Page 70 of Hunt for You

I frowned and made myself focus. “I’m here because I’m bored and you talked a big game. So I thought I’d come see what you were doing.”

“And you wanted to prove that you could.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

He snorted, and relaxed, letting his arms drop to his sides and walking past me as he spoke, leaning over the bed and running his hands down the posts and along the head and foot as if he was checking it for weakness. “Well, you did it. David vouches for you, and didn’t get your invite, but still put you on my list. So you won. Well done.”

“All you would have had to do was refuse to assess me.”

He looked up from where he was squatting near the back of bed and peering at the carvings. “Why would I do that? I want you here.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, I get that we’ve got this thing going where we sniff around each other and both of us try to be the more mysterious one. But it’s kind of dumb, and… not really what I’m looking for. Do your assessment, see if you’ll keep me in the room. I want to stay and see your show… possibly,” I said, frowning at the very luxurious, but otherwise very normal looking bed.

Sid got to his feet again and opened his mouth, then closed it again, his eyes narrowing. “I think I’ll let you come back for the show,” he said slowly.

I blinked. “That’s it? Your assessment is just…meetpeople? What the hell is going on here? And why is Valerie going along with this shit?”

He gave me a sharp look that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but then he softened those warning eyes with a smile. “No… I’m not going to assess you. I said, I’m going to let you in. I guess you’ll have to come back tonight to see if you like the magic,” he said with a one-shouldered shrug.

I cut him a look. “I said I was done doing the intentionally mysterious thing. It’s melodramatic and juvenile.”

“Then call me the drama, I guess?”

He didn’t say anything more, just remained standing there, smiling at me. For whatever reason, it pissed me off.

“Look, I don’t want to waste my time. Tell me what you’re doing here—if you don’t, and I show up, and it’s boring or you’re doing two-bit street magic tricks with sex, I’ll just walk out. And I won’t be quiet about it.”

“I’ll take the risk,” he said, though he didn’t smile anymore.

Prima Donna Dom didn’t want his little show getting interrupted. So he was anartist?I looked around the space again, shaking my head. “What game are you playing?”

“Come back at five and find out.”

I glared at him, frustrated because there was something about him that told me he wasn’t bluffing. And he wasn’t safe. I’d always been really good at picking a show-boater, and even though this dude did a lot of things that were designed to make people look at him, he didn’t have that flimsy kind of presence—the kind that stunk of desperation and folded as soon as they took off the makeup and turned on the lights.

“Fine,” I snapped and turned on my heel, heading for the door. “See you at five, I guess.”

“Do me a solid and tell the guy who was waiting to come in when you leave? And tell David that the girls are a no.”

“I’m not your fucking messenger.”

“No, but you’re someone who chooses when they break the rules. And you don’t like being impolite to polite strangers, because there’s still a part of you that crumbles under that kind of disapproval. Especially from men.”

“What?!” I whirled around, stopping dead, gaping at him from halfway down that short entryway.

He was standing next to the bed, hands in his pockets. No longer smiling, but not looking tense either. “You heard me,” he said quietly.

I snorted. “You don’t have a fucking clue about m—”

“Something bad happened to you, and it’s held a cloud over your entire life. Now you keep trying to outrun it, but you can’t. You’re not bored, you’re scared. And you didn’t come see if I put on a good show. You came to see if I could make you feel something.”

My jaw dropped. “Who thefuckhave you been talking to?!”

Art didn’t know about my dad. Sid didn’t know Nate. And no one local except Gerald and Cain had a clue about the other stuff.

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