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Right before the call goes to voicemail, I manage to drag it out of my pocket and answer.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” I ask my best friend Logan as I put my phone on speaker so I can still work and hear whatever reason Logan called me. Thankfully, I’m working from home today, so I don’t have to worry about privacy or bothering my coworkers.
“Do you have a second? I got information for you.”
I perk up and start to pay better attention. Logan’s a detective with the NYPD, and I asked him to do some digging for me.
“Lake Simmons stops at the same coffee shop on 5th and Parker every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at exactly 7:15 am. I can tell you what he drinks, too, but I don’t know if you really need to know that.”
“Do I want to know how you found this out?”
I completely stop looking at the manuscript I had been editing and turn all of my attention to Logan. I’ll admit it’s become a bit of an obsession for me ever since news broke of the Omega gene coming back. I blame Dad, though. If he hadn’t been so sure that the one twin who dominated all the news for weeks was the little boy who caused Dad to change his life, this wouldn’t be happening.
Dad only met Lake once when he was eight years old. His piece of shit dad tried to sell him to my father for drugs. But, as awful as that moment was, it totally turned my father’s life around. Up until that point, I had probably only seen Dad a handful of times. I had been living with my mom and whatever boyfriend she had that month. I won’t lie; life was rough, but Dad had his wake-up call that day, and it completely changed both of our lives.
I always knew about Lake, although I’d never met him. Back then, he was still Lake McIntyre. Dad never saw the kid or his dad, Seth McIntyre, again. I didn’t even know what he looked like. I know Dad thought about him occasionally and wondered what ever happened to him, but I never tried to find him. I figured it was impossible. Plus, I was a little scared of what I might find. I know Dad would’ve been devastated if it turned out that Lake was in jail or, even worse, dead, and I didn’t want to be the one to do that to the man.
And then one day, I’m having family dinner at Dad’s house, and right there on the screen is Lake, his twin brother River, and their asshole sperm donor, the twins completely tearing into their dad. It was fucking glorious.
That was over six months ago, and I couldn’t get it out of my damn head. First, I just looked up every article I could find. Apparently, Lake’s identical twin, River, was the first known Omega in 150 years. They both became internet famous for a while before the next exciting thing took them out of the spotlight.
It's escalated from just gathering information to give to my dad to needing to meet the man. But I learned quickly that I didn’t have the skills to find Lake on my own. He clearly has some protections in place to keep people from finding him. After all the media leaks in the last year, like his apartment address, I can't blame him, and I’m not creepy enough to show up there. That’s why I recruited Logan. It has been over a month, though, so I kind of thought Logan forgot, and while I really want to find this guy, I’m not going to stoop to extreme stalker levels by pressuring Logan.
“I won’t lie; it took some digging. Your man does his best to stay off the grid. It was sheer luck that I stumbled across the coffee shop, and the barista was all too happy to give me all the information on the poor guy.”
I’m a hypocrite because I find myself pissed off on Lake’s behalf that this person is just dishing all his info out to some random person, probably because she knows he’s connected to the Omega. Yet here I am, taking advantage of my friend’s connections to find out personal information on the guy. To be fair, though, I told Logan to only find me a public place where I can “run” into the guy so I can introduce myself. I didn't ask for any personal details. It just seemed wrong.
“Thanks, Logan. I know you hate this kind of stuff, so I appreciate you doing it for me.”
“You know I’d do anything for you, man. But, Ev, are you sure you know what you’re doing? Something seems off with this Lake guy.”
I scrunch my nose in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I can’t really place it. His employment history says he’s done IT for an accounting firm for the last six years, but even though his picture is up on the website when I reached out to the office, everyone seemed confused when I asked about him. Something’s off.”
I hadn’t realized Logan investigated that much for me, but that’s Logan for you. That is a little strange, but also, it can mean anything, and I’m not jumping to conclusions. Maybe the guy is just anti-social and never speaks to his coworkers or works mostly from home. “Did you look into it further?” I ask, a little wary about what the answer will be.
“Nah, fraud’s not my department, if that’s what this is. I just want you to be careful.”
My heart warms at Logan’s words. We’ve been inseparable since we were fifteen and I shared my lunch with him in the ninth grade when I noticed he didn’t have anything to eat. We’re perfect for each other, except for that little inconvenience that Logan is completely and totally straight. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure we’d be married by now, and I wouldn’t be chronically single.
I actually considered, like, seriously, a poly relationship with Logan. I figured we could be together emotionally, not physically, and we could find a girl to complete our trio and meet our sexual needs as well.
But I never quite dared to broach that subject with him. I had no idea how he’d feel about that. And besides, even if he was ok with it, I seriously doubted the NYPD would accept one of their detectives being in a polyamorous relationship. So now, I just sit back and watch him date girl after girl while I have failed relationship after failed relationship with both men and women.
“I appreciate that, bro, but I just wanna talk to the guy, not marry him. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, ok,” Logan says in that tone that tells me he doesn’t believe me for a second, but I’m telling the truth. I’d meet Lake, tell him who my dad is and how much he changed our lives without ever knowing, and then I’d walk away and never talk to him again.
“Anyway,” Logan drawled, changing the subject, “What are you doing tonight? This case I’m working on has been kicking my ass, and my partner is driving me up the fucking wall. I can really use a drink. And since you missed your opportunity to stalk your man this morning, I know you have two days before your next one.”
I roll my eyes, even though Logan can’t see me, and lean back in my desk chair. I brush my hands through my dark hair, completely messing up the style. Whatever, it rarely stays the way I want without a ton of product anyway.
I look back at my manuscript. I really should try to finish this today. The deadline to get it back to the writer is at the end of the week, and I know it’s going to take me forever to write up my editorial notes and try to make any kind of sense of this thing. But . . . it’s been a while since I’ve done anything but work or go have dinner at Dad’s, and I’m getting kind of sick of staring at the four white walls of my office.
“Yeah, all right. I’m in. I probably have a few hours of work left on this manuscript, and then I can take a break.”
“Sounds good. I’ll meet you at your place around eight and we can either Uber or take the bus together?”
