Backward Read online

  “You know that wouldn’t have done anything,” Harry soothed. He wasn’t a fan of the police any more than Tristan was. They tended to come down pretty heavy-handedly on businesses like his and Bull’s, especially in a conservative area like this. “The police underestimated Eddie’s reach, and they got burned as well, you know that.”

  The office door opened, and Zach, Jeremy, and Kevin filed in, then closed the door after them. Then all three of them swarmed around Tristan, encasing him in protective friendship.

  “The police took all three of them away, and Bull said you needed us,” Zach explained.

  “I’ll be all right, guys,” Tristan protested. “But I think it’s time we go home.”

  Jeremy hugged Tristan tight. The two of them had been roommates until Jeremy had moved out and in with Spook, so Tristan and Kevin were now sharing an apartment.

  “Bull said it might be good if you and Kevin stay someplace else. We need to find a place for you where no one would think to look,” Jeremy said to Tristan. Then he turned to Kevin and said, “Kevin, you can stay with Spook and me. We have the sofa, and it’s comfortable enough.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Kevin asked, looking around at the group.

  “I think so,” Jeremy said. “Eddie probably knows where you live. Remember how those guys found our place? If he doesn’t already know where you live, he’ll figure it out really soon. What if he decides to pay you a visit and it’s just you and Tristan?”

  Harry watched the exchange with interest. These guys all knew each other so well. If something happened to one of them, the others closed rank faster than a sprung bear trap.

  “No. It’s better if you spend some time away. Spook will protect you.” Jeremy turned to look at Zach expectantly.

  Zach said. “Bull’s mother is coming to visit tomorrow morning.” He scratched his head. “But I suppose Tristan could come and stay anyway.”

  “Tristan can come home with me if he likes,” Harry volunteered before he could really think about it. “I have room, and I can’t imagine anyone would expect to find him there.”

  “Thanks, but I think Tristan would be safer with Bull and me,” Zach said.

  “Where are you going to put me—in that room in the basement? I don’t think so,” Tristan said. Zach had the decency to look sheepish, and Harry knew Tristan had hit the nail on the head. “Don’t worry about me—I’ll figure out a place to go if I can’t go home.” Tristan sank into the chair. “This really fucking sucks. I really know how to pick them, don’t I?”

  “It isn’t your fault. You didn’t know what kind of person Eddie was,” Zach said, comforting him. “I’m sorry you have to go through all this.” Tristan didn’t look comforted, and Zach turned to Harry. “I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk.”

  “You care about your friend,” Harry said. “But my offer stands. I have an extra room, and as Tristan can attest, I know how to take care of myself. Bull taught me a number of things over the years.”

  “Can I sleep in a real bed?” Tristan asked and smiled.

  Harry wanted to say that Tristan could stay in his bed, but that wasn’t his style and was way too forward. Tristan had had a rough night. He didn’t need Harry horndogging all over him.

  “Yes,” he said simply. He checked the clock on his computer. It was approaching one in the morning. The club would be closing soon, and then they could get everyone home.

  Bull joined them in the office.

  “Tristan is going home with Harry, and Kevin is going with Jeremy and Spook,” Zach informed him.

  “Good. We can arrange to get things from the apartment in the morning. Don’t try to go back there tonight. It’ll be safer during the day.” Bull turned to Tristan. “It could be that we’re overcautious, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. Carlos is one nasty piece of work.” Bull turned to open the door. “I better get out there.” He left the office, and the others did as well, with Tristan bringing up the rear. Harry did another quick check around, figuring he might as well help get the club closed for the evening so everyone could leave as soon as possible.

  When he returned to the dance floor, the crowd had visibly thinned. It was still a weeknight, and those who needed to work tended to leave early. The crowd at the bar had thinned out as well, and Harry spent some time helping the bartenders restock.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Rodney said as Harry pitched in.

  Harry lifted his gaze out of the bar cooler and saw Rodney staring earnestly at him.

  “Are you being nice, or is there something you wanted?” Rodney gave him a little smile and clenched his chest to show it off.

