Page 11 of A Series of Rooms
It took a beat to process, but Liam stopped short when he made the connection; a profile meant a means of contacting Jonah. “Show me,” he demanded.
Nathan laughed, a cold, condescending sound. “Planning the second date already?”
“Show me his profile.”
“Fuck off.”
Moving purely on rage instead of thought, Liam lunged between the gap in the seats and snatched Nathan’s phone out of his hand. The auxiliary cord ripped out of the socket, the sharp cut-off of music plunging the car into silence. The car swerved.
“What the fuck!” Nathan yelled at the same time Ben cried out in surprise. A horn blared past them, but Liam was too absorbed in his task to care. He scrolled through the homepage until he found a symbol he recognized, hidden inside a folder, and opened the app. It was easy enough to find him from there: the only message thread Nate had was with “Leo’s” account.
Liam held the phone out of Nathan’s reach and began typing. He only got partway through a sentence before Nathan’s hand closed around his wrist. They wrestled over it, fingers jamming keys at random, but he managed to hit send before the phone was ripped from his grasp.
For a long moment, the only sound in the car was their labored breathing, joined quickly by the roar of acceleration as Nathan blew past the speed limit. Ben was gripping the handle above his seat, looking green in the face.
They all lurched sideways as Nate swerved onto the nearest exit ramp, and again when the car jammed to a stop on the shoulder.
Nathan was out of the car in an instant. Before Liam could process what was happening, he had pulled Liam out and slammed him into the side of the car.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nathan’s face was red and furious, inches from his own. “Are you out of your mind?” He emphasized the question with a hard shake.
Fueled entirely by adrenaline masquerading as courage, Liam placed both hands against Nathan’s chest and shoved. “Send me his profile,” he said.
“I’m not doing anything for you now.”
There was a short, silent standoff before Liam sprang forward again, grabbing for the phone a second time. It was Ben who interfered, appearing between them and throwing his arms out. “Woah, okay. Everybody needs to relax. Nate, just give Liam his number.”
“Are you seriously siding with him? He almost killed us just now.”
“Come on,” Ben said. “Clearly it’s a big deal to him.”
“I don’t care. If he wants to see his fuck buddy again, he can track him down himself.” Nathan checked Liam’s shoulder on his way back to the car, slamming the door behind him.
Ben sighed, looking between them, then retreated to the passenger side.
Liam stood still.
“What are you doing?” Ben called out his window. “Get back in the car.”
And suddenly Liam was very tired. As he stood on the side of the road, shaking from the crash of adrenaline and a severe lack of sleep, he couldn’t help but feel like this was some sort of karmic retribution.
Maybe this was exactly what he deserved for keeping their company all these years. A stronger man might have fought harder, but Liam had done enough fighting for one weekend. He just wanted to go home.
He avoided their eyes as he climbed into the back seat, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head. Nobody spoke for the rest of the drive.
CHAPTER 4
Jonah
Jonah blinked awake when the car rolled to a stop, lifting his head away from the window. The short hair at his temple was cold and damp from the condensation of an unseasonably cold morning. He swiped his hand across the moisture on the glass, and the knot in his stomach pulled tight. They were already at the house.
“Does he know?” Jonah asked, avoiding the driver’s eyes peering back at him from the rear-view mirror.
Marcus, a man of few words at the best of times, didn’t reply. Jonah knew better than to push, but he couldn’t help but ask again. It would be better if he knew what he was heading into.
“Did you tell him already? About the money?”
It wasn’t as if he had forgotten about the cash shortage last night, but it seemed that his client had. Jonah had intended to wake him this morning to ask for the remainingsixty dollars, but as he’d hovered over Liam’s sleeping form, shifting on his feet, guilt had locked the words in his throat.
