Dignity

  His breath was hot and tickled the side of my neck. I had to bite back a sigh as I gave a nasty look to an older woman seated a few seats ahead of us, watching us with unblinking disgust. If I really were a gay man and Stark really were my boyfriend, I would be super annoyed at the obvious judgment and censure on her wrinkled face.

  “We don’t have to be what we’ve always been. Sometimes it’s important to change, to learn how to be something better.” The words were sweet, but they were also smart. He couldn’t help being sharp and painfully insightful. I only wished he could apply it to himself, as well.

  “And sometimes this is as good as it’s going to get and that has to be enough.” You took what little you had and made do.

  He cocked an eyebrow and sat back in the narrow seat, something dark and hard to read floating through the hurricane that blew through his eyes. “And sometimes you find the person who makes you want more, and you have to decide how much you’re willing to give.”

  Damnit. He always had an answer for everything and a knack for making me question what I’d always thought I’d known. This was exactly why I never asked for help or let anyone else in. Once they had a piece of you, they thought they were entitled to the whole damn pie. I didn’t want to think about how hot and liquid the idea of feeding someone so clearly starving for affection and a connection made me.

  Nope. I wasn’t going to think about connecting with Snowden Stark at all.

  Stark

  “More bad news for our currently embattled mayor.”

  I looked at the TV as Booker turned up the volume. The pretty news anchor had a practiced look of concern on her face as she prattled on about Goddard.

  “After an anonymous source sent several concerning documents to the voters of this city and various members of the press, there was a resounding call for mayor Jonathan Goddard to release his financials and justify where he was spending our tax dollars. On the heels of the outrage over the misuse of government funds, an alarming look at Goddard’s taxes was also released and quickly spawned an intensive investigation by the IRS. The mayor was forced to resign from his position during the ongoing investigation. He claims it’s all a misunderstanding, that someone is setting him up, but the police can find no evidence of a computer hack.”

  There was no evidence. Titus had gone above and beyond his original agreement to help me get into Goddard’s computer. The detective went back in after I had what I needed and wiped away any sign that I’d ever been there. He liked rattling Goddard. Liked putting the man on edge. He wanted the people playing dirty to know he was on to them. He wanted them to be afraid . . . just like the people who called the city they ruined home. He was coming for them and wasn’t shy about sharing that fact. The house of cards was starting to fall, and Titus was getting a kick out of watching everyone scramble to clean up the mess.

  The footage on the screen shifted to the media circus surrounding Goddard as he was escorted out of City Hall. He had his pale, thin hands over his face, but there was no missing his scowl or the stiff set to his shoulders. Flash bulbs illuminated his papery skin, making him look fragile and weak. I wanted to feel satisfied in a job well done, but I didn’t. This wasn’t even close to the bastard suffering enough.

  “In the wake of the financial scandal, you might think things couldn’t get much worse for the former, beloved mayor. However, today, in an alarming turn of events, several recordings featuring young, underage women who utilized Goddard’s pet project in the Point, an after-school program designed to help at-risk youths, came forward with the shocking accusation that Goddard had inappropriate relations with them. Many of the young women are under the age of sixteen and claim the abuse started when they were barely teenagers. The recordings have not been verified at this time, but we, here at Channel 13 News, are actively looking for any accusers willing to substantiate the claims. Goddard’s attorney refutes the women as vultures looking for a payday. He claims that tapes are fabricated and untrue. That the young women are just looking to capitalize on the former mayor’s current legal woes. This is an ongoing investigation that we will be following until the conclusion. The police have opened an investigation and are looking for anyone to come forward and file a formal complaint against Jonathan Goddard.”

  Booker snagged the remote and turned the channel when the anchor went on to ramble about the weather the next day. It was going to be shitty. It was always shitty in the Point.

  He leaned back on the couch and lifted his arms over his head, stretching out his big body. He’d been popping by the loft a lot the last few days. At first I was annoyed, thinking he didn’t believe I could keep Noe safe on my own. I thought he was checking up on me. I quickly realized that his sudden desire to hang out had nothing to do with us and everything to do with the fact Race and his girl were back, and Booker was going out of his way to avoid the fair-haired duo. His apartment was much closer to theirs. He was hiding out.

  I didn’t ask him why. I figured if he wanted me to know, he would tell me, and I didn’t mind his presence. It was a solid buffer between me and the tiny hurricane that was blowing my entire life apart. She’d been moody and unpredictable ever since we left that dilapidated building that held Goddard’s dirtiest secrets. She told me she needed time, that listening to what Goddard did to those girls, the way he collected them, bribed them, and hurt them, forever changing them, did something to her. Some of her fight was missing. A good chunk of her defiance was gone. Instead of telling me everything that was wrong with the world, she’d gone silent and seemed buried underneath a mountain of damage. Watching others bleed had opened her old wounds and they were festering, weeping, and leaking out the kind of poison that could kill anything good. I’d been giving her space to work through it. Taking the coward’s way out. Again, I figured if she wanted me to know what was working through her head and her heart, she would tell me so I could help figure it all out. She had to know I would never shut the door on her again.

