When our eyes met, his were the color of the tropical ocean and glittered with tears. Because of his cat? The bush to the left of me shook and yowled.
That cat?
"Why are you crying? We'll find your cat." If Kansas was going to cry, it was going to be from something I did, not his possessed familiar.
"I'm not!" Kansas wiped angrily at his eyes. "He's really important to me, Wyatt."
"Like my money?" Instantly, I felt like a dick. Yeah, my money was important, but it wasn't more important than the bond Kansas shared with his furry companion.
Kansas gave me a look that told me exactly where I could shove what I'd said. For fuck's sake, I didn't like anything as much as I liked Kansas mad at me. It made my blood come alive. I wanted him. Even though he'd duped me. Even though he'd stolen from me. And when he was angry, I wanted him more. It was twisted, but messed-up guy that I was, I only wanted to lean into it.
Kansas cleared his throat and continued to search. "I have the money. I only meant to take a little. Enough to feed my cat. I was going to send the rest back."
"You know, regular people do this thing called find a job—"
"I know that, Wyatt." He spat my name to the ground like it was a gauntlet. "That's not an option for me. And no, I won't tell you why."
I tried to pretend like I hadn't been about to ask. Why couldn't he work? He was clearly running from something. I remembered how eager he'd been earlier to avoid the cops. Was he running from the law?
Just how big of a criminal was this man?
The way his ass shimmied should have been illegal.
"You'll work for me then." I'd spoken the moment the words had formed, bypassing the important step of thinking over what I said before I said it.
Kansas stood straight so quickly he earned a scratch from one of the branches. I scowled at the vegetation. "Work for you? To pay you back? But I have the money. Most of the money. I have nine thousand of it."
Nine thousand was more than I was hoping for, and I should've taken what I could get, but now that I'd come up with the idea, it was all I wanted. "And you'll return what you took. But that doesn't change the fact that you took it. I've got you, on camera in my office, taking the money. All I have to do is pass that footage along to the police, and I'm sure they'll be very eager for it. Oh, and, my brother has been instructed to turn that footage over if I don't come back. So don't think about trying to drug me again either." I'd like to think I wouldn't allow myself to be drugged a second time. But I'd gone over every minute that occurred between us before, and I couldn't pinpoint a single moment where I thought Kansas had slipped something in my drink.
Kansas's head drooped between his shoulders. "You haven't given them the footage already?" he asked hopefully.
I was a horrible lying bast— "Not yet."
He frowned, cocking his head to the side. "Why not?"
That was a very good question. One I didn't have an answer to because, as stated previously, I was a lying bastard. The only footage I had of Kansas were the blurry images of him sitting next to me in the bar, and then later, when he dragged me to the booth after I passed out on the floor.
He hadn't needed to do that, just like he could've taken much more from me. On one hand, it felt like I was splitting hairs to suit my needs, and on the other hand, it also felt like that. But, it was my bar. I'd been the one robbed, not the family, me. I got to decide how to resolve my problems. "Look, if you aren't interested, I'll pass the footage over, and you can enjoy prison. Or, you can come work for me. I had planned on doing repairs with that money—"
"But you said—"
"I know what I said, Kansas. The truth is, I was going to do repairs with it. I was going to have to do them slowly, between my shifts at the bar and before and after operating hours, but now, you'll work my shifts—for free—and I'll do the repairs during that time."
"For how long?" Kansas asked. "How long will the repairs take you?"
My chest rumbled. Kansas was so eager to find his next idiot to fool, he wouldn't take the honest job I'd offered him without an exit strategy. "As long as they take," I snapped. He should have been thanking me, not working out the details.
Kansas shook his head, and though his eyes rounded with worry, his mouth was set in a firm, determined line. "No way. I won't do it open-ended. Even prisons give you a sentence."
I hated his obsession with an end date. I was being extremely generous here, and he was mucking around with the details. "Six months." I threw out the first number to pop in my head. That would be more than enough time for me to get the repairs done in the bar, and enough time for me to feel like Kansas had paid back what he'd taken. Of course, it helped that during that time, I'd be his boss, and he'd be subjected to obeying my every whim.
I liked that part of this plan very much.
"Where am I expected to live during this time? It needs to be pet-friendly. Mr. Boots is not negotiable." His face had never looked so tiny, like a doll, as he jutted his chin out and negotiated the terms.
"You can stay in the room at the bar. I'll have to sacrifice my love shack for those months."
Kansas's upper lip twisted. Was he jealous? I should've been worried about how much I wanted him to be. "Poor thing."
"As long as the cat doesn't come down into the bar, he'll be fine up there too. If he pees on anything…"
Kansas scowled deeper. "Mr. Boots is a gentleman."
He didn't look like a gentleman, more like if you got him wet he'd be a shoo-in for the clump of hair that plumbers pulled out of bathtubs. "Yeah, well, sometimes gentlemen pee on things. If he does, he's out." I didn't think that was too unreasonable.
"What about tips?" Kansas asked.
My lips curled in a smile that I had to suppress. This cheeky little… "You can keep your tips." I didn't know why I said that. He should give me those too, but if he stuck around—and he was asking the sorts of questions that led me to believe he planned on sticking around—he'd need money to live on. He'd have a roof over his head, and he could eat from the bar kitchen whenever he wanted, but this way, he'd be able to afford the other necessities of life as well.
"Okay." He nodded once. "I'll do it."
Maybe I should have reminded him that I was offering him the deal, and he wasn't doing me a favor, but he'd already agreed, so I decided not to push it.
His eyebrows knitted together, and his lips turned down in a pout. "But we don't need to tell people, right? No one needs to know I'm working there. You don't even have to tell people my name."
Again, I wondered, and worried, over who Kansas was trying to stay away from.
Mr. Boots suddenly appeared on Kansas's shoulders, having jumped up there from the ground. Apparently, he was finished hiding. Kansas reached up to pet him, and they smashed their faces together, Mr. Boots's tongue stuck out the entire time. "It's all under the table, right? I don't have a Social Security card to give you or anything."
I hadn't planned on having him fill out a W-4 or anything. "Sounds fine to me. Now let's—"