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Chapter Two

“Thor, no!” I shout.

The gunman shoves the empty box at Tony and throws up both hands. “Fucking hell, now I have to kill the cat!”

Lance snatches Thor up and looks at the man in horror. “You can’t kill our cat.”

The gunman looks less than concerned. “I can kill your cat.”

“I’ll… I’ll make him spit it out,” Lance promises as Thor meows, like he wants us all aware that he has nothing in his mouth.

“Come on, just… let me kill the cat,” the asshole says.

“I’ll fucking shiv you if you try to kill our cat,” I threaten as I hold the massage wand out before questioning why I didn’t at least go for the letter opener.

“With your vibrator?” he asks.

“It’s a… massager… You know what? Not… really important right now. We can get it back,” Lance says.

The gunman shifts his eyes to Tony. “You know none of this would have happened if you’d just fucking picked it up like you were supposed to instead of shipping it in the goddamn mail !”

“I didn’t have a car,” Tony says with a shrug.

“Then you fucking rent one!” He aims the gun at Lance, who is holding the cat. “I’m going to shoot the cat, and if you’re holding the cat, I’m going to shoot you.”

“We just have to wait for him to throw up or shit it out,” Lance says.

“Does it look like I have time?” the guy asks.

“I made pie! We can all just have a good slice of pie while we wait,” I offer.

“Owen makes really good pie,” Tony says. “He’s a baker.”

The gunman considers this as he glances over at the pie on the counter. “It does smell really good.”

“I’ll get you a piece,” I say as I inch toward it.

“Fine.”

I rush over, and with shaking fingers, I grab enough plates for everyone before cutting the pie into four pieces. Three of them are extremely tiny and the fourth makes up half of the pie. The longer he eats, the longer we will likely be left alive. As I’m finishing, I slide the knife off the counter and into my pocket. First chance I get, I can make Tony stab him for me. My knives would definitely do the job; I only use the best of the best and keep them in tip-top sharpened shape.

“Here you go,” I say with a smile as I hold the plate out.

The gunman looks delighted as he grabs the plate before taking a bite as I pass out the rest of the pieces.

“Have a seat while I think about this,” he says as he waves to the couch.

The other two immediately sit down, but I’m not sure how to sit with the knife in my pocket.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” he asks.

“Owen, sit,” Lance whispers as he grabs for me.

“Is it because you stuck a knife in your pocket?” the gunman asks.

“No. Ha. Why would I be that dumb? I don’t have a knife,” I say as I sit down while the knife digs painfully into my leg.

“Your pants are so tight that I can clearly see the knife as you walk.”

“No they’re not.”

“I can see the outline,” he says as he motions to it. “Give me the knife.”

“I don’t have a knife,” I claim as I shift to try to release the pain of the knife stabbing me in the leg.

“That’s weird,” he comments as he points at my pants with his fork. “Because I really feel like I can see it.”

I glance down at the small blossoming of red blood soaking through my white pants. “Ink.”

“Ah, makes sense,” he says. “Very good pie. What kind is it?”

“A twist on a turtle pie.”

“Nice. Now give me the knife.”

I yank it out of my pants and aim it at him. “Get out of our apartment before I fuck you up.”

“You’re like a little Chihuahua,” he says as he aims his gun at me.

I drop the knife and eat my pie in silence as I press against Lance and wish that I’d at least told him how much I loved him before we died. Then he’d tell me he loves me just as much and that we’ll be the best couple ever.

“Okay, so Thor loves to eat stuff all the time. We just have to wait it out. Simple as that,” Lance says.

The gunman grabs a framed picture of me and Lance with his sister and nephew. “They’re so cute. Since I’m feeling super kind today, I’m going to give you an address. And you’re going to deliver that diamond to that address today or I’m going to find your happy little family and make you wish you were never born. Do you copy?”

“Yes, sir,” Lance says, looking pale.

“Good. This pie is delicious. You have a bakery?” he asks, looking at me.

Tony perks up. “He does! It’s called Sweet as Pie! It’s really good!”

Lance and I glare daggers at Tony, who meekly sinks back down and eats his pie in newfound silence.