  She got the girls to talk to her, to tell her their stories, but she couldn’t convince a single one of them to come forward and press charges against the asshole who stole their innocence and childhood. They were scared of backlash. They were terrified someone would make them pay back the measly monetary amount Goddard had forked over to keep them quiet. Now, instead of needing to stop Goddard for what he’d done to Julia Grace and to her, she felt like she needed to stop him for all those girls who would never get to have their own taste of revenge. She was consumed by it. She got up and stomped out of the room as soon as the story was over; I could tell she didn’t feel like Goddard’s fall from grace was far enough down, either.

  Booker cracked his neck and the pop was loud enough to make me grimace and give him a look out of the corner of my eye. He ignored me and leaned forward so he could grab the beer on the coffee table in front of him. “When someone seems like they can handle anything that’s thrown at them, that usually means they’ve been through hell and back. They’ve already had to handle the kind of shit that would break most people.” He lifted an eyebrow at me, the scar giving him a sinister, dark look. “All this stuff is hurting that girl, boy genius. She is hurting.”

  He said it like I couldn’t see the way her dark eyes glistened as she blinked away tears, or the way her normally pink lips were pulled tight in a pale, white line. I could see the shadows under her eyes and I felt the sharpness of her responses when she spoke to me.

  “I know she is, but I don’t know what to do about it.” I’d been hurting for years and resigned myself to living with the pain. It was never comfortable or easy, but I’d adjusted.

  He snorted and levered himself up off the couch. “Go make her feel better. Let her know she’s not alone. Comfort her, boy genius. She needs someone to lean on, and for whatever reason, the person she picked to trust is you. You already made her regret that choice once, don’t do it again. For a smart guy, you can be pretty fucking stupid sometimes.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him as I al
so rose from the couch. “I’m not stupid, I’m just not good with people.” I had said this same phrase so many times over the years it was starting to get old. Maybe it was time to stop using that as an excuse for shoving everyone away who got near me.

  “Yeah, but she’s not people, she’s your girl. You don’t have to be good with anyone but her. You’ll figure it out eventually.” He checked his phone and cracked his neck again. “I gotta go. Nassir has some bruiser from New York in the circle tonight to go up against Bax’s boy. It’s a good matchup and the money is big. The crowd is going to be after blood, so he pulled me out of the strip club and put me in the Pit to make sure none of the paying customers accidentally get trampled.” He didn’t sound like he minded the switch. I guess if you worked around beautiful, naked dancers every single night, they lost their allure. Either that, or he was as dead on the inside as I was. Our responses were broken, faulty. Blood and broken bones made more sense than undulating, glistening flesh.

  Annoyed that he called me dumb, I prodded, “Is Race going to be there? If you see him tell him I said hey. I haven’t seen him since they got back from visiting Karsen.”

  His whole body tensed when I mentioned her. The corner of his mouth tugged down in a frown and his free hand clenched in a fist so tight his knuckles turned white. We stared at each other for a long second until he visibly forced himself to relax.

  “Don’t got much to say to Race at the moment.” The ‘or ever’ was left unspoken as he made his way to the door. Once there, he paused and gave me a hard look. “You have the opportunity to be exactly what that girl needs, boy genius. Do not let that pass you by, because we both know everyone else only wants the parts of us they think are useful. No one else gives a shit about the parts of us that are broken and fucked up.” He flicked his fingers away from his scarred eyebrow in farewell and shut the door behind him.

  I locked it and took a second to rest my forehead against the wood. I’d done it again. Overlooked someone I cared about in need of my help because they didn’t ask for it. I thought Noe would tell me what she needed from me, just like I thought Savina would be honest with me about how much she was struggling. Noe told me she would give me what she wanted me to have, but I’d been blind to the invite she’d given me to ask for more. For what I needed from her.

  I knocked the side of my fist against the door, hard enough that it sent a jolt up my arm and into my shoulder. I shoved off the wood and prowled toward the big bedroom at the top of the stairs that she’d claimed as her own. Once I hit the landing, I saw that she was standing at the bank of windows that acted as the outside wall of the loft. Floor to ceiling, the glass reflected the dreary night sky and the blinking, glowing lights from the struggling city down below. If this loft was anywhere else in the world, the view would be worth a million dollars. This would be a property people chose to show off and showcase. Here, it was front row to the worst the world had to offer. The view wasn’t stunning; it was scary, intimidating, and threatening.

  Her arms were crossed over her chest and she’d taken off the baggy, camouflage cargo pants she’d had on earlier. I’d dragged her to a store to get the essentials after her meeting with Goddard’s victims. Now that she had clothes that fit, she was back to looking like a street kid. But at the moment, all she was wearing was her short, black t-shirt that stopped just below her ribs and a pair of lacy black boyshorts. They looked much better on her than Booker’s sweats and were distracting enough that I forgot why I came up here in the first place. So, I just stared at her. I couldn’t pull my eyes away, not even when she turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder, eyes narrowed and lips tight.

