“And by then, it will be far too late for him to do anything about it. Any evidence behind the coffee shop will have washed away. Holden’s car is a cube of scrap metal and, without his body, there’s no proof a crime even took place.”
Arlo shook his head. “That can’t be it. We just go on with our lives?”
August shrugged. “You know all our secrets. I suppose you could train to work with us like the others, but you’re quite young. Maybe just go back to school and finish your education.”
With that, August turned and walked away, but then stopped short. “Oh, and apologize to your mother for me. She scares me a little.”
For a long while, Dimitri and Arlo just stood there in the cold before returning to the car without saying a word. Once inside, Arlo turned to look at Dimitri. “So, that’s it? We just got away with murder?”
Dimitri leaned in close. “I think so, yeah.”
Arlo just blinked at Dimitri. “I don’t know if I’m relieved or numb.”
“I love you, too,” Dimitri said, grabbing Arlo’s face in his hands.
“What?” Arlo asked, bewildered.
“I said I wouldn’t say it like that, like it was the end for us. But I can say it now. Now that it’s just the beginning. ”
“So say it,” Arlo said, breathless. “Say it again.”
Dimitri grinned, kissing him deeply. “I love you. I have loved you my whole life. I will keep loving you for the rest of it.”
Arlo flung his arms around Dimitri’s neck, burying his face there. “I love you, too.” They held each other for a long moment, then Arlo said, “Do you think we should call your mom and tell her we’re alive?”
Dimitri nodded. “Yeah. Probably.”
“She’s going to be pissed,” Arlo said.
“Very.”
“She’s probably going to yell a lot.”
Dimitri sighed, voice resigned. “Most likely.”
“Maybe we call her when we get home, instead?” Arlo suggested, pulling back to give him a hopeful look.
Dimitri grinned, smacking a kiss on Arlo’s lips. “Yeah, maybe we do that.”
Arlo leaned in for a longer kiss. “And maybe we stop and get food at that twenty-four-hour diner that we passed a few exits back? I’m starving.”
Arlo’s stomach dipped as Dimitri dropped a kiss to Arlo’s forehead, “Whatever you want, babe.”
“So the babe thing is here to stay?” Arlo teased.
“What? You don’t like babe?”
Arlo wrinkled his nose, shaking his head. “It’s a little generic.” When Dimitri protested, Arlo held up a hand. “You know what, we’ll workshop it over pancakes.”
“You’re in Mr. Daniels’ Intro to Anatomy class, right?”
Before Dimitri could answer, Arlo bent down to liberate the cup lids from beneath the counter, snagging his attention away from the blonde-haired girl. Arlo could have squatted down like he usually did, but this was his less-than-subtle way of reminding Dimitri why there was nothing on the other side of that counter better than what he already had.
Dimitri didn’t need the reminder, but he sure as hell appreciated the way Arlo’s khakis hugged his oh-so-perfect ass.
“That’ll be three fifty,” Dimitri told the girl, distracted, his gaze still glued to Arlo.
“I—”
Jason hopped up on the counter directly in front of the girl. “You must be new around here, sweetheart, ‘cause my man here is strictly dickly.”
“What?” the girl said, startled.
“Yeah, he’s gay, girl. That little dainty thing with his ass in the air? That’s his boyfriend. He looks cute and adorable, but if you look at his man for too long, he’s gonna come at you like a spider monkey.” Dimitri snickered, but Arlo flicked Jason off without looking. Jason was undeterred. He swung his ball cap backwards, leaning in close. “I, on the other hand, am one hundred percent straight.”
Dimitri snorted. “Liar.”
Jason looked at him, wounded. “What happens during rush week stays at rush week, damn.” He turned back to the girl, who now looked somewhere between confused and amused. “That still makes me ninety-seven percent straight, at least. Besides, a modern woman like yourself probably wants somebody…open-minded?”
The girl rolled her eyes but handed her phone to Jason so he could put his information in before they both retreated to the corner booth where Jason was holding court with Mandy and the others.
Mandy had calmed down a lot. She was actually far more tolerable since Arlo had put her in her place. She hardly ever brought up her short-lived movie career and, if pressed, she would tell everybody that she and Arlo were great friends. Arlo would not agree, but nobody ever asked him.
Before Dimitri could signal to the next customer that he was ready for them, Arlo scooted up behind him, his hands covertly roaming as he rose on his tiptoes to press his lips to Dimitri’s ear.
“If you keep getting distracted by me, Maggie won’t let us work together anymore, remember?” he crooned.
Dimitri remembered. Maggie had taken them both into her office just two days ago to, yet again, tell them to save the ‘grab-ass’—her words—for when they were at home.
Home.
It still didn’t feel real that Dimitri got to go to bed with Arlo every night and wake up with him in the morning. They even had a pet, sort of. An ugly as fuck rat named Scabbers.
Who chose a rat as a pet?
Arlo. He’d found it in the back, in one of Maggie’s traps. It had closed on the rat’s tail, sending Arlo into a crying fit until Dimitri had agreed to take it to the vet and then to rehab it. That rehab had turned into a cage and a name and Dimitri coming home to Arlo cuddling a kitten-sized rat most nights. If that wasn’t love, Dimitri didn’t know what was.
Dimitri supposed he could have said no. But, honestly, he didn’t want to. If Arlo had asked for a kidney, Dimitri would ask which one he wanted. And that was just facts.
He reached behind him, wrapping his hands around Arlo, squeezing his ass briefly before letting his hands fall.
“Tease,” Arlo whispered.
“You started it,” Dimitri said under his breath.
“And, as soon as that sign flips closed, I’m going to finish it, too,” Arlo assured him, pinching his ass before walking away.
Six months had passed since Holden’s untimely demise, and August Mulvaney had been right. Nobody gave a fuck that Holden had disappeared. Dimitri’s mother still kept tabs on the chatter, just in case. In the beginning, she would feed the rumor mill. But now, it ran all on its own. People at Holden’s school all had theories, ranging from him having fled the country with his father’s money to a serial killer having murdered him. He was becoming an urban legend. That one had been a little too close for comfort.
Arlo was a whole new person without Holden around. He was flirty, confident; he smiled all the time. It hadn’t happened overnight. The first month, he’d been a wreck, having panic attacks almost nightly, nightmares where they carted him off to prison or where Holden had come back from the dead to exact his revenge.
Then he’d agreed to therapy. Luckily, the campus offered it to students for free as part of their mental health initiative. And though Arlo couldn’t go in there and talk about the time he murdered his abusive ex-boyfriend, he could work through a lot of his family shit. He still had no contact with them, but, truthfully, that was the healthiest option in Dimitri’s opinion.