So far, he’d only been successful in that no one noticed he’d dropped out of sight. He was still working on the drinking to death part.
Setting up a king-sized bed in a doorless guest room cordoned off from the warehouse’s open first floor had initially been for convenience as he healed from his injuries, but it’d been a long time since he gave a damn about the rest of the place. All of the furniture he picked out with the designer languished on the partial second floor, and the studio he’d had built into the farthest two docking bays sat as untouched as the cars in the bays next to it. He couldn’t remember the last time he climbed the sweeping metal staircase to go upstairs or walked along the ironwork upper deck that faced the Bay. There’d been talk before of creating a space on the roof for parties.
Before.
He’d wanted to hold barbeques and drink beer on that rooftop. It would have made life feel… real. Like he was finally real. Now the roof just held runoff from rain and fallen leaves from the oak and maple trees nearby.
The terrier mix chewed something out of his light blond hair and grinned a mouthful of teeth at him as Miki hunted for something to tug over his nakedness. The polished wooden floor was cold under Miki’s feet, and he cursed when the pounding began again.
“Fucking cut it out! I’m trying to find some clothes!” he shouted over the repeated hammering. A pair of gray cotton drawstring pants peeked out of the pile of laundry he’d done and dumped on the floor. He pulled them on and left them untied, letting the waistband slither down to hug his narrow hips.
Scraping his unruly hair out of his eyes, Miki stood up and immediately sat back down when his nerves screamed and twisted in pain. His mouth filled with blood and he swallowed it, tentatively poking at the shreds of his cheek where he bit through the soft flesh.
“Yeah, laugh it up, furball,” Miki growled at the dog. “Find me some socks, Dude.”
The terrier went back to chewing on his rump, and Miki grabbed the wooden cane lying next to the bed. The floor’s chill moved up from the bottom of his feet into his ankles, and he cursed to himself when his nipples pricked from the cold. The sharp, bitter pain in his leg grabbed him by the balls with each step he took, and after a few feet, the walk to the front door began to seem like a trek across Death Valley.
After shuffling from the guest room into the main area, he used as much of the back of his battered couch as he could to support him while he limped to the front door. The knocking renewed itself just as Miki reached the heavy wooden door. He undid the dead bolts, pulled it open, and stared at the very large, very angry man on his doorstep.
The man had been about to set off on another pounding spree but pulled himself up when the door swung open.
The stranger ate up the air around him. Taller than Miki’s near six feet, he looked like a brawler with wide shoulders and lean hips, possibly one that spent his time breaking smaller men in half just to suck out the marrow in their bones. His black hair looked as if he’d been pulling at it in frustration, sticking up at all angles around his temples. His rough, handsome face sported more than a day’s growth of scruff along his strong jaw, but the laugh lines at the edges of his blue eyes said he smiled more than frowned. Although, by the scowl on his face, it’d been an eternity since his sensual mouth had seen a grin.
“What?” Miki growled before the intruder on his doorstep could say something.
The cold morning struck him fully and he shivered, wishing he’d taken the time to hunt up a sweatshirt. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself to ward off the biting chill, but he couldn’t let go of the cane. Not without falling flat on his ass. His leg was too sore and twisted to support his weight, and there was no way in hell he was going to let go of his hold on the door. If the stranger decided to push his way in, he’d need the leverage to shove the heavy door in the man’s face.
But at least the pounding had stopped.
“You live here?” The man definitely had a better growl than Miki’s. His voice was darker and deeper. A faint lilt ghosted through the man’s words, and the roll of his anger warmed the whiskey tone of his voice to a burbling heat. “That dog yours?”
The man looming over him was huge, and if push came to shove, Miki knew he’d lose more than a few teeth if they got into it. Miki never backed down from a fight, even when he was bleeding out. He’d always been proud of giving as good as he got. Even crippled and half-asleep, that wasn’t going to change.
“What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want?” Miki spat back.
They exchanged glares, and the man took a deep breath, as if to calm his temper. From what Miki could see, it didn’t work.
“If you’re going to own a dog, you should keep it on a fucking leash.”
“I don’t own a dog,” Miki spat back.