Page 16 of A Series of Rooms
Jonah looked away, exposed by the memory of his vulnerability. “I told you, it was just a bad night.”
“I get the feeling you might have a lot of those.”
“Spare me the savior complex.” Jonah was quick to sidestep the dangerous territory he was approaching.
Liam took a step toward him but stopped when Jonah flattened himself to the wall, raising his palms in a gesture of surrender. “Jonah,” he said. “Is someone hurting you?”
The blood drained from his face. “No.”
“Did someone give you that bruise?”
“Don’t ask me that.” Jonah pushed off the wall and paced to the other side of the room. He scraped his palms over his face. “Why are you doing this?”
The footsteps on the carpet were slow in their approach, and they didn’t come within touching distance. “I want to help you.”
“‘Help me,’”Jonah scoffed.
“If you’re being hurt, we can go to the police. I’ll go with you.”
Jonah turned around. “No. No cops.”
“If someone is forcing you, or... orcoercing you—”
Panic took over before he could even finish his sentence. Jonah turned and beelined for the door, slipping past Liam. He didn’t know what he would do, or how he would make up the money he was skipping out on from an overnight call. All he knew was that whatever happened to him tonight would be much better than what had happened to him last time he had been careless enough to—
“Wait.” Liam stepped in front of him before he could reach the door. Jonah flinched back, genuinely startled. A flash of regret passed over Liam’s expression. “Sorry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t think you were going to hurt me,” Jonah snapped.
“Okay,” Liam said, raising his hands. “Listen, no cops. I understand. I’ll respect that. Just... Please stay.”
Jonah blinked, his chest and shoulders moving with the labor of his breathing. He forced himself to look into Liam’s eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“Your company?” he said, a little uncertain. “If that’s on the table?”
Jonah eyed him warily.
“I arranged for an overnight stay,” Liam continued. “I have the cash this time—all of it, plus what I owe you from last time. Whatever it is you don’t want to tell me about, whatever you do outside of here... It just seems like you could use a break.”
A break.
Jonah stared at the man in front of him, searching his face for all the signs he had missed the last time he’d decided to trust a stranger. Liam had been good to him before, but so had Dominic. There was one distinct difference, however, separating the past from the present. Before, his misplaced trust had cost him everything. This time, he had nothing left to lose.
The realization stung almost as much as the one that followed: that it didn’t matter if he trusted Liam or not, because really, there was no choice. Whether Liam’s intentions were genuine or not, he was Jonah’s client. He had paid for a night—a full one—of Jonah’s company, and so Jonah’s fate had been decided the minute the door closed behind him. And really, long before that.
CHAPTER 6
Liam
Liam was trying not to stare.
A tense silence filled the space between their beds, a mirror image of the position they had found themselves in last time. He had just barely managed to talk Jonah into staying after a near panic attack, but now that he was here, Liam had no idea what to do.
The past week had been an exercise in tunnel vision. What began as a cursory scroll through various hookup apps quickly bordered on obsession. Liam spent every free minute—during lectures, at stoplights, in the bathroom at work—searching for the elusive Leo/Jonah profile. He narrowed his location search through every nook and cranny of the Greater Chicago Area until he was stopped short by a photo: the bare curve of a shoulder and a buzzed head, faced away from the camera. And underneath:Leo, 19.
The rest of the photos were equally clandestine, featuring the same faceless young man in various states of undress, but Liam knew it was him.
He was careful when he reached out. He kept his identity private and gave no indication that they had history, already suspicious that Jonah might not be the only one with access to the messages. The fresh bruises tonight only served to validate that theory.
