man he’d kissed at the club and thought being faced with him would be like having his dreams come true. But now he was here, face to face with the one and only Callahan McMillian, man of his fantasies, and…well…

It wasn’t anything like he’d imagined.

“We should go,” Jace said, promising himself he would get over his attraction to Callahan, survive the weekend, then go home and find a way to invest the money Carmen had given him in something worthwhile. “Blanche told me the car would be waiting.”

“The car.” Callahan exhaled loudly through his mouth and ran a hand through his hair, looking over his shoulder and up at the directional sign. “Right.”

Jace wasn’t going to wait for him. He had legs and he could read and he took off toward baggage claim with Callahan hot on his heels.

“You’re not going to wait for me?” Callahan asked once he caught up.

“Was I supposed to?” Jace cast him a sideways glance. “I don’t get the feeling you’re too happy for me to be here so I was just going to get my bags and wait for you to get your shit together.”

“I have my shit together,” Callahan snapped.

“I meant your bags.”

Callahan’s face flushed again and he lapsed into silence.

Jace took pity on the flustered man, slowing his pace so Callahan wouldn’t need to jog to keep up with him. By the time they reached baggage claim, Jace’s heart had almost returned to the center of his chest where it belonged, after a two hour ride between his feet and his throat.

“Compartmentalize this,” he whispered under his breath. A plea and a warning all at the same time. He didn’t know what had happened inside Callahan’s mind, but he was shooting off signals like death rays that made it very clear he didn’t want Jace’s company. Any thoughts he’d had of hooking up over the weekend were out the window.

“What was that?” Callahan didn’t even look at him. He instead muttered the question while pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Nothing.”

Callahan frowned at his phone—Jesus, the man frowned a lot—then looked up with wide and terrified eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Jace asked, even though he desperately wanted to not care.