Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Roach wasn’t stopping for him or anyone else though, and rushed outside like a bulldozer on a mission to take down some ancient trees. His shoulders rigid, he was already lighting himself a cigarette.

Zane reached him in a few fast strides and grabbed Roach’s thick arm, facing his stormy features. “Stop running away, damnit!”

“I don’t want to talk to you, and I can’t exactly hit you hard enough without giving myself a concussion, so the fuck else am I supposed to do?”

Zane stared at Roach’s chest, which worked frantically, as if mindless fury was only a step away. What Zane had said must have touched a nerve, because Roach didn’t seem prone to such outbursts, overall. “She was, wasn’t she?”

Roach grabbed him by the neck, flushed, a vein bulging on his forehead. “A hooker who overdosed. Such a funny story, huh? Butt of the joke.”

Zane rarely felt bad about things he said, but now his heart was lead. “I’m sorry. I meant it as a…? figure of speech.”

Roach grunted and pushed him back so hard Zane almost fell over. “Don’t prod me or I will fucking kill us both!”

“This no longer sounds serious,” Zane muttered.

His revenge should have been a swift affair that might or might not have landed him in jail for murder. Instead, he had to navigate his way around a pit bull puppy who barked a lot but whose teeth hadn’t yet grown out enough to draw blood. And he couldn’t drown hi—that was a real shitty metaphor. Because Roach was nothing like some poor, cute puppy. He’d done something horrible, something that had pushed Zane’s life off-track. It shouldn’t matter that two years on Roach seemed to have turned into a decent enough guy, but because of the curse, Zane’s inability to execute his revenge was starting to turn their situation into some weird running joke.

“I am dead serious. What do I have to live for?” Roach spread his arms, facing Zane with a huff. “I actually have power over you now. You’re stuck with me, fishing for something to get you out. There’s nothing you can do. You’ll be tied to me forever. How does that feel?”

Anger simmered just below Zane’s skin. What the hell was this weird blackmail attempt? He hadn’t let anyone tie him down, and he wasn’t about to allow it now. “It’ll feel good enough once my cock’s back up your ass.”

There it was, the pause he was hoping for.

Roach’s broad, powerful shoulders hunched, and he looked at the trucks dotting the parking lot. “I don’t know how to be gay,” he said in a much quieter voice. “By the end of this day, everyone in the motel will know. I work here. This is my life you’re fucking with.”

The way Zane saw it, he was doing Roach a favor by shoving him out of the closet, but this might also be an opportunity for him to get the upper hand. “So… what? If I teach you, will you help me find a way to separate us?”

Roach rubbed his face as cold drops of water once more started falling on their shoulders. “Just… keep my mom out of it, and take it easy on Gale. I’ll help you—us, but I gotta go to work soon,” he said with resignation

“Only if Gale behaves,” Zane grumbled.

“He won’t behave! He’s on fucking crack half the time, if you haven’t noticed!”

Zane exhaled, but his frustration was gradually evaporating. “But no funny business with him. I mean it.”

Roach waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, fine.” He paused and glanced at Zane with the hint of a smile. “I’ll only be fucking my boyfriend from now on.”

It should have annoyed Zane more than it had.

Zane rolled his eyes and hooked his index finger through the belt loop at the front of Roach’s pants, pulling him toward the motel. “You need to do something about that buzzing testosterone,” he said, eyeing Roach’s thick bicep. He was positive there was way more power in those muscles than Roach had unleashed on him during the fight, but Zane chose to believe it was Roach’s self-preservation instinct that kept him from using more force, rather than him being a decent human being.

Roach sighed his discontent but followed like the pup he was. “I just… I’ve really got work to do. Unless you’re paying for my rent too.”

Zane pulled out his wallet, annoyed that they were back to this topic. So he’d be spending all he had, but he needed to show Roach he was capable of handling his own shit. He pulled out a fistful of bills—most of what he still had in there—and pushed them into Roach’s hand.

“Can we be done with all this talk of rent now?”

Roach took a brief glance at the money and frowned. “This is nineteen dollars.”

Zane froze. Goddamn it. Yes, he could kind of see it now that he examined the cash. Why couldn’t dollars be more diverse in terms of color? It would have made telling the difference so much easier!