for Hunter to take his empty plate during cleanup and say, “Grace, I need to see you move. Out in the hallway. Grab the shoes of your choice. I can’t send you in there if you can’t run fast enough to get out.”
Grace opened his mouth to protest, but Josh got there first. “I’ll join you,” he said, looking evenly at Grace. “I’m not quite as good as you are, but I know when you’re in pain too.”
Grace stuck his tongue out. Traitor.
He sucked it up, though. Putting on his jazz shoes, he walked up and down the hallway, then ran up and down the hallway, the ache in his feet pleasantly numbed by the ibuprofen but also suppressed by years of dancing injured. It was a skill, like anything else. After his second lap, Josh nodded briefly and slipped back into the hotel room, but Hunter remained, arms crossed.
“What?” Grace asked, defensive.
“You’ll let us know, right? If things hurt?”
Grace wrinkled his nose. Of course not. “Sure.”
Hunter shook his head as if Grace were that transparent. “Dylan?”
Oh hell. His real name.
“Uhm, Hunter? Is Hunter your real name or—?”
“I was christened Scott Hunter Rutledge. If it makes you feel better to call me Scott, that’s fine.”
Grace opened his mouth to say “Scott! Scott! Scott!” but Hunter kept going, making petty revenge seem, well, petty.
“Dylan, you need to tell us if it gets to be too much. And not just because it would compromise the op if it does.”
And Grace knew what Hunter meant—he’d said it in the bathroom. It was the thing Josh and Artur had been trying to tell him after that shitty moment when he’d ended up in the hospital with a Narcan hangover.
Grace wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it now any more than he’d been ready to hear it then.
He looked away.
“Sure,” he said, his voice remote.
Hunter cupped his jaw then, the gesture somehow more intimate than a kiss.
“Look me in the eye when you say that,” he commanded, and Grace….
Grace did.
Look him in the eyes, that is. He opened his mouth to say “Sure,” again, but the word shriveled up and turned to dust in his throat, leaving him speechless, which didn’t happen often.
The thing in Hunter’s eyes….
Grace had seen something like it before—a lot. One quick fuck and a used condom later and it went away. But those looks had never been like this. Those looks had never been crystalline and deep. And maybe it was because Grace was a thief and he loved sparkly things, but the glitter in Hunter’s eyes reminded him of tourmaline or opals, gems that looked opaque but had mysteries and flaws and tiny surprises of color and beauty locked deep inside.
As with any gem, Grace wanted a better, closer look. He wanted to touch.
But he was too stunned to do that, so he just stood there, locked in Hunter’s gaze, mouth gaping like a fish until Hunter rubbed his lower lip with a callused thumb.
“You and me have shit to work out,” Hunter whispered. “And we can’t work it out on the job. Be honest with me here if you need to call it quits. But don’t think this, you and me, is going to go away because your feet hurt too much to work.”
Grace swallowed. His feet throbbed, but his chest—that throbbed worse.
“Say something, Grace.”
“Feet are fine,” he lied weakly.
Hunter’s mouth lifted at a corner. “You’re a terrible liar. Good to know. But I’m going to take you at your word this time, because if I can’t trust you in this, why should I trust you with any other part of my life.”
Grace swallowed, and what he said next felt compelled, like someone summoning a demon.
“Fine. Feet hurt. I can still do the job.”
That corner lift became a two-corner lift and Hunter’s lips curved gently. “Better. We’ll take a Lyft over there—you’ll have plenty to do once we get out.”
Grace nodded and Hunter opened the door to the hotel room and the moment was over.
Sort of.
Hunter didn’t really leave his side until they got out of the SUV at the other hotel. He stayed close, the heat of his skin burning through Grace’s clothing, keeping him warm in the Vancouver damp.
Belling the Cat
HUNTER HAD to hand it to Grace—for someone who liked the entire world to look at him, sometimes he could disappear in plain sight.
He’d kept Hunter’s black hoodie but changed into denim leggings—stretchy like tights but looked like jeans—before they left. He’d put a sweet