by Elle Keaton
Beto looked thoughtful. He pursed his lips. “Hmm, I like to go to art fairs and see what catches my eye—that’s where most of my pieces came from. I like the idea of holding hands and walking barefoot on the beach … although maybe not around here.”
Carsten laughed. “Not here, we have rocky beaches and the water is cold. Why do you always wear a suit? Don’t take it the wrong way, I love suits, but the cops around here can hardly tell the difference between a suit and a pair of khakis matched with a sport coat.”
Beto’s expression turned serious, and Carsten wondered if he’d made a mistake with his question.
“You don’t have to answer—”
“No.” He waved a hand. “A suit is my uniform. I could dress down, but I find people take me more seriously when I wear a suit. The term ‘power suit’ has some truth behind it. I’m already at a disadvantage being Hispanic and gay, so I do what I can to level the playing field. Plus—” he grinned, leaning closer and nudging Carsten with a well-dressed elbow; Carsten’s heart thumped hard against his ribs “—I look damn good in a suit.”
Yes, yes he did. It was all Carsten could do to keep from whimpering and climbing into his lap. An indefinable something about Beto had a part of Carsten leaning in for more, the way a plant followed sunlight. It was different from physical attraction; at least it felt different to Carsten. Maybe it was being with someone who saw him for who he was. They could joke about the suit, but it was so much more, and he knew they were both feeling something similar.
A few hours and several drinks later, they walked out the door together. The rain had changed to a light mist, and Carsten lingered, not wanting the evening to end. He’d had an amazing time. It was hard to believe it was nearly midnight. He and Beto had more in common then he’d expected, especially when it came to talking about art and Carsten’s favorite subject, photography. Beto’d been effusive with his praise when he’d realized Carsten was self-taught. His words made Carsten feel like a cat being stroked—he wanted more, and he wanted to purr. There wasn’t a lot he was proud of in his life, but the portraits he’d done within the queer community of Skagit were special to him.
“Where are you parked?”
Carsten pointed.
“Mine’s that way too.”
As they started toward Troy’s dinged-up Prius, Carsten’s stomach suddenly harbored a flock of butterflies. They swooped and soared.
When they arrived at his car far too quickly, Beto spoke with uncharacteristic shyness, his hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks. “If I ask nicely, would you be willing to go out again?”
Carsten grinned, leaning back against the car, his butt resting against the passenger window. “I don’t know, are you asking me?”
“Yes, tonto, I am asking you.”
“Then the answer is yes.”
Beto leaned closer, lightly brushing his lips across Carsten’s, a simple promise.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
14
Beto
* * *
He had no business even thinking about getting involved with Carsten Quinn, yet here he was doing that very thing—even if it was baby steps. His previous relationships had been something like business transactions. Everything was laid out. While he had definitely loved Jerry, their relationship had been very tidy. In retrospect, maybe too tidy. Each of them knew where they stood, like negotiations had been finished, a treaty signed, and the relationship was the final result.
Carsten felt free, wild, undefined, all things Beto hadn’t known he craved. And he did crave them. He wanted spontaneity; he wanted to maybe see the world through fresh eyes—with a fresh spirit. Whatever Carsten had been through in his life, it hadn’t stolen his core good nature and sense of wonder. Beto wondered how he managed that, how—even based on the small amount Carsten had told him—he’d kept his inner light.
The morning after their date, he called Carsten on his way to work. Carsten answered, sounding out of breath.
“Sorry, did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, just getting out of the shower.”
A vision of Carsten fresh out of the shower kept him from speaking a beat too long.
“Are you still there?”
Beto shook his head. “Yes, apologies. I was wondering if you had time to stop and let Freya out tonight. I’ll probably have a long day. If you stay, we could grab a late dinner.”
“I’d be happy to, and dinner sounds fun too.”
Beto rattled off the code to the alarm system. “There’s a key under the mat.”
“You’re a cop, right? Why would you leave a key under your mat?”
“Only for you, Carsten.”
Beto clicked off his handsfree set, swerving to avoid a huge lake forming from a backed-up storm drain. The weather continued to be complete crap. It could stop raining anytime. What he wouldn’t give to see even half an hour of sunshine. Carsten felt a lot like sunshine.
