Who: Blake and Hunter What: A ride and a very strange invitation. Where: Outside Vegas, then Blake's apartment. When: Before the party in Paris. Warnings/Rating: Swearing.
Generally speaking, Blake didn’t really give a shit about the sort of clothes he wore or the car he drove. He wanted the things in his life to be made well, not get fucked up easily, and not break down - that was about all he asked of them. He didn’t have a garage full of million dollar cars, despite the fact that he easily could have afforded one. He had a black 60’s Cadillac, and he drove that. No driver. Just him.
So it was a major disappointment when the fucking thing broke down. He’d been driving around all night, not something he did on a regular basis, but occasionally, on a bit of a whim. He’d brought a boy with him from one of the clubs downtown, and they’d fucked in the backseat, parked off the road, watching cars go by every ten minutes or so. The boy in question was from one of the suburbs, so Blake had dropped him off at the crack of dawn and taken off for Vegas again.
He was looking forward to getting back to his apartment, shutting the blinds, and sleeping through the sunlit hours when the car stalled. That put a wrench in that. And so, at about eight in the morning, Blake was standing next to a black 60’s Cadillac pulled just off the road, wearing a black suit, no tie, and his white shirt untucked. He had on a pair of black sunglasses, and he had his arms folded. The day was going to get fucking hot soon, so somebody better drive by quick, since he’d apparently drained the batteries on his phone taking pictures of the twink from last night.
The big truck had the kind of wheels made to take it over dead trees and through rivers still half-frozen, in places farther north where there were such things as frozen rivers, and as it got near enough, it was obvious that it boasted enough corpses of various flora that it had probably done just that several times over. It came down the highway at a decent clip, starting out as a glint and manifesting whole in very short order. There was just enough time to see the flash of the driver’s sunglasses through the filthy windshield and a dog’s pink tongue plastered against the window before the truck took a hard turn, grinding on the asphalt, and whipped around the tail end of Blake’s Cadillac where it still stuck out in the road. Clear, the truck trundled on, took a turn, and was out of sight.
The dust barely settled before it reappeared again, a hulking monster in the growing desert haze. It came right for Blake, then veered again about fifty yards short. The truck jounced into the shoulder and into a ditch with barely a squeak of heavy shocks. There was a pause as the bizarre shriek of a woman in operatic high C was cut off, and the driver’s door opened with a second (far lower, less tuneful) squeak of indignation. Hunter dropped out heels first. The dog stayed in the cab, a half-grown collie that was mostly white fluff. The dog must have needed extra fluff, because the man didn’t have any. He was too-small plaid, brown-flecked white skin, shoulder bones, little boy pout and mirrored glasses ($5 at a truckstop outside Lima). He stood in his boots there a few seconds and then ambled over toward Blake and his shiny car. His smirk was obvious as he took in the black suit and the black Cadillac. “Get lost on the way to the altar?”
Blake skidded back out of the spit of dust the truck gave out when it blew past him. He didn't even bother giving the driver an enthusiastic finger. If the asshole wasn't going to stop, he wasn't going to look in his rearview mirror to see what Blake was doing. It'd be a waste of an obscene gesture.
Then the truck came back around again. Blake had leaned back against the car, but now he straightened a little. Not shit out of luck after all, it seemed. Despite the fact that the car hurtled directly toward him, Blake didn't move or flinch from his spot. Maybe he didn't want to let the driver win at chicken, or maybe he didn't care if he got hit. Hard to say.
The door kicked open, and he spotted the collie in the passenger seat as the man climbed out and came into view. Opera in a dirty pickup? Weird. Opera and a wannabe cowboy, even weirder. Somebody had misplaced themselves from Texas, or some other fucking nowhere wilderness place. His new best friend definitely didn't look the Vegas type. "Get lost on the way to the rodeo?" he shot back, not considering for a millisecond that it might be a good idea to be on his best behavior for the chicken-playing cowboy who'd stopped to pick him up.
