Page 43 of Edge of Control

“Life is full of maybes. Or at least the illusion of maybes. I don’t think there’s such a thing. I believe everything was written down somewhere long before we arrived. There’s no point in focusing on the past. Not when the future is what’s ahead and the present is what’s here.”

“Very poetic of you.” I nodded, avoiding a shoulder bump from someone who had their nose buried in their phone. “I agree, though. For the most part. I do think we have the power to at least change what’s to come. If not, then what’s the point?”

“To experience life. To ride the ride.”

“So you don’t think we can steer this ride?”

“No. I don’t.”

I cocked my head. Theo and I were about the same height, and yet, for some reason, I felt like I was looking up at him. “I guess that would explain why we keep bumping into each other.”

He chuckled. “Exactly.”

There was a distant bell ringing somewhere deep in my psyche. Whyhadwe kept bumping into each other? We were in New York City, not a small town in Kansas. I rarely saw my neighbors more than twice a year. Why was it that Theo and I continued to cross paths without setting it up? It had to be fate. Because the alternative was that it had been planned. But then that would mean one of us knew where the other would be. It would mean…

“It’s just weird. How that happened, how we keep crossing paths.” I decided to press the issue. We continuedto walk through the crowd, down the steps, and into a brightly lit area where different vendors set up shop. There was a wall full of hats with quirky, risqué sayings on them.

Theo stopped to look at a blue cap with the words “Daddy, Please” written across the front. He put it on. “What do you think? Should I buy it?”

“It does suit you,” I said, and fuck, was I a sucker for men wearing hats. What was it about them that triggered some kind of caveman-esque desire in me to drag him into a den and fuck his brains out? “But yeah, about us meeting. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

He put the hat back on its hook. “I like to think of it as lucky. Besides, we live close to each other, we like to frequent the same spots. It’s not like there are a hundred different bathhouses in the city. I was bound to run into you eventually.”

“True,” I said. We continued past a stall full of dream catchers. He paused and ran his fingers through one of the more intricate ones. It had feathers dangling off the end. They reminded me way too much of the feathers that had been implanted into Julie’s back only hours earlier.

“Should we keep this party going, or do you have any other plans for the evening?” I asked. I secretly wanted him to say yes, of course. I already envisioned us spending all night together. I was getting hard just thinking about it.

He chewed on his bottom lip. Fuck. He was considering it. If he said no, it’d be fine. I couldn’t do much about work until I spoke with the mayor, and I wouldn’t be able to get in touch with him until tomorrow, but maybe I could at least go over the case files for about thethousandth time. Or I could just spend my night jerking off again at the thought of Theo.

“Let’s keep it going,” he said, hands in his pocket and sultry smirk playing across his face.

The sound of warning bells faded past the sound of the blood rushing down to my cock.

This was going to be a great night. I could already tell.

Chapter 17

Theo Glass

I no longer cared thatmy judgment calls were as bad as if I’d downed a bottle of tequila before this impromptu date. Fuck it. You only lived once, after all. And I was quite aware of how short that life could be. It could be taken from you in the flash of a slightly serrated butcher knife. It could be forced out of your hands by someone else, or it could be your own hands holding the blade that ended it. One way or another, the game always reached the finish line.

So why not have some fun before then?

And fucking hell was Jace fun.

We left Chelsea Market and stopped at a bar for a few beers. There, I had learned all about Jace’s love for Broadway and his hate for theatre kids.

“They’re just stuck-up, you know? In a way that’s hard to define. But they’re also fascinating people. Whenever I talk to one, it’s like I’m watching some documentary on Hobbits or something.”

He said he hadn’t been interested in fantasy books, but he referenced them quite a bit. I found that interesting. I found a lot about Jace Holloway interesting, and I felt myself wanting to find out more. I wanted to study and dissect his life.

“What’s your favorite play?” I asked, leaning on the bar. It was a cozy little spot, with warm oak walls and two tiny windows that made it feel much darker than it should have been at five o’clock in the evening.

“I love Chicago.” Jace put up a finger gun and aimed it at the collection of liquor bottles on the mirrored wall. “He had it coming,” he said in a terribly singsongy voice.

“Now I see why you hate theatre kids. You’re jealous of them.”

Jace narrowed his gaze at me, cracked a smile. He had some stubble growing in, darkening his face, his beard as black as his midnight-colored hair, as dark as his bushy, expressive eyebrows. All of it framed a pair of hazel eyes that appeared to have flecks of gold inside the light green and brown. I wanted to paint him, and I wasn’t even a painter. But then I’d be able to stare at him whenever I wanted. I’d be able to keep him in my home, locked inside of a gilded frame he’d never escape from.

---