Page 28 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

Keaton

The last few days had been a million miles away from the way things had started out between August and me.

We’d fallen into a companionable relationship that still had us butting heads from time to time, but in a far more teasing way, with very little danger of it blowing up into anything serious.

I hated to call it trust lest something made me realize I was still gullible, but that’s how it felt.

Like it was me and August against the world, and God help anyone who got in our way.

And of course, there were a lot more benefits to our relationship now.

I’d had sexual partners over the years. There was no way you could house thirty men brimming over with testosterone together in a barracks without some of us finding comfort in each other.

But most of those interactions had been born out of necessity, and while for me, the same gender had always been my first choice, I was keenly aware that for many that wasn’t the case, that if a tall, leggy blond with big tits had walked in, they wouldn’t have looked twice at me.

With August, it was different. I felt like his first choice.

Every time I thought that, I caught myself, examining whether it could be another lie.

I hadn’t asked August about previous sexual partners, too afraid of what the answer might be.

It was a conversation I needed to have at some point, though. Before I fell too far.

Not today, though. Because today he had something on his mind.

We’d stopped for a break, August somehow managing to spy—or perhaps he’d already known it was there—yet another orchard, where we’d gorged ourselves on fruit straight from the trees’ branches.

No plums this time, but the peaches, pears, and apples had been an adequate substitute.

August leaned against the bike, the slight breeze picking up strands of hair before letting them drop, his gaze fixed on something only he could see in the distance.

He had the best jawline of any man I’d ever known, the slight tilt of his chin showing it off to its best advantage.

A perfect-sized nose. A strong brow. Pretty eyes with long lashes.

And then my favorite part of his face… his lips.

Although there was undoubtedly a sexual element to that preference, linked to the recent memory of seeing them stretched around my cock, and glistening with cum once they’d done their job.

August was equally skilled at kissing as well, so those lips were very much a two for one.

I snapped out of my reverie to find his eyes on me. He lifted his chin in a challenge. “What were you thinking about?”

“Kissing,” I answered honestly.

There was a moment when he didn’t seem to know what to make of that before his lips curled into a wide smile. Three things. I liked it when he smiled too. “You’re a strange man, Keaton Levine.”

“Says you.”

August straightened, his movements languid as he worked the kinks out of his shoulders. “We should get going.”

“Get going where?”

“You’ll see.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

August was already straddling his bike. “Get on.”

I got on, wrapping my arms around his middle so I was plastered to him, a position I’d very much grown to enjoy. “Am I allowed to ask how long it takes to get to this mystery location?”

“About an hour.”

“And what am I going to find there?” The wind stole that question as August got us back on the road. I doubted he’d have answered it, anyway.

Our end destination was possibly the most hostile-looking place I’d ever encountered. Not that I could see much of it beyond the corrugated metal fence topped with barbed wire. Signs decorated it with such uplifting messages as ‘Trespassers will be shot’ and ‘Enter at your own risk.’

“Where the fuck have you brought me?”

Something flickered on August’s face, gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Home.”

“Oh.” I studied the metal fencing with fresh eyes. In some places, someone had patched it up, hammering new sheets over thin areas of metal to create a patchwork effect. Had August done that? Or was it someone else? “You live here?”

August shrugged. “I’m on the road a lot, but I always come back.”

We climbed off the bike, and he wheeled it toward what I realized, once we got closer, was a door. The only things that identified it as such were its shape and a slight break in the metal. There was no window to see through, and no handle, so it could only be opened from the inside.

“Close your ears,” August said, before lifting his hand and completing such a complicated pattern of raps that, had I wanted to memorize it, I doubted I would have been capable. “This is the big X,” I said once he’d finished.

August frowned. “What?”

“From the map. Everything else radiated out from that point. I thought it might be where you lived, but I wasn’t sure.”

Another shrug. August was passing off bringing me here as no big deal, but the slight stiffness of his shoulders told that for the lie it was. This was why he’d been so lost in thought this morning. He’d been contemplating the best course of action. “You can trust me, you know.”

“Can I?”

I held his gaze. “Yes. Not at the start, maybe, but we’ve come a long way since then. Right?”

“We have.”

The door flying open ruined what might have been a moment of softness.

A handsome man stood on the other side, his bare chest covered in sweat.

He held his arms aloft, stepping forward to initiate the hug when August didn’t take him up on it.

“August, you son of a bitch,” he said, squeezing him tight. “You’ve been gone too long.”

The sudden pressure in my chest was indisputably jealousy, even as I tried to convince myself that it couldn’t possibly be, that it was way too soon for such an emotion.

The man’s hand rested low on August’s back, mere inches away from his arse.

And no one should get to touch August’s arse except for me.

Then, he made things worse by kissing August on the cheek before letting go of him. Whatever conversation had occurred after the initial greeting—and there had been some—I’d tuned out, too lost in my head.

August glanced my way, his brow furrowing. “Relax,” he said. “Barclay’s like that with everyone.”

“It’s none of my business.” My words might have been convincing if I’d said them in a more natural way. As it was, they came out stilted, like I had a mouthful of rocks to navigate.

“Whether or not it is,” August said smoothly, “that’s the truth.”

“Your truth? Or the actual truth?” I didn’t wait for an answer as we stepped inside, more interested in what I was going to find.

August propped his bike against the fence and then set off after Barclay.

It looked like it had once been a junkyard, junk still lining the paths that snaked in every direction.

In every area that had been cleared, there were houses, some built from the same metal sheets that made up the walls, others made from brick or wood. “How many people live here?”

I’d aimed the question at August, but it was Barclay who turned to answer, the man having stayed a few steps ahead of us.

“Twenty at the last count.” He held his hand out.

“I’ll introduce myself, seeing as August has no manners unless he wants something.

” He glanced August’s way, not showing any surprise when all he got for his jibe was an eye roll. “Barclay.”

“Keaton,” I said, taking his hand for the briefest amount of time possible, the kiss on August’s cheek still bothering me.

When we reached a fork in the road, Barclay went one way while August angled his body the other. “Is she okay?” he called after Barclay.

Barclay answered without turning. “Yeah, of course. I would have said if she wasn’t. She’ll outlive us all. Laura’s with her today.”

“She?” I asked once August started walking.

“My grandmother.”

“You have a grandmother?”

“I told you I did.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t say she was still alive.”

August gave another shrug. “Any information I give out is on a strict need to know basis, and at the time it wasn’t something you needed to know.”

The maze of junk and houses eventually gave way to fields of crops. I let out a low whistle at the three-story house that looked out over the expanse of land. It could have fitted all the others we’d passed inside with plenty of room left over. “Let me guess,” I said, “that one’s yours?”

August flashed a smile at me. “Of course. My family founded this place. Everybody else only lives here because my grandma okayed it, and she’s picky. I guess you could say she’s the lady of the manor.”

“You have this and you leave here to con people?” It was the wrong thing to say, August’s expression immediately clouding over. “I’m just trying to understand your motivations,” I said quickly. “If I lived in a house like this, I don’t think I’d ever leave.”

We kept walking. There was no junk here.

Just rows and rows of neat vegetables and crops, fruit trees, and a greenhouse.

There was also a barn, which I guessed housed animals of some description.

A woman was bent over hard at work in the middle of one field.

When she caught sight of August, she smiled and waved. “You’ve got everything.”

“Not everything,” he said. “No one can ever have everything.”

Realizing I was in danger of coming across as a little judgy, I didn’t question him further on the rather cryptic statement. I vowed to be grateful that he was trusting me to see this, and not to let the green-eyed monster take control just because he knew other men.