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CHAPTER ONE
He closed the call with a deep sigh and dropped down onto the hard sofa. It was over, and Joshua had left him. They'd been dating for well over a year and a half, and Paul was just beginning to believe that they had a future together. Just a week ago, Joshua had said they should investigate buying a house together and suggested that Paul see how much he could spare from his 401(k).
That was a bit embarrassing because he did not have a 401(k); they started after a person had completed three years of employment and he'd only been with the company for two years. Joshua was livid but wanted to know how much he had in savings that could be put toward the down payment on a new home. "You're an accountant with the Austen Fields Company. You make a lot of money; you must have a good savings account.
"How much do you have?" Paul shot back, not wanting to be interrogated about his finances in this way. Joshua rounded on him with such anger as he'd never witnessed from him in all their time together.
"My money is none of your business." He shouted. "Tell me how much you have saved for a downpayment." He persisted and took a step closer to Paul, getting up into his face.
“My money is none of your business.” Paul retorted similarly with a calm he was not feeling.
"You're useless, Paul, utterly useless. Thank God I didn't take this relationship any further." He snapped and then started pacing the room. "Goodbye, Paul." He got into his face to make that statement, but Paul did not react; he was not going to give him the satisfaction. A year and a half of pretending to be the perfect boyfriend and now he got to see who Joshua really was. He stormed out of the apartment they shared and said he’d have someone pick up his things in the morning.
Paul stood there for a good twenty minutes, not moving and barely breathing, as he tried to understand what had happened. He spent the night calling around to friends, trying to find Joshua, but to no avail; no one had seen him, or they weren't sharing. He thought if they talked, maybe they could sort this out, but Joshua was nowhere to be found. He surely wouldn't end things over one disagreement about money.
He found out two days later that Joshua was staying with a man he met through work. They had started seeing each other over a month ago. Joshua had been cheating on him at the same time as he was trying to get him to buy a house in both their names. He was probably checking his options to see who was better off financially before he decided between Paul and the affair partner.
Paul took a week off work, and after a few days of hearing about Joshua and his new love, Lance, living it up around town and getting uncalled-for updates on what Joshua was saying about him, he wished he hadn't bothered. Work would have filled his time and occupied his mind as it was; all he thought about was how completely Joshua had deceived him.
There had been red flags but nothing he considered as deal breakers, although now that he really thought about it, there had been words and incidents that he should have taken more seriously. Relationship postmortems were the most depressing of activities.
"Still licking your wounds?" Leave it to his friend Dorian to cut it to the bone. He never liked Joshua, but he put up with him and tried, so Paul never faulted him. He just thought it was a personality clash and nothing so deep as Joshua being a complete piece of shit. He had been both supportive and smug at being right over the past three days.
He put his cell phone on speaker and set it on the coffee table in front of him. He was stretched out on the couch in his underwear at three in the afternoon, licking his wounds just as Dorian had predicted. "Why do you torture me, Dorian?" He started to laugh, and after a few seconds, Paul joined him.
"I don't have to tell you that you're better off without him. You're a smart guy. You know this. You just haven't let go of the hurt, and laying around in your underwear is not going to make the pain go away." He ended on a loud up note.
“How did you know I’m in my underwear?” He looked down at himself and then glanced around the room.
"That's your go-to when you're hurting Paul. When you're sad, you don't get dressed."
“I’ll get dressed tomorrow.”
"Get up, get dressed, and do something, anything, just do something, and you will start to feel better." Dorian was honestly yelling at this point.
“There’s nothing to do.” He was just being petulant, and he couldn’t help it.
"This is Charlotte; there is always something to do. Get up, get dressed, and go do something. I will call you in the morning to check up on you, and you had better have something interesting to say." Dorian was out of town for a conference; he was a lawyer for one of the big firms in Center City. He was still new, so they had him on the road doing grunt work a lot of the time, otherwise he would be there dragging Paul out the door.
“Okay, okay, I’m going.” He finally agreed but didn’t plan on doing much, maybe just dinner somewhere.
"Good boy." He sounded so pleased with herself. "Have a good night, and I'll talk to you in the morning." They said their goodbyes, and Paul finally got off the couch and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of milk and think about what he could do. He also considered doing nothing and lying to Dorian in the morning, but he wasn't a good liar.
It took him several hours, but at eight o'clock, he stood in front of the mirror in his room and surveyed his appearance. He was going out to a bar or a nightclub, and he would have a few drinks and maybe get lucky. Paul planned to shock his Dorian when he called in the morning with a tale of a wild night on the town. . . maybe.
Figuring that he might end up caving into his pain and drinking more than he should, he called a cab to take him uptown to the Queen City Quarter. Charlotte had a lot to offer; Dorian was right. Charlotte boasted a lot more than just glass corporate skyscrapers. The entertainment industry in Charlotte was second to none, and if you couldn't manage to have a good time, it was your own damn fault. He was starting to feel better already.
He checked himself again in the hall mirror, making sure he looked as good as possible. Joshua's hatefulness had taken a bite out of his confidence, and it was going to take time to get back to himself. His black pants, Moreno wool cream pullover, and tan leather boots gave him a casual but classic appearance. His curly red hair, which Joshua now claimed he hated and thought was so bad that Paul should have had his head shaved, was controlled and nicely swept back from his face. Red hair, green eyes, and a ruddy complexion it's who he was, and Joshua could go fuck himself.
Joshua was blonde with tan skin and angled features and a body he toned daily with workouts and gym visits. He was a prize on the outside but garbage on the inside. He decided that he was going to have a good time tonight, and he was going to put that horse's ass ex-boyfriend out of his mind. Paul grabbed his phone and headed for the door while scrolling for ideas for the night.
The bars located downtown were grouped together pretty tightly, and he could hit several without having to walk very far. He decided to start there and see where the night took him.
Sloan took a slow look around the room and leaned back on the bar. The Club did not possess the excitement or the interest that he'd hoped. It had been several weeks since he took a night for himself, and this was shaping up to be an utter disappointment. He'd spent the last two weeks working out a compromise between the Coven and the wolf pack regarding the use of the common lands. These are lands that both communities use, but neither owns.
These lands include areas within the boundaries of Charlotte proper, and it took two weeks to rough out an agreement that both Master Kilconnor and Alpha Tyne would sign. As the Master’s second, Sloan was responsible for negotiations with the other species in the area.
Sometimes, negotiations went smoothly, and sometimes, agreements were reached at the point of a sword. Guns were of little use against a paranormal unless it was a direct headshot, and the caliber had better be mighty. A sword or sharp blade of any kind was deadly if wielded correctly.
