Page 26 of Gunpowder

Chink, chink. Chink, chink.

Something was bothering Spencer. It was dark, but Blair didn’t have to see to recognize the sound of that restless habit.

Chink, chink, chink. Chink, chink, chink.

His own heart rate picked up in time with the flipping of Spencer’s lighter. Why was it making him so nervous? He didn’t know where he was, but he felt hot, getting hotter by the minute.

Chink, chink, chink. Chinkchinkchink.

He just wanted the noise to stop. Something bad was going to happen and everything was so dark.

Chinkchinkchinkchinkchinkchink.

Blair, he’s got my—

BANG

Blair threw himself upright with a cry withering in his parched throat. He fisted his hands in the sheets. He was scared to look down, to see his leg soaked in blood. The gunshot was still echoing in his head. There was so much pain accompanying the phantom sound in his head that he almost thought he’d been shot there, instead. He pressed a hand to his temple and groaned. He didn’t even remember going to bed. A reluctant glance down told him he was dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. He was laying on top of the blankets, so he knew from the quick look at himself that his leg was perfectly fine, or as fine as it was going to get. No blood, no hole in his pants.

He stood up and immediately sat back down when pain shot from knee to hip on his recovering leg. Okay, maybe fine was generous. He had spent way too much time on it yesterday. He begrudgingly snatched his crutches from beside the bed and pushed on to them. That was one pain eliminated, leaving only his throbbing head to trouble him. He began the awkward descent downstairs to his kitchen, and more importantly, his aspirin.

He cleared the last step and heard, “Look who’s finally awake. Good afternoon.”

His hand flew to his lower back to find his gun missing, but he realized its absence about the same time he realized the voice belonged to Spencer and exhaled with a few curses on his breath. “What are you doing here?”

Spencer craned his head back over the arm of the couch, where it looked like he had slept if the presence of the rumpled throw blanket was any indication. “By the time I got you in bed I was pretty whacked, and I figured I would keep this out of your hands until you’d had a little less vodka.” He held up Blair’s cell phone.

“Oh, shit.” Blair twisted the cap on the bottle and shook a couple white tablets into his hand. “What did I do?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t let you do too much damage. You came back into the bar asking for Goose so I knew something had to be wrong.” Spencer stood and crossed the short distance from the couch to the kitchen area. He laid Blair’s phone on the Formica countertop that would have done a good job impersonating marble if it wasn’t peeling at the edges.

Blair unlocked his phone with dread. His messages were still up, and his stomach dropped as soon as he saw who he had texted most recently. He tapped Wren’s name to bring up the conversation. One look at the texts from last night had him groaning and shoving the phone back at Spencer, like the strategist could undo them.

if u and doc r happy then im happy fr you im sure you guys are good tgether

Wren

Can you resend that message in English?

sry been drinking

youre so fuckng pretty i hope he tells you that

Perhaps out of mercy, Wren never responded after that. Blair pulled the bag of grounds from the cabinet and started the coffee maker. He didn’t drink much, and after seeing his phone, he didn’t think he was ever going to do it again. The idea of being upset over Wren seeing someone was bad enough, but he had actually sent Wren that nonsense; tangible, irrevocable proof of his own stupid jealousy. There was no taking it back. He waited for the last drops of liquid to taper off before he poured him and Spencer each a cup of coffee.

If fate was kind to him, then he would never speak to or cross paths with Wren again and be spared the humiliation. After the attack on Adam, it wasn’t like he was in the mindset for...for whatever had been going on between them, anyway. He stared at his reflection in the dark surface of his brew. The smell wafted up to his nose, and suddenly coffee was the last thing he wanted.

“We got any leads on the guys who hit Adam?” he asked.

Spencer stirred milk into his coffee until it was more the color of milk chocolate than ebony. “We have a license plate. Nolan was too out of sorts yesterday to remember it but it came back to him this morning. That car has probably been flattened into scrap metal by now but it’s the most solid thing we’ve had yet. If you want to clean up and get changed, I’m going to Felix’s when I leave.”

“Yeah. Sounds good.” Blair put his untouched drink down on the counter and started to turn away, before faltering and looking back at the blond man leaning there. “Thanks for staying over and keeping me out of trouble. I know that’s not really your job.”

Spencer laughed. His glasses were still folded up on the coffee table, giving Blair a rare display of amusement in his eyes, hazel just like Blair’s, though his favored the brown side where Blair’s were more green. “I’ve been cleaning up after Felix since high school. Keeping you all out of trouble is exactly my job. Now, go get ready. We have work to do.”

7

GLASS

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