The sun was barely peeping through the blinds when Brayden began to blow up my cell. I ignored it at first, not wanting to reminisce about last night this early in the morning, but on the third call, I groaned and rolled over to answer. I only managed to get out a “hello” before Brayden was off and running.

“I can’t believe you went and pussied out on me. I looked for you everywhere. What the hell happened?”

“Hey to you too. And I didn’t pussy out—I got thrown out.”

“What? Why?”

“Beats me.”

“There had to be a reason. They don’t just go around kicking people out, Jesse.”

“They did last night. All I know is I came out of the bathroom, and before I could head down the stairs to meet you, some big security guy told me I was leaving and threw me out—in my fucking boxers. You know how humiliating that was?”

Brayden let out a laugh. “But…that doesn’t make any sense. Why didn’t you tell them to come get me?”

“I did.”

“Oh. Shit, man, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I shifted onto my side and pushed up on my elbow, not wanting to relive my humiliation. “So, how did things go with you?”

As Brayden launched into a play-by-play account of exactly how much fun he’d had with the couple he’d gone down to level three with, I found my mind drifting back to what had happened after I’d left the club. All night I’d tossed and turned, still seeing those eerie eyes staring out of the darkness, and I could still feel the prickling sensation on the back of my neck as though I’d been watched. I’d felt it the whole way home, but every time I turned to look back, I saw nothing.

I tried to shake off the unease that had settled into my stomach and focus back on what Brayden was saying.

“…I think I may even become a member.”

“That’s great, Bray,” I said, even though I’d missed most of what he’d said. “Seemed like your kind of place.”

“Could be your kind of place too, if you’d loosen up a bit.”

“I could never afford somewhere like that.”

“You will soon enough, Mr. College Graduate. Wait…did you have to cab it home last night? I’ll pay you back for that—”

“No, you don’t need to do that,” I said. Brayden had always been overly generous with his fortune—family money, courtesy of his inheritance from his Rockefeller-esque grandparents—but I never wanted to take him up on even his small attempts at making my tight funds spread a bit further. The only reason I’d even gone last night was because I knew how much it meant to him. After turning down his attempts at getting me to move in with him and out of my shit-tastic apartment, he wouldn’t have taken no for an answer anyway.

“Yes, I do. I drove you there, it’s the least I can do for you having to leave. I’ll drop it by work today.”

“No, you really don’t. I didn’t take a cab.”

Brayden was silent for a long moment. “Please tell me you didn’t walk your ass through downtown in the middle of the night by yourself.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.” Just almost died, that’s all.

“No big deal?” Brayden said. “I’m the shittiest friend ever.”

“Yeah, I guess getting mugged while you enjoyed a good suck ’n’ fuck wouldn’t have been the best trade-off.”

“That’s not funny.”

No, it wasn’t funny. But I knew Brayden felt responsible in some way for me. Compared to him, I was the naive one, the poor kid with a scholarship and a crappy job at the local café, and I knew him well enough to know how bad he was already feeling. Telling him I’d been freaked out the whole time and had almost been mauled by a dog? Yeah, that would send him over the edge, not to mention it sounded ridiculous, so best to keep it to myself. I still wasn’t sure I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll let you make it up to me by asking Charlemagne to make some of those spinach and feta triangle things for movie night.”

I could almost see Brayden rolling his eyes. “That would’ve happened anyway, since she loves you. Once you’re a rich asshole, you’ll steal her away, and I’ll have to find another cook who can make beef wellington half as well as she can.”

“Nah, I’d still invite you over for special occasions.”

“See what I mean? It’s starting already.”

I laughed and then checked the time on my cell. “I need to shower and run a couple of errands before my shift. Are we still on for next Saturday?”

“Yeah, I’ll pencil your ass in. And Jesse? I’m really sorry about last night. If I’d known that would happen, we never would’ve gone.”

“Don’t worry about it. You had a good time, right?”

There was a smile in his voice as he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

After I hung up and made my way into my tiny bathroom to turn on the shower, I wondered how things would’ve gone if I’d stayed at the Wolfe’s Den all night. Would I have found someone under those purple lights, or even several someones? Or would I have been the odd man out, watching as everyone else’s fantasies came to life?

Would I always be happy sitting on the sidelines instead of playing the game?

* * *

For a hunter to capture its quarry, it was imperative to understand who they were tracking, and I was beginning to understand Jesse Clark better than he understood himself.

I had followed him the entire way home the night before. Down every road, up every side street, and when we’d ended up in front of an old brick building that had a drainpipe barely attached to its side, I knew exactly how to get him.

