Page 39 of Carry On

“Jesus fuck, Jay.” I laughed, taken aback by the comment.

“I’m just trying to keep you alive,” he replied with a shrug. He did that often, more than I wanted to acknowledge. More than once, this man had pulled me off a dangerous ledge. Some days, I still wasn’t sure if I was grateful for that or not. “You deserve a good life, Nash. You deserve to be happy.”

He’s lying,the voice commented.

The problem: I didn’t know if I deserved any of that.

CHAPTER 30

LINCOLN

Thelackofhearingfrom Nash had gotten under my skin, not that he had a good way to get in touch with me. He didn’t have a phone or email or anything else. No, we just had a simple agreement that he’d think about and get in touch with me if he decided to take me up on the offer.

But before that, I was somehow roped into agreeing that I’d stop stalking him. He didn’t call it that, but we both knew that my chasing him around town when he kept disappearing was exactly that.

My gut told me he was long gone, but I didn’t want to trust my gut. It had betrayed me a few too many times. I learned over the years that the facts didn’t always match the uncomfortable, anxious feeling in my gut.

And the fact was: I had no idea if I’d ever see Nash again. It wasn’t a no, but it certainly wasn’t a yes either.

My personal phone vibrated loudly on the counter, and I grabbed it, recognizing the front desk number.

“Mr. Cassidy, there’s a man standing here,” the desk guard said. His voice dropped as he added in a hushed whisper, “He’s… I think he’s homeless. He might be dangerous—”

“He’s not dangerous,” I interrupted with a sigh. The preconceived notions of the people in this area drove me fucking crazy. Technically, yes,Nash was dangerous, but not in the way they were acting like he was. “He’s a friend. Send him up.”

I hung up before he could argue with me because he would. Instead, I opened the door of my condo and waited for Nash to come up the elevator. The fact that he was here had to be a good sign.

At least, I hoped it was.

I knew how crazy I sounded. It was a ridiculous and risky proposal, one that would put us both constantly in one another’s orbits. It came with a slew of potential problems, but I had a foolproof plan for those.

“It’s a yes on paper only,” Nash announced the second he was out of the elevator.

“Felonies, not relationships,” I assured him with a small chuckle. I stepped aside to let him in. “But we do need to talk.”

“I figured.”

“Set some ground rules.”

“Yeah, we need those.”

“And get to know each other,” I continued. I gestured across the condo to the spare bedroom—to his bedroom. As he wandered in to put his bags down, I followed.

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” he retorted. I held my tongue to not scare him off because that was a necessary part of my plan. Baby steps for now. I’d gotten him to say yes, and that was a good start.

“I’m going to order lunch,” I said instead. “What do you want? We can sit down and start going over everything.”

“Can I… take a shower first?” Nash asked, and I tried not to smile at the simple request. I wasn’t oblivious to how much time he’d spent in the shower the first time he was here. I couldn’t imagine that he had access to running water all that often.

“Yeah, take your time,” I told him. The rest could wait for him to be ready.

“We have to come up with a plan of attack,” I said more than an hour later. The two of us sat at my kitchen table with an assortment of food betweenus. While I tried to get as many options as possible, it wasn’t lost on me how he picked at a roll and nothing else. Between the quarter of a bowl of soup at the restaurant and now the roll, I wasn’t sure if he didn’t eat all that much or if he couldn’t.

I was slowly beginning to think it was the latter.

“We have a plan of attack,” Nash retorted. “Lie, get fake married, lie some more, steal money from your insurance company. That’s a pretty solid fucking plan.”

“Get real married,” I corrected.