Irwin woke up as sore as a person could ever possibly be. He felt as if he had taken a jackhammer to the ass or had tried to stop a runaway train using only the power of his butt muscles. There was no real pain so much as there was a great deal of discomfort and dull aching. The aches flared up with every heartbeat, and since he was the proud owner of a pulse, that meant he was constantly aching.

“Ow,” he moaned quietly in the dim, early-morning light of his bedroom. Under any other circumstances he would have been inclined to pity himself but knowing the reason for his soreness, he didn’t mind it as much. A more open-minded guy would have expected the hurt which accompanied sex for the first time. Well, now he knew. He hoped it would go away quickly, because even sitting up sucked.

Looking around, he noticed that he was alone in his bedroom. Dagwood was gone. Judging by the fact that there was little scent of the other wolf, he had been gone for quite some time. Maybe he had left immediately after they had sex, and Irwin hadn’t noticed because he was asleep. The thought saddened him. Dagwood just hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy to screw and dash, but appearances could be deceiving.

No, that couldn’t be it. There had to be a reason. Knowing what he knew now about Dagwood’s job, it was probably a good one, too.

Either way, he couldn’t just sit and mope around all day. What happened yesterday would haunt him for a long time to come, no doubt, but he couldn’t let it hold him back. He still needed a new job. He needed to move on with his life.

Irwin slid out of bed and rubbed his hips. Walking bent over like an old man, he headed to the kitchen to see about breakfast. His appetite was always pretty big but after last night, he was ravenous.

Looking in the fridge, he sighed. Supplies were low. He really needed to go shopping. However, he didn’t have the money to go around just buying food willy-nilly. He was on a budget, and an even tighter one now than ever.

Which meant breakfast was going to be scrambled eggs, which never filled him up unless he cooked a ton at once. Unfortunately, there were only three in the carton. With only toast to go with them, he knew he was going to go hungry unless he managed to figure something out by dinner.

A hungry Irwin was a grumpy, antisocial version of himself. Not at all good for a job hunt.

Fetching a frying pan, he remembered all the odds and ends he had stolen with the help of his old gang. He could get away with anything back in those days, when everyone else was causing a distraction for him. Acting on his own was a lot tougher.

As he cracked the eggs into a pan and started stirring them around, he let his thoughts wander from the past to the present. He savored the memories of the night with Dagwood, how tenderly he had been touched, how patiently he was taught.

A knock at his door startled him. Turning down the heat on the eggs, he called out, “Coming.”

“No rush,” a very familiar voice replied. “I smell cooking.”

Irwin’s heart leapt with delight. He dropped the spatula on the counter, splattering bits of half-cooked egg everywhere, and hurried over to the door. Unlatching the lock, he tossed the door open and beamed at Dagwood. “Hi!” he said.

The depths of his own happiness startled him, but he didn’t question it.

Dagwood smiled back at him, then held out his arms hopefully. Irwin didn’t hesitate to go into them, hugging his arms tight around the other man before stepping back to look up into his eyes. Dagwood’s expression conveyed more than simple delight, containing relief and surprise as well.“I hope you aren’t letting your eggs burn by talking to me. I told you to take your time.”

“My eggs are fine,” Irwin said. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be trying to find Kevin?”

Dagwood didn’t answer. Instead, he held up a bag that he’d been holding in his hand the entire time, though Irwin hadn’t noticed it until just now. “Got some room for doughnuts with your eggs?”

Irwin laughed. “I can always eat more.”

“We have that in common.” Dagwood slid inside the apartment and set the bag of doughnuts down on the counter. “I bought a whole dozen so you can have as many as you want.” He seemed to notice the spatula then. It wasn’t on the counter as it had originally been. Rather, it had rolled off and was now lying on the floor. “I see you’re good at cooking.”

Irwin rubbed the back of his neck, pretending to be embarrassed even though he really didn’t care much one way or another. “Well, some days are better than others.” Something occurred to him, then. “This is the second time you’ve offered me food since we’ve met. You trying to tell me something? You like chubby men?”

Dagwood set the spatula in the sink and cleaned up the eggy mess on the floor, before pulling out a new spatula to tend to the eggs on the stove. Irwin admired the way the muscles in his back moved, rippling softly as he stirred.

“I would never try to change you, Irwin. You’re perfect just the way you are. I just like the idea of providing for you.”

Irwin decided he could accept that. However, he couldn’t accept that Dagwood had dodged his question about Kevin. “You know, I’m just as involved in this as you are. I’d like to know the truth.”