Hunter smiled. It wasn’t a real nice smile, but there wasn’t anything about Hunter that was real nice. He liked that response. It was quick and sharp, and it had just enough mean in it to inform Hunter that there wasn’t anything he could do to this man that would bring on any guilt. Hunter’s boots crunched over the gravel to pass Blake and circle the car. Cowboy maybe (where was the hat?) but wannabe, no. Boots didn’t get into that condition by sliding around shiny honky tonks or parading in horse shows. They’d been in so much dirt that they were nearly the same color as the truck, and they looked older than the man, who, despite a great deal of sun and a horrific fashion sense, could not have been mistaken for older than twenty-five on a good day. He didn’t look his age, especially in the big glasses.
Hunter completed his circuit of the car. He didn’t even attempt to touch the hood or figure out what was wrong with it--not his area of expertise. The sun got seemed to get hotter as he did so. The dog had eeled up to the driver’s side to see what was going on. A bit of fluff floated by on the breeze. Finally, Hunter came to a stop where he’d begun at one side of Blake. “So, you call for help?” This looked like the kind of man who would call a tow truck out when the least little thing went wrong.
“Phone’s dead,” Blake informed him, after watching him look over what seemed like every single square inch of the car despite not lifting a finger to try to rectify the problem. “Good thought, though.” Right, there was still that whole ‘needing a ride’ thing. He took in the cowboy, and his dog in the passenger seat. Up close, he was considerably younger than Blake had expected him to be, driving a truck like that in this part of the world. In an older person, it would have been habit refusing to bow to circumstance. In someone as young as the man in front of him, it spoke to stubbornness and going purposefully against the grain, which he could get behind. “Is there room in there for me next to the dog?” he said, gesturing to the car. “I’ll cover your gas and give you a two hundred bucks if you get me to the Strip.”
You could see Hunter’s eyebrows jump behind his glasses. Two hundred bucks? Hell yes. He still didn’t move, though, not wanting to appear overeager, taking the time to take the other man in more physically, since he felt nice and safe behind his mirrored glasses. Hunter idly scratched his stomach under the rough cotton (he had horribly chipped black paint on some of his fingernails, could be black, maybe a midnight blue?), thinking, and then nodded, a movement that was a lift of his chin rather than a dip. “Yeah, alright.” He didn’t sound like Texas or the south, though there was something thickening his tongue up somewhere.
Decision made, he turned trim hips and strode back to the truck. “Giddown,” he informed the dog. The collie hopped down from the cab more gracefully than the man had, and she went around back to pull the tailgate down. The dog took a running start and leapt up into the truckbed, casual as anything despite being half-grown, and Hunter slammed it shut after the white wagging tail. A small cloud of dust came off the truck as he did so. A green duffle from the passenger seat followed the dog into the back. The dog’s head reappeared again as a black nose pressed up against the back window to watch Blake get in. There were some old blankets tied down back there and it appeared the dogs (there was another back there, a much older mongrel that hadn’t bothered to get up) rode that way a lot.
The cab was cleaner on the inside than one might expect, though there was still plenty of collie fur stuck to the seats and dust on the mats. It looked like the opera was a new choice, as the wrappers of some truck stop cassette tapes--that’s right, tapes--were still on the floor. The armrest was down and there was a half-empty pop can along with an unopened full one.
Blake looked like he’d been doing exactly what he’d been doing. His hair was out of place, his clothes were rumpled, and dark circles lurked behind his sunglasses. He noted the nail polish with a quick jerk of surprise, the kind that made him wipe away the cowboy image and all the assumptions that came with it. He liked that, things that made him second guess what people are about. So the pickup driver was a little more complicated than he’d guessed - a cowboy who listened to opera and painted his nails. He didn’t know what that added up to, not yet.
Blake watched the collie play musical chairs, and glanced in at the old mutt as he passed it on his way to the passenger seat. He slid inside, not even registering the dog hair. It wasn’t like he did his own laundry. “So, I’m curious,” Blake said, leaning back in the seat and stretching long legs under the dash. He pulled off his sunglasses and folded them up. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say you like dogs,” he said dryly, glancing back at the dog. “And your accent says you’re not from Texas, or anywhere else for a few hundred miles, even if the truck and the boots say you ought to be.” He looked down, noted the opera tapes. Tapes, good goddamn, when was the last time he’d seen cassette tapes? “The opera and the fuck off polish says you wouldn’t have done too well in Texas anyway. So where’d you come to Vegas from?”
