“Then why don’t you come join me?” The words fall from my lips without thought.
Cannon doesn’t miss a beat. He closes the fridge and the light extinguishes.
“You’re not ready for that. But next time you ask, I won’t say no.” In the darkness, his deep voice sounds even more menacing as he delivers the promise. “Go to bed, Drew. We’ve got a lot to talk about in the morning.”
29
Drew
The next morning, I do what all cowards do when they realize they’ve gotten in too deep—I run.
Cannon is asleep on the couch as I sneak out of his apartment. Cringing at the clanging of the elevator, I shove my wig back on my head and hold my breath until I’m out of the building and on the sidewalk, doing the walk of shame in last night’s dress.
I don’t know what he wanted to talk about this morning, but I know that I’m not emotionally equipped for any conversation with him right now.
Thumbing the app on my phone, I receive confirmation that my ride will be arriving within two minutes, and I hope it’s fast enough to escape before Cannon realizes that I’m gone.
As I stand on the sidewalk, a strange feeling pricks at me, and I glance to the right and across the street to an open car window and notice a cloud of cigarette smoke—coming straight out of a face I’ve seen before.
GTR. The younger Rossetti from the meeting at the Upper Ten.
Hell.That’s not good.
I drop my attention to my phone, pretending I’m engrossed in watching the car on its way to get me as it loops around blocks and waits at lights. In reality, I’m silently chantinghurry up, hurry up, hurry up.
Because now I’m caught between a rock and an awkwardly hard place. I’m going to have to tell Cannon who I saw as I was sneaking out of his apartment.
Not that the awkwardness wasn’t going to happen anyway, since I have to work tomorrow and he’ll most likely be there.
But can the Rossetti information wait that long?
Finally, the longest two minutes of my life end, and the car with the sign for the ride-share app posted in the back window pulls up along the sidewalk. I check the face of the driver and compare it to the one on the screen. It all matches, along with the make and model of the car, so I climb in.
Thankfully, he doesn’t try to make any small talk and focuses on driving, which leaves me to my thoughts and trying to decide if I should tell Cannon right now or wait.
Fuck it.I’m not going to put him in possible danger in amob rivalrybecause I’m a chickenshit who couldn’t stay to face him in the morning.
I use the phone number Cannon gave me for emergencies when I started at the club and type out a text.
Me:I’m really sorry, I had to run. Thought you should know that as I was waiting for my ride, I saw a guy sitting in a car who looked like someone from the meeting the other night. The younger one from the R family.
I stare downat my text and decide that my attempt at being subtle leaves a lot to be desired, but I don’t know how else to give him the information. Before I can second-guess myself more, I hitsend, hoping like hell Cannon is still asleep and I won’t have to deal with replying to him until much later in the day.
My entire body jerks as my phone vibrates in my hand.
Cannon:You’re not stealthy or quiet. Come back up.
Me:Sorry, already on my way home.
Cannon:Then I’ll come to you.
Me:He’s watching your apartment. Do you really think that’s a good idea?
The rapid-fire textexchange comes to a halt when I don’t get a reply from Cannon, and I can only imagine what he’s doing. I can picture him walking across the street, naked, his dick swinging as he yanks GTR from the car and drags him inside to interrogate him.
Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t do that naked, but I certainly don’t want to know what kind of interrogation tactics Cannon might use.
For the rest of the ride back to my apartment, I stare at my phone and wait for another bubble of text to pop up.