Page 73 of Murder & Mayhem
It had been three weeks ago that Jamie had first texted me, and this was the first time I was taking him out on a date. Just the two of us. A real grown-up date, and I was a nervous fucking wreck. I had never taken someone out like this before. I had occasionally paid for DoorDash with a hookup, but ithad been nothing like this because I actually cared. It had to be fucking perfect.
The last year had been rough, putting it mildly. Even after my brothers had called an intervention, I’d struggled a lot. It had taken weeks before I’d finally gotten the courage to call up the therapist that Luca had recommended, and three more weeks before I’d shown for an appointment. Now that I had, though, I’d begrudgingly admit that it had helped. Don’t get me wrong, it fucking sucked most days, and I usually needed to kill someone or fight after a session, but at some point it had gone from being pure torture to productive. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and I’d found a way to fight through.
I’d never gone back to working at the marketing department though. Luca had offered me a position on his security team, and I’d gladly accepted. They were all crazy fuckers, so I didn’t have to hide the way I had in an office. I wasn’t a shell of a person who only got a glimpse of living when they spilled blood. I was me, Dominic Vecchio. A bit of a mess, but it was my mess and I was finally embracing it.
I’d tried to leave Jamie alone. For months, I’d succeeded. I hadn’t asked Ari for updates or shown up at the facility. I’d given him the space we’d both needed to grow and heal. But then one of the guys I’d been sent to eliminate had kept records. Very detailed files with pictures of his victims. When I’d seen a very young Jamie staring back at me with dead sage-green eyes and hallowed-out cheeks, my self-control had snapped. There’d been a few bad weeks where I’d had a minor setback. Okay, a major one. I may or may not have hidden from my brothers, not shown up for work or therapy, and sat vigil in front of the facility for days before I’d been found. It had been a weak moment, but I had overcome it, and by the time Jamie had first called me, I hadn’t looked him up in weeks.
The door was still mocking me. I had to get out of my fucking head. Why was I acting like this? It wasn’t like this was even my first time here. Straightening my shoulders, I knocked. There was some shuffling and then Bailey’s face was there, with a shit-eating grin.
“Hiii, Dominic,” he singsonged.
I raised an eyebrow. “Hi, Bailey. Is Jamie ready?”
Bailey rolled his eyes and stepped back, letting me in. “He’s changing again. You should go back there and do your Daddy thing, tell him he’s beautiful and that he needs to fucking leave before his brother drags him out by the hair he keeps fixing.”
“Can you bring the psychopathy down to an 8 please? I actually wanna watch this movie.”
A head full of braids popped up from the other side of the couch. He was a young man, around Bailey’s age, with dark skin, bright gray eyes that were so striking, I noticed them from here, and a burn scar that ran down the lower half of his face.
“This is Mekhai, and this is Dominic,” Bailey introduced us. “We trauma-bonded over shitty childhoods at the group program.”
“Christ. Maybe you should still be in there,” Mekhai said fondly, shaking his head. Jamie had told me Bailey was having a sleepover while we were gone so he wasn’t alone. I’d thought that was more for Jamie than anyone else, but I was still glad to see he had a friend.
“Nice to meet you,” he greeted me pleasantly, still not getting up though. “I would come shake hands, but I took my legs off and my crutches fucking suck. I need to get them resized.”
“That’s okay. I’ll come to you.” Mekhai was sitting on the couch, and sure enough, both his legs had beenamputated. I reached out to shake his hand, which he accepted. The burn scarring on his face continued down his right arm and hand. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for staying with Bailey.”
“No problem. I’m always happy to babysit for this asshole.”
“Hey!” Bailey grabbed a large handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table and tossed it at Mekhai. “You know you fucking love me.”
I rolled my eyes but was secretly amused. Jamie had talked about Bailey and his struggles a lot over the last six months. It was good to see him act like a regular teenager.
“I’m going to check on Jamie. Try to behave.”
Bailey snorted, and Mekahi laughed. I walked away and to the back of the apartment, where the two bedrooms were. I knew which one was Jamie’s. I’d been in there last night. We’d fallen asleep watching a movie together on his bed.
The door was mostly closed, so I knocked on it.
“Jamie?”
There was a curse and a thud, and then, “Come in!”
I opened the door to see Jamie wearing nothing but dark jeans, the bed covered in shirts, and the floor lamp he had in the corner on the floor.
I closed the door behind me. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Jamie’s green eyes were filled with panic. I hated it. One of the first things I’d noticed when I’d first seen him after treatment had been that his eyes weren’t as sad anymore. There was still something guarded about them, I was sure there always would be, but he seemed to be genuinely happy, or at least working toward that. Now, though, he looked terrified.
I crossed the space in two seconds and cupped his face. While we hadn’t officially picked back up a Daddy/boy dynamic, we had talked about it a lot and agreed we’d just dowhat came naturally. Nothing formal or too intense, but if we kind of fell into it because that was who we were, then we would embrace that. One step at a time and see where it went. That was how we were taking this whole second chance we had. There was no need to rush. We both wanted to build something special and had waited this long, so we wouldn’t force anything. Some things were worth the wait.
“What’s going on, baby boy? Talk to me.”
Jamie pouted, and it was so fucking adorable that I wanted to kiss it. So I did. We’d talked about that too and agreed that safewords would always be viable. Jamie didn’t want me constantly questioning things like I had before, so we would trust that the other one would stop things if they didn’t want it and go from there. Of course, if we ever decided to do a more formal scene, that would change, but for what we had now, it was perfect.
Some of the tension in Jamie’s shoulders melted with the kiss. “I don’t know what to wear. I’ve never been on a date before. I want this to be perfect. But now I have so many fucking clothes. It’s overwhelming.”
I looked around his bed. Yeah, he had a lot more options than before, but I wouldn’t consider this excessive or anything. I probably had double what he did. I had a feeling that was only part of the problem though.
