Shattered Glass (25 page)

“Say it,” I warned, ‘and I’ll shove my foot up
your
ass!” “Kinky,” Peter murmured, not hiding his grin.

Dave took a swig of his drink, still staring at the screen. He hadn’t spared us a glance during that whole argument. “Have you got some sort of foot-in-ass fetish? Del’s ass and now Peter’s.”

“I think it’s just feet. He obsessed with me in slippers,” Peter said quietly, tapping something into his phone.

“Christ. I’d choose a lobotomy over being with either one of you right now.” I scrubbed a hand over my face.

“Can I log into my email account on that?” Peter asked, nodding at the laptop. “Darryl sent the accounting records.”

Uh—Help

Having downloaded both sets of records—one set from the computer Luis brought, and one set from Peter’s mail—I began perusing them while Peter and Dave chatted. And by ‘chatted’ I mean that “uh” littered conversation when one person had seen the other naked and was probably doing his utmost to not think about where the other guy’s dick had just been—namely in the his best friend’s ass. I could have corrected that assumption, but

I was too busy doing the this-isn’t-happening avoidance thing by staring at the computer screen and endeavoring to work.

At least three other detectives were probably slogging through the evidence on this case. Marco and Del were following the trail to their killer, while Luis and I were following it to our missing passport owners. It seemed the week and a half we’d been working on it, this case had tripled in value.

“I heard about your brother, Pete,” Dave said. “How’s he holding up?”

Peter shrugged. I read his intense concentration on the TV as he didn’t want to talk about it. I winced at his flat-eyed stare, identifying it as his prelude to sarcasm. “Great. They locked him up with a guy who lit his parents on fire and watched them scream while they tried to get out of the garage. It’s a great learning experience for Cai, who last month cried for two hours when a bird hit his window and died.” Dave stared for a beat, took a long gulp of his Guinness and turned to me, “So, you’re gay.”

Three fingers rubbing against my temple didn’t ease the pain that shot through my skull. I jabbed the ‘print’ button and went to retrieve the sheets from my office, not caring if Peter and Dave sat in awkward silence, or killed each other.

When I returned a half hour later with the print outs, Darryl was sitting in my spot, his skinny jeans-clad thigh pressing against Peter’s. What infuriated me most was not that Peter had invited someone to my house, or even that Darryl was sitting in my place. Nor was it that Peter was sitting on the sofa next to Darryl. What enraged me was my reaction to Darryl’s hand casually resting on Peter’s knee. The heat of my own anger

unbalanced me. It buzzed through my veins like a swarm of hungry red ants. My skin crawled with it. I had no right, no reason, to feel jealousy. I’d known him what, a week? We weren’t boyfriends. We hadn’t even fucked.

“Christ,” I muttered, shoving those feelings deep, deep,
deep down into the pockets of my soul. I determined to bury them further down than the memories of Jesse had been.

“Darryl,” I greeted, taking Peter’s old seat on the recliner. I tossed papers on the coffee table and shoved them across to Dave.

“Hello, pretty little detective.” Darryl smiled devilishly, green eyes managing innocence and sin as he stroked Peter’s thigh and stared at me. Peter, leaning over to take some of the paperwork, was either oblivious or indifferent to the touch. My eyes were fastened to Darryl’s fingers.

Before I could remember my gun was in Captain Ashanafi’s desk, Dave grabbed a few of the pages and, like Peter, began looking through them. “What are we looking for here?” he asked.

Grateful for the pull away from Darryl and Peter, I leaned forward and flipped my laptop so I could see it side by side with Luis’s. “Clues to who owns these businesses. Forensics is still —” Darryl’s fingers twitched up Peter’s thigh. My eye ticked.

“Why are you here?” I was too riveted by his hand touching Peter to give Darryl the glare he deserved. A dim voice in the back of my head said, ‘touching what’s mine’. I tried to smother, stuff and toss away the voice away.

“He brought me clothes for court,” Peter answered for him, brows drawn inward with confusion. He followed my gaze

down, eyes bouncing back up. I’d never seen him grin so quickly.

