Let’s get something straight. 

I wasn’t the type of guy who had morals. Who wouldn’t mess with another guy’s man like that. Like I had some kind of bullshit code of honor to follow. Morals were for people who’d grown up with something to stand on. Rules made sense when the world made sense. When there was a guarantee that doing the right thing actually got you somewhere better.

You learned real fast that “Right” didn’t protect you from the monsters. Didn’t put food on the table. Didn’t keep people from leaving or taking or breaking whatever bones they felt like breaking. It just made you easier to step on. Made you a liability. 

I stopped caring about that kind of stuff pretty earlier. Maybe never really started. I just did what I wanted, took what I could, left before emotions had the chance to sink their teeth in too deep. Everything in my life had always felt temporary, I never felt like I belonged to anyone for long anyway, and running away was the closest thing I had to a system. 

Cold air hit me as I cut straight across the parking lot, not even pretending I had a plan beyond forward and make sure this guy David knew I wasn’t one to be fucked with. 

I saw pretty boy stepping off the curb, a worn jacket slung over one shoulder, the faint outline of a work apron still tied loose around his waist like he hadn’t been bothered to take it off yet. He moved like someone coming down from a long shift, slow and tired, but not fully weighed down by exhaustion. A paper bag hung from his hand, grease spotting it through the bottom.

A dumb-ass college kid who thought he was hot stuff because he’d once bagged some Russian douchebag with a god complex. 

That’s what I told myself, because that’s what I needed him to be. Because it was easier to walk straight toward something simple. Easier to shove, to threaten, to make a point out of someone who didn’t come with a history and soft eyes and…shit. Shit. 

The closer I got, the more the illusion slipped. 

He didn’t rush, or flinch at the sound of my boots grinding over gravel. Didn’t carry himself like someone bracing for impact. Like he’d never learned to be afraid…or maybe he had, and decided it wasn’t worth the effort anymore.

The neon from the Blue Scorcher flickered across him in uneven pulses, catching his hair where it fell into his eyes. It made everything about him softer than it should’ve been. 

I didn’t slow down, or give myself time to think about it. Because thinking meant hesitating and I wasn’t here for that. 

I closed the distance and he looked up just as I reached him, but where anyone else would have run screaming and called the cops at the sight of me, bloodied and furious barreling towards them, was pure unadulterated awareness. Like he’d felt me comin’ before he saw me. And that…jesus fucking christ…did anything scare this guy? He had this weird, calm, steady look like I wasn’t nothin’ he hadn’t handled before…and that pissed me the fuck off more than it should have. 

My hand caught in his shirt, fingers curling tight in the fabric, and I shoved him back into the nearest car hard enough to make the metal jump under his weight. The impact rang out, dull and sharp at once, echoing into the empty space of the parking lot around us. 

The paper bag slipped from his hand, grease bleeding through the bottom as it hit the pavement with a wet slap.

Everything locked into place. My bloodied knuckled grip, his back against the car, the space between us gone in seconds. His breath hitched, then his eyes snapped back to mine, sharpening, and whatever softness that had been there burned off into something cleaner, fire eating away at gasoline. 

And his eyes were green, not the kind you forget the second you look away, but shifting with the light, dark one second and almost bright the next. I’d never seen eyes on a guy like that. Like they were reading me, taking me apart, piece by piece without asking for permission.

His breath steadied fast, chest rising once under my grip before settling again, like panic had come beating on his front door and he’d decided not to answer. His hands came up slow, careful, fingers brushing my wrist. 

That shouldn’t have thrown me as much as it did, but I felt some of my anger hit the breaks, like part of me wasn’t fully on board with what I’d started.

“Easy,” he said, “You don’t want to do this.”

My jaw tightened, teeth clenching hard enough to ache. “You don’t know what the fuck I want, asshole.”

He stared me down, like I was a coyote that would maul him if he looked away long enough. “You want money?” He asked me. “I made fifty dollars in tips tonight. Left pocket in my apron.”

My grip tightened, knuckles digging into his shirt. 

“Take it,” he added, voice still even. “Go back inside. Call it a night.”

That felt worse than a slap to the face. Like he’d already figured me out and filed me under, “common thug” without even knowing what I wanted from him. 

I jerked him forward enough to strain the fabric between us. “You think that’s what I want, pretty boy? You think this is about taking your dumb fucking lunch money?”

