Page 42 of Surface Scratch
Caleb laughed, some of the tension that had built up in him fading. “Yeah, I’ve heard about that one,” he said. “She’ll do it, too.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, the people that work here,” Andrew muttered as Caleb followed him inside.
Adam and the Jovanovska brothers were gone by the time they made it back to the dance floor, and for some reason that made Caleb feel a thousand times less distracted. They were either back in the Members Only area or they had left. Either way, he was glad. There was something about finally knowing what they were that was comforting. There was an explanation for their behavior, even if his own understanding of it was bare at best.
And he had seen Vincent vulnerable.
The rest of the night followed the same pattern as all the others before. Running to the fridge, fetching ice, and buzzing bouncers over the Walkie for the occasional beginning of a scuffle between intoxicated patrons. Ophelia’s irritation with him vanished as quickly as it had come on, and with Tariq back up in the DJ booth, he could put himself on autopilot.
He saw Marcus a few times, sometimes talking to Ophelia or Brittany, other times heading back to the Members Only area with his eyes glued to his phone, but he didn’t have a chance to speak with him. Andrew seemed to call for Caleb’s assistance over his earpiece anytime he noticed that Marcus had come down. Caleb tried to brush off the feeling that something was off with Andrew—that some had been off with Andrew for a while—chalking it up to the fact that prior to his extended time off for ‘the flu,’ they did spend nearly every night chatting and being friendly.
It felt like Andrew was his first grown-up friend. He hadn’t even thought about finding the time to hang out with him like they had discussed. For all he knew, Andrew could have tried texting him during the two days he’d spent unconscious and just thought he was getting ghosted. Maybe he wasn’t quite cut out for handling a relationship and a friendship right now.
He briefly considered whether Andrew had been the one who messed with the ID scanner. He didn’t know everyone in the club terribly well, but Andrew seemed like he was always the odd one out. But he was beginning to chalk that up to who may be in on the secret and who wasn’t. It was possible that Andrew was a strong personality that didn’t mesh well with the silent and brooding bouncers. Plus, Andrew had never manned the door, so he probably didn’t even know how the scanner worked.
Andrew can’t be involved. There’s no way he would be able to keep something like that to himself.
Caleb was dragging a trash bag full of beer bottles into the back hallway by the time Tariq started heckling the last of the stragglers to leave over the PA system. He still needed to finish wiping down the VIP tables and help Ophelia break down her garnish station, then he could go home and crash. As lonely as his apartment felt, the sweet embrace of his couch and pillow pile sounded like heaven.
Andrew’s voice buzzed in his earpiece. “Wanna go for a drink when we clock out?”
His stomach lurched at the thought. “No on the drinks, sorry. My stomach’s still not doing too good,” Caleb said, pausing in the hallway. “Raincheck for when I don’t feel terrible?”
“Deal.”
He continued down the hallway, the smell of cigarettes growing stronger until he reached the alcove that led outside to the alley. He crinkled his nose, trying to suppress a sneeze, the strong scent tickling the inside of his nose. Releasing his grip on the trash bag, he sneezed twice in rapid succession, barely covering his mouth in time.Gross.
“Bless you,” Marcus’s gentle voice called from just beyond the cracked door as if it had drifted in on the curling gray smoke. He stepped back inside, his cigarette gripped between his teeth as he extended a hand to take the bag from Caleb.
“It’s heavy,” Caleb warned absentmindedly as he handed over the overfilled black bag.
Marcus’s arm didn’t even dip as he grabbed the bag.Oh, right. Vampire strength is a thing.
“Would you like to have dinner with me?” Marcus asked.
Caleb smiled. “Where?”
“My place?” Marcus held the door open with foot and extended his other hand, dangling a keyring from one of his fingers. When Caleb only stared, unmoving, he shook it so the keys jingled. “Take them. They’re yours.”
Caleb gaped at Marcus as he took the keys. He ran his fingers over the shining metal, the grooves of the keys oddly sharp, like they had been cut recently.
“The silver one unlocks the penthouse,” Marcus said. He nodded toward the elevator. “Head up, I’ll finish down here and join you in a bit.”
Caleb stood in stunned silence in the alcove as the side door shut behind Marcus. Had he just given Caleb a key to his place? Permanently?
* * *
The spread of food along the coffee table had to be enough to feed at least ten people. Caleb knew he was underweight from years of living on box dinners he could only sometimes afford, but that much food seemed like an overreaction and vastly overestimated how far his stomach would be able to expand. It smelled amazing, though.
How the hell did Marcus get all this at three in the morning?
Caleb removed his earpiece and flipped the switch on the Walkie-Talkie to off. He probably should have stayed and finished closing duties, but he was tired and there wasn’t that much left to do. He considered shutting off his phone in case Ophelia tried to spam him with vague threats until he came back down, but instead he just left it on vibrate and set it down on the coffee table.
He loosened his tie and sat down on the couch, leaning his head against the back of it and closing his eyes.Stay awake, he said he wanted to have dinner with you, not watch you nap, he told himself. But he couldn’t will himself to open his eyes. Perhaps the adrenaline hangover from his meeting with Vincent was finally kicking in.
He must have fallen asleep for a few minutes because he heard himself snoring as he jerked awake, the sound of clinking glasses pulling him back to consciousness. Marcus was in the kitchen removing the cork from an unlabeled wine bottle. “Tired?” he asked as he freed the cork.
“I guess so,” Caleb replied, running his hand over the lower half of his face to make sure he hadn’t drooled on himself. He stiffened his back. “Thanks for the invitation.”