  “It’s been a busy evening, and I thought I would help so everyone could go as soon as we close,” Harry answered lightly. He should be flattered by Rodney’s advance. Rodney was a hot guy whose attention guys vied for all night long, and he was a dynamo in bed, that was for damn sure. It was hard as hell for Harry to turn away, but he forced himself to.

  “Are you sure that’s all?”

  “Hey, Rodney,” one of the patrons said as he leaned over the bar. “We were going to get something to eat after closing and were wondering if you’d like to join us?” Another man joined the first. Harry returned his attention to the task at hand and let Rodney have some privacy to set up his entertainment for the rest of the night.

  He finished up and retreated from the bar. He figured it was best not to make a big deal about Rodney and let things simmer down on their own. It wasn’t as though they’d had a relationship. They’d been together once, and that was all. Harry wanted to leave it there.

  “Last call,” Rodney shouted through the club, and the lights came up. That was the signal that people were to get their final drinks and the bar was about to close. A few diehards hurried to the bar while everyone else began making for the exit. By two, the club was mostly empty. The bar was serving coffee to anyone who needed it, and Harry poured himself a mug. He certainly needed it, as did most of the other employees.

  The staff went through the closing routine. Harry collected all the cash from the registers and got it locked in the safe. The waiters sat at the bar, counting their tips and filling out their tax sheets while others washed tables and chairs before turning them up onto the tables. Finally, it was time to close, and Harry saw everyone out before he, Bull, and the fab four left for the night.

  Bull watched the entire area around them and seemed coiled as tight as a spring. Harry watched as well, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. In the parking lot beside the club, Harry unlocked his BMW and opened the passenger door for Tristan.

  “Call us in the morning,” Zach called as the rest of the group headed for their vehicles.

  “I will,” Tristan said.

  Harry heard the nervous break in his voice. “It’s going to be okay, Tristan.” Harry hurried around to the driver’s side and slid into his seat. He closed the door and started the powerful engine. “Everything will be fine. In the morning we’ll go over to your apartment with Bull and Spook so they can check things out and make sure no one has been there.” Harry pulled out of the parking lot and began the familiar late-night drive home. He had been making this drive for years, so he did it on autopilot.

  “Okay,” Tristan said. Harry glanced over at him. Tristan looked as though he was trying to curl into a ball as close to the door as possible. Shit, that wasn’t good. Tristan really didn’t know him that well. The idea that Tristan might be afraid of him shot through his mind. He’d been watching and crushing on Tristan for months, but it was likely that Tristan hadn’t even noticed him. To him, Harry was just Bull’s business partner, the guy who worked with Bull.

  “You can use the guest room at the house,” Harry said and tried to remember if the bed was made up. He came to the conclusion that it was and breathed a sigh of relief. They crossed the bridge to the west shore without much conversation, Tristan still looking incredibly tense. Harry wanted to help him, but he wasn’t sure what to do
. If he was part of the reason Tristan was nervous, then he didn’t want to make things worse. “I have plenty of room, and I’ll engage the alarm system, so if anything happens, we’ll know it.”

  “Thanks,” Tristan muttered. “You didn’t have to do this. I mean, you hardly know me, really.”

  Harry swallowed the scoff that threatened its way upward. That was just it—he did know Tristan. He knew he had this way of turning his nose up just slightly when he didn’t like something, and he knew Tristan’s smile—not the fake one when he was being polite, but the real one that seemed to go all the way to his ears when he was truly happy. Harry also knew the way Tristan’s foot shook, just like it was now, when he was upset and nervous. He’d been watching him for a long time, way too long. Harry forced his attention off Tristan and onto the road. He had to get them to the house in one piece, and he was really starting to feel like a weird stalker. It wasn’t that he meant any harm to Tristan; he’d never do that. It was simply that he couldn’t take his eyes off Tristan, no matter what. There was something about him, and Harry wished to hell he knew what it was so he could exorcise it or something, because it was very plain that Tristan wasn’t interested in him.