“Nice, I’ll stop by sometime,” the gunman says as he stands up, takes a permanent marker off the counter, and grabs Lance’s arm before writing an address on it. “Tell the police or anyone else and your cute little family gets it. Got it?”

“Yep,” I say. “Thank you. Have a good day. Or not… please don’t. Have a deserved day.”

“Thank you,” he replies as he grabs Tony before turning around and walking out.

Slowly… ever so slowly, I turn to look at Lance.

“I solemnly swear to never open any boxes ever again for the rest of my life,” I whisper.

“What… the absolute… fuck ,” he says.

“We need to get the diamond back and deliver it, and then we’ll be all good. Everything will be good. We can go back home when we’re done. We can pretend this never happened to us. You’ll tell me you’ve loved me your whole life, and I’ll be like ha me too.”

“Wait… what was that?” Lance asks.

“Nothing. Let’s go,” I say as I grab Thor and rush for his harness and leash.

I try to cram the cat into it as Lance grabs my wrist. “What was that last part? Was that true?”

“What? We have bigger things to worry about!” I say, immediately losing all the strength I had to even admit that.

“Right… sorry,” he says as his brows knit. “I’m… I’m going to grab a weapon… is your leg okay?”

I glance at the blood stain. “Just peachy. We do have a minor problem.”

“Which is?”

“The cat won’t fit in his harness,” I say as I continue trying to cram him in it.

“I told you that you were feeding him too much!”

Of course he forgets about all the times he didn’t remind me not to feed the cat extra. “It was a minor accident.”

“You literally told me that he ‘looks you in the eyes which hypnotizes you into feeding him more with his teeny kitty nose and sad eyes.’”

I look at him in disbelief that he’d quote me like that. “Is this a… good time to be discussing this? Go get the carrier.”

Lance hesitates. “I let my sister borrow the carrier.”

“We need to put him in something! What if he gets scared and runs off?” I ask.

He stares at me, so I dash around the apartment, looking for something that can contain a cat. I don’t have a box that isn’t plastic, which could potentially suffocate him. That’s when I see my pillow and yank off my Iron Man pillowcase before running back to where Lance is holding Thor. I snatch up the cat, stuff him in the pillowcase and race toward the door.

“You are not taking Thor to the vet in a pillowcase,” he says.

I glance back at him. “Watch me.”

He sighs but sure does watch me as I move. “This is animal abuse,” he decides.

I open the pillowcase and look in at Thor who is trying to eat the tag on the inside. His teeth are sunk into it as he tugs. “He looks extremely abused as he tries to consume more things,” I say.

Lance must decide that staying alive is worth a cat in a pillowcase because he doesn’t press the issue anymore. We hurry down the stairs and out the front door as Lance checks his smartwatch. “We have one minute before the bus departs. Can you run that fast?”

“I’m going to be murdered if we don’t,” I say as I take off at a run while hugging Thor to my chest. We make it to the bus just as the doors are closing, but by some luck, the driver isn’t a complete ass and reopens them.

“Oh my god, you’re an angel, thank you so much, you’re the absolute greatest,” I tell the driver.

The man, who looks like he’s the head of a biker gang, looks between us. First at me holding my squirming pillowcase, and then at Lance who is holding the biggest knife from our kitchen.

It looks like we caught some poor unsuspecting animal and are now heading off to sacrifice it in some demonic ritual, and I’m gonna be real honest… what we’re caught up in isn’t much better than that scenario.

“I’m a baker. That’s my knife to bake with. This is my cat. He’s sick. His name is?—”

“Just sit down!” Lance urges as he pushes me into the bus after paying. We find a seat in the back where we sit in silence, him with his knife, me with my pillowcase o’cat.

Slowly, Lance looks over at me.

“Did you like the pie?” I ask.

“W-What?” He looks oddly surprised by the question, but I’d made it with him in mind using all his favorite ingredients. I thought maybe it’d woo him.

“The pie I made—did you like it?”

“I… yes, it was delicious. Very good. I do think we have other things to worry about, like our imminent death,” he says.

