Shattered Glass (17 page)

“When are you going to let me kiss you?” I finally asked.

He sucked at his fork and then set it down. That was on purpose, right? That fucking had to be on purpose. “When you beg for my dick in your ass,” he said a little too loudly.

Plates clinked and a few gasps resounded in the distance, and I
blushed
. “
That
was on purpose,” I accused and smiled apologetically at the old couple gaping at us from a nearby table.

Change of subject was in order. “Anyway, how’d you know I was a closet case?”

Wiping his lips with his napkin, he set it beside his cleaned plate. Both his brows and lips were lifted in amusement. “Have you ever done anything with a guy?” I shook my head and sat back.

“Guys don’t need to woo or date,” he said. “Most, anyway.

We fuck. We suck. We sometimes become boyfriends afterwards. There’s no courtship. Not always true, but for the most part.” He shrugged.

“You don’t think that you have a jaded opinion because you were— of what you…did?”

“Because I was a whore you mean? It’s not that much of a stigma in the gay community, Austin.” I longed to be the glass of water he lifted to his mouth.

“You seemed offended when I called you one,” I pointed out.

“Because,” he stared through the couple at the next table, then back to me. “Because of the way you said it.” “Maybe I just don’t like thinking of you with other men.” “Or maybe you classify hustlers as worthless,” he threw back.

“Maybe I did,” I agreed, emphasizing the past tense.

He smiled and took another sip of water, standing up as he did so. “I have to go take a piss,” he announced. The web of his hand blurrily displayed through the glass as he set it down. I locked on to the blue stain—that strange tattoo. Same place, almost the same design.

The first one I had seen was a little less defined, and reminded me of amateur tattoos done with a Bic pen and mom’s sewing needle. Peter’s tat was more refined than Jesse’s, but they were identical in lettering: “ISS”. With the s’s overlapping.

A continuous mental image looped in my mind: Jesse sliding

his money onto the table the last time I saw him. I didn’t pay much attention to the tattoo back then, just thought it was weird. I did remember pondering where he got twenty bucks to toss down, so the moment stood out. Dave and I had made a pact. After months of seeing the money we gave him funneled up his nose or down his throat, we decided: no cash. We’d pay his rent, food, anything else, but nothing he could use to buy drugs or booze. Now I knew what we had done—what we had forced Jesse into. He had been whoring himself out. Ten years later, I finally understood a little of what our friend had been reduced to, and maybe, why he gave up.

As Peter walked away, I could almost feel the hiss in my chest releasing thirteen years of oppression. A dawning of understanding washed over me. Peter was the Jesse that could have been. And some piece of me believed the universe gave me a do-over.

Not only was I an asshole for reasoning like that, but it was dangerous. Peter was dangerous.

I didn’t care. This was it. My heart pounding in my chest, I debated on whether to follow him or sit—or run. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. Then I got up, leaving a fifty on the table.

Austin’s Epic Intuition Fail

I felt like James Bond or Maxwell Smart— Inspector Clouseau?

— furtively glancing left and right before following Peter into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” he asked, briefly glancing at the hand I used to pull him into a stall. I raised my brows and tugged his

belt loose once we were inside, door closed. “I thought it was obvious?”

“You want to have sex in a men’s bathroom?” “Huh? You said…Wasn’t it a signal? Your coming in here? I read online that gay men did that.”

“Yah, in the 1960’s, Austin. Or at a Republican National Convention. Not on the first date in the bathroom of a restaurant. In
this
century.” Oh. Oh, well, while I still had the nerve. I sank to my knees and took a steadying breath and grinned up at him. “As long as we’re here.”

“You want your
first
sexual experience with a guy to be in the men’s bathroom, trying to give your
first
blow job?” He was more amused than astonished, but both emotions were warring for his eyebrows which dipped forward and then lifted.

‘You said you didn’t kiss. I don’t know. You make me ridiculous. I turn into an impulsive teenager whenever I’m around you.”