  It was the sight of her black eyelashes spiky with wetness and the twin tracks of moisture on her cheeks that indicated that she’d been crying that made me move. I stalked across the space that separated us in a few long strides and had my arms around her before I could think about what I should do once I was there.

  She was so tiny wrapped up in my embrace and I could feel every line of her body shudder as I hugged her hard to my chest. I pressed my cheek next to her damp one, which knocked my glasses crooked, and ran my hand up and down the smooth line of her back. Her skin was velvety smooth, soft, and supple against my fingertips. She felt like something that was expensive and coveted, like something that would snap in half if any more pressure was applied. I touched my lips to her ear and whispered, “Tell me what I can do to make this better.”

  I put a hand on her hip and told my body to behave because my cock was very interested in the fact that the only thing between it and her warm, sweet center was my zipper and a scrap of lace that really was no barrier at all. Blood rushed to my head and made me a little dizzy as her arms found their way around my waist as she snuggled in close to me. Her tears made the front of my t-shirt wet and I had to bite back a groan when I felt her nipples harden as she leaned her weight into me.

  “That’s the thing. There is no making it better. No matter what we do to Goddard, no matter how hard he falls, those girls will always have to live with what he did to them. It never goes away.” She shook her head against my chest and her hands clutched at the back of my shirt. “It kills me that even after Goddard’s gone, there are still going to be people out there who exploit young women that way. Being trapped in your circumstances,” she shook her head and I lifted a hand to cup the back of her head as she shook against me. “There is nothing worse than that, Stark. Nothing.”

  I agreed. I’d been stuck, caught up in circumstances of my own making with no way out. I hated it, hated how powerless and weak it made me feel.

  I twisted her hair through my fingers and let out a sigh that made her shiver against me. “Booker told me to come comfort you. I don’t know how to do that, Noe. I don’t know how to make you feel better, but I’m here and I’m willing to do whatever it is you need me to do.” That was a lot for me. Her swirling emotions were whipping around us. I could taste them thick and heavy in the air I was breathing, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Wasn’t sure she wanted me to do anything. I was uncertain, and that made me clumsy. I didn’t want to accidently do or say anything that would hurt more. I wanted a solution to the problem that was ripping her apart and it pissed me off there wasn’t one, because she was right. This world was always going to have awful people exploiting others for their own ends. This wasn’t a Point problem, it was a humanity problem.

  She gave a watery laugh and rubbed her nose in the center of my chest. “He told you to comfort me?”

  I nodded and lifted my head so I could set my glasses back on my face the right way. I rested my chin on the top of her head and closed my eyes as her hips shifted against the front of my jeans. My dick kicked in response and I felt something heavy and hot unfurl under my ribs. My hand tightened in her hair and on her hip.

  “He told me to make you feel better and then he called me stupid.” He was lucky I didn’t lay him out for that insult.

  She laughed again and I stiffened as I felt the featherlight touch of her fingertips on my lower spine underneath my t-shirt.

  “The hug was a good start, Snow. I find this very comforting.” She stepped closer and I had to suck in a breath to keep from dragging her to the floor and covering her up with my hungry body. “Honestly, you being here, letting me work through it all, is helpful. I don’t need someone trying to put my thoughts in order like good little soldiers until I have a hold on them myself. Talking to those girls took me back to a place I thought I left far behind, but I guess the past is never as out of reach as we think. I wanted them to tell someone about Goddard, I wanted them to have a voice and when they didn’t think anyone would listen, it sucked that I couldn’t tell them they were wrong.”

  “He shouldn’t have had to say anything. I should know what to do to comfort you. He’s right, I am stupid about a lot of things.” I begrudgingly admitted Booker had a point.

  Her hands pushed up the wide plane of my back, shoving the fabric of my shirt up
with them. I had to bend down for her to pull it off over my head. My eyebrows shot up as her palms smoothed over the black and gray ink that covered the majority of my torso. She used a finger to trace the mechanical heart that lived in the center of my chest and her palm skated over my side where the skin was inked away and all my motorized insides were revealed.

  “I think you would have figured it out on your own, Stark. It took the Tin Man a while to get used to his new heart, so you get a hall pass.”

  I caught her wrist in my hand and gently brushed my thumb over the steady thump of her pulse. “Those girls, you listened to them, Noe. You heard them and believed them. You made sure their stories were heard. You gave them more than you had.”

  She blinked at me and then gave a little nod. When her chin was dipped down, her gaze stayed focused on the straining front of my jeans and the way my abs were locked tight. Her hand trailed over my side, her thumb tracing the indent on the side of my abs that cut a hard V into my waistline. Her small fingers tapped against my belt buckle and I felt the tiny vibration all the way down to my toes.

  “You really want to comfort me, Stark?” There was mischief under the pain in her dark eyes. This was a trap I could spot from a mile away, but fuck me if I wasn’t going to walk right into the center of it anyway, eyes wide open.