  “I know you need a little help, so don’t worry about it.” Harry pulled himself out of his thoughts and turned into the driveway of his well-lit house. He hated coming home to a dark, empty house. He couldn’t do anything about the empty part right now, but the dark part he had fixed a while ago. He had installed floodlights that lit the front of the two-story Tudor-style stone house.

  “Wow, you have a nice house,” Tristan said as he sat up. He seemed to unwind a little.

  “What were you expecting?”

  Tristan shrugged as Harry pulled the car to a stop. “I guess something like what Bull and Zach live in. This is, like, a mansion or something.” Tristan got out of the car and walked around to the front of the house. “You live here all alone?”

  Harry closed the car door behind him and followed Tristan as he walked across the yard. “When I bought the house, it didn’t look anything like this. The yard was a wreck, and the house needed a lot of work. The yard stuff I did myself, and the rest I had done over time. The house was solid enough. It just hadn’t been taken care of.”

  “But it’s so big for just one person,” Tristan whispered.

  “I bought it when I was dating a man named Reed. He and I had been seeing each other for almost two years, and I thought….” Harry cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. I bought it because I didn’t figure that I would be living here alone. We’d talked about living together and having children, even….”

  “So you bought a house to start a family in but lost the family?” Tristan asked.

  Harry nodded. “I love the house and didn’t have the heart or the money to just sell it again, so I decided to stay and fix it up for me.” It had been a hard decision, but Harry had concluded that he was worth it. “I had the kitchen and bathrooms redone, painted everything, and took down wallpaper until my arms ached. I dug, weeded, and chainsawed my way through the yard and then planted everything a few years ago. The bushes and shrubs are just coming into their own now.” He was proud of his home and what he’d done. “I guess it was my way of… I don’t know… not giving up hope.” At first he’d hoped Reed would come back to him. Now he was hopeful that he’d eventually find someone to share his home with. But that was no longer a requirement. It was his home now, his place of safety and warmth. “Let’s get you inside.”

  Harry walked toward the front door, wondering why he’d told Tristan all that. Not that it mattered. He just didn’t talk about his life very much. It wasn’t that exciting, and all his relationships after Reed—if they could be called relationships at all—hadn’t involved very much talking, and definitely not about landscaping.

  “Come on inside,” Harry said, after making sure there was no one else on the street. Tristan cautiously moved from the front walk into the house, and Harry closed and locked the door. He then set the alarm. “If you open any of the outer doors or windows on the first floor, the alarm will sound, and once we go upstairs, I’ll activate the sensors on the main floor, so even if someone comes in, they’ll trip the sensors, and we’ll hear them. Unless they’re crawling on the floor.” Harry smiled. “I had to have them set so the cat wouldn’t trip them.”

  “Why do you have all this?”

  Harry sighed. “There are some pieces that were handed down to me from my grandfather that I really love and want to protect.” He didn’t go into details. Bull had also insisted that he have an alarm system because, well, Bull was Bull, and he’d seen so many things. It had been Bull who had actually designed and installed the system for him a few years earlier. “Are you hungry or thirsty? I have some things in the refrigerator.”

  “No, thanks. I’ve had plenty to drink, probably too much, and….” Tristan yawned, so Harry motioned toward the stairs. He turned off one of the downstairs lights but left the other on, and then he followed Tristan upstairs, doing his best not to stare at his rear end. But, damn, that was hard, with Tristan’s tight little butt shifting slightly back and forth in front of him. He was really starting to feel like a pervert and averted his eyes. Tristan was here because he needed a safe place to stay. He wasn’t here so Harry could ogle him all the time.

  “This is the guest room,” Harry said as he opened a door near the top of the stairs. “The bathroom is right down the hall. I’ll bring you a pair of sweats and a T-shirt for you to use if you want them, and there will be towels and stuff in the bathroom. The right-hand drawer has all my extra things. Just take whatever you need.”

  “Thanks,” Tristan said softly and stepped into the bedroom. He closed the door, and Harry went on down the hall. He set the alarm and opened his bedroom door, and a yellow streak bolted out and ran down the hall and then the stairs.

