Page 17 of Casual Felonies (Wildlings #1)

TRUETT

Question: how can someone so smart be so fucking bad at something?

While it’s true that not everyone is suited to the art and science of spy craft, you’d think the guy who double majored in Applied Neuroethics and Immersive Communication Design before the age of twenty would either decide that stalking was unethical or be better than this.

Yes, I looked up his academic record. Sue me.

I remembered that one of the guys on my roster—something I enjoyed before my life became a twenty-four-seven pantomime—had gone to Harvard with Rami.

He was surprised when I called to ask about Rami, but didn’t mind giving me a little more background. They’d been on the fast track together, which basically meant they could test out of the pre-reqs if their scores were high enough.

Since they were both from the Hill Country, he reached out to Rami to see if he wanted a study partner for the tests.

At fifteen, Rami only needed help with the calculus exam.

According to the guy, the only real academic weakness he could see was that Rami struggled when something didn’t come easily.

He struggled, but he was dogged. The guy said Rami kept at calculus until he finally understood it and then passed that exam with the same nearly perfect scores that he got on all of the other pre-reqs.

This so explains the stalking.

I figured if I could keep my routine consistent—boring—he’d give up pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this baby bird idea from the three butchers means he thinks he’s successful at the whole spy game, which, perversely, makes him want to do more of it.

Ugh.

Also , that motherfucker put some kind of advanced tracker on my Mustang, scratching the undercarriage. Does he not know how expensive it is to drive around in a car with an old-school gas combustion engine? The registration fees alone are eye-watering, and he goes and scratches the undercarriage?

I’m sending his fathers a bill after all of this.

More annoying, though, is how endearing this whole thing is. While stalking is a nuclear red flag, Rami is just so goddamned earnest. He stops every once in a while to voice note his progress or text his cousin Silas.

What? He put a fucking tracker on my car, so I cloned his phone. Fair play, and all that.

The most disturbing facet of this complete farce? His dads text me about what a great job I’m doing with the whole baby bird thing. They see “real potential” in him, and it drives me up the wall.

Whatever this is, it’s not endearing. Not one little bit.

Rami has followed me into the gun range for my weekly practice session, the one sanctuary he hadn’t yet managed to breach. But there he stands, wearing that stupid mustache and backward cap while shooting a ridiculously expensive gun at paper targets.

I can’t tell what’s got me in a worse mood: the fact that Rami is in the one place I go to chill out, or the fact that Detective Hitchens has started liking my posts.

Not gonna lie, I was expecting Rami’s gun-handling skills to be on par with his spy skills, but he’s actually a talented shooter. His groupings are lethal, though I bet his hands would shake in a real gunfight.

Still, I like the competency, plus the little wrinkle of concentration between his eyebrows is sexy as hell. Objectively.

Deciding to ignore him and enjoy my practice time, I take out my old Atlas Athena and start shooting. Nowhere near as tight a configuration as Rami’s, but accurate enough to take down whatever I’m aiming at.

And my hands never shake.

Unless I’ve had three coffees and have to piss like a racehorse.

After sending a quick gesture to the range officer, I set my gun in its case, lock it, and then head to the restroom. I do my business, and as I’m drying my hands, Rami swings into the restroom, head down as he types out something on his phone.

Seriously, the worst stalker in all of history.

I freeze, unsure if I should announce my presence or see if I can get away with sneaking past him. Before I decide, however, he finally looks up, and his eyes go comically round.

“Oh, Truett. I didn’t know you were here.”

I breathe out through my nose, pinching the bridge. He just… I just…

I want to strangle him, then fuck him, then cuddle him.

“True? ”

The insecurity in his voice is so fucking annoying. And charming.

No. Annoying .

“Did I?—”

I cut him off. “How is it you are so bad at this?”

“Wh-what?” he asks, confusion and hurt playing in his pretty eyes right as I imagine Anders and Omar taking turns removing my eyelids while Hopper patiently waits to gut me alive.

I run my hand through my hair, gripping it at the roots. He doesn’t know about his dads. He doesn’t know who they are. So I go with a shallow truth.

“The tracker you used is magnetic, Rami. You didn’t need to wrap it around the axle. You could’ve just peeled off the little skin and attached it to any metal part of the undercarriage. Preferably without scratching it all to hell.”

He gawps like a fish—like a really hot fish—and I shake my head.

“It’s also important for you to recognize that a snap back and a really shitty mustache are terrible disguises,” I say, reaching out and ripping the God-awful piece of hair off his upper lip.

“Especially if you aren’t even going to try to cover up your fucking eyes. ”

“My eyes?”

“They’re the color of the Caribbean, Rami. They glow against your pretty skin like you’re some hot alien supermodel sent to torture the rest of us.”

“You like my eyes?”

“Would you focus?” I ask, crowding him against the wall between the sink and the hand dryer. “I’m telling you how terrible you are at stalking and I’m begging— begging —you to stop.”

“Okay, I heard you.” Red suffuses his features. “Anything else?”

“If you’re going to stalk me at nice restaurants, you should at least have the decency to pay for my meals.

Also, maybe learn a few more real-world skills before joining me on a volunteer jobsite.

You have produced more work than help with your presence at the tiny house build, and you are a liability goddamn near everywhere you go. ”

“I didn’t?—”

“I’m not finished,” I say over him. He clamps his mouth shut— good boy —and I continue, “I really thought someone with your pedigree would be better at this. But I can’t fucking stand it for a second longer. You have been stalking me for weeks . Either get better or find a new hobby.”

Yeah, I’m going to wake up with my entrails outside of my body.

Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Also, I’m pretty sure your dads are bugging the elevator in your building.”

“They would never do that,” he protests, so sure of himself.

