Payback (16 page)

At that, he barked out a laugh. “Don’t be snide, Tyler.
I’m
not the one who fell off the porch.”

I laughed at that, and his face brightened. He tapped his cheek. “You still have a scab where you cut yourself, but it looks like it’s healing nicely.”

It was my turn to blush. I always blush when I’m caught in a lie. Spence used to find that immensely amusing. “Yes. It’s fine now. Clumsy of me. Stupid too.”
If it had actually happened that would have been true.
I touched the scab with my fingertip, and the second I did I remembered everything that happened on the trolley. Every word spoken. Every threat made by my attacker. The feel of his knife against my skin. The stench of his unwashed cock as he waved it in front of my face. Even the opening of the rose in the man’s throat when my bullet tore through it and the exhilaration I felt when I watched it happen. I took a sip of beer, trying to dislodge that last memory. It made me more uncomfortable than I already was, as if the policeman sitting across from me could actually see the images in my head.

Chris eyed me closely, but his eyes were warm, not suspicious. He leaned in so he wouldn’t have to yell over the noise in the bar. “How are you doing, Tyler?”

“How are
you
doing?” I countered, not sure why I felt the need to inflict pain, but I did. “Found any suspects yet?”

He blinked at the anger in my voice. His jaw tightened. “I’m sorry. No. But please don’t give up on us yet. We’re still working the clues. We’re still doing the best we can.”

I was ashamed of myself for taking my sudden surge of anger out on him, but I couldn’t seem to shut myself up. “I’ll tell Spence. He’ll be thrilled to hear it.”

And the moment the words were out of my mouth, I deflated. The anger simply… sloughed away. I felt like an ass. I reached out my hand and clutched Chris’s arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I—I don’t know why the fuck I said it. Please… just… forgive me.”

His hand covered mine, holding my fingers in place on his skin. His skin was hot, his arm hair bristly against my palm. I was stunned to feel my cock move in my trousers. A surge of hunger trammeled through me. Hunger for the man across from me. Hunger to have him naked in my bed. In my arms. It had been so long since I had been with Spence, with
anyone
. I was starving for the touch and taste of another man. But still….

I pulled my hand away and he let it go, but I could see the hurt my words had caused him. I could see it in his eyes.

When he spoke, he kept his voice so soft it was barely audible. “Tyler, I can’t begin to know what you’re going through. I think I can, but maybe, well, maybe I just can’t. I see survivors every day. I hear their stories. I try to empathize. I try to help. But every case is different. Sometimes things just don’t work out. The clues don’t come in. Those are the times I feel the worst. But we aren’t at that point with your case yet, Tyler. Please don’t think we are. I’ve not given up. I don’t want you to give up either.”

I drained my glass and swiveled in my chair to catch the waitress’s eye. I emulated Chris and motioned for two more brews. The waitress nodded and hustled off to fetch them.

I turned back to Chris. Before I spoke, I rubbed my face, raked my fingers through my hair, looked everywhere but directly at him, then finally I settled my eyes on his.

I kept my voice gentle. I could see I had already done enough damage to the poor guy. I didn’t want to hurt him any more. “Why did you really ask me here, Chris? What is it you want from me?”

The waitress came with our beers. I waved away Chris’s offer to pay and took care of it myself. I sucked the cool froth from my glass and focused every ounce of my attention on the man across from me. “Do you do this with all your cases? Or am I special?”

He didn’t hesitate. “You’re special.” And he left it at that. Two simple words.

I watched him, waiting for more. Waiting for an explanation. But none was offered. He simply sat there staring back at me.

And slowly the explanation presented itself without any help from him.

I struggled to find my voice. Finally, I got the words out. “I’m not ready for… anything.”

“I’m not asking for anything,” he said calmly. “I just thought you needed to get out of the house. And I—well, shit, Tyler, I enjoy being with you. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

I stared at him, soaking in his words. “You enjoy being with me.”

His cheeks reddened. “Yes.”

