Scratch the Surface

“Good.” I leaned in to kiss his cheek, loving the feel of the beard against my lips, then led him toward the car. I saw Merrell Barrett walking down the sidewalk toward us, looking a bit hesitant, like he didn’t know whether to keep going or stop and wait for us to get in the car and drive away. “Did you want to take a few minutes to talk to Merrell yourself?”

He glanced over at the mayor-elect, who lifted his hand in greeting and then turned away, only to be stopped by a cluster of young women. “No. I can’t imagine whatever he wanted to talk about was that important. I mean, how could it be? We’re not friends.”

“No, you’re not,” I agreed, squeezing his hand tighter.

“But speaking of friends, I want you to go with me to meet Zack so we can check on my bike.”

I must have made a face.

“What? You don’t wanna meet Zack?”

“No, Zack I want to meet, but we need to have a talk about your thousand-year-old bike. ADA McCauley is under the impression it’s unsafe.”

He scoffed loudly. “Like McCauley knows shit about motorcycles.”

“I’ll ask Zack what he thinks, then.”

He definitely didn’t want me to do that.

As it turned out, Zack was going to have to keep the bike longer than he originally expected to, because he was making more than a few safety alterations to it. While Jeremiah was off petting his baby, I offered to put the cost of the upgrades on my credit card, but Zack assured me Jeremiah paying for the carburetor was enough. The rest he was doing because, as he said, he loved his friend, who was as warm and fuzzy as a deranged porcupine. I appreciated that imagery quite a bit.

Later, back at the hotel, I did some work while he took a nap. When I looked up a couple of hours later, I found him staring at me from the bed.

“What are you looking at?”

“I’m looking at you, Cam.” His voice was gravelly and rough, and the whimper came out of me before I could stifle the sound. “I like looking at you.”

“You do?” My heart was now in my throat.

He grunted. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I appreciate it, I really do.”

I cleared my throat. “I know that.”

His grin was wide. “Awfully sure of yourself.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? I know you appreciate me, the same as I do you. It’s nice to hear but not necessary.”

“It is necessary,” he insisted. “So get used to hearing nice things, you understand?”

“If you insist.” I stood up and crossed to the bed, climbed on and crawled over to him, dropping down close beside him so I could stare into his eyes.

He put his hand on my face, smoothing over my cheek with his thumb. “You gotta drop me at the apartment tomorrow morning after we check out so I can start laundry and put things away. Plus, I gotta go get those witch bells for the front door.”

I groaned loudly.

“Oh, come on. She said she makes candles for all the sabbats too.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

His chuckle was low and sexy, and he lifted up to kiss me, so all the rest of it hardly mattered. I was going to live with Jeremiah. That was all I cared about.

On our way out to eat, I realized I didn’t have anything but a suit jacket to wear over my polo, so Jeremiah rifled through his duffel and pulled out his leather racing jacket for me. It was nice to wear something of his. We were almost to the door when I put my hands in the pockets and felt something in the right one. I pulled it out and realized it was a mahjong tile, the eight of bamboo.

“Oh man, do you know how to play?” I asked excitedly. “I love mahjong.”

He squinted at me, his hand on the doorknob. “I don’t know what this is.”

“It’s a tile, and you—wait.” The longer I held it, the more I realized it felt weird, and as I inspected it a little closer, I saw a seam between what would look like the letters M and W to anyone who didn’t play, but it was, of course, eight sticks of bamboo. When I separated the seam, I immediately understood I wasn’t holding a mahjong tile at all. It was a flash drive.

“Holy shit, Cam,” he gasped, staring at me. “I think you just found what the guys who destroyed Shawn’s apartment were looking for.”

“No,” I countered, suddenly terrified and unable to move.

“Uh, I’m gonna say fuck yeah, you did.” He looked as freaked out as I felt.

“You had no idea this was in here?”

“No, absolutely not…but I loaned this jacket to Shawn one day in class because he said he was cold. He didn’t get it back to me until we saw each other again later in the week, and I never thought to check the pockets. I mean, how often do you check your coat pockets?”