Hunter glanced exactly six inches to his right to watch the legs unfold under his dash, and then returned his attention to wheel and road. He got the truck started again with a bold yank on the key ring, a chewed-up red plastic that came free from a mechanic in Blackfoot. The truck made a sound like a dragon in its lair, and they were off, bouncing and jouncing around. Hunter absorbed most of it with his spine, rocking back and forth with the movement of the road, and he put his arm up over the top of the wheel. The mirrored sunglasses were no good in profile, making his expression of studied concentration clear as he tried to decide how to answer. “Not everybody that wears boots is from Texas,” he said. And, throwing it out there because he expected it to put a wrench in the conversation and get him a reaction (good or bad), “Girl in my head says she likes the opera singin’.”
Blake’s vague interest took a sharp left turn at that. He looked over at him, brow popping up with a surprised curve of his mouth. “She does?” he asked. “Is this the sort of girl who needs medication to regulate? Because if that’s the fucking case, I’ll give you an extra hundred if you don’t drive us both off the road trying to kill the fucked up zombie clown you hallucinate somewhere between here and Vegas.” Blake ran a hand through his hair, which affected its state of disarray only a little. “Otherwise, you’re the type with a girl in your head who’s got a key, in which case, I’ve got the same kind of crazy, and I don’t have to worry about the insanity being contagious. Or running us into an oncoming semi.”
This guy smelled like he’d just had a real good time the night before, so Hunter wasn’t concerned about him thinking he was crazy, but the agreement was a surprise. He eased forward on his seat, and he maybe-perhaps-might have been making a little show of it as he twisted his hips under the steering wheel while his foot was still solid on the pedal. He pulled out of his pocket a key, big, green and metal. There was the white skeleton of a barnacle stuck on the handle. Hunter slid his hips back up and slumped into his spine to hold up the key. “This’s it,” he said, casually. “What’s your kind of crazy?” He turned his head to steal a look at Blake, curious.
Blake took serious note of that calculated shift of hips. He had an appreciation for good choreography, especially when someone who looked like the gay stepson of Garth Brooks was doing it. He had intentions for that sunbrowned skin if they got back to Vegas in one piece, but in the meantime, he examined the key. Dark and wrought heavy with a barnacle attached. Something seafaring, maybe? Maybe the girl was a pirate, and wouldn't that be a hysterical combination.
Blake shoved a hand into his own back pocket, and pulled out a keyring. Next to the one that went to his apartment and the key to his car was a very out of place looking door key. It had been made in gold, or something that looked like it, and it wasn't much bigger than the other keys on the chain, despite looking more like an old skeleton key. The head of a lion was wrought into the top of the key in startling detail, its eyes picked out in red enamel, its teeth in white. He held it out. "That kind."
The truck eased to a stop at a weathered red sign, presented with a two-lane blacktop that went either way. Off in the distance the low hills were starting to look red, and the plain was so flat that you could see the Strip now, glittering in the mid-morning light. Not knowing yet that the key was worth anything, Hunter dropped it in the cupholder under his half-empty pop can. He took the time to stare at the key. “You could hock that for a few hundred,” he said, obviously impressed and forgetting that Blake probably hadn’t had to pawn anything in his life. The girl in Hunter’s head looked too, but she had no opinion, and, as usual, was quiet. Hunter hit the gas and the truck roared onto the highway. The dogs (if Blake cared to look back) were lying flat, and were probably having at least the ride the humans were.
Blake grinned at the prospect. "Probably, although I think the guy in my head would have a problem with it. Maybe I'll do it, if he bitches too much." Tyrion, for his part, was not much of a fan of 'hocking' the key that was supposedly going to be his gateway to a world he recognized and was very much looking forward to being himself in, thank you. And he'd probably just make Blake sell one of those pointless grooved music disks he seemed so fond of. Yes, the technology was fascinating, but in that moment, he was just imagining vindictive revenge.
