Page 31 of Fitch

“To when?”

“Today. We’ve got two hours.”

Two hours?

I checked my watch, doing the math.

“Didn’t they request an adjournment?”

She shrugged and opened the top file. “Barnhardt denied it.”

Barnhardt was an old-school judge who liked the power of keeping people on their toes. Or on the backfoot. He was a hard-arse, gruff old guy who ate young cocky lawyers for breakfast. And the Oldfield case was an insurance negligence fight, which Barnhardt made no attempt to hide his disdain for. This was not going to be a fun day.

But on the bright side, at least I’d be busy and focused enough to stop thinking about a certain boy...

And his milky white skin, his boyish smile, and the way he begged me to come?—

“Dominic,” Gail said. “You with me today?”

I shook my head, clearing all thoughts of Fitch out of my mind. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

It waslate by the time I finally called it a day. Like after nine, kind of late. I grabbed take out on the way home, sat my arseon my sofa with a beer and a bowl of cao l?u, and let my mind decompress.

Of course my filthy mind went straight to Fitch and the way he’d whimpered and pleaded on this very couch when I’d bent him over, pulled his jeans down, and showed him what was best for him...

I wondered what he was doing tonight.

Was he working?

Was another man touching him? Fucking him?

Or was he not working tonight and instead hanging out with his friends? Not likely, given Benji was at Nolan’s...

I itched to text Fitch. Just to ask him if he was working tonight, maybe torture myself some more when he didn’t reply.

Or spiral completely when he said he was.

This whole scenario was ludicrous. He was mine for just one night a week, nothing more. Except it’d been two nights this week...

And it still wasn’t enough.

Christ. How had this one guy taken up so much real estate in my head?

Before I could do something stupid likeactuallytext him, I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and decided a hot shower was in order. And when I was lying in bed, the only way I could get my mind tonotthink about how Fitch was probably working tonight, or about Nolan and how he got to have his boy in his bed when I did not get to have mine, was to have the TV on until I fell asleep.

Nolan, the lucky bastard, and his beautiful boy with the haunted eyes...

And just as I was drifting off to sleep, in that peaceful place between awake and dreaming, it hit me.

Where I’d seen those eyes before.

I sat upright and grabbed my phone, searching the internet for pictures.

It couldn’t be . . .

Surely not.

Until I found a photo. It was old, and I’d seen more recent ones. And I would definitely have to double-check. But there he was...

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