The key here was to lure him into the dark, to make him come to me, so I could hear the kick and throb of his heartbeat. And the best way to do that was to give him something he wanted to follow. Give him someone he found irresistible.

I stared at the wall of TVs that each held stills of Jesse from last night at the den, and studied each frame, looking for clues, searching for hints into this man’s psyche. There was one taken from the entry point where he was glancing over his shoulder at one of my security men.

Wary. He was wary from the second he set foot inside the den’s doors. That was smart, all things considered, and just another indicator that I had been right in my initial assumption. He was just like Lee had been—intelligent and cautious…unsuspecting.

The second still was of Jesse walking into the Rendezvous Site for the first time, and that was the still that held the most interest to me. With a remote in one hand, and a glass of bourbon in the other, I walked over to the black-and-white image of the wide-eyed lamb who looked so out of place, so scared of all that he was seeing, but intrigued all the same, and my dick stiffened in response.

That was what I wanted to experience up close.

That was what I wanted to bask in.

The innocence. The fear. And the excitement he got from feeling that way.

I wanted to revel inside of it, nurture it and comfort it, right before I tore it apart.

* * *

“Let’s see, a punnet of strawberries, four oranges, and a pound of carrots…” Mr. Brown, one of my regular stops at the weekly farmers’ market, squinted at his calculator over his glasses. “Comes to eight dollars today, Jesse.”

I fished out a few wrinkled bills from my pocket and handed them over. “Thanks. See you next week. Tell Mrs. Brown I hope her back feels better.”

“I’ll do that. You take care.”

After carefully placing my purchases in my canvas tote along with the other vegetables and homemade bread I’d picked up, I gave Mr. Brown a friendly wave and stepped out of the tent. It was a misty, slightly chilly day at Southend Pier with the breeze blowing off the Pacific, but I hadn’t bothered with an umbrella. Unless it was a downpour, no one ever did.

As I continued on down the pier, I stopped at Felicia’s Fudge booth to say hello, but resisted in buying any of her delicious treats, even though the sight of the turtle nut fudge squares made my mouth water. Rent week was always the tightest of the month, so I couldn’t waste even a few dollars to treat myself.

One day I won’t have to worry about having enough for a square. I’ll be able to buy the brick, and more if I want to.

On I walked, waving or saying hello to the familiar vendors and shoppers I saw during my weekly visit. That was half the reason I came back—it made this city feel a little smaller, a little more like home to see the same faces and share how our weeks had been. It made me not feel quite so alone, even though, Brayden notwithstanding, I was.

A tingling sensation on the back of my neck had my head whipping around to see who was watching me. Over the past week, I’d felt it, that creeping feeling like I was being followed, but every time I’d turned around, there would be no one there. It was getting to the point where I felt paranoid. Maybe it was residual effects from the encounter after leaving the Wolfe’s Den a week ago, or maybe I was going crazy, but I couldn’t stop the sudden chill that ran up my spine, and I knew that wasn’t made up.

I continued to scan over the crowd gathered on the pier, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and definitely no one paying attention to me. It was silly to think anyone would be following me. I mean, it wasn’t like I could offer anything. If someone wanted to mug me, they wouldn’t get much, that was for sure.

Rubbing my eyes, I figured maybe I needed to get more sleep. I’d been restless all week and had pulled doubles at the café, since I needed all the money I could get.

“You okay, Jesse?” Kay, the owner of a small shop downtown that came to the market to sell organic soaps and bath melts, asked.

Dropping my hand from my face, I flashed her a smile, not wanting to cause any concern. “Yeah, I’m good. How are you, Kay?”

As she began to tell me about her daughter coming home for the summer from college, I nodded along, still fully aware of the chill that hadn’t left. A bump came from behind, and as I turned around to help the woman who had tripped over the pier’s uneven wooden planks, a streak of solid black caught my attention. Dressed in a long overcoat and an umbrella, a man was walking away at a leisurely pace, and something about him set off all of my red flags. He looked completely out of place at the market—he wasn’t carrying a bag or even paying attention to any of the vendors.

“Jesse? I asked if you wanted to come meet Becky when she comes in town?” Kay said, her hand on my arm gently shaking me back to focus on her.

“What? Oh, uh…sure, sure.” I glanced over my shoulder to get another look at the strange man, but he was gone. The hair on my neck no longer stood at attention, but something about his presence lingered with me that afternoon with every erratic beat of my heart.