As the truck roared down the highway again, Blake leaned back and settled in for the rest of the bumpy ride, tucking the key back into his pocket. "You go to the hotel yet?" he asked. Most everybody had been at least for that fucked up party, but the guy might be new.
Hunter leaned over to his left, this one not an artful stretch but one that pulled the plaid taut in a most satisfying way, and pumped at the manual handle to get his window all the way down. Warm wind whipped through the cab, displacing Hunter’s brown hair and forcing him to readjust his glasses. He picked up a knee and kept the cab steady while he put a cheap cigarette from his front pocket into the side of his mouth and lit it with a lighter that almost didn’t snap to life at all. He was pretty good at the whole maneuver, it looked like a dance. “What hotel?” he asked, muffled by the cigarette and the first puff.
If he didn't even know what the hotel was yet, Blake wasn't going to launch into a whole explanation. "You got a journal, right? Take a look at it." It was the closest thing they had to an operating manual, despite the fact that most of the posts were made by completely insane people and supervillains lately, it seemed like. Blake extended a lazy hand for a cigarette when he saw Hunter light up with a faint groan of relief. He'd run out of smokes somewhere between dropping the twink at home and his car breaking down.
Hunter looked sideways at him, then shrugged and handed over the crumpled pack. Two hundred, he could throw in a cigarette. “Lighter doesn’t work,” he said, indicating the front of the dash where there should have been a place for the new and improved to charge their cell phones. Hunter was surprised that Blake knew about the journal, but not as surprised as he could have been. It was a little Vegas for a lot of crazy, it seemed. Hunter stuck a thumb under the bridge of his glasses and swept some sweat away from one eyebrow. They came down the highway toward the city limits, and stopped at a light. “Which way?”
Blake pulled a cigarette from the pack, then dropped it down amongst the tapes. He pulled a slick silver lighter from his pocket that popped on with one strike, lit the cigarette, then shut the lid with a satisfied metal tick. “Left,” he said, cigarette clenched between his teeth, as he rolled the window down. He might be an asshole, but no need for the dog in the back to get cancer from secondhand smoke. He took a long drag, watching the glitter of Vegas slide by and shift perspectives as they turned, blowing smoke out toward it. “What’s the girl like?”
Now that they were off the highway, the road seemed to have less objection to the truck, and both dogs were on their feet earning stares from the tourists as they stuck their heads into the wind and looked cute. (The collie did, anyway, the mutt just looked confused.) Hunter had this crazy thought about that lighter, and how it would be to keep it, kind of like a souvenir of the experience with the man in the cadillac. He got his thoughts back with a drag of the cigarette. “Quiet. Dunno about you, but I dunno that many women that are quiet. Not much to say for herself.”
"I know a couple quiet women. Well, they were quiet some of the time, at any rate." A brief, fondly lecherous smile from Blake. "But you're right, a deathly quiet girl is an odd one. She a pirate or something?" He was still ruminating on that heavy, dark key with the barnacle attached, and what it might mean. He didn't mind the stares of the tourists. It was a different sort of stare from the one he usually received driving his own car, and he kind of liked it. The dogs, at least, seemed happy.
Blake’s determinedly lecherous comment got no response from Hunter, as he figured it was intentional to inform him what kind of person he was sitting next to, and he wasn’t going to make a deal out of it, leaning the other way instead to flick ash out the window. Blake’s pirate theory earned him a glance, though, as obviously Hunter hadn’t thought about that. Hunter’s idea of pirates had a lot to do with books and cartoons, swashbuckling and what not. He stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully and consulted the girl. It was quite visible when he did it: he acquired this frown and his lips moved without sound. Pirate? Hunter winced at the vehement response. “That was a no. She don’t like pirates. I guess they’re around. Huh.” Hunter acquired a smile, very small and pleased. All little boys like the idea of pirates.
Blake shrugged. Maybe she was another kind of sailor, or just a girl who lived on the coast. Who knew? If she could be from any goddamn made up thing, there was just no way to know. Blake noted the small smile - it made him look closer to his age. "What would you do without me?" Blake asked, taking another long drag before dropping his arm out the window, letting the ash wick away on its own into the wind. "You still haven't mentioned where you're from," Blake said, unperturbed. He'd dodged the question earlier, but if he wasn't going to answer it, that was fine by him. But talking was better than silence, even if this one didn't seem all that keen on talking about himself.
