Page 22 of Casual Felonies (Wildlings #1)

RAMI

My hair—still uncut—is dry, and I’m still asking questions. I can tell Truett’s leaving out some of the stickier details, but I appreciate what he’s willing to tell me.

“So, wait, you’re trying to tell me Dad was the one terrorizing all the oligarchs way back when?”

“Don’t forget your Uncle Hopper. He seems to enjoy that sort of thing, and those two together are…oof.” True shakes his head. “Dangerous.”

“But Baba too?”

Truett lets out a slow hiss. “He and your dad are quite the team.”

“I can’t even picture it.”

He wiggles his phone at me. “I could show you, but if it gets out that I’m distributing this information, I’ll go to jail for a very long time.”

I hesitate at first, then give him a nod. He pulls up the Hell_AI app, and it feels like he’s opening a portal to darkness.

“Just warning you, some of these photographs are pretty intense.”

I swallow thickly. “Okay. ”

He quickly finds a picture of Dad, maybe in his late thirties, with his arms across his chest and his foot on the neck of someone I recognize, who has piss stains on his pants and is missing a pinky. Dad is grinning like a psycho, and Baba is off to the side, smiling affectionately.

I go through a kaleidoscope of emotions before landing on a smirk.

True elbows me. “What’s this look?”

“He’s terrifying this guy and…” I tap Dad’s smile. “I swear, he is never not a fucking dork. This is his ‘I’ve got a secret’ smile that he used to get before every surprise birthday party, every random trip to Disney… God.”

Truett looks at the picture again and shakes his head. “That is not a good smile, Rami.”

I wave him off. “No, that’s just his stupid dad smile. See the way he’s widened his eyes to make himself look extra crazy? He’s enjoying himself way too much.”

I go back to the photo, cursing under my breath. “This doesn’t make any sense. I… They play in a pickleball league, for Christ’s sake. The Poppers .”

Truett frowns. “I don’t want to explain how I know this, but that name isn’t referring to the fact that they’re dads.”

“Wait, what?”

I think about it for a minute, and my mouth hangs open. Truett makes a face and avoids my eyes.

“Wait, wait, wait—is their pickleball team named after poppers, as in sniff, sniff, I can feel my asshole opening like a flower… poppers ?”

“Yep. Though if you’re gonna act so scandalized, maybe don’t wax poetical about the magical properties of illegal stimulants.”

“Shut up. You just ruined their awful post-pickleball play-by-play.”

“Can I assume it involves a lot of innuendo?” Truett asks, grinning.

“Everything with those two is innuendo.”

Before Truett can respond to that, I hold up my hand.

“So, wait.” My head is spinning, but…. “They’re still doing it after all these years?”

I had no idea the scope of all the things they did—are doing—and Truett seems to be avoiding the question.

“True, I’m not going to stop asking.”

He looks down at his folded hands. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t wanna worry you.”

“Too late.”

“Then yes.” He gives a rolling gesture, like he’s trying to figure out the words. “Not sure if this would make you feel any better, but from what I can tell, they’ve slowed down and are focusing on more age-appropriate side quests.”

“But why? What good can they do?”

“I don’t know,” he answers. “But I do know that they were proud of you for illegally stalking me, even if?—”

“Yeah, I know. I was really, really bad at it,” I say, eyes back to the floor.

“Hey.” He reaches out, touching my arm. “You are good at a lot of other things.”

I move my arm out of reach. “Don’t placate me.”

“I’m not. Your dads have been keeping the truth from you your whole life, but once you started seeing it, it didn’t take much for you to put together some details on your own. Think about how you’re able to manipulate social media algorithms. The numbers you get on every single post are insane.”

Great. He’s definitely placating me.

“Yeah, because being famous for being famous is really what the world needs now.”

“Maybe not, but people need to know that we’re still not nearly far enough along on climate restoration.

College and the military are still unacceptably dangerous institutions for young women.

Shitty politicians are still trying to fuck with marginalized folks.

There’s plenty of work to be done, which you’ve already started.

Using your Harvard degree to help nonprofits juice their engagement while bringing in cash is not nothing. ”

I let out a dry laugh, my eyes darting to the door. “I should get out of your hair. You probably have a ton of appointments,” I say, angling to leave.

“I’ve actually canceled my bookings for the rest of the day.” He tugs on my overgrown strands. “Here. Let me fix this. You’re a mess.”

Something about the soft way he says it confuses the hell out of me.

“I don’t need a pity cut,” I say, my eyes dropping to his lips.

“This is not pity. Frankly, I could use something else to focus on.”

