The Fired Gun

Chapter 1-3

A bottle of nice wine and word of their success bought them a free night at the safe house. But while Gage settled in early, worn out from all the hiking and traveling, Dakota couldn’t sleep. He was too wound up and needed some kind of release.

As he made to leave, though, Gage stopped him with a sleepy voice. “Goin’ out? You? Surely not to a bar.”

“No, uh—” He blushed. Snorting, “I, umm—Remember that kid who helped us hail a cab at the airport?”

With a yawn, Gage slowly sat up in bed. “Vaguely. Blond, right? Bilingual? Kinda cute?”

More than kinda. Doe eyes. Five-o’clock shadow. One-part innocence. One-part smolder. “Yeah. Well, he slipped me his number right before we left. I’m gonna go meet him.” And hopefully work out the day’s frustrations.

Gage let out a laugh. “s**t, so that’s how you do it! I knew there had to be somethin’ you use to unwind. And it’s apparently pretty boys you meet at airports.”

Scoffing, Dakota rolled his eyes. “It’s not really a habit.”

Sure, he’d had a handful of one-off connections over the last few months and even a brief fling with a nice fisherman from Algiers Point—which lasted about as long as Dakota could keep lying to the guy before the guilt got to be too much. Any time he really needed to scratch an itch, he would pick up somebody at a club or, on rare occasions like this one, simply accept an offer when one presented itself.

His selections proved a lot more discerning than his late high school days and the year after, and he was a thousand times more cautious about using protection. After all, hooking up with strangers could be dangerous enough, even without the threat of disease. Though Dakota killed people on a semi-regular basis, he couldn’t be too careful about these rendezvous. He had a kid who loved and relied on him. If anything happened to Dakota, what would Kenna do? Who would raise her? While she might be taken in by Adelaide and company, that was the last thing he wanted.

So, he had to be smart about it, taking as many precautions as possible. And generally, he was the most dangerous person in the room, and the only one armed with real weapons.

“You’re not gonna get any judgment outta me even if it is,” Gage said softly, laying back. “You should have fun.”

“See you in the morning.”