“Up north some,” Hunter said, bluntly, leaning forward over the wheel to squint around at the surroundings in a way that made it pretty obvious he hadn’t been out this way before. He could see the edge of the Strip on the horizon past the freeway line, and he thought it seemed more bland in the daylight compared to what you saw on the postcards. He leaned back again, again asked direction, and made another turn. “Where you from?” Hunter turned his head and the mirrored glasses glinted with a fervent shine as he eyed Blake’s fine clothing and again thought about the silver lighter. “Work out here?”
“New York,” Blake said, languid in his seat, pulling the cigarette up to take another drag. “Up north some too, I guess. And yeah, I work out here, if you call fucking and drinking work.” He pressed his thumb against the filter of the cigarette. He shrugged, loosely. “Money’s not really something I have to worry about. I’m the fucking 1 percent.” He was nonchalant about it, but he wasn’t exactly gloating. There was an undercurrent of bitterness there, well-masked by the casual. “Feel free to hate me if you want, I’m open to that kind of thing.”
Hunter didn’t know anybody in the “1 percent.” He didn’t know anybody who used the term “1 percent.” He turned his head back around with a tiny little shake that wolves used to get the burrs out, as if this knowledge itched him somewhere on the back of his neck. “Got better people to hate.” Hunter tried to imagine what it would be like to sit around and drink, get fucked whenever he felt like it in every sense of that word. Sounded pretty good to him. He flicked his thumb against his cigarette. “No offense. So what you do with your money?” He assumed something must come of it.
Blake tapped his fingers against the outside of the car door. “Booze, hookers. The occasional charity.” It was a simple life plan, and one that was...well, it kept him occupied. “Why?” he asked, turning to regard his vaguely mystified looking driver. Where the hell was ‘up north’, anyway? Where had this good-looking guy been hiding out? Under what rock, with his two dogs, before a key made him strike off for Vegas? “What would you do with it?” Everyone thought they knew, in Blake’s experience, what they would do if they had money. They’d pay off their debts, travel, buy a nice place, sample every luxury money could buy and some that it legally couldn’t. Then what? What came next?
The words “the occasional charity” made Hunter’s mouth curve in bemusement, as if the idea of such a thing was hilarious, and he couldn’t contain it in his mouth. He rolled his tongue over his lips and the laughter was gone, leaving just the bitterness that definitely matched Blake’s. He shrugged, and the expressive mouth turned upside down and he shrugged. “No idea. Never had that much together.” He looked out the window, obviously trying to think about it. “Maybe same thing as you. But with a better car.” He grinned, totally sudden, having shown no real evidence of a sense of humor in the last half hour.
The grin elicited the same from Blake. “There is nothing wrong with my fucking car,” he said, taking a drag, blowing smoke out the window to trail back through the wind, and tossing the remnants out into the desert. “I mean, aside from the fact that it’s broken down right now and I can’t drive it.” No need to judge the fucking thing just because it isn’t drivable. They were coming close to town, now, and Blake directed him down a side street, a little ways from the strip. “It’s that fucked up modern thing,” he said, gesturing vaguely to one of the towering condo buildings on the horizon. He wasn’t the biggest fan of Vegas’ architecture, not that it really mattered.
Hunter sat up to the edge of his seat and looked up through the filthy windshield at the tall tower of cookie cutter patios and glistening windows. There was a crack in the filthy windshield that gleamed right at the center of his eye, and he slid the mirrored glasses down on his nose to see it. He sat back then, shaking his head at the thought of living in such a place, and the big truck trundled down the side street, rolled through a stop sign, and pulled up to the root of the building. “Think I’d buy a house with your money,” Hunter said, volunteering information that he had not before. “You get air sick up there?”
"Not as much as you'd think," Blake said, flashing a brief smile. No, he hadn't bought a house. He hadn't seen the point, when he was sure he wasn't going to be in Vegas any longer than he stayed anywhere else. Houses implied settling down, finding a home, and Blake hadn't been home anywhere in some time.
