Page 24

Chapter 23

Sparrow

I’m so thrilled about Louis bringing me with him that I don’t even ask where we’re going or what we’re doing. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Maybe I can even help.

We travel for longer than I’m used to—past the outskirts of Springvale and into the mountains beyond. It feels almost like an adventure. The colder weather is really picking up now, and Louis has to be freezing even in his motorcycle gear.

We stop in front of a one-story building with a fenced yard and dirty windows. Trees with leaves shifting in yellow and orange surround the area, and Louis’s boots splash into a puddle as we dismount the bike.

We walk up the metal landing. The sign outside the door says “Homeward Rescue.” An animal shelter, perhaps? As soon as we step inside the door, my suspicion is confirmed by the distant barks and howls and the faint smell of dog food.

A young man sits behind the reception desk—a young man with curly black hair and intense green eyes. He’s dressed in skintight jeans and a just-as-tight black turtleneck.

“Oh,” he says, a slow smile spreading over his frankly gorgeous face. “Long time no see.”

Louis makes a displeased snort beside me, and I look up at him, confused. Do these two know each other?

“Let me guess,” Louis mutters. “Nathan Antler?”

“Depends on who asks,” Nathan says with a grin.

“I’m Louis.”

Nathan nods to me. “And who’s this?”

“I’m Sparrow.”

His mouth tilts in a mocking smile, and he looks me up and down. “Sparrow, huh?”

Louis crosses his arms. “Let’s cut the crap. You know what we’re here for.”

“Do I?” Nathan asks innocently.

He kicks his combat boots onto the table and leans back in the chair so far it almost flips over. He can’t be more than a couple of years older than me, but the way he holds himself makes him seem a lot older. He’s fairly androgynous, just like me, but he’s got that effortless confidence I’ve always been puzzled and amazed by.

“A little young for you, isn’t he?” he says, nodding at me.

Louis sighs. “Just shut up and get the dog.”

“Dog?” Nathan looks carelessly up to the ceiling. How can a person be so unaffected by strangers? This guy looks like he couldn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Maybe that’s not a good trait, to be fair, but at least it must be better than caring too much about what other people think, like me. “What dog? We have quite a few, you know.”

“The one you stole from Joshua Tennyson. We’re here to get it back.”

“Are you, now?” Nathan says. “I don’t think he’ll miss the dog, to be fair. Looks to me like he’s already got himself a couple of lapdogs.”

“You’re treading real thin ice here, kid,” Louis growls. “We don’t look gently at theft.”

“What are you going to do?” Nathan asks in a bored tone. “Fuck me to death?”

My eyes widen as I look between the two of them. They know each other. They have to. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Have they… slept together ? A sudden jealousy strikes me with full force as I turn back to Nathan. How can he look so good and so arrogant at the same time?

“Although…,” he says with a dramatic sigh, “I’m sure Daniel will appear out of the woodwork again if you try.”

“I’m not going to ask again,” Louis says.

Nathan rolls his eyes and points a finger at me. “I guess this one is welcome to take a look. You, however”—he points at Louis—“I don’t trust you with my dogs.”

“He doesn’t even know what the damn dog looks like,” Louis protests.

“Yeah, I do,” I say, remembering the Rottweiler that was barking outside Joshua’s house at the party a few months ago. I look up at Louis, trying to communicate wordlessly.

Let me help. Please let me help.

He does so much for me; the least I can do is help him with this job.

“Well, then,” Louis grumbles. “You have five minutes.”

Nathan leads me into a door to the right, and the dogs in the row of cages start barking like crazy.

With Louis out of earshot, I ask, “How do you know him?”

“Who?” Nathan says in a bored tone.

“Have you slept with him?” My voice comes laced with more jealousy than I’d like to admit.

“Oh, we were going to,” Nathan drawls, “but my boyfriend is a bit of a cockblocker.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what I said. We were interrupted. Twice, in fact.”

Nathan saunters up to a cage, and there he is: the Rottweiler I remember from the party. He starts growling as soon as he sees us, but when Nathan makes a strange whistling noise, the dog starts whining instead and wagging his tail.

“Be careful with him,” Nathan says, “he’ll bite your hand off if you try anything.”

I stare at the dog. “So how am I supposed to get him out of here?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Nathan stretches his arms over his head in a yawn. “You’re used to dangerous creatures, aren’t you? Like that guy outside.” He jerks his head toward the reception.

“Who, Louis? Louis isn’t dangerous.”

Nathan hums. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. Be careful with that guy.”

“He’s good to me.”

“Is he, now? So he doesn’t like to try and fuck you when you’re damn near unconscious?”

My mouth falls open. “What?”

“Trust me, kid. Guys like that don’t change. He might like to play around with you for now, but sooner or later, he’ll show you his true colors, and when that happens, he’ll hurt you so badly you won’t be able to come back from it.”

“I told you,” I grit out. “Louis is different.”

Nathan rounds on me, crowding me up against the cage of the barking Rottweiler. The metal fence digs into my back, and Nathan shoots a hand out, gripping my jaw harshly.

“Who hurt you?” he asks. “Your stepdad?” He grips me tighter, and something wild and cruel flashes across his eyes. “Your brother?”

“Let me go,” I snap, wrenching my face away.

Nathan chuckles. “Christ. You’re already too far gone, aren’t you? Haven’t you learned not to trust every person you come across? Most people who treat you kindly want to destroy you deep down, and the ones that don’t are few and far between.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

“What about him?”

“Is he one of the latter?”

“You bet. But that one?” Nathan jerks his head to the door to the reception. “Not so much. Trust me, kid; I know these things.”

“Don’t call me kid. You’re barely older than me.”

Nathan looks at me for a while, sizing me up with his intense green eyes, and a shadow passes over his face. “No, I suppose I’m not. But I know what you’re up to.”

“What I’m up to?”

“Yeah, and it won’t work.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re trying to handle your past by being with that mountain of a man out there. But it won’t work.”

“Shut up.” I start to sweat, and Nathan looks at me with something like pity in his eyes.

“Do you love him?”

“Yes,” I whimper, and the moment I do, the door starts banging.

“What’s going on in there?” Louis bellows. “Sparrow?”

Nathan hisses a curse under his breath. “Well, tell you this, kid: You’re not getting out of here with that dog. You tell that to your asshole boyfriend. Now get the fuck out of my sight, or I’ll set my dogs on you.”

Back in the reception, Louis grabs my shoulder. “What the hell was that?”

“Nothing.” I wrap my jacket tighter around myself and rush toward the exit.

“Where’s the dog?”

“Wasn’t there.”

Louis hisses a curse under his breath. “Yeah, sure it wasn’t. I better go back there and—” He stops when he sees my trembling lower lip and eyes filled with rage and tears. “What’s wrong?”

I shake out of his grip and head toward the bike.

“Sparrow,” he calls out behind me.

“Let’s just go. Please.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “I need a drink anyway; we’re going to Moe’s. But don’t think you’ll get away from telling me about this once we get there.”

I manage to keep from crying until Louis starts the bike, but then I smear a wet puddle of tears on the back of his leather jacket.

I refuse to believe that what Nathan told me is true. Louis promised me he’d never hurt me. He’s insisted again and again how it’s so important that I can say no when we have sex, but he’s clearly hurt someone before, and that means…That means he was lying to me. He tricked me.

Oh god…He can’t be the same as the horrible situation I ran away from. My heart can’t take any more running. I can’t be cut loose again, can’t be unwanted again, can’t be alone again…I can’t. But if Nathan was telling the truth, I might have to.

Louis called me a liar, but maybe he’s the biggest liar of them all.