Jase gulped. He lowered his eyes and stared down at the floor. “I had to be sure. You don’t understand what I was going through. People are always trying to get to know me because of my money. I never know who I can trust.”
Everyone stopped moving, and the room went silent. Jase had just come out of the closet in front of a room full of cops, reporters, and photographers, and he couldn’t have cared less. The only thing he cared about was what Luis thought. He knew he’d made a mistake by not telling him the truth, and now he was determined to fix it.
Luis lifted his chin and look directly into Jase’s eyes. A single tear trickled down the right side of his face. “Ah well, I understand more than you think I do, Mr. Virgin Billionaire.
I’m not as dumb as I look.” Then he turned to the cop on his right and said, “Get me out of here.
I don’t care where you take me. Just get me away from this man as fast as you can. If you don’t, I think I’m going to throw up all over your shoes.”
When they heard he was going to throw up, they grabbed his arms and pulled him down a long hallway to the back end of the station. The reporters and photographers started shouting and taking photos of Jase, completely ignoring Luis. The cop behind the desk handed Jase a telephone and apologized for the way he’d been treated.
But Jase wasn’t listening to them. It felt as if his heart had fallen into his stomach, and his head was pounding so fast he felt dizzy. When he thought about the expression on Luis’s face as they dragged him away, he had to clench his fists to maintain his composure.
Chapter Seventeen
After Luis placed a fast call to Melvin, they carted him off to his jail cell. His head was down and his shoulders slumped. He shuffled his feet and tried hard to focus on where he was going. The other inmates jumped up from their beds and watched him walk by. Some shouted lewd comments about his ass and other body parts, some shook their fists in the air, and a few stuck their fingers in their mouths and whistled. The one thing they all did at the same time was smile. One guy with five o’clock shadow and a shaved head tried to stick his arm through the bars to grab his leg. But his bicep was too large and he couldn’t reach.
Luis didn’t look up once. He stared at his feet and frowned. Their deep, husky groans penetrated his ears; their individual voices came together to form a garbled cacophony that didn’t make sense. Though he should have been thinking about what was happening to him, the only thing he could think about was how Jase had deceived him.
In order to keep the other men quiet and to keep Luis safe, they put him in a remote cell all by himself. It smelled of urine and disinfectant and unwashed men. When they closed the door and locked him inside, he sat down on a narrow mattress and rested his back against the cold cinderblock wall. For the rest of the night, he remained in this position listening to the sound of his own breathing. The only other sounds he heard were either hollow metal clanks, or boots clicking against the tiled floor in the hall.
He didn’t sleep. He didn’t get up to use the toilet in the corner of the room once. If he sat still and didn’t touch anything he didn’t have to touch, he told himself he could remain clean. So he sat there and worried about his little dog all alone in his apartment. At least the dog was safe.
He’d left him a bowl of food and a full bowl of water before he’d gone out that night. If the dog made a mess in the apartment, Luis wouldn’t get mad at him.
When he stopped thinking about the dog, he starting thinking about the way Jase had been deceiving him. Luis would have been the first one to admit that he’d never been the best judge of character. He tended to trust people too much and he always believed what they told him. Derrick had been a classic example. But it occurred to him that in the past it never really mattered much, because he didn’t care whether or not people were lying to him. Most of the people who came into his life didn’t matter enough. And if they were lying, their lies had no influence or connection to his life.
With Jase, though, it had been different. Jase had mattered. He’d trusted Jase as much as he’d trusted his own uncle. To find out in a public place in front of photographers and reporters that Jase had been lying to him all that time, caused a lump in his throat that wouldn’t disappear.
His only consolation was his decision to go to Vancouver with Melvin. He’d had a few reservations about moving all that way to be with Melvin up until then. But now he knew he’d made the right decision. If he had listened to his heart instead of his head and gone with Jase, he might have ruined what little was left of his life.
In the morning, a guard opened his door and told him he was free to leave.
“I am?” Luis asked. He was feeling better: stronger and more determined than ever to change his life. He couldn’t wait to go back to his apartment for his dog and his luggage. He couldn’t wait to get on that plane and get as far away from New York as possible. Though he hadn’t been sure how he was going to get out of this mess, he had a feeling it would all work out.
When he’d called Melvin the night before and left a detailed voice message on Melvin’s phone, he’d known Melvin would make things right. Stable, dependable, honest Melvin had been his only consolation that night. Melvin would come to his rescue and everything would be all right again.
“You just have to fill out a few forms and you’re free to go,” the guard said. “All charges have been dropped.”
Luis lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. “Well, it’s about time,” he said. “There is absolutely no excuse for locking up an innocent person. I should sue.” He wasn’t serious. He just wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.
After he filled out the forms, he walked back to the main entrance and scanned the reception area for Melvin. Instead of finding good old Melvin rubbing his large stomach, he found Jase sitting at the end of a long row of gray vinyl chairs. He was sitting on the edge of the seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. For a moment, Luis stood still and wondered why Jase was there. He hadn’t expected to see him again after what had happened the night before.
When Jase finally looked up, he smiled and said, “I’ve been waiting for you.” He stood and walked toward him. “I have a car outside.” For some reason, he seemed more confident than before.
Luis clenched his fists and looked in Jase’s eyes. “Why are you here? Where’s Melvin?”