“I want to know how your next guy likes it,” Juniper tells me.
Everyone laughs, and Hannah, an escort from New York, asks if we want to see Thomas Bourne.
“Who?”
“He’s a poker player,” Loveless explains. “And one of Marie V.’s, but Hannah wants to recruit him.”
“He’s a beautiful man,” Hannah says wistfully.
“Too skinny,” says a girl named Cat.
“That’s not why he’s beautiful. It’s more than just his body. It’s his...everything.” Hannah holds up her hands, miming a swoon, and Loveless bumps into her. “You sure it’s not that dick you want?”
“Is it big?” Hannah asks innocently.
Five minutes later, Hannah has been outvoted. We won’t be going to watch anyone play poker, which leaves me feeling defeated; I’d hoped, against all good sense, that I might see Hunter there.
“We’ll go to the fight,” Juniper says.
As we spill out the side door, Loveless winks at me. “All the men who come to Love Inc. will have their eyes on you, wondering who you are. You’ll have cocks across the stadium standing on end.”
“I’m not sure how much I like that,” I say as we walk across the parking lot.
“You should like it, honey. It means more money for you.”
We pile into the limo, driven by Rod, a Peruvian male escort, and we set off to watch a fight.
Chapter 16
Hunter
BY THE TIME I get to the Joseph Club at 10:00 on Monday night, I’m going on forty-eight hours without sleep, and I know I don’t need to be here.
The last two days have been...intense. In addition to my adventures with Priscilla, Marchant and I are going after Lockwood with everything we have. We’ve expanded the team—Julie, Roberto, and Dave have been joined by a retired CIA guy named Ted Burts, as well as Julie’s friend Lay1a, a forensic IT specialist who once worked for the Las Vegas mayor’s office—and our surveillance is 24/7.
If wishes were fishes I’d have a fucking sea, because I’ve spent the last two days wishing I’d had the sense to use my phone’s recorder the other night at Heat Mansion. When I’m not wishing that, I’m making absolutely sure I heard what I think I heard. Can I trust myself?
I know I can, because there is one thing I remember clearly. It’s that gut-shot feeling I got when I heard Priscilla say, “He doesn’t want to hurt a lady.” Before that, I’d let myself believe that if Priscilla actually had anything to do with Sarabelle, she was as much a pawn as myself.
But I know now she’s not, and it feels like someone kicked me in the chest each time I think about it. It’s a sense of shock and horror that reminds me of another overheard conversation.
I’d had chicken pox, and I was itchy and whiny. I overheard Dad worrying about my fever, which was high enough that I’d been delirious—although I was lucid at that moment, wrapped up in my Power Rangers sheet and spying on them from behind the couch. Rita sighed and said, “Maybe he’ll sleep for a few days.” She did this funny laugh that was deeper and said, in hushed voice, “Or more than a few.”
Dad just laughed, and he told her to drink another glass of wine, but I had known by the tone of her voice that there was more. And there was.
I don’t like thinking about that, so I try to stop. I’m in the basement underneath the arena, in a small, tiled locker room that reminds me of another basement. I need my mind clear tonight, so I try to focus on the moment as I shower and wrap my back.
I’ve been given some small black shorts to wear, but I can’t face thousands of people in something that looks like an overgrown Speedo. Those things are bad enough in the damn pool, but I’ll be jumping around out there. I’m well-endowed, and half the town doesn’t need to see it. I pull my black gym shorts out of my duffel bag and tug them on over my boxer-briefs.
I take a long look in the mirror, running a critical eye over my sallow face and tense shoulders. If I went out shirtless with this gauze wrapped around my torso, I’d look like a hospital runaway, but I can’t stand the thought of lifting my arms to put a shirt on.
Tough shit.
I pick a light blue shirt from a charity triathlon I did last year and I feel sick by the time I’ve got it on.
I think I have a fever, and I know why. It’s because of my damned back. I should see about getting some antibiotics, but for some reason, I haven’t. I tell myself it’s because I can’t go in for an exam; word would get around. Last time I went to the ER, with a fractured ankle from an impromptu game of soccer with one of the neighborhood kids in Napa, one of the local San Fran gossip rags ran some bullshit story about me coming from a ‘certain’ area of town where I used to get my coke.