Page 49 of Just a Bit Guarded

But it didn’t seem to matter.

For the first time in his life, Gadiel felt... happy.

Chapter 20

As Scott stood in front of the door that allegedly led to Will’s new place, he wondered if Will would be impressed or pissed off that he’d managed to track him down.

It hadn’t been easy to find Will’s address. In fact, it was pure luck that Scott had run into Mitch, one of Will’s friends from his army days, who mentioned that he had rented an apartment in Brooklyn on Will’s behalf. Apparently, Will hadn’t wanted his name to be connected to the apartment in any way.

To say it was baffling would be an understatement. Scott had been baffled a few weeks ago too when Will had abandoned him in Dubai without any warning whatsoever—besides the cryptic message that alluded to his phone possibly being monitored, which had sufficiently freaked Scott out.

So the chance meeting with Mitch had been a godsend. Hewas finally going to get to the bottom of it, whether Will wanted it or not.

Lifting his hand, Scott knocked.

After a few moments, there was a muffled sound of footsteps and the door opened.

“Surpri—!” Scott cut himself off, blinking at the guy on the other side of the door.

It wasn’t Will.

It was Gadiel.

He looked so different from the guy he remembered that Scott actually had trouble believing that it was the same person. The Gadiel he’d known and briefly dated had worn either snow-white Arabic clothes or equally impeccable designer clothes. This guy was dressed ina pair of sweatpants and an oversized faded T-shirt that seemed oddly familiar.

“Scott!” Gadiel said, blinking. He smiled, recovering from his surprise much faster than Scott did. “Will didn’t tell me you were coming. Come on in!”

Scott smiled distractedly, struggling to find something to say, but his mind seemed unable to get past the fact that Gadiel was in Brooklyn—that his cousin was living with Gadiel in Brooklyn. It made no fucking sense.

“Will is here?” Scott said, letting the door shut after him.

“He’s in the shower, but he should be out soon,” Gadiel said. “Take a seat.” He gestured toward the couch.

Scott looked around the small living room. Noticing a bowl of popcorn on the table by the couch and Netflix on the screen of the TV, he said, “Is this a movie night or something?”

Gadiel shrugged. “Sort of? We usually watch something in the evening. We were going to watch a Jurassic Park movie tonight.”

We?

“Would you like something to drink?” Gadiel said, opening the fridge. “We have... beer and orange juice. Hmm, we really need to go grocery shopping.”

We?

“Beer is fine,” Scott said distractedly.

He accepted the bottle of beer, sat down on the beat-up couch, and took a small sip, studying Gadiel more carefully. The T-shirt on him definitely was familiar. Didn’t it belong to Will? It definitely looked too big on Gadiel. Since when did Will start sharing his clothes with his clients?

The sound of running water stopped, and Scott turned his head when there was the sound of footsteps.

Will stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway.

“Scott?” he said.

Scott ran his gaze over him, but unlike Gadiel, he looked like his usual self: put-together and reserved, his expression as unreadable as ever.

“Hello there,” Scott said lightly. “Good to see you alive, cousin mine.”

A wrinkle appeared between Will’s brows. He shot a look at Gadiel before looking back at him. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

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