Spencer Cohen Series, Book Two (The Spencer Cohen Series 2) (13 page)

I laughed as I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “No you don’t.” I got out of the car and watched him drive off and was still chuckling as I walked into the tattoo shop.

“Hey, you’re looking far too happy for this time of day, my friend,” Emilio said.

“Gimme ten minutes to drop these dirty clothes off,” I told him, holding up my bundle of yesterday’s clothes. “Then I’ll do a breakfast run. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great,” he said.

I went through the back of the shop and up to my flat above it. It wasn’t just to drop off laundry. I wasn’t kidding when I told Andrew I’d have to take care of myself, and it took all of two minutes to bring myself to climax despite already coming once that morning. Just thinking about sex with him did me in. When I was cleaned up and clear-headed, I sent Andrew a text.
Congratulations, you just starred in my quickest jerk off session ever.

His reply came through when I was on my way to get breakfast.
I read your text and almost crashed the car.

I dialled his number. “Are you okay?”

He laughed. “Yes, I’m fine. But I still hate you.”

I grinned into the phone. “No you don’t.”

His voice was much softer when he replied. “No, I really don’t.”

“Look at you, all grinning away to yourself,” Lola said with a smile. “I take it you and Andrew…?” She trailed off suggestively and waggled her eyebrows.

I looked up from the delivery orders I was marking off against the invoices. “Andrew and I had our first fight.”

She stopped, and her smile turned to a look of confusion. “What?”

“Well, I guess it was a fight. It was kind of… I’m not sure, to be honest.”

“But you made up?”

“Oh, yeah,” I answered, slowly nodding my head. “Relationships are weird.”

“What was it about?”

I launched into full disclosure of how the whole night went, from seeing Lance at the bookstore up to me getting out of the cab and refusing to let Andrew walk away.

Gabe nodded sympathetically. “I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go mow down Lola because she’s pissed at me and won’t talk about it.”

“Too pissed off to talk,” she amended, not so gently.

“It’s what relationships are,” Gabe said. “Weird, hard, and a lot of work.”

“You make it sound like a job,” she replied. “Is it not worth it?”

Gabe smiled at her and said, “Lola, my sweetest love, I would endure the wrath of eternal hell in exchange for just one day with you.”

She grinned at him, then looked at me. “See? That is what we like to call a correct answer.”

She gave Gabe a kiss on the cheek and shoved a make-up kit into my hands. “You ready?”

“Yep.” Then I amended, “I am ready for you to drive me to find this Yanni guy. I am not ready to die in a car called Cindy Crawford.”

Lola glared at me. “I hear the buses are running on time.”

I laughed and headed for the door. “Andrew said something similar this morning.”

* * * *

Pol’s Academy of Acting and Film was small, and if the first college looked like a university, this looked more like a government department office or even a health clinic. It was older, clearly had less-to-no funding, or could have possibly been a volunteer-run class. Even wearing Andrew’s old trousers and a simple T-shirt, I was overdressed. If Yanni had left the first college for this one, whatever the reason, it couldn’t have been good.

The size and administration held one thing in my favour: trying to find someone shouldn’t be hard.

After a quick look around, I found a class roster on the corkboard in the main admin area. No names of students of course, but teachers and the names of classes and the times they were run. I hung around and waited as students came in and out, and class after class finished, but I didn’t see anyone that resembled him. When I’d been there for a few hours, one of the students—a young guy of about eighteen with long hair and holes in his sneakers—took pity on me. “You look lost,” he said.

I gave him my best friendly smile. “I’m actually waiting for someone. I’m not even sure if I’m in the right place.”

He looked around. “Well, this is Pol’s, and all there is to it. It’s not like you can get lost here.”

I laughed and acted a bit nervous. “Do you know a Yanni Tomaras?”

The guy looked at me for a second. “Yeah, I think so.”

I sat back and sighed, giving my best impression of someone who was happy to sit and wait. “Well, at least I’m in the right place.”

Then the guy called out to someone else. “Hey Gary? Seen Yanni today?”

The guy called Gary replied, “Nah, not yet. He’s in at four for improvs, I think.”

