SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 108

Chapter One Hundred and Eight

It was like the world was at a standstill.

My hands trembled in my lap, limbs stiff and legs together as we stared each other down. The lines of age in his face had never been more apparent and I swore I saw streaks of grey and white in his dark hair. He didn't say anything for minutes, all he did was look at me with a cold, calculating, speculative expression.

A bead of sweat ran down the side of my neck beneath my hair as his dark eyes stared right into my own, as if daring me to blink.

"Aerin," Steven finally greeted, weathered finger tracing the table. "It's nice to see you decided to show up. I didn't expect you to have the guts to follow through."

I shivered at the layer of venom hiding behind his polite tone. In the stillness his angular features reminded me of a cobra waiting to strike, even moreso when he ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper goatee.

"I had no choice," I said simply, not moving a muscle. "This became a serious issue the moment you insinuated that you might tell people about me. You don't even realize what you're getting yourself into, Steven... you don't know what'll happen to you if you try to expose me."

The graceful arc of his digit turned into a claw as the veins in his wrinkled hands tensed. "Is that another threat, Aerin? Is that how you've made it all these years? Threatening others?"

I scowled but decided not to feed into his bullshit.

"What do you want from me?" I demanded, spreading my arms and letting them drop. "I'm here, aren't I? Why did you want me here? To set me up and expose me using the security cameras? By having a meeting right down the road from a large police station? What do you want?"

Steve leaned against the table; besides his hand, he seemed relaxed... or maybe it was condescending, I couldn't really tell. The man before me was a stranger, no longer the happy little kid I'd babysat for or even the optimistic young man who'd moved away years ago.

"What I want is for you to come clean," he said, slowly looking me up and down. "Tell me what happened with you and Uncle Will. I want the truth, the full truth, got it?"

I narrowed my eyes when his arm shifted beneath my vision range.

I nodded, acting like I was going to give in, but then I darted beneath the table and lunged at his legs, gripping his hand and jerking it out of his pocket to reveal that his phone was taking an audio recording. I snatched it out of his grasp even though he kneed me in the face over it and lunged backwards, scrambling out of the seat and holding it away from him.

"Hey! Give that back!" he snarled, lunging upright. "NOW!"

I stopped the recording and dropped his phone in my pocket with narrowed eyes.

"Not until we're done talking," I said, aggressively stepping forward rather than away like I instinctively wanted to, "and not until you empty your pockets so I'm sure you're not recording with anything else."

"You can't force me to do anything," he sneered, jabbing a finger in my face. "There's security cameras in here, remember? I could call the cops and tell them that you're a psycho who's trying to steal my phone and the surveillance footage will back it--"

"The cameras are off," I said simply, and his face changed, sinking into confusion, "and outside, there are three police officers who actually know what I am and also why I'm here."

"Bullshit," he said slowly, but I could see a shred of doubt in his eyes, a twinge of worry. "You're lying, the cameras--"

"My boyfriend has enough money to buy your whole fucking life a hundred times over," I said flatly, and his eyes popped open wide. "He bought out this restaurant just for this meeting. Didn't you notice the lack of staff? The lack of people aside from you? Denny's is a fast food chain restaurant, Steve... you should have realized things were off by how dead it is."