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Boots pounded on the ground behind him. Left turn. Then a right. Riddle’s heart slammed against his ribs. His legs ached. He spotted a shortcut between two buildings and sprinted towards it. Escape. He knew which street that led to. Riddle sucked in a breath and squeezed through. Slowly, he told himself. Move slowly and steadily. Snippets of shouts reached his ears.
“...is he?”
“Check…all…!”
Riddle heard movement and began to inch along faster. The opening to the next street was so close. Just a bit farther, just a bit faster. Boots echoed somewhere behind him. Riddle almost tripped over his own feet. He reached out to the corner, gripped the rough brick and pulled himself to escape.
Riddle was out! He stumbled, in a tizzy. Keep moving, he reminded himself. A left—quickly! The bakery was just at the end of the street. He staggered down the road. His feet hurt when he threw himself up the stairs and yanked the glass door open.
A jingle from the bell over the door alerted a few customers, who looked at Riddle curiously, as he stood on wobbly legs. He offered a small smile and they looked down politely, likely still keeping one ear up for signs of trouble. Riddle straightened his tie and calmed his breathing deliberately. He swept one of his side bangs behind his ear and approached the counter, attempting to seem like a regular customer who certainly never ran for his life before.
The man behind the counter looked him up and down nervously. “Trey’s not here.”
Riddle frowned. “Hello to you too.”
The man dropped his voice low. “I know why you’re here. Trey doesn’t want to see you.”
A slight stutter on the word ‘doesn’t.’ Eye contact wavering for a moment. They could have been nerves caused by knowing who Riddle was or, more likely, they could’ve been the signs of a liar. And Riddle knew that Trey would never say he didn’t want to see him. He dropped his voice to match the man’s. “We both know that’s not true.” A flinch. Naturally, Riddle was right.
“He’s not here right now,” Counter-man protested. He was anxiously flexing his fingers, eyes burning holes into the glass display case.
“He won’t be happy if you’ve been lying to him about me,” Riddle said, not bothering to play along with Counter-man’s retconned story. “Tell Trey I’m here, now,” Riddle’s voice rose fractionally as he snapped at Counter-man, “And I hold nothing against you.”
Counter-man stiffened, grimaced, and turned tail to inform Trey. Good. Typically, Riddle didn’t like to get people he cared about involved in his affairs, but Azul’s men would be there soon, doing rounds of the whole area. Riddle needed reliable cover and he wasn’t going to get that from anywhere other than someone’s house, as long as that house wasn’t his. Riddle knew that Trey wouldn’t sell him out. Plus, there was the added benefit of freshly made tarts, if time allowed it.
The door to the kitchen swung back and forth as Trey entered the room, wiping his hands on a striped, green towel. He smiled sheepishly at Riddle and reached up to adjust the large glasses perched on his large nose. They were thick and made his honey eyes look big, even though they were perpetually squinting due to his terrible eyesight.
The usual warmth that Riddle felt around Trey began to set in—in his stomach, spreading to his arms and legs, and climbing up his neck. Safety. “Hello, Trey. How do you do?”
Trey grinned, wide and shiny. “No need to be so formal. I’m well.” He shot a glance back towards the door. “Don’t mind James. He’s just…paranoid. Saw you stopping in a lot, did some research and listened to too many rumors. I’ll talk to him.” He motioned Riddle behind the counter and put a hand on Riddle’s back to direct him into the kitchen.
As the swinging doors opened, Riddle felt the warmth prickle his skin under his jacket. It bordered on uncomfortable in a familiar way. The air smelled sweet, of jam, fruit, and sugar. Not many people worked back there. Only Trey and his family. Riddle also saw Counter-man—dubbed James—watching him like a hawk. Riddle allowed himself to ignore this, settling into the safety of dishes clanging.
Trey opened the chestnut, wooden door that led to the upstairs apartment with one hand and ushered Riddle in with the other. Closing the door with a click, Trey turned to Riddle, brows furrowed seriously and a bit concerned. “What’s going on?”
Riddle shifted onto his left leg and chewed his lip. “I need to hide here. Just for a moment.” Trey opened his mouth, certainly going to say something about how he was worried and that Riddle needed to tell him everything. Trying to cut him off, Riddle added, “Some men will show up here and ask if you’ve seen me. Just tell them no and then let me know when they’re gone. I’ll be out of your hair in thirty minutes—at most.” He hoped that would be enough explanation. It, of course, wasn’t.
“Riddle…” Trey was using his one part exasperated, one part desperate voice. His forest eyebrows were even more pinched, if that was possible. Riddle shifted to his right leg. When Trey got like this, it was so hard to not tell him everything. Thankfully, he didn’t have to fight himself, because even though they couldn’t hear the jingling of the door, they could hear the loud, booted footsteps echoing through the patisserie.
Riddle stared over Trey’s shoulder at the door, as if he could see through it and into the next room. “That’s them.”
Trey looked between Riddle and the door, painfully unsure of what to do, before he thankfully decided that he could get his answers later. “Okay. You need to be quiet.” He glared, pointedly, at Riddle. “And stay here.”
