Page 40 of A Series of Rooms
“What if we cut out the hotel cost for a little while?” Liam said suddenly.
Jonah turned to him, blinking. “Where would we go?”
“Anywhere.” There was a gleam of something adventurous in Liam’s eyes. “Even if we have to hang out in my car for a night. I can’t promise it would be the most exciting night of your life, but at least I would know you’re safe. Is that allowed?”
“I need an address to stay overnight,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “A pickup and drop-off point.”
Liam got that look that he did when he wanted to ask more than he should. Jonah watched him bite his tongue, grateful when he didn’t push. “Well,” Liam began slowly, “we should be able to fake that. It’s not like he—whoever—walks you to the door, right?”
Jonah shifted uneasily. “Not typically, no.”
“So, we could just meet at a hotel, hide out in the lobby or something until the coast is clear, and then sneak out to my car. We can go wherever we want and get you back by morning. That could work, right?”
The immediate response, the conditioned one, was no. Because Jonah’s life didn’t work like that. Luck didn’t sway in his favor. He was the one who always got caught, and he was the one who had to pay the consequences, no matter what anyone else seemed to get away with.
As he sat with the idea, though, a thread of hope began to form, sprouting from some place inside himself he didn’t know still existed. From the last scraps of Jonah Prince that lay behind the broken mask of Leo.
He looked at Liam, who was watching him back, and saw the same hope reflected there. Jonah’s heartbeat was thick and heavy in his throat, rivaling the voice in his head that told him he could never keep someone like Liam for himself. The reality was almost as cold and unforgiving as the indulgent fantasy was warm and inviting; fire and ice under his skin that flared whenever he was close enough to touch.
“Whatever we have to do,” Liam said. “Anything, if it means getting another week.”
Fire. Ice. A heartbeat in his throat. A voice that tried to drown it all out.
And a single spark of rebellion that hadn’t yet been extinguished.
CHAPTER 18
Liam
Was this a bad idea? It was starting to feel like a bad idea.
Jonah was a few minutes late, and it was probably Liam’s imagination, but he was beginning to think that the front desk staff were getting suspicious of him.
He’d strutted in a few minutes before nine, as planned, with all the false confidence of an honest-to-God patron. The original plan had been to walk past the desk without acknowledgement, but halfway through the execution, his Midwestern-bred manners kicked in and he shot the girl a panicked smile that definitely looked completely natural and not at all guilty or constipated.
Fortunately, the bored-looking young woman at the counter didn’t appear to give a single shit where Liam was going, as long as he wasn’t making excessive noise or dripping pool water all over the lobby.
He had been standing in the first-floor vending machine room where they had agreed to meet for a solid fifteenminutes. He leaned against the ice machine, the steady mechanical hum sending vibrations through his back. Liam’s lifetime record of general rule-following was making itself known in the anxious tap of his fingers on every surface he could touch.
Sneaking around wasn’t really in Liam’s repertoire. For that matter, neither was commuting to the city every weekend to live out some fucked up Pretty Woman fan fiction, but hey. Life comes at you fast.
Liam was anxious by nature, but it was only exacerbated by this particular set of circumstances, including the fact that he had no way of contacting Jonah to see what was going on.
Thankfully, he didn’t have much longer to ponder all the possibilities, because the sound of footsteps in the hall was ample distraction. Part of him expected to see an annoyed hotel manager, who had been watching him hover like a freak in the snack room for fifteen full minutes on the security cameras. But relief melted over him when a familiar buzzed head rounded the corner, peeking through the rectangular panel of glass in the door.
Liam pushed off the ice machine and crossed the room in three steps. He flung the door open and, before he could stop himself, pulled Jonah into a hug.
There was a half second of hesitation, maybe less, before Jonah was returning the gesture. “Hey,” he greeted him, the vibration of his throat against Liam’s shoulder.
“Hey, you.” He pulled back after only a couple seconds, taking a step back to give Jonah space. “It’s good to see you.”
“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” Jonah said.
“I wasn’t,” Liam lied, then immediately realized he didn’t want to lie. “Well, fifteen minutes. Not that I was counting. I mean—it’s fine. I was just...” he swallowed, gesturing around at the closet-like room, wondering why he couldn’t shut the hell up. “Um. Hanging out.”
Jonah raised an eyebrow, concealing the smallest of smiles. “Are you alright?” he asked. “You seem nervous.”
“Nervous? Nah.” Again with the honesty. “Maybe a little? It feels like we’re sneaking around.”
