Shattered Glass (29 page)

“You cannot leave the house without prior authorization.

You cannot drink alcohol, partake in illegal substances or associate with known criminals. Do you understand, Mr.

Strakosha?”

Cai nodded, eyes wet and wide, pushing a soft, “Yessir,” from his lips.

Mick continued the explanation, tossing a not-unexpected sneer my way. If this is how a patrol officer treated me, my fellow detectives would be a nightmare to deal with. With that done, Mick took his leave. Not before throwing a last caustic glower at me. I, of course, smiled brightly and gave him two thumbs up, dropping the act as soon as the door shut behind him. I shifted my gaze to the small group of embracing houseguests, which now included Rosa.

My whole adult life had been about being a cop, and my entire future was wrapped around the FBI. I should be angry at Angelica for lying about Cai’s innocence. And at both her and Peter for beguiling me into ruining my career with a misrepresentation of the facts. At the same time, I was having

difficulty imagining this boy killing anyone. One look at Cai’s face, his innocent eyes and his childlike smile, and I couldn’t find the will to be angry at any of them, or even to fault him for killing Alvarado.

Not that I agreed with vigilantism, but there was a small part of me that sided with Cai. When the kid lifted his eyes, the gratitude set in their grey depths whispered the shameful fact that I actually approved of what he did.

Besides, I agreed to all of this. My choice. I had to stop blaming everyone else.

“Your paints and sketchbook and some clothes are in the guest room,” Peter said, pointing to my hallway.

“Enough. We will eat now. I cooked Bourek,” Rosa announced, pushing everyone towards the living room with waving hands. I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly ten in the evening. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten.

“What’s Bourek?”

“Heaven in puff pastry,” Darryl answered me. And no exaggeration here—he pranced to the kitchen to retrieve a pan from the oven.

Once everything was laid out on my coffee table—Bourek, pita bread, feta cheese salad—we sat down to a morose meal.

The only one who enthusiastically devoured his food was Cai.

His attention was single-mindedly focused on the Bourek, which resembled egg rolls made of puff pastry and were stuffed with, I hoped, beef or lamb. But hey, I braved menudo, right?

Though the Bourek tasted, as described, like heaven, dinner was a subdued affair. Everyone focused on Cai, watching for signs of a breakdown. Between Rosa’s disapproving tsks every

time someone had to lean over to put something from my coffee table onto their plate, and the continued silence, I grew uneasy half an hour into the meal. At the most recent ‘tsk’, I considered asking Rosa where she might find space for a dinner table, but the thought of her answer made my ass clench.

“You all decide your sleeping arrangements, I’m going to bed.

Dinner was fantastic. Thank you.” I stood up at the same time Rosa and Darryl did. Peter grabbed the leftovers and carried them in the kitchen. I was not going down the possessive road of ‘get your ass upstairs’.

Waiting until he made a return trip to the living room, I told him, “You’re welcome to join,” in lieu of begging.

“I’m going to stay up with Cai for a while,” he replied.

There it was again. Cai above all else. Silly to expect more after the short period we knew each other. From now on, I’d keep reminding myself just how short that period was.

Darryl and Rosa were busy loading my dishwasher despite already knowing I had a maid who came in to do just that. I didn’t miss their not-so-casual glances our way.

I said my goodnights and avoided two-stepping the climb upstairs by the smallest of restraint.

In my silent, lonely room, I stripped to boxer briefs and crawled into the cold sheets, trying not to conjure up images of Peter climbing into Darryl’s arms.

Whore-Colored Glasses

I woke up to Peter spooning me from behind, his teeth chattering in my ear, “Cold,” he whispered while he insinuated his legs between and over mine.

“Try clothes,” I said, feeling his body mold against me.

“You’re warm.”

“If you’re here about the oral exam, I’m playing hooky,” I said groggily.

He yawned in response, nuzzling the back of my neck. “Too tired to get off,” he murmured and settled into the embrace, hips pressed against my ass. His nudging hardon started a chorus of beats in my pulse. I stiffened—in more ways than one.