During one of our video calls, Omar mentioned Rami’s cousin Silas likes to talk to his service dog in the elevator. When Anders asked him where he heard that, Omar told him he’d been on the phone with Rami. Since I’ve cloned Rami’s phone, I instantly knew it was a lie.

Also, who still talks on the phone these days? You’d think a serial killer would be a better liar.

Instead of saying any of that to Rami, I choose violence.

“Okay then. The next time you’re in your elevator, say something outrageous.

Say something they would never in a million years approve of you doing.

Say something that would get them moving immediately.

Maybe something to do with the Whitaker family. ”

“Bullshit. They don’t even know how to do that.” He wrinkles his nose. “And what the hell do they have to do with the Whitakers?”

I ignore his question because I don’t have the fucking energy to explain that shit to him.

Hell, even I don’t understand it— given what I know about the Bashes, I’m surprised they haven’t taken down Preston Whitaker for the bullshit he got away with a decade ago.

Or why they would let Rami have such a close relationship with Brantley Whitaker in the first place.

Instead, I go for a softer target.

“Might I suggest Anders Fucking Bash and Omar Noorani Bash are slightly better at the stalker game than you are?”

Rami pulls his chin back, almost as if I’ve spoken an unknown language. “I’ve looked into my dads, and there’s nothing to suggest they would ever do that. Also, Baba hates his Noorani family.”

“That’s. Not. The. Point,” I say, what little patience I have evaporating like ethanol in the sun.

“What is the point then?” he asks, swallowing thickly.

“The point is”—I place my hand at the base of his throat for emphasis—“that if I know you’ve been stalking me, then your parents one hundred percent know you’ve been, quote, ‘looking into them.’”

Rami’s chest rises and falls rapidly, his pupils expanding.

“No,” he says, subtly pushing his throat into my palm. “I was very stealthy.”

“Like when you follow me in your neon-blue EV?” I tighten my grip. “That kind of stealthy?”

Rami opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again, and I cut him off.

“And yes,” I say, running my nose along his jawline. Fuck, he smells like gunpowder and whatever delicious aftershave he’s wearing. “I know you borrowed your Aunt Scout’s truck because her business information is all across the side of it.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he protests, breathing heavily.

Using every ounce of willpower in my body, I step back and remove my hand from his throat. Rami looks as disappointed as I feel.

“Oh, I know you’re not an idiot,” I say, wishing I knew what to do with my hands. “But not one single atom of your book smarts made its way over to the street side of things. You are the biggest nerd I have ever met in my entire life.”

“I am not a nerd,” he says, indignant. “I’ve got an online following of forty-seven million people. How many do you have?”

“Fewer than that. But you know what I haven’t done? I haven’t casually committed about fifteen felonies in the process of snooping around in an uninterested man’s life.”

That last part is a lie, said only to twist the knife. It lands just as I intended, and I fucking hate the stricken look Rami has no hope of hiding because even his poker face is shit.

He definitely liked it better when my hand was around his throat.

So did I.

Rami lets out a frustrated huff. “It’s not against the law to be going in the same direction or show up in the same place as someone else. Especially if there is no ill intent.”

Refocusing on the actual words coming out of his face, I waggle my finger.

“All of those enhanced cyber-stalking bills that were passed last year? You pretty much broke every single one of them, especially with that tracker you used.”

He blanches, his pretty olive skin going a queasy gray.

Holding out the palms of his hands, he pleads, “I didn’t realize it was that serious.

Genuinely. I’ll stop. I really will. I didn’t mean to cause you stress.

I’m trying to do right by the community, and I can’t do that if I’m in jail. Please .”

God, he’s so pretty when he begs.

“Then what the fuck were you thinking?”

“I just thought…” Rami’s ears turn bright red. “Never mind what I was thinking.”

“Oh no, out with it. What were you thinking, Bash? ”

His chin goes to his chest, and I hate his sad little pout, if only because there are other, better, things for his mouth to do.

Pathetic, Valentine. Pathetic.

“I don’t know what the big deal is about cutting my hair,” he answers, his eyes downcast. “For fuck’s sake, it was just a blowjob.

And then you said that thing about my dads, and then Sy also said something similar about my dads, and I was just trying to put it together.

Only, you lead a pretty boring life, and I found jack shit on my dads.

But I thought I found something I was really good at while getting to know you a little better. ”

His voice peters off on the last sentence.

Just a blowjob, my ass. I’ve been jacking off to that blowjob for over a month.

Also, I made things boring on purpose, hoping he’d stop this foolishness with the stalking, but I can’t have him thinking of me like that.

“I need you to hear me when I say this.” I crowd him again until our noses are almost touching.

Until desire flashes in those hypnotic eyes.

“You are not good at it. You are very, very bad at it, and not for lack of trying. You don’t have the instinct.

And what I said about your fathers stands.

Just because you can’t find what is right in front of your face doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Now, if you would, please promise me you’ll stop stalking me.

And if your fathers ask, I beg you to tell them you stopped because you got bored. ”

He sucks in a deep breath, his eyes a little shiny.

Fuck. Please don’t cry, or I’ll hafta kiss it better, and I won’t be able to stop.

But you do not have a death wish.

No. No, I do not.

Thankfully, Rami manages to school his face while the angel and devil of my deviant nature wage war over how soft his lips look. And how pretty they looked stretched around my fat cock.

“How would my fathers know anything?” Rami asks, his tone neutral as my pained inhale echoes in the otherwise empty restroom.

Rather than taking his mouth in the way I so desperately want to, I push off, my boots noisy on the tiled floor as I leave his question unanswered.

Once I’m out of the restroom, I make my way to my gun case, grab it, and go.

Passing Rami again as he exits the restroom, I notice he still hasn’t gotten his hair cut.

Maybe he’s growing it out.

Maybe it’s none of my business.