I nod vigorously. “Right… right… I’m too young to die. What if we buy some new identities off the black market, change our names, dye our hair, and then pretend we’re a married couple as we run off to a new country where we’ll restart our life as Mr. and Mr. Smith?”

Lance stares at me.

I stare at him.

He stares some more.

Thor the Great Destroyer yowls.

The lady in the seat across from us slowly looks over at us.

Now all three of us are staring at each other and Thor is yowling even louder, creating a huge spectacle.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“The vet.”

“Our vet or…?”

“Yes, our vet.”

“Then why did we get on the bus heading in the complete opposite direction of our vet? You’d think since we had limited time left on this earth, we would have taken the shortest route, which was the bus stop we passed to get to this one,” I say.

He’s silent for a long moment. “I… might have… maybe… misjudged the exact location of the vet.”

“Just admit you have literally the worst sense of direction ever ,” I hiss.

Lance shakes his head. “No, I refuse! You can’t make me!”

I stare at him with wide eyes until he goes back to his phone. Even stubborn, he’s absolutely gorgeous. How can I love a person so much? Even if we aren’t ever going to date, he’s still my favorite person. He makes me feel so at ease and understands me better than anyone I’ve ever met.

Lance makes a triumphant sound. “Okay, on my phone, I see that there’s a different vet we can go to that’ll save us some time. It’s the next stop.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Great.”

The moment the bus stops, we rush off, and I take over directing us to the vet’s office. When we reach the front door, I bust through it shouting, “He’s dying, we need a vet!”

The techs come running to us, trying to figure out where “he” is before realizing he’s in the pillowcase. The sounds he’s making seem to just add to my story as they urgently guide us into a room and start yanking him out of the pillowcase, revealing a rather not dying cat. Thor’s pleased now that he can look around. He even smacks at the pillowcase like a good pillowcase murder is in order.

“What’s… the issue?” the tech asks as the vet comes rushing in to see what the fuss is about.

“He ate something, and he needs to throw it up,” I say.

“What did he eat?” the vet asks.

“Some… thing,” I say. I feel like I should make it something that could hurt a cat so they’re more inclined to help us out, but I don’t want them to do anything that could harm him if they think his life is in danger.

The vet pulls back Thor’s lips to check his gums and does a mini exam before going, “He looks fine. His colors are good. Can you tell me what it was?”

I’m silent as I slowly look toward Lance.

“Was it a weed brownie?” the vet asks. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that won’t tell us if it’s something with weed in it. We’re not the police.”

“No, it was a diamond,” Lance says, ever the bringer of truth.

“Oh. How big?”

Lance shows the rather small size of the diamond with his fingers.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” the vet says. “He should pass that with no problem at all in a day or two. If he starts vomiting or not eating, give us a call back?—”

“You don’t understand, we’ll die if we don’t get this,” I say.

The vet smiles at me. “I know you’re worried, but he’ll be okay. Hold on one minute.”

He and the tech step out, leaving me alone to look over at Lance.

“Do you still have the knife?” I ask.

He glances down to where he’s hiding it against his leg under the examination table. “Yeah.”

“Give it to me.”

Lance’s eyebrow shoots up. “You’re not going to threaten them.”

The nod I give him is filled with conviction. “I’m gonna threaten them.”

Lance gives me a look. “Owen, you can’t just threaten them. You’ll go to prison.”

“Better than being dead,” I hiss. “Do you want Thor the Great Destroyer to die?”

He sighs and slides the knife over to me from under the table. The door swings open and the vet returns with a warm smile.

I gotta do it. I gotta hold this man at knifepoint and order him to make our cat throw up. Really, Lance should be doing this. The gunman is right, I’m like a fucking Chihuahua and Lance is over there all badass with his sleeves rolled up, tattoos on display, looking sinfully sexy. Then there’s me: I didn’t even brush my hair today and am wearing flour like I’m a chinchilla that just took a dust bath in it.

Here’s my chance. Just a little “You’re gonna make our cat throw up or I’m gonna motherfucking shiv you. You hear me, you little nice-ass bitch?” and I’m sure he’ll do it. I’m sure there’ll be no issues at all.

