“How many of these do you have?” he asked.
“Dead bodies?” Walker teased, adding the arm to his stack of presents.
Kota hated that he found the joke funny.
“Slaughterhouses,” he clarified, stomach churning.
Walker shook his head. “Oh, this isn’t mine. I’m not Israel Keyes. It belongs to the game. They have them all over the world.”
“Oh,” was all Kota managed.
That somehow felt worse.
And who was Israel Keyes? Was he a friend of Walker’s? Another killer? An ex?
Walker fired up the saw once more, dragging him from his thoughts. He stopped when he noticed Kota staring.
“I’ll be finished here shortly, then we can get on the road. Why don’t you go play with Cake or find something to watch on my laptop. These places all have surprisingly solid wifi,” Walker said, like there wasn’t a corpse in front of him. “My laptop password is carrot cake spelled backwards, all lower case.”
Kota snorted. Of course, it was.
“The wifi password should be taped to the bottom of the router.”
“Do—Do I have to go?” Kota asked.
Walker looked him over with a quirked brow. “Do you want to stay?”
“I—” Kota snapped his mouth shut before he embarrassed himself.
Because the answer was yes. Because Walker was here.
“You what, squirrel?” Walker prompted softly.
Kota shifted nervously, scuffing his foot on the concrete floor, prompting one of Walker’s flip-flops to dislodge from his foot. The stupid thing skidded halfway across the concrete floor. Kota stared after it, mortified, as Walker chuckled.
Nothing killed a romantic moment quite like accidentally ejecting someone else’s footwear while standing beside a headless corpse.
“I—Can I just keep you company?” he asked, looking anywhere but at the dead body.
“Do you want to keep me company? You look about as pale as Early.”
Kota nodded. “Please. I don’t want to be alone.”
Walker laid the saw down, then removed the gloves. He picked up the flip-flop, carrying it back, then kneeling before Kota to replace it. When he stood, Kota stared at him with wide eyes.
Walker backed Kota up until he was pressed against a wooden table in the corner. Walker picked him up, dropping him onto the rough surface. The table creaked ominously beneath his weight.
“I do like when you beg for me, squirrel.”
The blood in Kota’s brain headed south as he leaned into Walker’s space, dropping a chaste kiss on his lips. “Really?”
“Mm,” Walker said, kissing him again, deeper this time.
His mouth was warm despite the chill of the barn, the kiss brief but thorough enough to leave Kota’s head feeling pleasantly fuzzy. By the time he pulled back, Kota was dazed. Walker handed Kota his phone, rattling off the code.
Kota sat, swinging his feet and playing a game on Walker’s phone while the older man finished deconstructing the creep who’d tried to kill Kota.
“You didn’t answer my earlier question,” Walker said after a while.