I tried to reason why that would require Darryl being here. In my house. When no explanation was delivered, I asked, “Why didn’t you go to him?”

“Isn’t it easier if we all drive there?” “All? All of who?” I asked, not wanting to hear the obvious answer.

“Us.” Peter swept a hand among Darryl, me and himself.

“Why would the three of us be going to listen to Cai’s bond hearing? I did my part.”

“Moral support?” Dave threw in with a blink of interest. I’d respond to that if I didn’t think he was being completely facetious.

Bastard.

“I can’t pay his bond,” Peter said quietly.

Darryl, throughout this back-and-forth exchange, stroked Peter’s thigh and glared at me. I smothered a possessive growl.

“That’s not my prob— Is there a reason you need to molest him?”

“It’s called being compassionate, prettyboy. Did you want me to just call him a whore and ignore that he’s hurting? Or maybe you’d like me to leave you alone with him so you can take advantage—”

“Stop it, Dare,” Peter said, not harshly enough to please me.

“His lawyer says bond is going be like a million dollars or more.

If he gets it at all. I can’t put up the restaurant as collateral because it’s going to be under investigation now. Our house isn’t worth more than a hundred thousand, if that.”

“Are you asking me, or is this another tit for tat?” I could see his wheels whirring, trying to come up with the answer that would play me best. Would he beg? Offer himself ?

Try and seduce me again? Was anything he said real? Never mind. Those were all irrelevant. What was relevant was that Peter Dyachenko had me at a smile.

“I’ll pay you back,” he pledged with a face so steeped in earnestness, I almost believed him.

“How? Don’t answer that.” Whoring himself out if I had to guess. If I was jealous of Darryl’s hand, the idea of Peter being with anyone else was a physical weight on my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.

But I had no right. Zero right. Nada. Nil. Neither the justification, nor a reason to be possessive. Of all the feelings I had for Peter—lust, warmth, protectiveness, anger, frustration—jealousy was the most confounding. And it had to go.

“You’re a dickhead with a badge, prettyboy,” Darryl snarled.

“He—” Peter’s hand cut him off with a gentle squeeze.

“It doesn’t matter how. I’ll sign whatever papers you need.” The sickest part of me—the one that worried about Peter’s HIV status when hearing about him being raped, the one that said I had a right to his body because of what he put me through, the rotten, evil section of my soul that said Peter was mine—that was the portion of my mind that slithered up to my ear and hissed the venomously seductive, ‘Imagine the ways he could pay it back’. “Okay,” I said, ignoring the devil inside, ”For starters, how about you stop lying to me.” Dave continued his quiet watchfulness, but the shake of his head was reproach enough. He thought I was an idiot. He wasn’t

wrong.

“Hear that, Rabbit? He wants the whole truth. How’s this for truth, prettyboy. Peter doesn’t even like boys.” ”This is like the Desperate Houseboys of Denver,” my best friend quipped, looking from my stunned face to Peter’s guilty head drop, to Darryl’s satisfied smirk. Dave got up and went into the kitchen. I vowed that if I heard corn popping, I was going to bludgeon him with my fireplace poker.

“He has a pair of come-stained pants in the bedroom that argue for the prosecution,” I said flippantly. I wasn’t buying Darryl’s taunts, but Peter wasn’t offering any rebuttal. If he wasn’t at least bisexual, then I felt completely used.

“Darryl, would you stop, please?” I knew that pleading look in Peter’s eye. He needed for Darryl not to alienate his golden goose.

“Why? So he can treat you like a whore? He calls you one often enough. Can’t you see how he’ll want to get paid?” He gripped Peter’s arm, pulling him to the front door. I got up to stop them—or shut the door behind them. “Come on. We’ll get the money some other way. Cai wouldn’t want you to take it from him.”

I couldn’t argue with Darryl’s logic. Or fault it. He was doing what someone who truly cared about Peter would do. Stop letting him sacrifice everything for Cai. I sighed and considered committing myself to a sanitarium. “You don’t have to pay me back. Get your clothes on, and we’ll go.” Peter’s lips hinted at a smile. Darryl dropped his hand, releasing Peter who stood by the entryway. Darryl was still dubious, and his thin shoulders held the stiffness of self-righteousness, but he appeared less angry.

