Unhinged by Onley James
“Are you sure you have to go to work?” Adam asked, leaning across the center console to give Noah his biggest puppy dog eyes.
He didn’t want Noah to go. Waking up with Noah in his arms had been like waking up and finding somebody had left him a chocolate cake. The best kind of sweet surprise. They’d spent the morning trading lazy blow jobs before getting in the shower where they’d gotten each other off once again. Adam had taken Noah to lunch afterwards, without the fanfare this time. And now, he had to drop him off to get changed for his shift. But he was having a hard time letting him out of the car.
Noah just snickered, unfazed. “Yes. We can’t all live off our trust funds.”
They were parked in the lot of Gary’s club, just outside Noah’s rusted little Airstream trailer. At night, it was hard to notice anything but the flashing sign and the neon outline of a ten-foot naked woman in a cowboy hat. But in the harsh light of day, The Landing Strip looked like the last stop in some post-apocalyptic wasteland. Its garish brick-red paint peeled from the moldy walls in strips, the film on the windows bubbled and warped. Even the lot itself was a minefield of potholes and broken wheel stops.
Adam did not like the idea of Noah living there. Even the strip mall that had once held a bail bondsman, an attorney, and a gun store had long since closed up shop, leaving Gary’s as the sole survivor. How bad did a place have to be for a bail bondsman to leave?
Still, Adam grinned, nuzzling behind Noah’s ear. “I mean, several people could live off mine. But you’re the only one I’m extending the offer to.”
Noah moaned as Adam’s tongue traced the shell of his ear. “As much as I’d love to be your sugar baby, I can’t just quit the day after we break into Gary’s house.”
“He’s not going to notice we were there,” Adam assured him. “A broken picture doesn’t equal a home invasion.”
Noah tilted his head, letting Adam’s mouth explore the column of his throat. “I can’t risk it. He already accused me of stealing his backpack full of cash and guns.”
Adam chuckled. “To be fair, you did steal his backpack full of cash and guns.”
He threaded his fingers into Noah’s hair, turning his head for a kiss that lingered. He couldn’t keep his hands off him. He wanted to taste every part of him, touch every part of him, crawl inside him and live in his skin.
When Noah whined into Adam’s mouth, their lazy kiss turned dirty, his hand sliding up Noah’s thigh to run his thumb along the rigid outline of his dick in his jeans. “Fuck, you’re already hard,” he growled against his lips. “I can take care of that for you if you just quit your job. I have a whole list of things I want to do to you. Unbutton your pants and we’ll start right now,” he vowed.
Noah ground himself against Adam’s palm briefly, but then tore his mouth away. Adam was undeterred, biting at his jaw, his ear, anyplace he had access to.
“No. No. No,” Noah said, pushing his palm into Adam’s face and physically pushing him back to his side of the vehicle. Adam licked Noah’s palm as he said, “You cannot seduce me to get what you want.”
Adam frowned. “Why not?”
Noah gave him an exasperated look. “You know, you don’t have to tell anybody that you’re a rich kid. You’ve clearly never heard the word no.”
Adam scoffed. “Of course, I have. I mean, never in reference to sex with me, but I’m familiar with the concept.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “You’re so weird. I’m getting out of this car now before I let you convince me to do something stupid, like quit my job and be your full-time rent boy.”
Adam huffed out a sigh. “I don’t see what’s so wrong with being my full-time rent boy. I would offer you a very generous compensation package.”
Noah’s gaze dipped to Adam’s crotch. “I’m very familiar with your generous ‘compensation package’ but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer at this time.”
Adam groaned. “Fine, but I’m picking you up after work and you’re coming home with me.”
Noah swayed forward and smacked a kiss on Adam’s pouting lips. “I’m off at ten. Could you try to drive a less conspicuous car to pick me up? People are going to think I’m banging a drug dealer and try to roll me in the alley.”
The idea of Noah getting beat up caused a strange feeling to fill his chest. “I will disembowel anybody who so much as messes up your hair.”
Noah pretended to swoon. “Who says romance is dead?”
Adam narrowed his eyes at Noah. “I feel like you’re making fun of me, but I can’t tell.”
Noah smiled big enough for tiny wrinkles to form on his nose and at the corners of his eyes. “If you’re ever unsure, just ask. But, in this particular case, I’m definitely making fun of you. But in a good way.”
“There’s a good way to make fun of somebody?” Adam asked, dubious.
“Of course.” Noah grabbed the handle on the door, but it wouldn’t give. “Can I get out, please?”
“No.”
“Adam.”
“Fine. Have a good night, I guess.”
Noah kissed him once more. “You’re ridiculous. Try not to miss me too much.”
“Impossible.”
Noah climbed from the car, giving Adam one last wave before bounding up the tiny staircase to his door and disappearing inside. Adam didn’t like Noah living in that flimsy trailer. He wondered if he could convince him to just move in or at least buy him a nicer trailer. That thing looked like it cost less than a month’s rent on Adam’s place. Though, he honestly had no idea how much his rent was. His father’s bookkeeper paid his bills.
He pulled out of the lot and was just heading onto the freeway when his phone rang.
Calliope.
He jabbed the button on the steering wheel, saying, “Tell me you’ve got something I can work with.”
There was a sigh of disappointment all around Adam before her voice poured from the Bose audio system. “Hello, Calliope. How are you? I’m well, Adam. Thank you ever so much for asking. And you?” Her voice was saccharine.
Adam sighed. “Hello, Calliope. How are you?” he asked dutifully.
She gave a put upon sigh. “Terrible. The store was out of my favorite Arctic Fox hair color—Poison in case you were wondering.” He wasn’t. “Then I broke a nail trying to open my Diet Coke, found a screw in my tire, found out my ex-husband died, and got a paper cut opening my mail just to find out it was some company asking about my car’s extended warranty.”