I checked my watch. It was half past two. “Okay, sweet,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing,” the first guy said as he walked out with his group of friends, seemingly not giving me another thought as they walked out discussing the class they’d just finished.

So I waited.

And sure enough, at five to four a guy matching Yanni’s description came in. It was him. It had to be. Tall, olive skin, and green eyes, good looking, despite the sadness in his features. I was just about to stand and approach him when some girl called his name.
Yanni.
He turned, and they made small talk as they walked into a classroom.

So I’d found him. It hadn’t strictly been difficult, and I wondered what the deal was with Lance.

Was he really that clueless? Or did he just want someone to do his dirty work for him? Or did it have to be completely off the grid because he’d had restraining orders put out against him? I really had no clue.

For any other job, I’d have called my client straight away and told them I’d made contact or even just a general update, but calling Lance was the last thing I intended to do. Not until I spoke to Yanni first.

And right on five o’clock, students filed out of the classrooms, Yanni being at the tail end. Most of the other students had gone by the time he came out alone.

“Yanni?” I called his name.

He stopped, jerkily, suddenly halting. He almost took a step backward. “Who wants to know?”

“Someone asked me to find you,” I said. “Just to see if you were okay. They were worried.”

He shook his head, but I could see him eye the exit doors to the street. “Who?”

“Lance Nader.”

Yanni turned white; the colour literally drained from his face. And I knew, without one iota of doubt, it was Lance all along. “It’s not your father,” I mumbled. “It’s him.”

His voice cracked in a barely audible whisper. “How did you find me?” 

“He asked me to track you down,” I said. Yanni looked like he was about to vomit. I put my hands up. “No, no. I didn’t know. He lied to me. Everything he said was a lie.”

“He knows where I am?”

“No.”

He shook his head. He was tearing up, suddenly sweating and now a shade of green. He spoke more to himself than to me. “I can’t afford to transfer out again. I quit my job. I had to. I moved, I’ve got no money. If he’s found me…”

I shook my head and put my hand out to touch his arm but stopped myself. He flinched anyway. “I don’t think so. Jesus, I’m sorry. I had no idea. He told me he was concerned for your welfare. He told me he thought your father was abusive. But it was him, wasn’t it? That arsehole.”

Yanni laughed, it sounded one beat away from crazy. “My father?” He shook his head, but then it seemed that words failed him. He started to breathe erratically, and a fine sweat now covered his still-pale face. If I had wondered why he didn’t run, it was because I doubted his ability to even breathe properly at this point.

I couldn’t just leave him. He was having a panic attack because that arsehole ex-boyfriend was the abuser. I knew something was off with that guy. I should have trusted my instincts and told him to fuck off two minutes into our first meeting. Instead, I’d found the poor guy and ruined his feeble attempt at a new life. “Yanni, you have to understand. I didn’t know. He lied to me.”

“Did he… has he hurt you?” he asked in a wheezy whisper.

“No, it’s not like that with me. Yanni, is there someone I can call for you?”

He put his hand to his heart and shook his head again. “No… be okay,” he said, struggling to breathe.

“I’m not leaving you until I know you’re safe,” I said to him. “How about we sit down and you catch your breath. I’ll wait with you.”

He didn’t exactly agree with me, but he certainly didn’t object. I pointed toward a bench seat in the waiting room, and he nodded before walking over and all but falling onto it. He put his head in his hands, and I sat beside him, waiting while he got himself together the best he could.

“He doesn’t know where I am?” he asked again. “Why did you find me?”

“No. He doesn’t know where you are. I haven’t told him anything because he’s shady as hell. He asked me to look for you. He said he was in love with you and he was worried, but I never told him anything because I had a feeling something was off with him.”

All Yanni could do was blink, and I doubted he’d heard a word after ‘No.’ I’d had freak-outs before and I knew they were different for everyone, but for me I just needed someone close by. Not touching me, not telling me to calm down or take deeper breaths or smothering me or getting in my personal space. I just needed to
not
be alone. So that’s what I did with him.

I waited until he was ready to talk. If talking was even what he wanted to do. I just sat next to him and watched the college kids coming and going, just hoping that no one stopped to ask if he was all right. Thankfully, no one did.