“The truth is that you looked right into the eyes of that fucking killer.” Dagwood didn’t look at him. He kept looking at the eggs in the pan, hiding his face. However, his voice was rough, and Irwin wasn’t fooled by the fact that the other man’s posture was as relaxed as could be. “You looked into his eyes not once, but twice. You survived. So did that girl, but she didn’t stare him in the face. She didn’t recognize him. You did.”

Irwin nodded slowly. He thought he knew where this was going, but he didn’t want to jump the gun just yet by guessing, just in case his theory was a possibility that Dagwood hadn’t thought of yet.

Dagwood sighed and turned off the stove. “I think he might try to come after you. I think he’s going to try to finish what he started. For all he knows, the girl is dead. But you? He knows you’re alive.”

“That’s what I thought,” Irwin said. He watched as Dagwood rummaged through the kitchen cupboards until he came up with two plates to divide the eggs onto. One portion was significantly larger than the other. “So you’re here because you think he’ll come after me. You think you can catch him if he does.”

“I hope to god that he doesn’t,” Dagwood replied very softly. “But yes. And I have to tell you, that I’m not the only person who thinks that.”

Irwin accepted the plate handed to him, with the larger portions of eggs on it. “What do you mean?”

“I think at some point today, you’re going to get a call from the police saying exactly what I just told you. They’ll give you an escort, have you under watch by someone until this whole things ends or they get proof that Kevin’s moved on.”

“You seem awfully sure about this.” Irwin took his plate, laden with eggs and doughnuts, into the living room. Dagwood followed behind.

“That’s because there’s an unmarked police car out front in the parking lot.”

Irwin felt his jaw drop a little with surprise. Suddenly, he wasn’t as hungry as he thought he was. “But they haven’t called me yet.”

“Right. But they’ve got the watch on you anyway because this isn’t going to be an optional thing.” Dagwood chewed thoughtfully on a pink doughnut. Sprinkles caught in his beard, which was in need of a trim. “No matter what you say, that cop will still be out there. It’s just going to be when they get around to it. Today, but probably not in the next ten minutes. Probably not before noon.”

Noon was still several long hours away. If Dagwood hadn’t told him about this, if he had gone job hunting and noticed that a car was following him, he wouldn’t have had any idea what was going on. That seemed a little bit unfair, a little dishonest.

He said so out loud between forkfuls of egg. The eggs were a bit dry, but that was his problem, his fault, not Dagwood’s.

Swallowing, he continued. “After all, I’m involved in this.”

“I’ll say yes to that, because you are. But the police would say no.”

“What? Why?”

“Because…you’re just bait.” Dagwood gritted his teeth, snarling out the words. “That’s a shitty thing to have to say, and I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t true, but it is. You aren’t involved. You’re a…a piece of cheese. The police are the trap. And Kevin is this big, nasty rat.”

Irwin stared down at his plate. The doughnut he held was covered in sticky, sugary icing, clinging to his fingers. Though it was a delicious pastry, it suddenly seemed as appetizing as sand. “I’m bait. But we don’t even know if he’s going to come back to try and get me.”

“But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit idly by. As long as it’s a possibility, I’m going to be sticking with you. I hope that’s okay. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Irwin looked into those round, gentle eyes. He saw himself reflected, saw that his own emotions mirrored Dagwood’s, though he was frightened by it. “Okay,” was all he could say. “Okay.”

Dagwood touched the back of his hand. Their intimacy from last night made this gesture seem almost natural, as if they had always been together.

They finished eating in relative silence, occasionally making a comment about some stupid advertisement on TV. It was only when Irwin got up to put his plate in the sink that a new thought occurred to him. He had to sit back down as the weight of the situation overwhelmed him, pushing him deep into the cushions.

Dagwood just watched through it all, his expression somber. He had known this realization was coming. He had known, but he had let Irwin reach it on his own.

Irwin did appreciate that, but it did nothing to make him feel any better.

“I can’t go look for a job.”

Dagwood nodded, still somber.

“If I’m bait, if Kevin is watching out for me, I’ll put people in danger if I go anywhere. It doesn’t even matter if he isn’t following me because I can’t take that risk. Like you said. If there’s even the possibility…”

Dagwood nodded again. He reached over and held Irwin’s hand, soothing the back of it with his thumb.

“And if anyone else figures that out…any employers…I wouldn’t get the job anyway.”

His money situation had just become a lot more dire.