I don’t know what his angle is. All I know is that I’ll do whatever he asks as long as he keeps touching me.

Pathetic .

I let him direct me to his chair, trying not to think about how much I like it when he takes charge.

He covers me with the drape and grabs the spray bottle.

I have to bite my lip as he mists my hair, then combs it, the sound of the teeth pushing through the wet strands sending tendrils of pleasure down my neck.

Sectioning off a thin strip of hair, he starts cutting, and I wonder if anyone’s ever had an orgasm from ASMR alone.

“Uncle Raf always cracked us up with his trick shots,” I say, apropos of nothing.

“He’d have us line up soda cans on the fence, then shoot at some piece of metal nailed to a tree—had the angle worked out so the bullet would bounce and hit the cans.

And he’d always pull out these huge guns, way too big for him.

We thought it was hilarious. He’s so small, but he never missed… ”

I don’t really know what I’m asking, I just need to hear that slight roughness in his voice.

He nods, moving to the other side of my head. “I’ve seen him in action. He’s no joke.”

Shocked, I turn to look at him. “Really?”

His eyes widen and he steps back.

“Careful. I almost took off part of your ear.”

“Sorry, but…Uncle Raf is involved too? Really?”

He gestures for me to face forward again, and I comply. After a pause, he resumes the cut.

“I saw your uncle take out a very dangerous man from fifty yards away, under cover of darkness, on a windy night.”

He grins at me in the mirror, gesturing across the top of his head, as if to indicate where Raf shot the guy.

I wrinkle my nose.

“Are you okay?”

“I dunno,” I croak. “It’s hard to imagine Raf—sweet, funny Raf—killing people.”

Truett puts down his shears and runs his hand up and down my back.

“Breathe easy, Rahm. In and out.”

I quietly follow his instruction, swaying under his touch, wishing I could ask for a hug, but something tells me Truett isn’t the hugging type.

Instead, I try to clear my mind, letting the soothing rhythm of his hand bring me back down to earth.

After a while, the muscles in my back and shoulders loosen, and I sit up again.

Truett picks up his shears. “Do you want me to continue?”

I nod. Wordlessly, he goes back to cutting, his actions swift and precise. I asked him to update my look, so he’s going a little shorter on the sides and a little messier on the top. I like it.

I like it a lot.

He puts down the shears, ruffling the strands, eyeing how they fall. Happy with his work, he uses a trimmer to clean up the back of my neck.

“Mind if I clean up your beard?”

“Uh, sure. Go ahead.”

Coming around to the front, he pumps up the chair, stepping between my knees, leaning in to trim my facial hair, which is scruffier than I realized. He’s focused on the job at hand, expertly shaping the overgrown mess into something that defines my jaw and cheekbones.

When he carefully runs the trimmer up the front of my neck, I hold my breath. When his soft exhale tickles my chin, it’s all I can do to not beg for him to kiss me. Fuck me. Hold me until all the world is right again.

He’s a complete professional, of course, and it only takes him a few minutes to transform me from a slob to a social media prince, as he likes to put it. Grabbing the fluffy brush and some powder, he dusts the hair off my neck and shoulders, then snaps off the drape.

I stay in the chair, though, not wanting to leave, not knowing what to say. When he leans in to finger style the front of my hair, I mirror his inhalations and exhalations.

Just keep touching me.

“You are frustrating as hell, you know that?”

I startle at his words and snap to his whisky eyes in the mirror.

“Wh-what?”

“It’s annoying,” he says, standing away from me. “You follow me everywhere, add tracking devices to my car, and I can’t even be mad about it.”

“Silas is the one who told me to follow you. Said I might figure out why you rejected me.”

“He’s your cousin, right?”

I nod.

“He sounds smart. ”

My heart falls to the bottom of my stomach. “Yeah. He’s more your type of smart. He’s better at being discreet.”

True shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not my type.”

“Oh.”

The unasked question hangs between us. When he doesn’t clarify, I let my chin drop. Truett steps between my legs again.

“Hey,” he says, his tone confusingly soft.

When my eyes find his, he smiles, fucking distracting with his artistically mussed hair and perfectly untidy beard scruff.

“Ask,” he orders. “Ask me about my type.”

“Twinks and bad boys,” I answer, speaking to his chest. “I’ve seen your social media.”

He shakes his head. “Stop assuming and ask the damned question, Rami.”

Okay, fine.

Pursing my lips, I give him my most insolent look. “Tell me, True. What’s your type?”

His eyes drift to my mouth before finding my gaze once more.

“Good boys with daddy issues.”

I suck in a sharp whimper, immediately surrendering any pretense of cool.