His eyes flicked down to the tattoo of a ball python inked across my hand, dark coils stretching over my knuckles, jaw open like it was mid-strike, then back up again. “I think you’re hurt,” he said. “And pissed off. And looking for something to hit. And I’m convenient. Weaker than you. You’re not the first guy who’s tried robbing me on the way home.”

I leaned in closer, enough that he couldn’t pretend this was just some random shake-down in a dirty parking lot. “Wrong,” I said, voice low and cutting. “I need you to send a message.”

Something flickered behind those green eyes, gone in a second, but not fast enough for me to miss. “To who?” he asked, but I already knew that he knew who I was talking about.

“Your Russian friend. He’s got a problem,” I said, “He fucked with me and then he fucked with my car. I don’t know how he pulled that dumb little magic trick with the tentacles and slime, but now—” I let out a short, bitter breath. “---now I don’t got wheels. And all my shit’s currently on fire in a parking lot.”

“David?” Noah replied, and I bare-knuckle punched the car next to his head hard enough to dent the metal.

He flinched, squeezed his eyes closed at the sound of bone and metal crunching, and my knuckles screamed in agony. But I didn’t give in to the pain.

“David.” I snapped, “Your boyfriend. Jackass with the hair and the leather trench coat and the gang of hyenas that like sniffing his ass and kissing his feet. Tell him that I know where his little boy-toy works, and if he wants to finish what he started, he knows where to find me. I’m not hard to miss.”

Noah slowly cracked his eyes open. “You don’t want to do this,” he said, “David…he’s not someone you want to mess around with. If you get on his bad side, it’s forever. People go missing around here. The locals stay away from him and his gang. Even the police won’t touch him unless they have a good reason to.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” I demanded. “What is he? Hannibal Lecter?”

Noah’s hand came off my wrist and curled into a fist so fast I barely registered it before it connected with my face. A sharp crack against my jaw, clean and solid, snapping my head to the side hard enough that the world tilted for a second and I stumbled to the side. Pain rushed upwards, blooming bright and hot, enough to shock me into loosening my grip. 

“Fucking hell—!” I bit out, stumbling half a step back, fingers slipping from his shirt. 

The second I lost hold of Noah, he shoved off the car, grabbing the fallen paper bag in one quick, practiced motion, and bolted. His sneakers hit the pavement, slapping as he cut across the lot, weaving between parked cars, like he knew exactly where he was going. Like he’d mapped this exit a hundred times before. Probably had planned for some asshole like me to jump him a thousand times before. 

“Hey!” I snapped, and I bolted after him. My boots hit the pavement harder than his sneakers, heavier and louder, every step jarring up through my ankle and straight through my ribs. The wound in my side flared hot and mean, over and over again. But it didn’t stop me. It only made me angrier and more determined to catch him.

“Get back here!” I barked, my shout echoing off metal and concrete. 

Noah didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder, he just kept going, loose apron strings snapping behind him, the paper bag clenched hard in his hand until he threw it at me. 

I cussed and raised my arms to avoid being struck by what smelled like pastrami on rye and pickles, but still ended up with grease splattering on my already bloodstained shirt. 

Noah slipped between two cars so tight I had to slow or risk smashing straight into the door.

“Shit—!” I snapped, catching myself on the hood, furious honking ringing out as the drivers inside got a hold of me. 

“You tell David what I said!” I screamed, slowing now as Noah crossed the street full of mom and pop stores, and ran for a line of houses in the distance. “And if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll pay for what he did to my goddamn car!”

I stood there, hands on my hips, watching him grow smaller and smaller, until he disappeared into the darkness. I knew David would get my message, whether or not Noah ran squealing to him. Someone would talk. They’d tell him that they saw me hassling his boyfriend in the parking lot of a crappy motel, shaking him up real good. And when David did come looking for me like I knew he would, I was going to make him feel pain he’d never felt before.

I turned to head back to the motel, one hand pressed to my side as I grimaced and limped back up the hill. Nothing much was open, except what looked like a bar closing down for the night. A couple of people filtered out, girls and guys, laughing and joking around.

I wasn’t much interested in the girls, but there was this twink-looking guy in a crop top and tiny shorts staring right at me, biting his lip and everything. He looked blonde, pink, and like he'd show me a good time if I took him back to my room for a few hours.

I slowed to a stop and exhaled. 

Fucking hell.