  “Dammit,” he swore and stepped into his room. He sniffed but didn’t smell anything unusual. The dang cat loved to climb into his bed, so he’d checked the covers before he’d left and then closed the door to keep her out, but she must have been hiding or something. The poor thing was probably starved and undoubtedly needed to use the litter box badly. Harry took Tristan something to wear to bed and then got undressed and put on a light robe, leaving the door open slightly in case the cat wanted to get back inside.

  After a few moments, the sound of hard crunching on dry cat food reached Harry’s ears from the kitchen below. His mother would have scolded him for not teaching the cat to chew with her mouth closed. A door opened, and footsteps sounded in the hall, and then the bathroom door closed. Harry waited for Tristan to finish in the bathroom before he took his turn. He sat on the edge of the bed as exhaustion overtook him. The bathroom door opened, and the hall floor creaked just before a startled scream propelled Harry off the bed and out into the hall.

  “Sorry,” Tristan said, lowering his hand from over his chest. “The cat startled me.” Again the cat raced past Harry’s feet in a yellow streak. “I don’t like cats. They give me the creeps.”

  “Well, it isn’t likely you’ll see Butterscotch again. She’s pretty timid around strangers.” The dang cat was probably burrowing under his covers as he spoke. She did that whenever she got frightened or there were strange people in the house.

  “Butterscotch?” Tristan said, a slight smile forming on his lips. “You don’t seem to me the kind of guy to name his cat Butterscotch. Maybe Princess, but not Butterscotch.” Tristan’s eyes danced slightly, and then he burst into a grin.

  “I got her at the pound, and that was her name.” Harry leaned against the doorframe. “She was curled up in the corner, traumatized by all the other cats and the sounds of the dogs and stuff. Her eyes were huge, and when I picked her up, she burrowed into my chest and hid her head behind my arm. What could I do?” Harry shrugged, and Tristan’s gaze seemed to follow where she’d gone. “She’s hiding, so don’t worry. It isn’t likely she’ll pay a visit
, but if you close your door, you’ll be fine.” Harry waited for Tristan to go in the guest room, and then he continued on to the bathroom. He cleaned up and used the facilities before returning to his room. He left the bedroom door partway open, in case Butterscotch wanted to get out, and then he climbed into bed.

  The cat hissed at him. “This is my bed, you nasty damn cat!” Harry cursed back at her and settled under the covers. After a few seconds, she shifted around him and slowly worked her way out from under the covers. Then she pranced around and over him before settling near his knees, first kneading the covers with her paws and then curling into a ball. “You think you own the bed, don’t you?” Harry was tempted to move his legs just to show the yellow furball who was boss, but then she began to purr, so Harry closed his eyes, deciding he wouldn’t disturb her if she was happy.

  Harry fell asleep with Butterscotch for company. How pathetic was that? A cat—he shared his bed with a cat. Harry moved, and Butterscotch stopped purring and growled at him. Yup, he was way past pathetic. He closed his eyes and wished for a hell of a lot more. Fuck, he wished the person sleeping down the hall was with him instead of this cantankerous old thing. After a few minutes, the cat moved again, and Harry ended up falling asleep with the cat right next to him, her head on the next damned pillow.

  Chapter 2

  TRISTAN MARTIN didn’t sleep much. He was in a strange place, and he never slept well in a place he didn’t know. He also spent half the night worried about the apartment. More than once he’d gotten up and peered out the window to check that no one was watching the house. There wasn’t anyone, as far as he could see. It was still dark, but he was awake. He’d only gone to bed a few hours earlier, and he should be tired as heck, but he was wide-awake. He would normally go into the living room and watch television when he felt like this, but Harry had said that the alarm was on, and he’d set it off if he went downstairs. And just outside the door, waiting for him, was that hairy yellow demon of death. He hated cats, just hated them. With nothing else to do, Tristan checked outside the window one last time, then climbed back in bed and stared at the ceiling.