I was good at waiting for people to speak first. I just wasn’t really expecting him to say what he did. “Did he follow you here?”

“What?” I said, before I could stop myself. “No. Well, I don’t think so.” Jesus. What kind of guy were we really dealing with?

Yanni swallowed hard and looked at me then. I could see the fear in his eyes. “I can’t stay here.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where can I take you? Tell me, and I’ll get you there.”

He looked around the communal waiting room, like he was surprised to find himself there. “Um, I’m staying at a hostel. I didn’t really have anywhere else to go.” He looked as though he was going to be sick again.

“Yanni. My name is Spencer Cohen. Will you let me take you somewhere safe?”

He stared at me, his eyes wide, and he turned from white back to green. “Will you take me to him?”

“No, no,” I put my hands up. “Jesus, no. Yanni, I had no idea. He lied to me. He asked me to find you. He told me he was concerned for your welfare. He told me your family harmed you when they found out you were seeing another man.”

Yanni gave a laugh that sounded a little manic. “Well, that much was true. But it was nothing compared to what…” His words ran out of steam as the first of his tears fell. “I don’t have anyone.”

This guy was me. He had lived through what I lived through. Only I found my own family in Lola and Emilio. Yanni found a closed fist and god knows what else in the arms of that monster, Lance.

“Yanni, I know what it’s like to be alone. I really do. My parents disowned me, kicked me out, and cut me out of their lives completely when I was sixteen. I can’t help you with your family. But I can help you with Lance. I can make sure you’re not alone. I didn’t realise what my finding you would mean, so please let me make this right. For tonight at least. We can work something out tomorrow, but tonight you won’t have to sleep in fear, okay?”

Fresh tears fell, as though my words struck a chord. He scrubbed his face with his hands, he clenched his jaw, and his nostrils flared as though he was trying to summon every ounce of strength he could muster from that place down deep that people seldom knew of. And he nodded. It was the tiniest of head movements, and with that simple gesture, without a word, without another move, he was putting his hand up for help.

And that was a strength I’d never known.

“Okay, thank you, Yanni. I’ll just call my friend Lola. She’ll come get us and take us back to my place. We can work out where to go from there, but at least you won’t be here, okay?”

He barely nodded.

I pulled out my phone and hit Lola’s number. “You’ll love Lola. She’s tiny, has pink hair, pretty as a 50s pin-up girl, but she’s a fierce and protective friend. She also drives like a crazy person, dances like a ballerina, but sings like a scalded cat. Don’t tell her I said that.”

I got a small smile from Yanni just as Lola answered the phone. “Spencer?”

“Hey, how far away are you?”

“Five minutes. Everything okay?”

“Kind of. I’ll explain when we get in the car.”

“We?”

“I found Yanni, and I’m taking him to my place.” Yanni’s gaze shot to mine, so I took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I looked at Yanni. “Is there a back access door or something here?”

He nodded, and a little colour had returned to his face. “I think it’s Union Parade,” he said.

“Lola, can you come round the back? Yanni thinks it’s called Union Parade, but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll find it. See you soon,” was all she said.

There was about five seconds silence after I pocketed my phone. “Yanni, please know I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

That’s when his tears started.

And they didn’t seem to stop.

I took his hand and led him through what I hoped was the rear of the building out the fire escape doors to the street that ran along the back of the building. And just a minute later, Cindy Crawford came careening down the street. Lola stopped the car, took one look at the crying kid with me, and never said a word.

I sat in the back with him, not sure what else I should do. I didn’t want to crowd him, but I didn’t want him to be alone either. Lola kept her eyes on me in the rear vision mirror instead of the road, and how on earth she could drive I’ll never know. But when we pulled out onto the Boulevard, she started to talk.

She told us about her afternoon, the job, the models, the photographers, the passers-by, every minute little detail that she normally wouldn’t speak of. She just kept talking, for whose comfort I wasn’t sure.

I’m fairly certain Yanni never heard a word of it. He just stared into space, yet his tears never stopped. And I think that’s what scared Lola the most.