Free Bad Things by Varian Krylov Page B

one of the canvases. He was wetting his pants because he was in it. He’d let Max Ulianenko feed him a few treats and put a collar on him. And now he was cowering in anticipation of the inevitable kick. Or euthanasia. Probably by drowning in a burlap sack.
    Carson was more than another tap in the information keg, like Connie and Kayleigh. He was a person of interest, as they said in TV crime shows. Xavier started giving the bartender more of the attention he hadn’t realized he deserved. Mostly just pretending he was taking a load off at every break, parking his ass on a bar stool and being friendly. Because if Carson was in Max’s pocket, asking too many probing questions was probably going to raise a red flag.
     
     
     

     
     
     
    “ Sparkling water with ice and lemon?” Carson asked a few nights later when Xavier perched on a stool ten minutes before his shift started. The bartender was doing an even worse job than usual of meeting Xavier’s eyes.
    “ Make it a double shot of tequila.”
    Now Carson had to look, to see if he was kidding. Xavier gave him a teasing grin, and Carson almost smiled, just as Brian stomped over to say hello.
    “What the fuck is that shit?” Brian whisper-yelled, pointing to a big travel backpack and camera bag.
    “ Sorry, Brian. I tried to put it where the customers won’t see it.”
    “ Well congratulations on a shitty job. What’s it doing back there at all? Going backpacking through Europe when you finish your shift?”
    “ No.”
    “ Like I give a fuck. Put it in the break room.”
    “ Okay.”
    “ Got a slumber party planned?” Xavier asked after Brian left.
    Carson set his ice water on the bar. “I got kicked out of my apartment.”
    Well, well. What a pretty opportunity. “What? Today? All of a sudden? What happened?”
    Carson gave him a sheepish, joyless grin. “I guess a neighbor complained to the manager that I was smoking pot in my apartment.”
    Xavier sure as fuck hadn’t seen this coming. And he sure as fuck couldn’t at least take a crack at exploiting the potential. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?”
    “ Storage. It was fucking hell getting movers to come on five hours’ notice and pack everything up. Luckily it was a small place and I don’t have much stuff.”
    Xavier was barely listening. Trying to look like he was paying attention, he quickly inventoried the cluster of contradictions that might fuck him, if Carson mentioned them to Brian. His address was the most obvious inconsistency between reality, and the information he’d put in his application. But that he could blame on a typo. Just a missing number. And his last name? The mail went into a locked box.
    “So do you need a place to crash for a few days?”
    Poor guy. It looked like it almost killed him just looking Xavier in the eye. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
    “I don’t have a guest room, but you can sleep on my couch.”
    “ Seriously?”
    “ Yeah, of course.”
    He looked genuinely grateful. Almost moved. “God, that’s so nice of you. You hardly know me.”
    “Well, now we’ll get to know each other better.”
    Carson flashed a fleeting, awkward smile, eyes darting away from Xavier’s.
     
    After closing, when Carson had reconciled his register, he got his backpack and camera bag from the break room and followed Xavier out to the parking lot. “You want to map my address, or just follow me?”
    “Uh…actually, can I ride with you? My car’s in the shop.”
    “ Wow. Shitty week.”
    “ Seriously shitty week. Yep.”
    Xavier popped the trunk of his Impala, and Carson dropped his backpack inside, but hung on to his camera bag. Funny. Xavier’d thought he was going to degrees of deranged paranoia when he’d bought the fake plates from the same guy who’d sold him the identity. Now he grinned at his prescience.
    “I’ve been wondering if this was your ride. I don’t know shit about cars, but it’s gorgeous.” Carson seemed even more impressed when he got in and