Page 2

Shawn

“ O ne of these days, he’s going to hit you.”

I laughed as I turned to Chase. “Nah. I think he likes me.”

Chase shook his head and pulled on his jacket. “Well, if he won’t take a ride home, I will.”

I liked both Daniel and Chase. They’d started at Margaret’s shortly after they’d moved to Seattle, so I’d learned a lot about Chase, like how his parents had died, and that he was living with his boyfriend. I’d even met their friends and blended in with their group from time to time, since they were at the restaurant often enough. But Daniel was a vault.

And because he was so locked down, I itched to dig deeper. Why was he here? It wasn’t to follow his friend. I sure as hell wouldn’t move across the state to follow a friend who was moving in with a significant other.

Never in my life had someone disliked me to the degree that Daniel did. I knew I came on a little strong sometimes, but that was no reason for him to give me the cold shoulder.

So, digging it was.

“So why did your dear friend Daniel follow you all the way to Seattle?” I asked Chase as he climbed into the passenger seat of my car. He tensed for a moment but shook his head.

“That’s something you’ll have to talk to him about. It’s not my story to tell.”

So Chase knew, but he wouldn’t tell me either. That was interesting as hell.

By the time we pulled up outside his building, the snow was coming down in thick white sheets. Had Daniel made it home okay?

“Can you, you know, check on him for me?”

Chase stood there with the car door open. He looked between the apartment building and me before nodding. “I’ll make sure he got home.”

I didn’t know why I cared. The dude wasn’t even a friend, but still, it sucked to walk in this weather.

The entire drive home, I debated what to do when it came to my growing obsession with Daniel. The music blasting from the stereo did nothing to distract me from my thoughts, so I flipped it off to concentrate on not spinning out as my tires skidded on the slick pavement. The downside to snow in Seattle was that it didn’t happen all that often, and when it did, it was a mess.

Thankfully, I made it home in one piece, but the snow had gathered significantly by then. It crunched beneath my feet as I climbed the front stoop to the building.

Most of the guys lived in smaller places, but I was spoiled. My apartment was spacious and more than any single twenty-five-year-old guy needed. I technically didn’t even need to work. Dad didn’t just own Margaret’s, but a few local boutique stores as well. Mom mostly managed those, and I reaped the benefits of being related to them.

Warm air blasted me as I entered the lobby and made my way to the elevator. My body shook off the cold as I waited for the car to arrive at the reception area. Once the doors opened, I stepped inside and hit the button for the tenth floor. Sometimes living in a nice high rise had its perks, but I wouldn’t be moving anytime soon as getting things in and out of my place was a pain in the ass.

The hallway was quiet as I walked to my door. I didn’t have visitors here often because there was a strict noise policy in place. If I had picked the place, I wouldn’t have done that, but Mom had insisted on the area. Maybe it was her way of keeping me out of trouble, but it didn’t deter me from going to other places.

The door clicked open, and I stared into the dark empty space of my home. It didn’t always bother me that it was so empty, but after how Daniel ran off tonight, my mind wandered. When things were too quiet, I thought too much, and that led to trouble. That was when I turned to hookups or drinking when I shouldn’t.

Some of the best top-shelf liquors filled my cupboard. My fingers skimmed the bottles as I debated what I was in the mood for. They stopped on a bottle of local bourbon, and I pulled it down to examine it.

The label was dark brown with rose-gold embossed lettering. It had been opened, but none had been drunk yet. Wine barrel-aged was a different beast, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t as good.

I pulled a glass down, poured a serving, and walked to my computer. The bourbon burned my throat with the first sip. There was an extra level of spice to it from the unique style of aging.

My mind was whirring with all sorts of thoughts about Daniel and what he was hiding. My laptop was open and turned on before I even realized what I was doing.

Daniel Morgan .

I typed his name into the search bar, but his name was too common. I’d have to expand my search. When I deleted his name, I remembered that he and Chase were from Ocean Shores.

Daniel Morgan, Ocean Shores, Washington.

I held my breath as I hit enter and waited for any results to pop up. The town was tiny, and the likelihood of finding anything was pretty small, but I was shocked when the search immediately yielded a police record.

“The hell?”

I clicked on it, and it opened. There was a picture of Daniel, right there on my screen. Did my dad know about this? He had to know if he’d hired him. Dad did a background check on everyone. It was a prerequisite for getting the job.

I quickly scanned the file. The police brought in Daniel for questioning in connection to a theft ring. Theft? Holy. Fuck. They released him, yet kept him as a person of interest, though he wasn’t found to be directly involved. That would explain why he’d been able to move.

My phone was instantly in my hand and pressed to my ear. The ringing startled me, since I’d called my dad without thinking.

“A theft ring?”

“Jesus, Shawn. What the hell are you talking about?”

I rubbed at my eyes and stared at my computer screen again. “You knew about this and hired him, anyway?”

Dad sighed. “Shawn? Why are you questioning who I hired? It said he wasn’t directly involved and when I asked him about it, he said that the two who were involved had only lived with him.”

I sat there for a moment, thinking it over. Dad knew what he was doing, but it still didn’t sit right. “I don’t know...”

“Has he given you a reason to be suspicious? Is there a reason you’re looking into this?”

My face heated because Dad was right to question me about it. “No. He’s just always so secretive and I wanted to find something, but I hadn’t expected to find this.”

“I’m telling you, son, leave this one alone. I get that you’re curious, but that kid has been through a lot. He deals with you enough at work. Stop digging into his personal life.”

As if. Now I only wanted to know more. Who the hell was Daniel Morgan? Was he here to start over, or was he running from his demons?