Sex & Mayhem 04 No Matter What (2 page)

A photo came
through. It was a red square plate of some vegetable rolls with a
brown sauce. Ghost raised his head to have an even better look
around. He frowned at the plate in front of the guy, and had a
discreet look at him. He was close enough to see it was a very
similar dish, but that could be a coinciden― Ghost’s heart stopped
beating completely when an onyx bracelet slid lower down the guy’s
forearm.

And then it hit
him that the guy actually had a similar coloring to Zara in the
picture: dark olive skin, wavy black hair that reached past his
shoulders, and dark eyes. Only other than that, he was nothing like
Zara. No softness in him, just firm jawlines and broad shoulders
hidden in a coffee-colored shirt with rolled-up sleeves. As
striking as he was, he was most definitely
not
the girl from
the picture.

Ghost got up
even though his legs were like made out of Jell-O. Five years. Five
fucking years. This meant he’d had webcam sex with a guy. Many
times. He couldn’t breathe, the ring in his pocket somehow burning
like acid. How could he have been so stupid? He made his way toward
the table as if it were a lucid dream. A nightmare he was about to
wake up from.

With the young
guy busy with his cell phone, one of the middle-aged businessmen
noticed Ghost first. He straightened up and narrowed his eyes,
tapping the chopsticks against his plate.

“Can we help
you?” he asked in a heavily accented voice.

‘Zara’, or
whatever his name was, raised his eyes, and the small smile he was
sporting fell from his lips like slush on a sunny day. God, he was
even prettier up close, with thick eyebrows and a straight, shapely
nose. His mouth dropped open, but he made no sound as he stared at
Ghost, wide-eyed.

Ghost ignored
the older man, and looked straight into the eyes of someone whom he
knew so well, yet didn’t know at all. “How could you do this to
me?” was all he managed to choke out.

‘Zara’ dropped
his phone on the table, going so pale his sharp cheekbones made him
look starved.

The elegant man
who’d spoken to Ghost earlier brushed his fingers through his gray
hair and crooked his head with a slight frown. “Luca, do you know
this man?”

Luca inhaled so
sharply it made the shirt cling to his very unladylike chest. “I-
I’ll deal with this,” he muttered, grabbing the edge of the table
and pushing himself up. He was just as tall as Ghost. Nothing
petite or curvy about him. And his voice,
oh God
. Low,
smooth, with a melodic Italian accent.

Ghost gathered
his courage, trying to change his desperation into rage, like a
real man should. “How the fuck are you going to ‘deal with this’,
huh? And you,” he gave the gray-haired man a quick glance, “stay
out of it. It’s none of your business.”

A small, oddly
wolfish smile crooked the man’s lips, and Luca pushed away from the
table, eyeing the other two diners with a half smile that was so
stiff Ghost wondered whether his handsome face would fall apart
like a cracked mask if Ghost smashed in Luca’s nose.

Luca rushed
toward the exit, and Ghost followed, like the naive sheep he was.
Like he had for five years. Five wonderful years filled with
happiness, grief, pain, exploration, excitement, sadness, but
always shared with… this
person
. This couldn’t be
happening.

Luca walked
across the corridor, closer to the bathrooms, where they wouldn’t
be visible from the restaurant. He stood by a large potted plant,
his back against the black wall, dark brown eyes wide but
completely focused on Ghost. There was an odd vulnerability in his
expression, the luscious mouth plump and open like a girl’s could
have been, but one look at the dark shadow of stubble on Luca’s
skin killed all of Ghost’s attempts to find Zara in him.

“What are you
doing here?” Luca asked in his soft baritone, as if it were his
right to ask questions now.

“Who are you?”
Ghost hissed, spreading his arms.
And why are you so
ridiculously handsome I’m getting goose bumps?
He didn’t want
to make a scene, but his insides were cramping so hard he felt like
throwing up.

Luca’s bottom
lip was slightly smaller than the upper one, but it was still hard
to miss that it quivered. “I’m Zara... we met five years ago on
The Age of Endless
,” he uttered, looking straight at Ghost.
That gaze held so much intensity, as if Luca was trying to imprint
the image of Ghost on the back of his brain.

