Page 10 of Freedom
When he glanced away from the TV, he smiled. “Hey, Toby. You want a storm front over the Midwest or the secret life of mongeese?”
Mongooses. Tobias felt himself freeze, along with the usual rush of adrenaline that told him no answer could possibly be right. Then he smiled back. He could be brave and trust in Jake. “Mongeese.”
But he didn’t feel the tension completely leave until he had climbed into the bed and Jake had thrown an arm over his shoulders, pulling him in closer. Then and only then could Tobias completely relax.
~*~
Jake had just gottencomfortable and ready to soak in mongeese facts when his phone lit up. His immediate alarm—he still hadn’t heard from Leon since he got Tobias out—settled the second he saw Roger’s name on the screen.
He snapped it open with a cheerful, “Hey, Rog!” and felt Tobias’s shoulders jump under his arm. He didn’t even wait to hear Roger’s response before he was untangling himself from Tobias. “Gimme a second, gonna get some air.”
He’d left his pants somewhere, probably under the other bed, so he just grabbed his jacket on the way out the door. “I’ll be back, Toby,” he called, then stepped out onto the second-floor walkway overlooking the parking lot.
“What was that about?” Roger sounded guarded.
Jake hesitated. He wasn’t sure he could explain how even Tobias’s mildest reactions—a wary glance, the tense set of his shoulders—made Jake want to fix it, whether by explaining the situation to Tobias, dragging the problem out of sight, or shooting a threat point-blank. And a call from family (Roger definitely qualified after all the shit he’d put up with for Jake, especially if Leon wasn’t willing to do the job anymore) made Jake want space, for all their sakes.
He couldn’t explain that, and even the brush of the thoughts made him feel like not just a moron, but a moron standing outside a hotel room in the middle of the night in his damn underwear. Especially since he was pretty sure he’d caught this fear from Tobias. He didn’t think Roger posed any threat to Tobias—he’d helped get him out, after all—but hearing Roger’s voice while his arm was wrapped around Tobias had made Jake jump like a civilian faced with his first ghost encounter.
“Nothing.” He shifted uneasily. Fuck, it was cold out here. He should’ve taken the time to find his fucking pants.
“Jake.”
Jake froze midshift. That was Roger’sdon’t fuck with mevoice, close enough to Leon’s to make his blood pressure jump. His first instinct was to hang up, but that was also Roger’sgive me a solid explanation for your weird behavior or I’m going to start force-feeding you holy watervoice. Not a safe tone to ignore, especially since Roger had cosigned the paperwork. Jake didn’t think Roger would send Tobias back to that shithole, but it would be fucking stupid to gamble on this when there was nothing wrong with him. Withthem.
“Hey, sorry,” he said with his best attempt to sound light and offhand. “Toby gets a little twitchy when I get phone calls, so I wanted to give him some space in the room, you know?” He didn’t say that Roger was the only person who ever called.
Roger sounded unconvinced, but he didn’t sound quite as close to dumping Jake in a holy water and salt bath. “How’re you both doing?”
Jake leaned on the railing, looking over the dark parking lot. “Better. Hell of a lot better.”
“You thinking about getting out of Boulder anytime soon, maybe catching a job?”
Jake’s stomach dropped. “Hey, yeah, about that...”
“Jake...”
“We’re kinda in Virginia.”
“Kinda?You’re either there or you aren’t, dumbass.”
Jake smiled. “Yeah, we’re here.”
“Well. That’s different. How’s... Tobias doing?”
“Good. Better. I mean, this is still frea—damn weird for both of us, but it’s... better. And it’s nice not to be trapped in one place, you know?”
“Yeah. Road’s what you’re used to. Probably feels like familiar territory, or your old stomping grounds, old habits... that sort of thing.”
Shoulders tensing, Jake scanned the parking lot and walkway. “Something wrong, Roger?”
“Well—yeah, maybe something. Just got a report about some missing teens in Maryland, not sure if the ASC assigned someone yet.”
“Ah.” Jake gripped the rail tight, feeling the cheap paint flake off into his palm. Shit. He knew what he should say now. He knew it like he knew the weight of the slim knife tucked into his jacket’s inside pocket. Not sayingYeah, I got itfelt wrong, so wrong, like having a car other than the Eldorado under his hand or telling a civilian he was Sally Dixon-Hawthorne’s son,thatJake Hawthorne.
He’d never yet turned aside a case unless he had a broken leg or head trauma and a ten-hour drive between him and the distress call. That was what being a hunter was about: being committed to saving lives, holding the front line, getting your hands dirty. You didn’t flinch or back down. Once you started only doing the hunts nearby or those with a nice fat bounty, you were just like the scumbag asswipes in the ASC breeding pool. Leon’s—and Roger’s, and Jake’s—view was clear: real hunting was thankless, miserable, and about as far from glory as you could get. Those smarmy dicks soaking up Granny’s tears of gratitude on CNN were a fucking disgrace to the profession.
Jake’s hesitation now didn’t mean anything—he had Toby to think about now, he couldn’t just jump into things the way he used to—but Roger seemed to read plenty into it. “So,” he said, voice noticeably cooler. “I’ve been meaning to ask. You still a hunter?”