With relief, I propped my ass on the back of the sofa as Peter headed to the guest room. Instead of passing, he stopped in front of me and cupped my jaw. My lips parted before he leaned in for the kiss. I fisted the edges of his shirt, yanking him closer, until his hips were warm under my hands, until the twinge of pain from my tilted position faded under the softness of his mouth, until I forgot all my objections and reasoning.

He pressed into me with an arch of his hips, supporting my neck with both hands as he controlled my mouth with his. Peter liked control, and who was I to complain when it felt like this? I had no breath, each exhale stolen by his teeth or tongue.

Whether it was that lack of oxygen, or just the dizzying feel and smell of him, my heart sped up. He eased back just enough to suck in my bottom lip briefly before pulling away. My mouth chased after him.

With a quiet, “Thank you,” Peter left me there, stupefied, shivering, and desperate.

And that asshole Dave looked on while sharing a bag of popcorn with Darryl.

My Ass is A No Fly Zone

After both Peter and I changed into more appropriate ‘court clothes’—which for him meant less holey jeans and a tucked in button-down shirt-the three of us piled into Arturo, leaving Dave to man the house. Or, as he said upon our leaving, “Gonna watch ESPN without a wife and four kids drowning out the game and changing the channel to Nickelodeon.” We were driving in silence until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What did he mean you don’t even like boys?” Darryl was smirking in the back seat. Peter sat in front, wearing his impenetrable gaze, which I was beginning to understand meant that he was upset or sad.

“It means he likes T with his A. He prefers ladypenis over the real thing. Gay for pay. Norman Normal. He’s a breeder. Het-er-oh-sexy,” he mimed sign language.

“Darryl,” Peter sighed long-sufferingly. “Would you please shut up?”

Gay for pay? How did that explain Alvarado. For that matter, how did it explain Darryl. “Is he on medication?” “Don’t encourage him with the option of legal drugs.” “You’re not contradicting him.”

Peter licked his lips, and my heart sank in my body before rebounding with a much less vibrant thump. “He’s…right.” “And you’re…straight?”

“I’m okay with men. Maybe I’m partially gay? I don’t know. I don’t label it. I like both. But, gun to my head, I prefer women.” “Then—”

“I prefer you overall.” Peter grinned. My heart rate exceeded the speed of sound.

In the back, Darryl scoffed loudly then, maturely, made a gagging sound. “He couldn’t find his prostate with his head firmly up his ass. Seriously, Rabbit, what the fuck?” “I would just like to throw out there that we can all stop talking about putting things up my ass. No fly zone. Do not enter. No parking.”

Peter’s smile made me squirm in my seat and resume silence for the rest of the trip to the courthouse.

What’s That You Say?

Angelica met us on the front steps of the building after I texted her. I expected Peter’s piercings to set off the metal detector, but surprisingly it remained mute. I just then noticed he wasn’t wearing his lip or eyebrow ring, and obviously he’d taken out his other piercings for this. Such random maturity from him mystified me.

On our way through security, Angelica briefed us. “The Feds are here,” she said, throwing her soft leather briefcase onto the scanning belt.

I tossed my wallet and keys into a tub, digging in my pockets for change. “They know.”

“They know,” she agreed with a firm nod, not losing pace as she grabbed her case and clacked down the marble hall. Neither of us looked back at Darryl and Peter, but the patter of jogging feet told me they were behind us.

“What’s that mean for bond?”

“Depends on if the D.A. decides to hold back today and let the feds handle their case first. I doubt it. Big case, lots of publicity. They’ll both be vying for his blood. I think Will (Will Schoemaker— the District Attorney) has the upper hand. He has a stronger and more relevant case.” “Just a witness that saw him hours earlier,” Peter argued vehemently.

“Time of death has moved. Coroner put it between ten and midnight. The neighbor that heard the shots is retracting his statement. He says it could have been later. Biggest problem now is that they know who they have. Will is trying him as an