Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“Don’t give a shit,” Tate muttered. He turned his back on Ducky. A few more items in the truck required his attention, and they were much more interesting than this conversation.
“Where do I know him from?” Duck continued as though Tate hadn’t spoken.
He strode through the garage.
“Oh, shit, I know. He reminds me of this guy I saw at the county fair, oh, fuck maybe a decade ago.”
Tate froze mid-stride. Ice replaced the blood in his veins.
“You think it could be him?”
He turned so slowly that it felt like he wasn’t moving. Ducky wore a gleeful grin and practically vibrated with excitement. The motherfucker was enjoying every second of this.
“I don’t know, man, ten years is a long time, but this guy was memorable. Little fairy dancer prancing around on stage like a fucking girl. I don’t know.” He shrugged, eyes sparkling. “Maybe it’s not him. My buddy and I beat the fuck outta that guy.” His voice dropped to a threatening rumble. “Can’t imagine he’d be stupid enough to show his face in our town again. You know?”
Atomic rage exploded inside Tate. The knowledge that one of the men who hurt Liam had been within murdering distance all these years drove him to the brink of insanity. Nothing mattered—not the fact he was at work, nor his boss waiting inside for Ducky, or how he could end up in jail. All he could think about was making Ducky hurt as much as he’d hurt Liam all those years ago.
He charged forward with a furious roar, ready to rip the man into a million tiny pieces and stomp all over them. But three strides in, Ducky slipped inside and slammed the door shut. Tate couldn’t stop his forward momentum. He slammed into the door with his shoulder, grabbing the handle.
It was locked. “You fucking coward!” he shouted as he slammed his palm against the door. Breathing hard, he lifted his foot, prepared to ram his work boot through it to get to Ducky, but his phone rang with Liam’s cheerful ringtone. The pleasant sound from his man’s favorite ballet rang through the air in sharp contrast to the harsh thrum of his pulse.
Tate ran to his truck and reached through the passenger side window to grab the phone from a cupholder. “Hey, Luxe,” he said, shooting for calm and normal. Instead, he sounded constipated.
“Hey, Tate, I am so sorry to bother you.” Liam’s voice wavered. “I know you’re at work—”
Instantly on alert, Tate ran around to the driver’s side and slipped inside. “Fuck my work. What’s wrong?”
“Um, I could use your help cleaning something.” He sounded beyond dejected. He sounded heartbroken.
As he started the truck, Tate focused on shifting from wanting to wrap his hands around Ducky’s throat and squeezing until he stopped breathing to helping the man he loved. “Luxe, tell me what happened. I’m already on my way.”
Liam sighed. “Did I mention that I love you today?”
Nothing eased him quite like hearing those words. “Yeah, Luxe, you did. How about me? Did I tell you I love you?”
“Hmm,” he said, finally sounding a little more like his happy self. “Pretty sure the last time you said it was when I was pegging your prostate last night.
Christ, this man got to him like no one ever had.
Liam giggled. “You hard now?”
“You know I am, you little shit.”
More laughter. Mission accomplished.
“I love you, Luxe.”
“Someone smeared shit all over the front windows of my studio.”
Tate blinked. “What? Actual shit?”
“Yep. Actual shit. Poop. All over the place. I have a class in an hour, and I refuse to cancel it and give whoever did this the satisfaction of ruining my day. I thought, maybe if you had time to help—”
“I’m on my way. Do you need any supplies?”
“Nah, it was super dirty when I took over the lease here, so I think I have everything I need to clean it. It’s just a matter of having the time to get it done.”
“Be there in less than ten minutes.”
“Thanks. See you soon.”
“Hey, Luxe?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
Liam sighed. “Yeah, mostly just annoyed. A little sad. I’d started to think maybe the people around here accepted me, but…”
Tate’s heart ached. “So many do, baby. And fuck everyone else.”
He could practically see Liam’s dejected half-smile through the phone. “That’s my pet name. No one gave you permission to use it.”
“Love you, Luxe.”
“Love you, Tate.”
He jammed the gas pedal to the floorboard and raced the rest of the way, making it to the studio in a record four and a half minutes.
It’d been easy enough to keep his cool while trying to cheer Liam up, but the second he pulled into the studio’s parking lot and the extent of the vandalism came into view, he flipped his shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE SMELL HIT first. Before he’d made it all the way down the stairs to the studio from his apartment, his nose had burned as the putrid stench assaulted him. He’d assumed a plumbing emergency, but when he reached the bottom of the stairs, that notion faded fast.