I wasn’t used to this Peter. The one who affectionately cuddled with me while he shuddered from my air conditioning.

“Good,” I lied. A brief flicker to my bedside clock read 3:22

a.m.

When his hand slipped down my chest, resting against my stomach, my brain twitched on as the slew of questions chugged through it. “I thought you were sleeping with Darryl?” “Are you telling me to go sleep with Darryl?” “I’m trying to figure out why you’re here.” “Because I like you and you invited me?” He rolled off me, and I twisted to watch him push a hand through his hair. In the diminished light, the strands resembled the shade of oxygenated blood. A sense of foreboding started a shiver at the base of my spine.

“You like me, Darryl, and who else?” “Are you asking me if you and me are exclusive?” “Definitely not. We barely know each other.” “I haven’t decided if I like your jealousy,” Peter mused.

“I’m not jealous over a guy I met a week ago.” Yes, I was.

Fucking ridiculously jealous over a guy I met a fucking, lousy-ass, goddamn week ago.

“My father married my mother three days after they met.” “Your father also killed and maimed people for a living. How about we just place him in the Not-To-Emulate pile?” “And obviously you can’t marry me,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Obviously.”

“It’s not legal in Colorado.”

“Which is of course the only reason I wouldn’t marry a whore I met a week ago, who plays me like the Philharmonic’s conductor, and alternates between hostile, affectionate, murderous, manipulative and horny. We’d have to put Sybil on the fucking license.”

“Who’s Sybil?”

“A woman with multiple person— you know what? That’s not the point.” I twisted full around to sigh at him.

“I thought we were discussing a question, not a point.” “Then answer the fucking question.”

“I did. You just had your whore-colored glasses on and didn’t believe me.”

“You like me.”

“Yes.”

“Or you feel obligated to me?”

The beat of silence was my answer.

“Okay. So what if I do?” He shrugged, pulling his knees up and leaning back on his hands. The sheet fell below his waist. So did my eyes.

Christ. “Because it’s just another way of whoring yourself!” I forced myself to search his face for a response. He lifted a shoulder.

“Again. So what? I’m attracted to you. You like me. You want me. That’s why you’re doing all of this, right?” What was I going to answer? That I wanted to save him from himself ? That I didn’t want what happened to Jesse, to happen to Peter? That Rhonda Pendergrass had given me a taste of what was to come, and that I was wrapping a chain around Peter if I had to, in order to keep him from becoming that.

“I’m just supposed to accept your obligatory fucks and call us even?”

“Maybe I’d be up here for a different reason if every word out of your mouth wasn’t ‘whore’?” He said it so calmly, just resting back on his hands, staring at the ceiling, breathing slowly, that it was hard to tell if he was angry. It took a little work on my part, studying the way his mouth trembled an in the dark, to consider maybe he was
hurt
.

“Yeah, well, I’m an asshole,” I said.

I could barely make out his flash of teeth. “Do you think you could quit analyzing things long enough that we can get some sleep?”

Curling over on my side, back to him, I waited to see if he’d take up his previous position. The bed dipped and moved as he shuffled down into it, but the only touch he offered was a hand slipping briefly over my hair. “How’s Cai doing?” I asked, swallowing a lump of emotion.

“I…wanted to warn you,” he hesitated.

“Warn me?” I twisted again to check over my shoulder. Were they disposing of a third body downstairs?

“He’s painting your living room as a thank you.” “Huh.” I frowned and thought about the work I’d seen in

their house. “My decorator might screech, but I’m okay with that.”

“Your decorator?
Seriously
? How did you
not
know you were gay?”

“Never mind, it’s not me that’s the asshole, it’s you.” I responded, punching my pillow and getting back to my sleeping position.

Peter snorted.

“Go to sleep, Detective.” I was already halfway there when he murmured those words.

Blow Job or Coffee?

The next time I awoke, the clock read 4:07 a.m. Peter’s nose was once again nuzzled into my neck, his hand casually strung over my hip. And he was snoring. Loudly. Or maybe it only seemed loud due to the proximity of his mouth to my ear. It was, I guessed, what caused my way-too-early wakeup call.