He burst out laughing, combing a hand through my hair. “Just relax. It can’t be more nerve-wracking than the first time with a girl, right?”

“I was never nervous with women,” I answered, watching him unbuckle the belt that I’d abandoned. I chewed my lip nervously, pulling pieces of skin off and reaching up to grab hold of his hips. That seemed…I just wanted it over with. Band-Aid ripped off. Gay virginity out the window. Sexual tension eased.

“I just didn’t care what they thought. They were a means to—whoa, hello. That’s a penis.”

“That’s a really shitty attitude toward women,” he said

quietly, thumb trailing down my cheek.

I knew what he was doing, trying to distract me from my nervous blathering, but all it managed to do was perturb me.

“Are you really going to lecture me with your dick waving in front of my mouth?”

Outside the stall, a throat cleared. I stood up quickly as footsteps clicked on the tile and the stall door next to us closed.

Peter was holding back laughter so hard his chest shook. “You have no shame,” I told him, and that was when he grabbed my tie and pulled me into a kiss. A kaleidoscope of colors to danced behind my lids.

FUCK!

I didn’t register the lip ring at first, or his bared cock pressed against me, there were too many neurons firing in my brain, too many emotions and reactions zipping through my body.

If the guy in the stall next to us made another sound, I didn’t hear it through the blood pounding in my ears. After minutes of his lips pulling and sucking on mine, until my mouth was raw, things slowly came into focus, like eyes adjusting to a dark room; only it was my senses that were becoming attuned.

I marveled that his hair was coarse, not soft as I had imagined it to be. My fingers twisted in the thick strands, locking in place as I held him close. Warmth emanated from his chest as it bumped against mine. He exhaled through his nose and his breath butterflied across my cheek.

Cinnamon and the scent of tobacco invaded my nostrils. He tasted mildly of garlic. That shouldn’t taste good, I thought. But it did. And then I stopped thinking as his teeth grazed my

bottom lip.

I parted my lips to sigh, and he used the opportunity to push me against the wall and invade my mouth with his tongue, cupping my jaw between his palms. I had kissed before, but this wasn’t kissing—this was
being
kissed. No control on my part and only half aware of the whimper I made as he pulled away.

“Your phone’s ringing.”

“Oh,” I said dumbly. The heat of his fingers soaked through my shirt as they moved up my sides. I fumbled for the phone in my pocket, mesmerized by his mouth—until he dipped forward.

Closing my eyes, I offered my neck to his lips and teeth.

“Glass,” I answered huskily.

“Oh, Christ. I don’t want to know,” Luis said. The phone beeped when I dropped it. I scrabbled to catch it, fingers pressing on the buttons before I brought it to my ear again.

“I—Uh. What?” I had to stifle a moan as Peter bit the slope of my neck that led to my shoulder and then stepped back and began tucking in and zipping up.

“I’m standing over Alvarado’s corpse.” Instantly, I sobered. “Shit. When?”

“Coroner is checking into it. Shot in the back of the head. No murder weapon found. No weapons here of any kind. Unless the killer took it with him, this won’t be a self-defense case.” “Hang on,” I said, watching Peter adjust his clothes. “Peter, does Iss have a gun?”

“Iss didn’t like guns,” Peter replied.
Didn’t
? Iss
didn’t
like guns?

Realizing his mistake the moment the words are out, slowly he raised his eyes to meet mine. “It’s not what you think.”

Fuck!

Austin Glass-Fuckup of the Year

“It’s not what you think,” Peter said, but my heart had already seemed to stop. My fist was tight enough that I worried the phone would crack and my breathing was so labored, it was half a minute before I could speak.

“Did you get that?” I asked Luis, impressed by how calm I sounded.

“Yeah, I got it. It’s not enough to bring him in.” Peter began reaching into his pocket. I stopped his hands with a gentle touch. “I need you to keep your hands where I can see them.”

