But he was also currently working under a conservative administration, with a direct line to what was left of the gutted Department of Labor and Statistics, and Gideon had a sudden insight as to why this boy was so very dangerous to Jay Arnold.
Blackmail indeed.
“But, but Jay….Fuck.”
With a dispirited sigh the young man shoved his phone in his pocket and leaned back against one of the great trees lining the walk.He paused for a minute and wiped his face on the inside of his shirtsleeve and was going for something—probably cigarettes—in his pocket.
Before he could get them, Carlyle was at his side, and Gideon had to check the seat next to him to realize that his partner had made a decision without him.
Careful not to startle, Chadwick slid out of the car and shut the door with a muffled thud.He watched as Carlyle held out a lighter for the kid’s smoke and then tucked it back in his pocket like he did stuff that smooth every day.Gideon had literally seen the kid walk away from Kylie on her knees in front of a mound of paperwork that had slid out of her arms because it didn’t occur to him to help her.
“Thanks,” the kid muttered as he exhaled.“I’ve been trying to quit.Jaywants me to quit, but….”He sputtered what was supposed to be a defiant laugh into the moist, foggy air.“Fuck him.”
“I wouldn’t write him off yet,” Carlyle said, catching Gideon’s eyes as he drew near.“I would put actual money down on him blowing you off to protect you.”
The kid—well, maybe mid-twenties like Joey himself, but heseemedyounger, dressed like a student or a barista or somethingnota vital part of Manhattan’s cutthroat political scene—frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, kid, if my partner and I are right, your rich, powerful boyfriend just double-crossed the devil to do his job andnotout you to the entire nest of pit vipers he’s swimming with.He’s probably eating his heart out, thinking he’s trying to do right by you.Want to ask him?”
The kid’s hand fell to his side in the middle of raising the cigarette to his lips, and the smoke dropped to the ground to be killed by the wet leaves.
Gideon smiled to himself.Well, it wasn’t like Carlyle was wrong, but it was good to see he hadn’t changed completely.Gideon rather liked him the way he was.
“Maybe give him a few more details first,” Gideon said softly.“Kid?You got a name?”
“Kael,” the kid said, studying the two of them with a little bit of fear.“Like the vegetable but spelled weird.Kael Rogers.”
“Like Captain America, but with vegetables, right?”Carlyle asked, and Kael nodded, a surprised smile popping out.
“Sure.Who are you?”
“Well, the last time your boyfriend saw us, he”—Carlyle indicated Gideon—“was yelling at him so hard your boy left sweat prints on the wall he was backed up against.”
“That was Harding,” Gideon corrected with a faint whine.He was not that scary.
“Anyway, I would bet his boycott of America’s favorite veggie started that night.Would you like to hear the story?”
“Does it have to do with the mobster that started hanging around about six months ago?”Kael asked grimly, and Gideon and Chadwick locked eyes again.
“Very probably,” Gideon said, surprised that Kael had been around that long.“You want to tell us about him?”
Kael shuddered.“We… I mean, I knew I had to be his dirty little secret.I knew it from the minute I served his coffee.”
Gideon wanted a medal for peggingthatright, but he let the kid continue.
“But Jay’s… well, kind.At least he was when we met.We’d been together for a few months, and we had a system.I knew when it was clear to come over, and he’d set up the back entrance for me—har-har, right?Back entrance?But he’d set it up for, well,me.I had a key, and he’d leave little gifts when he wasn’t there.It’s sort of an entrance to the old maid’s quarters, but he fixed it up nice, with a desk to study at, and books and a TV.It was like… like the rest of the house was his job, his public life, but those rooms wereours.And then one day, there we were, watching TV, and this slick guy walks intoour space, and Jay takes one look at him and then one look at me, and he turnswhite.And he tells me to go to the kitchen and fix us something to eat.I do—scared the bejeezus out of theactualhousekeeper, who’s really nice, by the way.When she tries to shoo me back into our quarters, I tell her somebody’s there, scaring the shit out of Jay.”
Wow.This was—well,frighteningwas what it was.Not that Gideon approved of keeping your lovers hidden from the world, but it seemed like Jay Arnold had been doing the best he could with what he had.
“Do you know who barged in?”Carlyle asked—probably too soon, but the kid was on a roll, so it didn’t seem to put him off.
“Halsey Garber,” Kael muttered.“And yeah, I know who he is and why Jay shouldn’t be having any conversations at all with him.But at first it didn’t seem to matter.Jay said he had it handled, the housekeeper showed me three different secret passages out of the apartment floors, and the next time Halsey Garber arrived unannounced, Jay was there, feet up, watchingCelebrity Bachelor,and I was in the housekeeper’s closet, which she’d set up with a comfy chair, a pillow, and a little monitor of our room so I could, you know, make sure the mob wasn’t killing my boyfriend.”
Gideon found an unexpected bark of laughter stopped up in his throat.The kid was funny—but he was also veryreal.No wonder he’d been heartbroken.Gideon had assumed he’d been a sidepiece, used and ignored and cast aside when things got rough.
But that’s not what this setup sounded like.Not a picnic, no—and not the way Gideon would lead his life—but this didn’t sound like a sidepiece.This sounded likelove.