Blake turned to regard the front doors as they pulled up, then popped his door open. He got out, walked around the car, and then stopped next to the driver's side.
"So," Blake said. "You coming up?" It was stated matter of factly, like they'd already discussed it. Blake was a pretty good read on people, despite his careful insistence on doing things he knew would offend. He had that knowing smirk on his face, and if Hunter knew what was good for him, if he did say yes, he'd know how many calls back to expect from him after it was all over, too. It wasn't like Blake didn't put that pretty much on front.
Hunter didn’t even own a phone, and it was intentional. He left one of his hands on the wheel and the driver’s side window was still open to take the last bits of ash that made it free from his cigarette. The plaid shirt was still rolled up above his elbows, and the fine hairs along his arm had been bleached gold at the tips, very like his rough dark hair, though not combed so fine. The mirrored glasses turned to regard Blake, who was still fully tall enough to look at him through the elevated truck window without trouble. Two pictures of Blake’s smug face was the response for a few seconds, and then Hunter’s elbow slid down over the door of the truck so he could lean closer. His eyebrows sketched upward over the cheap enameled wires. “I want my two hundred for the lift before I say yes.”
Blake grinned. In Hunter's position, he likely would have said the same. He pulled out his wallet, removed a pair of hundreds from the fold, and extended a hand to him with the bills folded between his fingers. "You're not very trusting," he said. "That's a good move."
Hunter didn’t grin back, not immediately, not necessarily pleased with himself that trusting came so difficult to him, but not necessarily displeased, either. Hunter just was, a kind of ongoing existence in which he tried to avoid self-examination, and that existence didn’t include getting paid for sex. If he came up, it wasn’t going to be for a couple hundred. He wasn’t that hard up, and hopefully he wouldn’t be any time soon. He took the cash and pulled it back in the window, and then nodded over Blake’s head. “Going to park over there.”
And he did, roaring away and planting the large truck in exactly the parking space where it would be most accessible, in the shadow of the building--though probably not the one the management would prefer. Hunter wasn’t shy about people knowing he was present, apparently, and he stashed the cash in the truck before he stepped out. He set out a huge tupperware bowl and filled it up with water from a reused milk carton, and he put it in the back for the dogs, who would be cool enough in the shade. It wasn’t even going to hit eighty that day. The whole process took him about two minutes, and after that, he came back around the side of the building to see if Blake was still there, four fingers in each pocket, the length of him relaxed.
Blake was still there. He'd taken the time Hunter spent parking the car to light up a second cigarette. When Hunter walked up again, he had smoked the cigarette halfway down, making up for lost time on his nicotine absorption. As Hunter came close, he gestured toward the building front, and met him at the doors, gesturing to Hunter to go first. He ignored the man behind the front desk and his clear disapproval of smoking in the lobby, stepped onto the elevator, and, once Hunter was inside, punched the button for the top floor. He lounged back against the wall. "You got a place to stay in town?" he asked, glancing over at him.
Hunter took more time to look at the man behind the front desk than the man took to look at him, and the rest of the time the mirrored glasses turned around to take in the lobby with passing curiosity. He lengthened his stride to catch up with Blake’s trail of cigarette smoke and stepped into the elevator doors just as they slid closed. “Yeah, my sister’s,” he said, reaching up for the glasses in the conservative light of the elevator. He slid them off and folded them up. Without the shield of the glasses, the skin around Hunter’s eyes had a paler softness than the rest of his sharp-featured face, and his irises were ringed in soft velvet brown without velvet’s vulnerability. Hunter moved closer, sliding to face Blake and putting himself within arm’s reach. “Nice of you to ask,” he said, in quite a lower register than before.
Blake gave Hunter a long look from toe to head. “You want a place to stay where you’re not going to have to worry about relatives?” Blake asked, with a slow smile, utterly guarded. Whatever he was thinking, there was no sign of it on the surface, just a hint of interest and a flat offer. “You can crash here, if you feel like. My place is too fucking big for me. There’s about three guest rooms that nobody sleeps in that are basically accumulating dust.” He seemed unbothered by this. Blake had never been the type who felt it necessary to surround himself with sycophants, or fill the empty spaces in his life with permanent occupants. The longer they stuck around, the worse people fucking got. Or they got themselves killed. Or, of course, like the last time he’d been stupid enough to let someone stick around, they left on their own.
