Hey, this evening has been shitty, dancing with my boys excepted. We need to do that again.
“Word got around you’re looking for The Eel. You asked me about him once, I remember. Some weeks ago.”
“The Eel?” Nate squints down at me. “Is this for real?”
I pat his arm. “What about him?”
“He’s here,” she says with a grin. She jabs a hand over her shoulder. “Men’s bathrooms. Hurry or you’ll miss him.”
Of course he’s here.
Have to give up to win, isn’t that what they say? Though whatever the guy says, there’s no win in it for me.
The Eel lives up to his name—short, skinny, slimy, eyes darting nervously back and forth. He’s probably high, and suspicious.
“What do you want?” he snarls. “You got people asking for me. What’s your problem?”
“No problem,” I say, swallowing a wad of nervousness. “I was told you may know something about the disappearance of a friend. Kash Graham. Tall, blond, dragon tats on his arms. He vanished from—”
“I know Kash.” He glances behind him, scratches at his pointy chin, shifts from foot to foot. “I saw them take him.”
My heart stops. “Saw who?”
“How the hell should I know? Didn’t exactly stop and introduce themselves, did they?”
“What did you see?” Nate asks, a growl deep in his voice.
The Eel looks ready to slither out of here. “Who are you?”
“We’re his friends.” West puts a heavy, calming hand on Nate’s shoulder.
“Please tell us what you saw,” I whisper, still not sure my heart is beating as I wait.
The Eel glances between us, shrugs. “Two guys followed him, grabbed him, threw him into a car and left. I was at one of my usual corners and happened to glance up. Took seconds.”
My heart starts beating again, slamming around in my chest. “Anything else? The… the license plate number?”
“What do I look like, a cop? Didn’t even see the license plate, sugar. Didn’t think to look. Are we done here?”
Nate starts forward, and both West and me step in front of him. “This isn’t a joke, asshole,” he bites out.
The Eel spits between us and turns to go. He disappears in the crowd, and I lean into Nate and West.
The return of hope is so sharp it shreds me, and with it, the worry and fear for Kash.
“I want to go home,” I whisper, my lungs suddenly too small to draw breath. “Please. Please let’s go home.”
We make it out of the club, half-dragging, half-supporting each other. None of us are drunk, but it’s as if this piece of news has hit us over the head like a hammer. We grab a cab, and I’m climbing out of my skin.
I’m hot, too hot, wound up too tight. I’m angry, and miserable, and I need to feel something other than despair. I want the touch of my men, the burn of their stubble on my face, the sting of their teeth on my skin, the pleasurable ache of their cocks filling me, pushing me into oblivion.
Because, what do I do now about Kash? What do I do? I can’t do nothing!
And yet I can’t do anything.
Anything but hold on to the boys I have left, who have my heart and who set me on fire even as we fumble with our clothes, my movements clumsy with the cocktails I consumed and the dread about Kash churning my stomach.
I’m kissing them before we even get out of the cab. Kissing them in the elevator, as they fumble with the key to unlock the apartment door, as we stumble inside.