“So the whole
crazy boyfriend thing was so you wouldn’t have to show yourself as
we video chatted…” Ghost whispered, unable to speak up through the
crack in his heart. When his friends had laughed at him, he’d never
really acknowledged a possibility like
this
.

Luca exhaled
and pushed back his long hair with nothing to hide his discomfort.
“No. I’d never lie about that. Everything I told you was real, and
that’s why you can’t be here. I don’t even
have
a webcam
anymore. It’s been removed from my computer.”

“I’m here
because I needed to see you. Find out if you were real.” Ghost
shook his head. Of course she wasn’t.

Luca chewed on
his lip and hung his head, squeezing his hand around his veiny
forearm. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stop talking to you once we
started. But I told you I’m not single. You shouldn’t have come
here.”

“‘Not single’?”
Something dark began crawling out from Ghost’s heart, and he
started heaving. “You told me your boyfriend was a
monster
,
and that you just want to hide in my arms.”

Luca swallowed
hard, pushing his back harder against the wall. His big eyes seemed
soft and unfocused. “I did. But I’m not the person you wanted to
see, and you won’t hold me like that.” His breath hitched, eyes
darting toward the door to the dining room “If I stay too long,
he’ll get suspicious.”

What was Ghost
to do? He was not ready to let go of this relationship. Luca
was
Zara, yet he wasn’t. Ghost licked his lips, unable to
find the words for what he wanted to express. “So you… don’t want
to be with him? He hurts you?”

Luca let out a
shuddery exhale, blinking several times. “I can’t leave,” he
whispered, pinning Ghost in place with one look of his chocolate
gaze. Those long lashes were messing with Ghost’s head.

“Was this all a
game for you?” Ghost took a deep breath to fight the itching in his
eyes.

Luca stirred.
Hesitated. And then his long fingers squeezed the collar of Ghost’s
shirt and pulled him closer. Ghost’s mind must have switched off
because he couldn’t find the capacity in himself to fight back when
his skin brushed against Luca’s stubble. Their lips met, sparking a
charge of electricity that went all over Ghost’s body and rang in
his ears like a fireworks show.

Ghost stopped
breathing. Luca’s body felt so hot against his it was unreal. It
took him a few seconds too long to remember they were in a public
place. And that Luca wasn’t a girl in any shape or form. He pulled
away, still unsure if he knew how to breathe.

“This is not
over,” Ghost said, intoxicated by the taste of Luca’s lips. He
stumbled to the door and left the restaurant.

The sun was so
bright outside he had to squeeze his eyes shut, but before he could
go a step further, a strong hand squeezed his shoulder. With his
face turned toward the burning hot pavement, he opened his eyes and
blinked at the enforcer patch on the front of Milk’s cut.

“Dude, that was
gross,” chuckled Milk, shaking Ghost hard.

“Oh, shut up.”
Ghost groaned, still unable to comprehend what had happened. “It’s…
complicated.” His throat was so tight he could barely speak.

Tooth rested
his back against the wall, his thick arms folded across his chest.
He shook his head. “Didn’t want to tell you, but I was kinda
suspecting she could be a guy.”

“Why, you
pretended being a girl online as well? Can you actually get a guy
to fuck you this way?” asked Milk. He moved away when Tooth raised
his hand to slap him.

“Jackass.”

Ghost ran his
fingers through his hair, looking back to the white corridor, but
he couldn’t see Luca anymore. “What do you mean ‘you were
suspecting it’? How could anyone expect this?” He couldn’t get
those big dark eyes out of his head. They seemed to contain such
utter sincerity, such desperation.

Tooth spread
his arms. “Come on, why else would ‘Zara’ refuse to skype with you
all this time? It’s been five years.”

Milk grinned
and playfully shoved Ghost against the wall. “I think you need some
bleach to get rid of man-taste. That was brutal!”

Tooth frowned.
“You want us to teach that little fuck a lesson?”

“No… I mean…
it’s the same person.” Ghost hid his face in his hands, but Milk’s
voice was there to pull him back to reality.

“Well, he’s got
a dick, so he’s not really the same person. No offense, Tooth, but
it’s fucked up for a gay guy to do that to you. Did you show him
your junk?” Milk added the question in a whisper.

