Red Hot(Sex & Mayhem #5)(104)
“I love you too.” It was just a whisper into Loki’s hair, but Loki had never heard words more sincere. He exhaled, melting further into the strong body next to his.
“I never loved anyone else but you. Remember that.”
“Even Richard?” Jack tried to tease him, but ended up sounding choked up.
Loki shook his head. “No one. You’re the only one that was ever worth it.”
They drove in silence, holding on to each other, and the van stopped all too soon. Jack took a deep breath. “It’s gonna be all right.” But even he didn’t seem to believe it.
Loki squeezed his hand for the last time and slowly got up, unwilling to have Monster see them together again. The backdoor opened, and they climbed outside. They weren’t inside the walls of the clubhouse but in the parking lot behind the club-owned garage.
None of them said a thing, and the silence of the usually busy clubhouse was eerie like the setting of a slasher horror. Loki watched shadows dance on the ground as they moved without any artificial light to aid them. Monster opened a backdoor and then led them down a corridor that Loki had never seen before, which was lit by a few naked LEDs. The carpet on the floor stank of cigarettes and grime, but he kept a reasonable distance from Jack, even though it felt like Richard was bait to lead them here. He stifled a gasp when Viper emerged from one of the rooms, but the VP just nodded at Jack and walked off, busy typing something on his phone.
Jack must have felt the same tension, because he instantly curled his hands into fists. They went on, all the way up a set of cement stairs, and to a room locked with two keys. When Monster let them in, the first thing Loki saw was Richard’s wide-open eyes.
He adjusted his glasses and got up from the beat-up sofa that Loki vaguely recognized. The trashy pattern was something he’d seen already. He cleared his throat as Monster closed the door behind them.
“Oh, God! Loki. I was so worried. You stopped answering the phone, I was so scared for you.” Richard took a quick glance over Loki’s shoulder and hid his trembling fingers.
Loki scowled. And this was really what the big scare was about? Why he didn’t get to cover bucket list item ten? “What do you want? I told you I’m not interested.”
“Y—yes, me neither, I mean… Can we talk in private?” Richard eyed Jack again.
“No,” was all he got from Jack.
Loki flinched, wondering what Jack thought about Loki dating someone like Richard, someone who didn’t even want Loki back. He shook his head.
“You heard him.”
“Maybe take a seat then?” Richard gave Loki a tense smile and a single drop of sweat formed on his forehead.
Loki frowned, looked at the sofa that Richard was sitting on, and it all came back to him. The pattern on the couch was definitely something he’d seen before. In a picture at Jack’s home. “That’s where you had your birthday foursome.”
“Um… excuse me?” Richard uttered, playing with his sweaty fingers.
Jack groaned behind Loki. “Get to the fucking point, Richard. And you,” he poked Loki’s spine, “stop distracting him. Yes, I had it here, fucking hell.”
Loki shrugged, still nervous about this whole thing. What the fuck did Richard want from him now? “All I’m saying is that he’s sitting on jizz and pussy juice.”
“There’s jizz and pussy juice everywhere in this clubhouse!” Jack raised his voice, and Loki felt guilty for agitating him, but when Richard finally spoke, the whole world stopped moving.
“You don’t have cancer,” he blurted out.
Each heartbeat seemed to pull Loki’s body inside out as he looked into Richard’s eyes. His lips trembled, his hands balled into fists. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? I’m not gonna come back to you, you piece of shit!” growled Loki, blindly charging at Richard. That was just too low.
Richard screamed and jumped over the backrest, to the other side of the sofa. “No! No! It’s true!”
“Talk, you motherfucker!” Jack yelled as well and came closer.
Loki gritted his teeth and grabbed the hair at the side of his head. The world was pulsing all around him. “My symptoms are getting worse, so cut that crap!”
“But it’s not cancer,” Richard was wheezing with every word, eying Loki, and then Jack. “It’s a hematoma, it’s treatable. I... might have overdone it…”
“You what?” Jack hissed, slowly circling the sofa.
Sweat beaded on Richard’s forehead, stepping back in a panic escape from Jack’s thick arms. “And then I thought I’d tell you that I was wrong, that you’d be over the moon when you find out it’s not lethal, but you just disappeared.”