I considered that. “Isn’t this like a conflict of interest? You’re working my case. Should we be socializing at all? Doesn’t the police department have rules about that sort of thing?”

He rested his elbows on the table and tapped his fingers on the tabletop while he readied his response. I could see his mind working, could see him trying to figure out exactly how to explain it to me. And maybe even to himself.

“You’re not one of the bad guys, Tyler. You’re a victim. I suppose it’s not the smartest thing in the world for me to become friends with you, but it’s not like it’s illegal or anything. If you were a perp, it would be a different story. But you’re not.”

The face of the man on the trolley flashed inside my head, but I shoved it back into the shadows where it belonged. I focused on the living face in front of me. The clean lines of Detective Martin’s jawline. His eager, bright eyes staring back at me. The long dark lashes surrounding them.

I got my words out with a minimum of fuss. “You’re gay, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question and he didn’t treat it as one.

“Yes,” he said. “Does that make a difference?”

“Are you involved with anybody?”

He ducked his head and studied my face. His honey eyes were clear and penetrating. I could see the muscles working in his jaw. “I wouldn’t be here if I were, Tyler.”

“I guess I knew that,” I said meekly.

“Good,” he said as a small smile softened his mouth. “At least you know that much about me.”

We each sipped our beers, me trying to figure out what to say, him waiting to see what it would be. When his foot accidentally bumped mine beneath the table, he quickly pulled it back and muttered, “Sorry.”

“Chris,” I said. “I’m not ready for anything.”

“You said that already, Tyler.”

“You say my name a lot.”

He ran his hand over his short hair, his long fingers seeming to memorize the unfamiliar terrain of his newly shorn head while he searched for the right words. When he found them, my heart gave a tiny lurch, as if someone had suddenly nudged it toward the center of my body.

“I like saying your name, Tyler. I like the sound of it. I like the way my lips move when I speak it. I like the way your eyes open up a little wider every time you hear it. It’s a great name. Why shouldn’t I say it?”

His words made me long for happier times. Times with love in them. Times with romance and cooing words spoken gently in the dark. I gazed down at my beer as I tried to fight back another blush. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

He laid his head to the side, watching me. He looked suddenly confused. “Good at what?”

He doesn’t know
.
He honestly doesn’t know.

“Never mind,” I said.

While I grappled with the way the evening was going, Chris reached across the table and laid his hand over mine. He obviously didn’t care what anybody at any of the surrounding tables thought about two guys holding hands, and frankly, neither did I. And in truth, this was San Diego. Very few people
would
care. He did look intensely worried about how
I
would respond to his taking my hand, though, but even that wasn’t enough to make him pull away.

“I really am not asking for anything,
Tyler
.” We both offered up a tiny smile when he stressed the two syllables of my name for my benefit. “You are going through something I can barely imagine. And I want to help you get through it. And while I’m helping you get through it, I want to get to know you. I want you to get to know me. I like being with you and I hate to say this, but I don’t like many people. Just give me a chance. Please. Having another friend isn’t going to kill you, is it?”

“I don’t want a trick,” I said. “I don’t want a romance.”

Chris jokingly narrowed his eyes. “Did you hear me ask for that?”

“No.”

His hand was still on mine, and suddenly we both became aware of it. We each looked down at my hand snuggled inside his. His thumb came out of the clasp and stroked my wrist. A shudder went through my body. A fire lit his eyes as if he knew.

“Tyler,” he said. “Let me just get to know you. Let yourself get to know me. It’s not a bad thing, having friends, you know. Sometimes when the world really climbs on your back and beats you into the mud, a good friend is the only thing that can get you through it.”

His thumb continued to stroke my wrist, his hand still covered mine. My fingers nestled warmly against his palm. The heat of his skin made my cock move again. I fought the urge to close my eyes and enjoy the sensation.

I tore my eyes from our hands and lifted them to Chris’s face. “All right,” I said. “Friends.”