Tooth bared his
gums, as if trying to shut him up by threat alone, but Milk wasn’t
a man who understood such subtleties. He laughed and poked Ghost in
the ribs. “You did, didn’t you? Oh my God, a fag jerked off to
you!”

“Milk, shut the
fuck up,” growled Tooth, looking increasingly annoyed with the
stupid jokes. Ghost always wondered how a gay man like Tooth could
cope with the amount of homophobia present even in the relatively
tolerant Coffin Nails MC.

Milk spread his
arms. “Oh, come on, Tooth! Gays are more into dicks than girls, so
I would have known if I was chatting to a guy. I bet he’d want to
know inches and all that.”

“It wasn’t like
that!” Ghost pushed Milk’s chest. It was at moments like this that
he regretted that the Coffin Nails guys ended up being his only
friends.

Tooth sighed.
“He was lying to you for five years. You’ve got to teach him a
lesson or he’ll do the same to someone else.”

Ghost took a
deep breath and crossed the road on the way to his big white
Harley. “You’re right. I know what we need to do. This is not
over.”

Ghost:
We should
have a picnic in a balloon for our first date ;D

Zara:
Or go for
a swim. I’d pretend I’m drowning to solicit a mouth to mouth from
you ;)

Ghost:
I’m not
that shy, LOL

Zara:
Yeah, but
I need to show you I’m not too easy

Ghost
: We’ll see
about that when we meet. Ha ha!

Chapter 2

The ground was
crumbling under Luca’s feet. He fell back against the wall,
partially hidden behind the plant until he caught his breath. His
heart pumped pure adrenaline as he raised his fingers to his mouth,
which was still warm from the explosive kiss. His lips tingled, and
his lungs were still full of the clean aroma of Ghost’s aftershave.
The guy was even more handsome in person. Luca would remember this
one kiss till the end of his life, even if deceiving Ghost made him
a horrible person.

How much time
had passed since he left the table? He chewed on his lip and
quickly tidied up his shirt, looking around. A waitress who stood
close to the entrance averted her eyes.

Bile rose in
Luca’s throat. What if Frederico had seen him? He rushed into the
dining hall and tried to carry the indifferent smile that seemed
the best choice for most occasions, but deep inside his rib cage,
there was flesh rotting at a rapid pace. When he’d told Ghost where
he was, it was because Ghost said he wanted to see what delicacies
Zara would have for lunch. He’d never thought the guy would be
crazy enough to actually come over. Not to mention that he must
have traveled all the way to New York City knowing
only
that
Zara would be in the area. It was mad. And if circumstances were
any different, Luca would fall straight into his arms.

By the time
Luca passed the divider made of lacquered bamboo, it was slowly
dawning on him what it all meant. That one kiss would be his last
moment with Ghost. There would be no honest conversations about the
meaning of life, about the games, future plans, Ghost’s dog, or
about movies and favorite foods. Zara would be permanently gone
from the game, and Luca would lose the one person in the world who
still cared about him. He wanted to go back to the bathrooms and
just hide away until the grief became bearable, but that wasn’t an
option.

Frederico
raised his eyes at Luca with that all-knowing gaze that never
failed to scare the living daylight out of him. “Care to tell us
what that was about?” He tapped his long fingers against the tiny
espresso cup.

The usual soft
smile came so naturally Luca didn’t even have to force it on his
face. He sat down across from Frederico and his henchman, Antonio,
who didn’t even bother looking up from above a big bowl of
deconstructed ramen.

“It’s this new
American thing,” he lied. “A prank. He’d have made even more of a
scene if I hadn’t taken him outside,” Luca said with as straight a
face as he could muster while looking into Frederico’s inquisitive
eyes. When they’d first met five years ago, Luca had found
Frederico mysterious and attractive, even for a man who was pushing
sixty. Frederico looked great for his age. Tall, with a strong nose
and shapely lips, but his charm was as misleading as his flawless
public face. No matter how elegant his suits were, Luca knew
firsthand that the body underneath held the strength of a much
younger man.

The small frown
on Frederico’s face didn’t seem angry, merely interested, so Luca
relaxed. In the years he’d known Frederico, he’d learned to read
through the layers of deception in his expressions.