This boy’s nuts. As if he doesn’t know. “I admit it.”

He grins boyishly, turning my heart inside out.

Has he forgotten I told him that already? My guess is he doesn’t believe it yet. Both he and West are becoming experts i

n this how-to-own-Sydney’s-heart game. What they don’t seem to get is that I’m already theirs.

“Haven’t seen you in frigging ages,” Gigi accuses when I meet her for a coffee one early afternoon. “Have you been sick?”

Heartsick. And she’s right, it’s been ages—whole damn ages since Kash vanished.

“I just got a lot on my plate right now,” I mutter.

“I missed you, Syd… Tell me what is going on?”

Not sure what to say. The world is twisted up and darkening in places, as if bruised. Nothing’s simple anymore. Everything’s changed. Gigi doesn’t know how my relationship with the boys has progressed, or about Kash missing, and I find I don’t want to tell her. It’s as if by not telling her I don’t allow Kash’s disappearance to be real.

And as for our relationship… I’m not sure others can understand it. I mean, I read the blog story Gigi sent me, and it’s cute, but it’s only two boys, not three, and in any case… It’s not real.

Not real life.

Real life is sleeping with two guys on a mattress that doesn’t fit you and having sex with them any free minute you got, then being afraid they’ll leave, too.

It’s making sure both of them get time with you, and sex with you, and satisfaction.

It’s missing the third one like hell and being worried sick about him.

Real life is going to the restaurant where Kash used to work and asking his employer what he knows about him, if Kash told him anything before he vanished.

I push Gigi’s concern out of my mind as the need to find Kash takes front place.

The restaurant is small and cozy, with the obligatory plaster statues and miniature pillars at the entrance. The smell of food is mouthwatering. “Kash was your roommate?” George, the Greek restaurant owner, studies us. “You’re friends?”

“We are,” West says. “We’re looking for him.”

“In case he said anything to you,” Nate adds. “About going away.”

“We’d appreciate your help,” I finish.

He’s a short, balding guy with a beer belly and long seventies whiskers. In a light blue shirt and dark pants, his flushed face sweaty, he was talking to the cooks and waiters when we arrived. Apparently there’s going to be a party here later on. All the tables are set up in long rows with crisp white tablecloths and bunches of flowers.

“Let me get this straight,” he says, waving away a waiter who looked about to ask him a question. “Kash just… what, up and left town?” He rubs at the dark shade of beard on his chin. “I thought he found a better job and left without telling me, the little shit.” He glances from West’s troubled face to Nate’s, and then to me. “Holy mother of God. He really left? And you guys are looking for him?”

“That’s right, sir,” West says.

Nate folds his arms across his chest. “Anything you could tell us…”

“Like what? He didn’t say, oh Mr. Papadakis, I’m leaving. Thank you for everything and take care. Did he?”

Obviously not. I wait to see if he’ll tell us anything useful.

“A good boy, Kash is.” Now he seems to be talking to himself. “Hard working, reliable. That’s why I was so shocked he stopped showing up, stopped answering his phone. I thought to myself, George, this isn’t like Kash, not at all. Boy like him, he’d have said something first.”

After a moment with nothing more forthcoming, West says, “That’s true. But all the same, if you know anything about him—about any place where he might go, any other person he used to hang out with, anything he told you about himself…”

“Any information he might have filled in for the position?” I try to imagine Kash working here, and sadness swamps me for all the things I didn’t have the time to do before he left. “Any address, any other phone number, any other name?”

“Let me take a look. Come.” He gestures at us to follow him and we troop into a tiny office. To my surprise, he doesn’t wake the ancient computer sitting on his desk but rifles around in a drawer, pulling out papers and shoving them back inside. “He must have filled out a form…”

Tags: Jo Raven Erotic
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