Riddle tensed as the door clicked shut again. He sat down on the stairs behind him and jumped when they creaked under his weight. He wished that he could hear the conversation out there. What if those horrible men captured Trey, or pushed past him so they could check out the apartment? He just had to hope that Trey was a good enough liar. Riddle couldn’t think of a time Trey had openly lied about anything. He let that reassure him, because if Trey had lied, he didn’t know.
Time dripped by like molasses. Riddle found himself growing restless, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He didn’t hear the thudding of boots anymore, but Trey wasn’t anywhere in sight. Riddle worried a flap of skin on his lip with his teeth and tugged on it. The skin beneath stung and tasted of copper.
As Riddle was beginning to consider the back door as an escape route, the entrance to the stairwell creaked open and Trey slipped through. His body was racked with tension, which eased minutely when he spotted Riddle. “Good. You’re still here.”
“I wouldn’t disobey you,” Riddle said, cocking his head. Then he relented, “Unless you had been kidnapped, which I was beginning to suspect. What took so long?”
Trey fidgeted with his glasses. “They just took me outside for a minute. Nothing big.”
“What? Why?”
“To answer some questions that customers couldn’t hear.” Trey’s expression darkened—the sun dipping behind a cloud. He began to use his exasperated-desperate voice again. “Riddle…why didn’t you tell me?” Guilt flared in Riddle’s gut. This wasn’t fair. Of course Azul would tell Trey absolutely everything.
“...Tell you what?” Riddle knew what. They both did.
“Your criminal deals.” Trey’s mouth rounded out the words ‘criminal deals’ as if they were acts akin to murder.
“I didn’t want to put you in danger.” Riddle was proud of how his voice didn’t shrink, but less so about how he kept his eyes focused on his hands, which he was fiddling with in his lap.
“I’d rather be in danger,” Trey exclaimed. “I can protect you!”
“That’s sweet,” Riddle snapped, suddenly feeling offended and quite upset. “You don’t think I’m capable?”
“No, no,” Trey began to backtrack anxiously, “I just think I can help. What you’re doing is illegal and I don’t want to see you disappear—”
“Disappear? I’m finding people” Riddle stood up and looked Trey straight in his amber eyes. He saw him flinch and felt cruelly satisfied. “I’m the most accomplished detective in this city. I haven’t gotten involved in anything that I can’t handle.”
“You can’t know that!” Trey grabbed Riddle’s arms and clung to them as if he was going to be taken away right then and there. “Please. I’ll keep you safe.” Riddle jolted. Trey was so close. If he leaned in an inch, their bodies would touch. Riddle’s stomach began to flutter and the warm, safe heat that he usually felt around Trey began to travel up to his face.
No, Riddle told himself. Trey would not rest until he knew Riddle was safe and the only way he could know that for sure was if he got involved. But that wasn’t possible! Far too risky—Riddle promised himself that he wouldn’t let anyone else get dragged into his affairs. If Trey wouldn’t take no for an answer, he needed to be tricky. Riddle scrunched up his face in an attempt to look as torn as possible. “I…will you not let this go?”
“Absolutely not,” Trey said with a surprising amount of decisiveness for his character.
“Fine,” Riddle grumbled, seeming vexed. He took a deep breath. “Fine. We can talk about this more later. For now,” he paused and met Trey’s eyes, trying to appear tired, “can I rest here?”
Trey softened, gracing Riddle with a small, beautiful smile. “Of course. Would you like me to set up the guest bedroom?”
Relief streamed through Riddle’s worry. This was going to work. “Yes, please.” He stood on his tiptoes and kissed Trey on the cheek—a formality. And a way to keep Trey from thinking clearly. The man opposite him stood there dumbly and reached up to touch his cheek. His eyes slid from Riddle, to that spot on his face, and back again.
“Y-yeah, no problem.” Trey let Riddle gently nudge him towards the stairs, smiling dopily. He might as well have floated the rest of the way up, a pep in his step. Riddle felt bad, watching Trey turn the corner, humming a cheerful tune. As soon as he came back down, he’d find Riddle gone without a trace. It wasn’t fair that Riddle needed to do this in order to keep everyone he loved safe. Trey would be so upset with him, the next time they crossed paths—a problem for the future, he imagined.
As quietly and as quickly as a mouse, Riddle slipped out the back door. Thankfully, it didn’t have a bell. He shut it with a huff and tilted his head to look at the upper windows. Obviously, he couldn’t see Trey, but he could imagine him, enthusiastically making up a bed. Excited that he would finally know where Riddle was, every time he vanished for days or why he suddenly had a few more scrapes. He could imagine him crestfallen, when it dawned on him that Riddle had no intention of letting him in and that he was gone again. Riddle gripped the doorknob and almost twisted it. Then, he imagined Trey lying on the sidewalk, covering a bullet wound with blood stained hands, pale as the cream on a strawberry tart. His stomach twisted. Riddle stepped away from the door.
This was for the best.