Adam blinked. One of those things was not like the others. “I’m sorry to hear your ex-husband died?” he asked.
She scoffed. “Me too. I thought the son of a bitch died five years ago. Guess I should have checked for a pulse before I left.”
Adam had no idea whether she was joking or not. It really was a crap shoot with Calliope. “This is why I never ask how you are,” he said, voice flat. “In case you were wondering.”
Calliope gave a delicate sniff. “You’re a rude and ungrateful child. Your father should have quit while he was ahead.”
Adam laughed. “You know you don’t mean that. Do I not buy you all the best Pop Funko dolls for your collection?”
Calliope gave a deeply bothered sigh. “I suppose.”
Adam shook his head, changing lanes to avoid getting stuck behind a minivan with a stick figure family getting eaten by zombies. “Calliope?”
“Yes, Adam?” she said, as breathlessly as if she thought he was about to propose.
“Did you find anything?”
There was the sound of a chair spinning. “No. Well, nothing related to Noah’s pervert party guest list. This Gary is no choir boy. He’s been in and out of prison for numerous petty crimes. Has a couple of domestic violence collars. The Secret Service is investigating him for money laundering, and his club has received numerous violations from the health inspector.”
“Yet, he has NSA-level encryption software.”
“All the most depraved losers do,” Calliope said.
“There has to be something on those hard drives. Something that proves what a piece of shit he is.”
“Proves to who? We know he’s a perv. You said Noah was one of his victims. Why not just put him down and be done with it?”
Adam shook his head. “Because he wasn’t the only one.”
There was a pause. “What?”
“Noah says there were others. Some participated, some only watched, but they’re all equally guilty.”
“Can’t you just torture the information out of him?”
“Yeah, obviously. But with these guys, it's hit or miss. Some of them sing at the first sign of a scalpel. Others, they’ll let you carve them like a Thanksgiving turkey and never give up a single thing. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but—in this one particular case—torture is a last resort.”
“I suppose,” she said begrudgingly, then, “Poor Noah.”
Poor Noah. Noah was strong. Tough. Had somehow managed to endure unspeakable things and still move on with his life with his psyche still somewhat intact, all without the help of anybody. No friends. No family. Nobody at all.
Something started to scratch at the back of Adam’s brain. “Noah’s dad, Wayne Holt. He was a school teacher, right?”
“Yeah, for a while. That’s what put him on your dad’s radar. He’d been repeatedly let go from various schools and, somehow, landed at Our Lady of Sorrows where he stayed and flourished for almost a decade. Your father was introduced to him by a friend of a friend, and it set off Thomas’s spidey senses. Why? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking: What do a Catholic school teacher and a ten-time criminal loser have in common other than the obvious? Where did they meet? Were they childhood friends? How did they become close enough for Wayne to offer up his son to Gary?”
“That’s the other thing,” Calliope said, her voice growing hesitant.
“What is?”
“I’m still looking into it but something keeps bugging me. We vetted Holt for weeks before we sent you in to take him out. There was nothing that said anything about him having a child. Nothing. No birth certificates listed with him as the father. No sign of him having a child enrolled in school, which is pretty weird when you take into account him not only surviving but thriving in a Catholic school.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t think Noah is Holt’s son.”
“What?” Adam said, his pulse kicking up a little.
Calliope let out a shaky breath. “I think Holt might have kidnapped him or maybe even bought him.”
It made sense, so much sense that it was actually shocking none of them had considered it earlier. They’d never looked any deeper into how they’d missed the fact Holt had a child after he was dead, afraid they might call attention to themselves with their inquiries. “But Noah went into the system. Foster care. Wouldn’t they have run his fingerprints or DNA looking for relatives?”
“It would have only triggered if Noah was old enough to have been fingerprinted at some time or if he was born in the States. You know as well as I do that the only thing bigger than sex trafficking is child trafficking. If Holt bought him there would be no paper trail.”
“No way to find his real family,” Adam said, frustrated.
“Now, that’s not true. DNA has come a long way. If we submit his DNA to some genealogy websites, they might help us track down familial matches. We could work our way backwards. I would just need a sample.”
“Yeah, okay. In the meantime, I want a deep dive into Wayne Holt’s past. I want to know how he and Gary know each other. Wherever they hooked up might be where he found the others Noah mentioned.
“Yeah. I’ll keep digging, but I’m gonna have to take a bath in hand sanitizer when I’m done. I hate this part of the job.”
“I know.”
“Oh, the other guy? Your surprise guest at Gary’s? Yeah. Name’s Conan Greevey. He’s the head of all the city’s youth sports programs.”
Adam scrubbed a hand over his face, navigating the heavy rush hour traffic on autopilot. “Christ. Yeah, okay. You know what to do.”
“Deep dive into his life, too?”
“Yep. Any luck running down what kind of key that was?”
“It’s just a key to your garden variety padlock. It could be to a storage unit? A garage? A diary? Hell, it could be a padlock for a gate. I’m looking through his finances to see if he paid for any kind of storage or warehouse space but don’t get your hopes up.”
“Just let me know.”
“I will. Are you almost there?”
“Where?”
There was a long pause. “Adam. Please, tell me you didn’t forget to pick up the twins from the airport.”
He’d definitely forgotten to pick the twins up from the airport. “Of course, I didn’t. But I still don’t understand why they can’t just Uber? They’re adults.”
“Your father is a stickler for appearances. You know that.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hey, Calliope?”
“Yes, Adam?”
“Can you…maybe send their flight info to my phone? You know, just to make sure I have it right.”
“It’s already done.”
Adam grinned, shooting across three lanes of traffic to exit the freeway. The airport was in the other direction. He was going to be late. Hopefully, their flight was delayed. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
“I know.”