Blake’s smile widened a little as he thought of that, conversely, defying it. “The deal is, you pick one of two things. You hang around here, and sleep in a bed of your own, where you won’t have to worry about your sister walking in while you’re jerking off, or I fuck you into next week, and you go get comfy on your sister’s couch.” He took another long drag, and added, “Fucking roommates tends to be bad news.” The smile curved sharply, and his eyes were cigarette burn dark, but the offer stood as it was, not a joke, an honest choice between two options. He could stay, or he could get fucked and get the fuck out. Blake wasn’t stupid enough to fuck people who thought they could stick around, not anymore. Fuck those people.
This turn of events was such a sudden change that Hunter backed off, literally taking a step back and taking his husky voice and his expectations with him. "Are you high?" He could not imagine what this man, dripping money by his own admission, could ever want with a roommate, and Hunter was not shy with his obvious belief that asking someone to move in was a hundred times more intimate than a casual fuck. Hunter could not see how Blake could benefit from the presence of Hunter, his truck, his dogs, his dirt, especially if he didn't want sex for it--so he automatically started looking for the catch. He wasn't afraid, exactly, more suspicious, but the floor of Maren's RV, or even his truck, was better than some unfamiliar room that came with groping hands and expectations in the middle of the night. He trusted this man enough to follow him to his apartment when he didn't necessarily know who or what was in it, but he was starting to wonder if that was a mistake. The pretty brown eyes were an extremely clear indication of what he was thinking.
Blake grinned. “Not right now.” It was easy enough to read what Hunter was thinking in his alarmed gaze, and Blake chuckled, just as the elevator slowed to a stop, dinged, and opened out onto his floor. “I’m not a serial killer, and I’m not asking you to fuck me for a place to stay,” he said, figuring those would be the first assumptions. He stepped out into the hallway and walked down toward his front door. “Kind of the opposite, actually. As for why, you looked like you might need a place to crash, and we’re both in the same shitty fucking predicament, and I’m goddamn generous as hell.” He paused. “Alright, last part’s a lie.”
Blake unlocked the door to his apartment. The place was modern, but the decor was relatively warm. The couches were leather and all the appliances and fixtures done up in a slightly beaten industrial style. It was clean enough to show evidence of a maid, because Blake obviously wasn’t going through the place with a scrub brush. It boasted expansive views of the city through the wide windows that nearly covered the wall of the main room. Blake didn’t even take a second glance at them.
He wandered across to the bar in the corner, pulling out the whiskey. It was before noon, yeah, but he was fucking going to sleep after this, and he deserved a little hair of the dog after the bullshit with the car. “There’s no catch,” Blake said, turning around, glass in hand, and tossing his coat aside. Without it, in just the wrinkled white shirt, he somehow looked even taller and more strangely angular. “If I wanted sex, I wouldn’t need to put up a guy in my apartment to get it.” He grinned before downing the drink. “Cut me some fucking slack.”
Hunter looked around the apartment. He’d never been in anywhere so expensive and so clean, and the place was so big, he wouldn’t have believed one person lived there. You could house a family in the living room alone. Hunter had been in houses where bustling, big-breasted matriarchs had ordered him to leave his muddy boots at the door, but Blake had left his shoes on, and Hunter didn’t want to come across like a contrite little boy in the alien space. He crossed the room, utterly out of place in his fitted jeans with the worn-white seat and his sunburned neck, and went up to the window to look out. Montana was flat, but there was plenty of mountain tops around for Hunter to spit off of; all the same, this was quite a view. Hunter whistled softly, and then turned to look at Blake.
