Encore Encore by Charlie Cochrane Read Free Book Online Page B

sight. But Joshua had followed him before, unseen. Shawn would like to think that he’d developed a New Yorker’s healthy suspicion and an awareness of his surroundings. That someone had followed him, and he hadn’t known, made his skin crawl.
    He stood at the top of the steps, trembling. He hadn’t felt this scared since moving to New York. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go home. Even if Joshua had left, Shawn wouldn’t feel safe. All of a sudden the world was a raw and dangerous place that made him feel very small and vulnerable. He had nowhere to go to feel safe.
    No. There was one place. One person.
    Fuck it. He had a twenty in his wallet. He fl agged down a cab.
    When the driver asked him for an address, he gave Roscoe’s.
    ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
    “It’s probably nothing. I’m overreacting.” ENCORE! ENCORE! 41
    Lisa handed Shawn a chilled Coke can then sat beside him on her couch. “I don’t know. From what you’ve said, I’d be freaked.”
    Roscoe hadn’t answered Shawn’s call up from the building’s front door. Shawn didn’t have enough to get back home, couldn’t make himself go home anyway. Luckily, Lisa was home, and more than willing to let Shawn in.
    He loved her place. He had no idea what color her walls were because they were hidden behind scarves, tapestries, hangings and artwork. Artwork that was framed, artwork that defi ed frames.
    He could barely see her fl oors for all the colorful, mismatched rugs. Blankets, pillows and sheets draped the furniture in abundance in every clashing shade of the rainbow. Luckily, she had big windows, and she loved light, so there was ample air and illumination. Her kitchen was a hodgepodge of mismatched appliances and accessories. The only place in the entire apartment that was neat and effi cient was her desk, the resting home of her laptop and printer. She rarely worked there, of course, preferring to write with the laptop on her lap on the couch or bed, but she kept the desk neat and prim.
    He opened the Coke, sipped it, then busied himself with clearing a spot on the coffee table so he could set it down. At least, he was pretty sure that was a coffee table in front of him. “Like he said, he could have just jumped me in the shadows.” Okay, that’s not what he’d said but that had been the implication.
    She snorted, crossing her feet at the ankles in the cushioned mess behind him. The patchwork colors of her long skirt blended with the blankets beneath them. “True. But just the fact that he was there and that he’d followed you before makes him creepy.”
    “Yeah.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll talk to my boss. He knows how to handle this stuff.” He twisted toward her but didn’t quite look at her.
    “Can I stay here tonight?”

    42 Mykles ~ Much Ado
    She was silent long enough that he braved a look at her. Blue eyes were latched on him over a small, slight smile.
    “What?”
    “You want to stay with me ? I don’t think so.” He sighed, dropping his gaze. “Don’t.”
    “Don’t?”
    “Don’t read anything into this.”
    “Read anything into what, sweetie?”
    “Stop. You don’t play innocent well.”
    “I’m not even trying.” She poked him with a toe. “Did you stay with him last night?”
    He grabbed her ankle to still the poking. “Yes.”
    “Mmm hmmm.”
    He sighed.
    “We both know you came for Roscoe. Why deny it?” He picked up his can and slouched back in the couch, heedless that he now lay on her shins. “Fuck.”
    She chuckled, picking up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the table behind her. “Sounds like you did.”
    “We did.”
    “Was good?”
    “Was fabulous.”
    “Yum. So? He didn’t ask you to come back?”
    “No.”
    “He wants you, you know.”
    Shawn stared at the beams in her ceiling. Fake beams that supported nothing, there because she liked the look, and they supported various hanging odds and ends for her.
    The lighter fl ared and menthol laced