Luis was saying something, but I was too focused on Peter, whose fingers were hovering at the waistband of his jeans. My heart was pounding, had been the whole time, and I was just now aware of the skips in its beating.

“I just need to call Cai, okay? That’s all.” I kept the phone connected, so Luis could hear in case something happened, but I placed it on the toilet paper dispenser. Shaking with fear and anger, I raised both hands in what I intended as a calming gesture, keeping my face placid.

“Peter, I’m going to take you down if you reach for your pocket.”

“Am I under arrest?” His jaw clenched and vibrated, genuine dread shining in his eyes.

”Not yet.” Using the past tense when speaking about someone wasn’t probable cause. And it wasn’t even him saying ‘didn’t’ instead of doesn’t. It was the slow way his eyes came up to mine. That was when I realized his mistake wasn’t just an accident of phrasing. Thus far, nothing connected Peter directly.

It was only that one word that could be explained away by even the most incompetent of lawyers. I didn’t have reasonable suspicion. Suspicion, yes, but not the type that would convince a judge.

Watching his lips part to expel a jagged breath, I recalled how good they felt when he pressed them against my skin. My throat constricted, a ball of humiliation pushing upwards from my stomach. My lips still stung from his kiss. The attraction still hovering between us made me sick. All his lies, his manipulations, the hostility, the teasing, and I still wanted him.

“Then, I’m free to go?” He glanced at my cell.

I rapidly searched my memory for any reason to arrest him that didn’t involve me outing myself as his potential lover, or worse still—as someone who bought his services. Something minor would work. However, my only thought was that twenty minutes ago I finally figured out why I was so obsessed with this man; was finally able to view my attraction to him objectively.

Two Epiphanies in Less Than An Hour. I’m On A Roll.

Staring at Peter’s defiant gaze, I still felt the impulse to protect him, but my new found clarity was enough to stifle those urges.

I snatched up my phone off the dispenser. “Tell me there’s a witness.” Who didn’t see Peter or anyone like him.

“Unconfirmed. We’re still canvasing,” Luis answered. “But there’s a tentative time of death. Neighbor thought he heard the gunshot between eleven and eleven thirty last night. M.E. says that’s consistent with his findings. Body’s in rigor, but the heat is playing with body temp. He can’t confirm better than ‘between eight and thirty-six hours’.” “Naturally, the neighbors called 911,” I said sardonically.

“One,” Luis replied with a combination cough/laugh. One person had called. That narrowed time of death only if the neighbor could definitively identify the sound as a gunshot. I could ask Peter for an alibi for the last thirty-six hours, and he could mention to me that I was part of his answer. Or, and this was more likely, he’d lawyer up. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if I could account for my own whereabouts for the last thirty-six hours. No question I asked him would make things better right now.

“Let him walk. We can bring him in later if we get something

more from forensics,” Luis said. I murmured my agreement and hung up.

“You’re free to go,” I told Peter reluctantly.

Nearly a week had gone by since I witnessed Peter’s current expression, that sad little smile while he stared at the floor. I now saw it as an aim to draw my sympathy. He pulled the door to the stall open, brushing his hand against mine in the process.

It was enough to send my blood rocketing through my body again, but I gave nothing of my reaction away, not even acknowledgment of the touch.

“It’s a little ironic that today I gave up fighting what’s between us,” he said quietly.

I met his eyes, my face a careful mask, while his seemed twisted in melancholy. “That I chose today to start, you mean?” The smallest of nods was my answer, and then he turned to leave.

“That’s not irony. That’s fate.” When he exited the stall, I pressed the back of my head against the wall, following his movement with my eyes. “Did you do it, Peter?” He stopped, hand on the door, didn’t turn around when he answered, “Who’s asking? My date? Or the cop?” To me they were the same. Though, not lately, I had to admit. Lately, my title of ‘cop’ left a lot to be desired. “One in the same, Peter. The truth shouldn’t change based on the questioner.”