Phantom shook his head, tilting his gaze up toward the starless sky. “Yeah, I’m not sure how my mom’s going to take it. Definitely not as easy as my sister, not with the way I was raised. Toxic masculinity isn’t exactly a stranger in the Black community, and my mom unfortunately soaked in all the bullshit the men around her put out. Then there’s the fact that she loves a good church Sunday. Plus, I know she’ll start worrying about what my aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone else under the fucking sun would say… yeah, that’s going to be difficult.”
Wyatt looked at this man, someone who had seen his fair share of life-threatening situations and likely stared them all down with the brave face of a roaring lion. Yet there was fear in his big brown eyes when he spoke about coming out to his own mother, someone who should love him unconditionally, no matter what religion she believed in or who her son brought into bed with him. Unconditional and unending love, and yet Phantom was scared, scared to reveal one of the most genuine parts of himself to her.
It weighed heavy on Wyatt’s heart. He felt lucky enough to have come out to his mother before she passed and to have her love and support rained down on him. She didn’t bat an eyelash, only hugged and kissed him. He wished Phantom could have that same experience but wasn’t quite sure if it was in his future.
“At least you’ve got the crew behind you,” Wyatt said, trying to find a light in the darkness. “You know coming out to them is going to be easy.”
“Pfft, I’m sure being ‘straight’ around them was harder than being gay will ever be.”
Wyatt and Phantom both devolved back into a fit of laughter, the two cementing a solid foundation for their friendship.
“Roman’s one of the reasons why I felt comfortable enough coming out,” Phantom revealed. “The comfort that man has in his own skin, it’s enviable. I wanted that. I remember meeting him, years ago, at a casino in Vegas. He made the room stop when he walked in, like he was James Bond himself. I was actually being arrested that night—” Wyatt guffawed at the whiplash in the story. ”Long story, but he saw me when I slipped out of the handcuffs as if they were made of butter. He followed me and asked me to work with him on a job for a nice percentage. Never stopped working with him since. And he’s never lost that cocky confidence, either.”
“No, no he hasn’t.”
The pair stayed out on the balcony for a little longer, joking about Phantom earning his queer quota before the end of the month, both of them laughing until tears rolled and bellies ached.
Chapter 15
Roman Ashford
Roman sat in the love seat closest to the fireplace, just underneath a portrait of a dappled horse standing in the center of a field of lavender. He quite liked that painting, feeling a sense of comfort whenever he looked at it with the swirling purples and light greens. He wasn’t the kind of guy that could spend hours strolling through an art museum, but he definitely appreciated the technique and effort that went into creating the painting, framed with a thin gold border.
Much less work had gone into creating the page he had in his hands, and yet it was also immensely more valuable than the painting ever would be.
He couldn’t believe it. One piece of the puzzle was now in his hands. He read it over for the hundredth time, tossing over each word as if it were a pebble hiding a diamond underneath.
It was a page from early on in the book. It was an introduction, explaining the methods behind Remy’s madness. He wrote with a witty self-awareness that welcomed the reader in, lowered their guard, and allowed them to believe that anything Remy might say would come to pass, one way or another. It fascinated Roman, especially considering that many of the things he wrote about did become actuality. Yes, much of it was vague assumptions of the future that could be interpreted in a handful of different ways, but some of his predictions hit the bullseye in a way that could only be described as premonitions.
He focused on the last line, committing that one to memory. A fire could break out and the page could turn to ash, and it wouldn’t matter, so long as Roman remembered that one line.
The fourth January second in the twentieth century will bring riches beyond anyone’s imagination.
To most, it was likely gibberish, but to Roman, it was everything.
Two low knocks pulled his attention up toward the arching stone door with its golden handle. Roman’s bedroom was the largest of the crew’s, with an attached library that had a nook covered in some of the most comfortable cushions Roman had ever felt. He got up, setting the page inside of the cabinet next to the bed.