A smile split his face. His teeth flashed in the dim bar light, and he gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

“Great,” he said. “So where would you like to have dinner?”

Truth

I
N
THE
days that followed, Chris’s consideration and dogged persistence continued to touch me. At his prodding, I began to see past my own problems and reconnect with the world a bit. After he convinced me to open up the lines of communication between myself and the outside world—in other words, plug in my goddamn phone—he telephoned often. He spoke of himself, his work, his family, but seldom my case. I knew his lack of progress in finding Spence’s killer was torturing him almost as much as it tortured me. He never called late, only during downtimes at work—when he was driving to a crime scene or when he had five slow minutes at his desk, which was seldom.

And I answered his calls. Every one of them. Often I barely spoke. I simply listened. Chris would rattle on and on about whatever he had called about, usually just little things, and when he started to wind down, the phone would go silent while he waited for my response, which often never came at all. When that happened, I would hear him sigh. But he never took me to task over my unresponsiveness. He merely let it go.

His kindness was bottomless. And apparently his patience as well.

While I wasn’t giving much back in our journey toward friendship, he never once gave up on me. And to tell the truth, I began to look forward to his calls. There was something about the mellow baritone of his voice, the calm way he worded his thoughts, the unerring sense of goodness he exuded, that seemed to ease my own pain. My own loneliness.

On a night when the memory of Spence’s lifeless body lying in the filth on that bathroom floor got to be too much and I had drunk too many beers trying to push those thoughts away, I broke the pattern and instigated a phone call myself. It was late at night. Well after midnight. Chris picked up on the second ring.

“Speak,” he said, obviously expecting the call to be business. After all, murderers don’t work on the clock. They aren’t restricted to an eight to five grind.

I closed my eyes as the mellow timbre of his voice worked its way through me like a drug. As always, it was accompanied by a considerable amount of guilt.

“It’s me,” I said, already unhappy I had made the call. “Are you asleep?”

If Chris was surprised to hear me on the other end of the line, it didn’t register in his voice. “No, Tyler. I’m not asleep. You okay?”

“I didn’t wake you?”

“No. And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter.”

An awkward silence began to drift in, pulling us apart. It was Chris who reached out to bring us back together. To reconnect. “It’s good to hear your voice,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”

“That’s a lie.”

In a calm, certain voice, he said, “Actually, no, it isn’t.”

Softly, I said, “Why? Why were you thinking about me?”

He coughed up a self-deprecating little chuckle. “Well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it.”

I said nothing because I could think of nothing to say. I tried to think back to why I had phoned to begin with. Was it really just to hear his voice? Could it be that simple? And that complicated?

“
Why
?” he asked. “Is that what you asked me, Tyler? Why was I thinking about you?”

“Y-yes,” I stammered.

His voice softened. I could sense him settling in with the phone to his ear. I heard the squeak of bedsprings. He was in bed.

“Tyler, I think you know why I was thinking about you. But there’s a more important question I’d like answered here.”

“What’s that?” I asked. I took another sip of beer. I would be hungover tomorrow, but I didn’t care. “What’s this big important question you want answered?”
Why was I being such a dick?

The silence from the other end of the line lasted too long. “Well?” I prodded, with a little more civility.

He cleared his throat. “I just wondered if you were thinking about
me
.”

I swallowed. The melancholy in his voice disturbed me. I closed my eyes again and remembered the feel of his hand on mine. The feel of his fingers stroking the back of my neck as we sat perched atop the fence at Doggie Park. I remembered the long line of his legs in those faded jeans he wore that night at the bar. The dark hair on his forearms. The buzz cut hair. The clean smell and look of him. His gentle manner. The assured way he did things.

“I guess I was,” I said softly. “Is that bad?”

“No, Tyler, it—”

“Does that make me a bad person, Chris? What do you think? Do you think I should be thinking about the detective in charge of finding my husband’s killer in that way? Do you?”

His words came out even softer than mine. “What way are we talking about, Tyler? What thoughts are you having?”