I felt guilty about doing so little yesterday with regards to the case—besides attempting to tank Del and Marco’s part of it. I needed to get some energy and get cracking. Luis would expect I had made some progress—suspended or not.

Mornings were never my thing. Coffee, a workout and random places to rest my face were required before I could fathom work. Sliding out of Peter’s embrace, I stumbled to the shower and started pushing myself to alertness.

Once I was scrubbed clean, teeth brushed and eyes halfway to opening, I threw on clean underwear and sweats, then sat on the bed to pull on my socks and sneakers.

“Coffee?” Peter mumbled and sprawled across the bed.

“No blow job?” I leaned over to tie my shoes.

“Sure,” he stretched, catching my sideways glance when he pushed the sheet off his waist and exposed his bare cock, an appendage which I’d spent the better part of the shower trying not
to think about. Now there it was, curving up against his lean stomach and—“I was joking,” I lied.

“No you weren’t,” he yawned and flexed his hands until the muscles in his arms and chest tightened. My stomach flopped lazily.

“No, I wasn’t,” I agreed. “Maybe when you’re not comatose.” I rotated back to grin at him, but he was asleep. I wanted nothing more than to lick him from chin to groin. Congratulating myself on my restraint, I instead covered him with the sheet and went downstairs.

The entire living room: floors, cabinets, sofas—everything—was tarped using my two-hundred dollar, Egyptian cotton sheets.

Skittles wrappers and empty Pixie Stix straws littered the area and sugar-dust glittered all over. The phrase ‘while bits of sugar-dust danced in the sheets’ popped in my head.

Cai was sitting on the back of my sofa, wearing jean overalls that were twice as big as he was and thin with wear. They were the same pair, I dared to guess, that I saw him in the second time we met; and they had enough paint to satisfy a Skittles commercial. Oddly, his white t-shirt was pristine.

He stared across at the mantle, or wall, which I noted was no longer cream-colored, but midnight blue. The contrast with my

red, brick fireplace was stark.

“Are you trying to will the monitoring box to stop working?” I grinned, walking into the kitchen to start the coffee.

“Um…no?” He frowned and continued zoning out. The wall being the centerpiece of his world.

I watched him while I got the machine ready—this boy who had Peter so enthralled. The bean grinder switched on, and he tilted his head like a bird catching a hunter’s footsteps.

“I give up then. What are you doing?” “Um…watching paint dry?”

“Do you always answer in the form of a question?” Throwing a leg over the sofa, I planted both feet on the cushion next to his and sat beside him.

“No?” he said, flaming cheeks framing his dimpled smile.

Okay, he was charming in his own way.

“So what are you doing?”

“Oh…but…” His blinked at me. If his brows weren’t pulled together in such befuddlement, I’d have thought he was fucking with me.

“Watching paint dry? Literally?”

“Can’t, um…start until it’s done. The primer’s done. I can’t start until the primer’s done. Painting. I can’t start painting until the primer’s done.”

I could only stare back at him. It was like he thought faster than he talked, but didn’t wait until he had a full sentence. Was that his meds? “I have an Xbox,” I pointed out and then went to point at my laptop as well, only to see a sheet covering my coffee table. “And somewhere under that mess is a laptop. I even have porn.”

“Oh…um…” More blushing and a small shuffle away from me. “I, um…porn…”

“Gay?”

“I—” He studied his knees. “Reckon I’m not sure, sir.” I remembered why he was in his predicament suddenly and cursed my own stupidity. “Sorry, that was insensitive. I also have tons of regular movies.”

Smile flashing, he said, “Yessir. It’s okay,” in a strained voice.

“Sir? Sir’s my father. Actually never mind. My father is ‘Dick’. I’m Austin.” His skin practically glowed with shades of red most artists would kill for. “It’s okay if you are, you know?” He laughed boyishly and granted me another shy, approving smile. I had a feeling all his smiles today were just the smallest bit forced. He was trying, I speculated, to keep us all from worrying about him. “Hoped maybe I was like Peter,” he said.