Snafu

Fancy Man - Part 2

Cole swallowed down the urge to retch. He turned back and sat down.

"I know you must have earned it," Logan said, and Cole tilted his head to the side because he did not understand why that would make Logan look like he swallowed glass. "Gideon wanted to schedule an appointment for another session."

Cole's eyebrows shot up. Logan did not make appointments. He was not really running a prostitution ring, at least not in his mind. He was just providing extra services. Keeping a schedule of meetings between his dancers and their clients would make him face what he does a little too head-on. Better to keep the business spontaneous in dark corners and behind curtains. That way, if a dancer got caught, he could say he had nothing to do with it.

"He wants to see you again tomorrow night."

Cole's eyes flicked to the stacks of candy-heart-themed cocktail menus in their glittery gold frames, waiting to be put on every table tomorrow night. "Valentine's Day," he said flatly. No wonder Logan was so upset.

"Yes," Logan agreed. Cole barked out a laugh, then slapped his hand over his mouth when he got a warning look. He cleared his throat.

"How much money is he offering you?" Cole asked because he could not help himself. It had to be enough that Logan literally could not turn it down. Because he was the one that Cole always spent Valentine's Day with.

In the very beginning, Logan treated Cole like he was special. He would not pay off just any boy's debt, after all. It did not take Cole long to remove the rose-colored glasses and see the situation for what it was – coercion instead of a relationship. But Logan was so twisted inside that he really believed he and Cole were soulmates or something. He was taking care of Cole by tracking his debt in that evil book. To this day - even when he slept with other dancers - Cole was the old standby, and they always spent Valentine's Day together.

Gideon must have offered a truly psychotic amount of money for Logan to put aside his fantasy that he was Cole's romantic sugar daddy and face the reality that he was just Cole's pimp, using him to make money. And even if the money was too much to turn down, the sting to his pride had to hurt. Which was why Logan was glaring at Cole like it was all his fault.

"It doesn't matter," he gritted out.

Another laugh burst from between Cole's lips before he could help himself, but he did not stifle it this time, going for gold because this whole thing felt totally unreal. There was something fractured in his brain, and his words spilled out no matter how hard he tried to stop them. "It doesn't matter? Who are you...oh, that's right, you're fucking that new kid...Angel or whatever, right? You can just have him instead."

Logan was around the table in a flash, looming over Cole with one hand on the back of the chair and the other wrapped around his throat. Cole cowered back, arm flying out and knocking the ashtray off the table. But he stilled when Logan squeezed his throat just to let him know he could. "What's it to you who I fuck?"

Cole sneered up at him. Logan did not like that. He moved his hand to Cole's face, digging his fingers in and squishing his cheeks up. "I can fuck whoever I like whenever I like. And you will fuck whoever I want whenever I want. Capiche?"

Logan was the type of guy to say Capiche while menacing somebody.

"Just remember that you only live as good as you do because of my favor," he continued, like some high and mighty emperor. "I can take it all away. Some other boy will get all the attention and the money. So don't bore me with this tiresome attitude of yours. I'm tired of you whining."

Like Cole wanted attention or money. He was getting tired of the nasty fingernails digging into his cheeks, though, so he said, "Got it." It came out all squished because of how Logan was squinching his face up.