The vet gives me a reassuring look. “So what do you think? Since he’s doing well, why don’t you see how he does tonight, and if he still has any issues at all, please don’t hesitate to call. I promise you, he’s looking nice and healthy.”

Here it goes. My threat of the century. “Thank you so much. You’ve been so helpful, I really appreciate it,” I say with a huge smile.

“Of course!”

And we’re ushered out into the reception room as he whistles off on his merry way.

Fuuuuuuuck.

“Oh, here’s a harness that should fit him,” Lance says as he grabs one off the rack before trying it on Thor. When it fits, we pay before heading out the door.

Lance side-eyes me. “I thought you were going to threaten him.”

“I didn’t want to steal your thunder.”

He shrugs. “I have no thunder. He was too nice.”

“I know. What the fuck? Like at least be a dick so we can threaten you,” I say as Lance sets the cat down and holds the leash.

“Where’s the knife?” he asks.

“My pocket.”

Both of his eyebrows shoot up. “Stop putting knives in your pocket! You’re going to cut open an artery and bleed everywhere.”

“You’ll be able to save me.”

“I’m a physical therapist! Not a surgeon!”

I shrug but hand him the knife back as Thor smacks something on the ground. I look down just as he picks up a cigarette butt and swallows it whole.

“Oh. My. God ,” I growl. “What the hell is wrong with this cat? Do they make cat muzzles?”

Thor must decide that cigarette butts aren’t the best thing in the world because he starts hacking and salivating and we both watch in amazement as he throws up the cigarette butt right there at our feet.

“Is the diamond in it?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Lance says as he stoops down to investigate while I look the other way. There’s nothing like watching the man of your dreams sift through cat vomit to find a diamond that will determine whether or not you’ll be alive this time tomorrow.

I bet he even looks sexy doing it.

I glance at him only to realize he’s using my expensive fucking knife to sort through cat vomit. “That is my prized knife.”

“Yes, it’s very good for this.”

“Oh my god, I’ll never be able to use it again.”

“It’ll go through the dishwasher!”

“It’s handwash only .”

“It’s fine, don’t fret so much. Oh… oh my god, here it is!”

I refuse to look as he retrieves the diamond before wiping it off on the grass.

“We did it!” I exclaim, not bothering to state that the “we” was mostly him.

Lance looks extremely relieved, so relieved that when I grab him in a tight hug, he hugs me right back, knife and all.

“We’re going to live,” I say as I press into him, tucking my head against his shoulder and deciding that this man is a fucking idiot for not being mine. I just don’t get it. How come I have been tortured with these desires for years? How come I’ve had to compare every person I’ve ever tried dating to him? How come I’m positive he’s the one for me, yet he doesn’t feel the same way?

“We should deliver this, and then go back home and pretend none of this ever happened,” Lance says as he pulls back just a little. I look up at him and find him watching me closely. It’s probably just because he’s happy we’re alive and has nothing at all to do with me being ready to throw myself at him the moment I think he’d want anything from me.

But what if there’s something more in there? What if he really does and we’re both too stubborn to admit it? I’m afraid saying anything will ruin our current relationship… what if he’s afraid of something too?

His hand gives me an extra squeeze, breaking the spell, so I give him a soft smile before pulling back.

“I’ll let you lead the way since you supposedly have a better sense of direction,” he says.

“How’s it feel being around someone so superior?” I tease. “Better at directions. Better threatening skills.” I mime shivving something in front of me, which makes Lance laugh. I think his laughter is one of my favorite sounds in the world.

He scoops up Thor before holding the vomit diamond out to me. I take Thor instead, leaving him to wield the diamond and knife.

“I just… I’m in awe every time I see you,” he jokes.

I grin at him before bumping into him with my hip which immediately makes him drop the diamond. We’re both dropping so damn fast to retrieve it that a woman who’d been walking behind us slams into Lance, but he manages to grab the diamond before it’s yeeted off into oblivion.

I decide to keep my body to myself from now on, at least until the diamond is delivered.