Page 53 of Psycho
“Thank you.” Lucas threw his arms around August’s neck and kissed him deeply before dropping his cheek to August’s shoulder.
Warmth spread through him. He wrapped his arms around Lucas in return, surprised when he didn’t immediately break the hold. He just clung to him. August found he enjoyed having Lucas bundled in his arms. He smelled like soap and spicy cologne, and the heat of his body bled through August’s clothes in a way that made him feel content. Suddenly, thoughts of all the things they could do together later in the privacy of August’s apartment flooded his head until he shook them away.
He needed to be less turned on, not more.
“Are you okay?” August asked when Lucas seemed determined to just stay in August’s embrace all afternoon.
“I just need you to let me do this a little while longer. I can’t usually hug anybody because my shields slip, and then I just learn all of their cringey thoughts.”
August rubbed his cheek against Lucas’s hair. “But not me?”
Lucas shook his head against August’s shoulder. “No, not you. You’re just worrying about making sure I’m not late to my next class and thinking about how much you like this and some surprisingly dirty things you want to do with me tonight. Which I’m totally on board with, by the way.”
“You can get all that just from hugging me?” August asked.
“Yeah. Your thoughts are very clear to me. Clearer every time we touch, if I’m being honest.”
“Is that a bad thing?” August asked.
“Only in that I don’t want it to suddenly disappear,” Lucas admitted.
August squeezed him tighter. “It will only disappear if you run.”
“I’m right here,” Lucas said softly.
It was on the tip of August’s tongue to make him promise, but he didn’t want to deal with the fallout if Lucas refused. “I should get to class. Do you want to walk down with me? I can show you the copier that works.”
Lucas stepped back and gave a hesitant nod. “Yeah, I have to have these for my next class.”
August held out his hand, relieved when Lucas took it. Some part of him had thought he would refuse, that he wouldn’t want others to see that they were together. Truly together. Which they were. Even if Lucas didn’t know it yet. Shit, could he read that, too?
“Yes,” Lucas said, amused.
“Sorry.”
Lucas snorted. “No, you’re not.”
August smiled. “Okay, I’m not, but I would be if I could be.”
Lucas rolled his eyes, but there was a lightness to him that hadn’t been there a few minutes before, and that was all August cared about.
* * *
After they left work, Lucas was eerily quiet. He kept glancing back at the shoebox in the backseat like it was a wild animal that might attack him if he turned his back on it for too long. August assumed Lucas’s afternoon class had gone okay after their library encounter, but he didn’t want to break the silence in case it hadn’t. He just wasn’t sure what the right answer was in this situation.
The relationship books he’d read said it was customary to ask about a significant other’s day, but given how theirs had started, it seemed absurd to drop a question so mundane. Still, he didn’t want him to think that he wasn’t attempting to do all the things real boyfriends did. When he looked at Lucas, August wished he could feel the same worry and empathy that a normal person would, instead of just this insatiable curiosity to poke at him, to know what it was he was thinking or feeling.
Thomas would tell August that people weren’t lab rats to be experimented on. But August didn’t think of Lucas that way. Not really. But he didn’t know how he was supposed to give him what he needed—like the relationship books said—if he didn’t test Lucas to see what worked best for him. Thomas would tell him to just talk to Lucas.
He managed to hold his tongue until they began to creep along the cars parked outside a clean, gated apartment complex. When August had said he was going to place the GPS tracker on Kohn’s car, Lucas had insisted on coming with him. He didn’t mind the company, but he was concerned there might be an accidental encounter that could compromise their element of surprise. Still, he couldn’t refuse him. He just liked being in his presence.
August pulled up to a call box outside the complex and clicked through the directory, starting with A. It took two tries before somebody answered the phone and pressed a button to open the gate for them without question.
“How did you know that would work?” Lucas asked.
August pulled forward. “I didn’t. After a few duds, I would have just had Calliope hack the gate. But people are notoriously lackadaisical about letting people inside their communities. They assume they’re there for a reason or rationalize by saying it’s not like their doors are unlocked.”
Lucas nodded but fell silent once again. They crept slowly through the maze of apartments looking for Kohn’s building. Lucas nodded to a two-story walk-up on the left. “Over there. It’s that one.”
