Fukkk...

I was working on Taking Nicky, today, when things kept cropping up to distract me. Things dealing with my late brother's apartment, phone, and what to do with a lot of his things, as well as getting the hospital bed he was using collected, along with other items. 

So I'd just start getting into where the story wants to go...and have to break away. Once...twice...several times. Till I lost the plot. I'll see what I can do, tomorrow. It was going in an interesting direction...but one that may be too careful on my part. I do not want this to be a sacred piece. I want it cold and hard. 

This is what I did do...

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Instagram was my friend, here. Turned out Smoke’s actual name is Stephen Marlon Kratorski. My bet is he really got his nickname from his initials. He’d done the pro-sk8ter circuit and made it to the top ten. Been at it since he was eleven. Fifteen years. Now he was just a weekender and made his living as general manager of a skateboard manufacturer in Culver City. 

An image from a few weeks ago showed he’d beefed up a little, which actually looked really good on him. He still had those lovely pecs, partially hidden by a cut-out t-shirt, and fine legs, made even lovelier by cargo shorts that were a size too small for him, now.

His face filled in some, but with scruff on it he was almost beautiful...especially now that I got a good look at his eyes and mouth. He’d also added another tattoo to his left arm...a sk8ter boy on his sled, probably him from an earlier time.

The next thing I found was podcasts he was doing on YouTube and other platforms about making specialty skateboards. The why this way was better than that, sort of thing...and he had a lovely screen presence. Open and warm and a bit jokey, with a smile that promised heaven. 

During those clips, he wore an old LA Rams cap, backward, holding his longish russet hair out of his face. I had to check the previous video and saw in that his hair was a plain brown, so he'd colored it. Or washed it. Whichever. I was close to falling in more than lust for him and his best buddy looks, but also love. 

Which would make him a serious rival to my need for sleek little Nicky. 

There was very little about his wife and kids on the web; just that they were part of his life. I got more info about his current career. Seems one of the cable networks was bringing him on board as another of their reality shows. Which I could see happening...

So long as no one connected him to the molestation clips I’d seen. Thing about those was, enough of his face was hidden by the blindfold and gag, and his body was different enough, so that he had plausible deniability. And there was also the additional tattoo...and it looked like he’d altered the one he already had. With Georgie dead and the documents trashed...at least, I think they were trashed...then he was safe.

If not? Well...we'll just have to see.

So I decided the first thing I needed to do was find out what happened to Georgie's paperwork, and Ben and Liam were the ones to focus on.