To Die For - Davidson King Page 0,56
and looked over at Toby and Sparkles. “He’s hot though—I get it.”
“You know it’s more than that, Ledger.”
He shrugged and sipped his drink. He was kind of an asshole, but I understood him. He and I oftentimes went out to find hookups. He hadn’t asked me in a while, but I didn’t know if that was because of things going on in his life or because of something else he wasn’t telling me.
I’d seen Shane and Ledger flirt a little, but it was more of Shane flirting and Ledger not doing anything to stop it.
“Shane’s watching Sparkles’s dog tonight,” I blurted out, and Ledger looked up from his drink.
“Okay?”
“And he had a friend coming over…a guy.”
The side of Ledger’s mouth lifted. “Again I say, okay?”
“Oh, come on. I see how you look at him. You want to do the sausage salsa.”
Ledger’s eyes widened. “The what?”
“You know…make the erection connection.” I waggled my brows.
“I will deny ever knowing you if you continue talking,” Ledger deadpanned.
“You’re saying you have zero desire to cock-a-doodle-do him?”
“And we’re done.” Ledger turned around and started walking away. I would have stopped him, but I was laughing too hard.
“What’s so funny?” Sparkles asked as he came to sit on one of the stools. We had a little while before opening, and mostly everything was done, so I was able to lean on the bar and talk.
“I’m teasing Ledger.”
Sparkles peered over my shoulder to where Ledger was likely on stage behind me finishing his last-minute checks. “He jokes around?”
I chuckled. “Rarely.”
Sparkles smiled, but then his expression became serious. “Max, I was thinking, and I have an insane idea.”
Grinning, I inched closer to him. “I do like insane ideas.”
He rolled his eyes, but the small smile expressed how he liked the banter. “The way I was able to get away from Dorian last time was to run and hide. I took his power away from him. He doesn’t care about the money I took—he cares that I ran. Controlling me was his favorite thing to do, and I took his toy away. He’s buying up everything I’m associated with, and I’m just sitting back, letting him.”
“Okay…so, what’s this insane idea?”
He took a deep breath, and there was no hiding how nervous he was, so I quickly got him a glass of water, which he gratefully drained. “I’m going to look for a new place for my studio and move out of my apartment, but I’m not going to tell him until I have to.”
I wasn’t sure what he was saying was possible. “How are you going to do that? Isn’t the lease up on the studio in like a month?”
He nodded. “Yes, he brought it over to me and I said I’d return it soon, but I never gave it to him. What if I just don’t? I’ll let the lease run out and on the down-low get a new one. One he doesn’t have his fingers in.”
“And you’re going to move?” I couldn’t see all that happening in a month. “You weren’t kidding, this is insane.”
“I can stay at the new studio if I have to—the point is, I have to take all the power away from him. He probably doesn’t have my mom’s facility to lord over me like he said he did, and I’ll know that for sure soon enough, and if I take the other two things away, he will have nothing.”
He was right, but there was a problem. “And what if he gets so mad that he tells the police you stole from him?”
Sparkles bit his lip, but it wasn’t out of worry. “The money I took from Dorian was in his safe.” He stared at me like I was supposed to know where this was going. “It was in his safe and not the bank because it wasn’t claimed money. If he tells the police I stole that money, he’d have to prove he had it and that would mean—”
“They’d dig into his life.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m assuming you have an idea of a place?” He shook his head. “Is it still going to be in Haven Hart?” I didn’t want to sound desperate, but if he was leaving town I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay here.
“I’m going to go talk to Atlas and see if he will let me use his computer for a bit tonight, and I’ll look up some real estate sites for places that are up for rent.” He leaned over the bar and pressed his lips to mine. “Don’t