Hunter watched him a second, expressive eyes slightly hooded and cropped brown hair unhelpful in the smooth impression of suspicious youth. “Could be some weird kink. Rich guys can afford weird kinks,” he observed, now returning to the kitchen and eying the drink in Blake’s hand. He didn’t want one and didn’t ask for one, he was just trying to get a read on him. It might be worth the risk to get a night and a really hot shower. Those things would probably be better than the fuck, after all. He’d been counting on them after, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“Yeah, rich guys can.” Blake shrugged. “I didn’t say I wasn’t crazy. I have some truly eccentric tendencies, or so people fucking tell me. But if that doesn’t bother you, you can stick around.” It seemed that it would be no skin off Blake’s nose if Hunter decided to run for the hills rather than pick either of the other options, and that he also wouldn’t prefer he choose one choice or the other. All seemed equal by him. Blake didn’t care about much. This was a moment’s entertainment, watching the guy in his doorway struggle to make a decision, and it was a throwaway act of kindness that he could afford to extend.
Hunter thought about it, and he decided to give it a try. He would hit anybody that bothered him, and a mattress and a hot shower would be worth any temporary inconvenience. He could always leave. “Try it for a couple days,” Hunter said, rocking back on his heels with the decision and nodding shortly. He assumed the dogs would not be allowed in the building, but they could stay temporarily at Maren’s, sleep in the truck, and accompany him to work. The ranch didn’t mind, as Hunter’s dogs weren’t problems, and what the smoothie place didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it.
“Fair enough,” Blake said. He wasn’t a psychic, but he had thought of the dogs when he made the decision on the elevator ride to ask Hunter if he wanted to stay. “The dogs can crash with you, or you can keep them in one of the other rooms. I don’t give a shit as long as they’re trained.” Blake gave him a look, and then a grin. “But you don’t look like the sort of guy who’d let his dogs go untrained. Eat whatever you feel like out of the fridge, there’s usually something in there. There’s a maid comes every three days to pick up, usually about two in the afternoon. Nice lady, likes to curse at me in Spanish. She might like you better.” He polished off his drink and set the glass aside, humming into the glass as he remembered something else. “The extra key’s in the drawer in the guest room,” he said. “Haven’t touched the thing since I moved in here, anyway, so it should still be there.”
Blake closed the distance between them, hands hooked into his pockets. His gaze went, very briefly, sharp, shrewd, and absolutely observant. “You don’t have to stick around any longer than you want to,” he said. “And you don’t owe me anything.”
Hunter shifted his weight from one boot to another, wetting his lips and looking from one side of the room to the other. The man was serious about this. Hunter figured there was something going on, something Blake was getting out of it, even if it was only another body in the house, an occupant, someone to blame a crime on--something. It didn’t hurt him to stick around and find out, he thought, and his back was itching with dried sweat from the long ride, so he gave in. “Try it,” he repeated, giving Blake a look that said he didn’t want to promise anything. He shifted toward the hall. “Use your shower?” he asked, testing Blake’s resolve.
Blake gestured down the hall. “Shower’s down there,” he said, all nonchalance, no leering - not this time around, anyway. “Knock yourself out. Leave the keys out here and I’ll send somebody to bring those dogs in out of the sun.” He smiled, then. Hunter’s suspicion of the crazy rich guy was funny, he couldn’t help it. He guessed that, in Hunter’s shoes, he probably would have felt just the same. Maybe he was seeking a little good karma to balance out the bad, or maybe he was just indulging a whim. Either way, he seemed utterly unworried. He would have to be, inviting someone he’d just met to live in his apartment.
Blake gestured down the hall. “Shower’s down there,” he said, all nonchalance, no leering - not this time around, anyway. “Knock yourself out. Leave the keys out here and I’ll send somebody to bring those dogs in out of the sun.” He smiled, then. Hunter’s suspicion of the crazy rich guy was funny, he couldn’t help it. He guessed that, in Hunter’s shoes, he probably would have felt just the same.
Blake waited until Hunter was down the hall, then went to call the desk and tell them about the dogs. Maybe he was seeking a little good karma to balance out the bad, or maybe he was just indulging a whim. Either way, he seemed utterly unconcerned with all the ways in which inviting someone he'd just met to live in his apartment could turn sour. Maybe he just wasn't all that worried about his own well-being, these days.