The station was quiet, and he wondered where the other detectives were. He hadn’t seen Dickson in a few days, which wasn’t that surprising since they weren’t partners anymore, but Beto felt it was better to know where one’s enemies were than to be guessing.
Soren appeared not long after Beto had gotten his coffee and sat down to go over files. Beto was firing up his desktop to search a little deeper into the history of Charity Mills. There had to be something there. If he didn’t find anything online, he wanted to interview the aunt in person. Beto looked closer at his partner. Soren looked ragged again, and Beto was almost positive he’d been wearing the same shirt the day before.
“Are you getting enough sleep, big guy?”
Soren blushed.
“That’s a ‘no,’ I take it. This guy must be pretty good.”
Soren looked around, but there was no one in the bullpen to hear Beto’s comment. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Beto sat back, considering his partner, his chair creaking under his weight. If the damn thing collapsed underneath him, he was going to sue SkPD for faulty equipment … or something. “You’re happy?”
Soren nodded.
“And the mystery man’s happy?” Another nod. “Then I wouldn’t worry, you’re doing just fine.”
Beto refocused on the computer screen, losing himself in research. He spent a while looking at Charity’s social media presence, which for a teenager was surprisingly meager. No Facebook that he found, although she could’ve had one under an assumed name. He didn’t find anything on Twitter or Snapchat either, although that search was a long shot. Via the high school online yearbook, he found she’d been, briefly, involved in drama club.
Charity half smiled out at him from the yearbook page. She’d worn glasses, and they weren’t quite straight on her face in the picture. Her brown hair was shaved on one side and long on the other. There was a quote under her photograph; Beto typed the words into the search bar and dismissed the Tom Waits song, instead listening to “I’m Still Here” by Sia and knowing he’d found the source.
He was going to find the person who’d done this and put them away forever.
Switching his search to members of the high school drama club, he had more luck. By the time three o’clock came around, he’d dialed in on two students. Raven Bailey was at the very least an easy name to remember. The other was a boy named Marcus Tremaine. Both had graduated, and while it looked like Raven had left Skagit for college in LA on a full scholarship, Marcus was still in town, and he worked at the Loft. Raven and Marcus had been co-presidents of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. He wrote their names down.
Chilling facts were beginning to make themselves obvious. Charity most likely fell somewhere on the LGBTQA spectrum. He knew her parents had thrown her out, so she’d ended up living with her aunt, but somehow a cold-blooded murderer had gotten to her. She’d been wounded and vulnerable, and some monster had gotten to her.
“Are you okay over there?” Soren broke his train of thought.
“Fine. Why?”
“I think you’re growling. Maybe we should call it a night? I’ve got a thing to do.”
“A thing, like a date?”
“Something like that,” Soren muttered, blushing. Beto found his partner adorable, flushed with first love and all the possibilities it brought. He hoped to hell whoever had caught his attention was a good man. Soren deserved it.
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll catch up with Marcus Tremaine tomorrow. He’s not going anywhere, and I’m hungry.”
15
Carsten
* * *
Freya was delighted to see Carsten, even if he did smell like paint from being at the Perk all day finishing those damn walls. He was pretty sure he had Black Cherry in his hair and on his face. Ugh. He took Freya on a nice walk through the neighborhood before returning to Beto’s.
Not wanting to snoop—well, he did want to snoop, but he wasn’t going to—Carsten limited his poking around to Beto’s kitchen. In the freezer he discovered a pound of ground beef and frozen buns. In one of the cabinets he found ingredients for a basic sloppy joe. He toed his sneakers off and hummed while he defrosted the beef and got the spices together. The kitchen, the entire small house, was filled with the mouthwatering scent of sloppy joe sauce when Beto opened the front door.
“I thought it might be nice to eat here?” Suddenly he felt shy about having made himself at home.
“Mm, that sounds—and smells—delicious.”
Beto stripped off his raincoat and hung it up in the closet next to the front door. Then he stepped to the couch, where he unlaced his shoes and tucked them under the coffee table. The dog was happy to see him as well and kept shoving her muzzle under his arm for attention.
“Hi Freya, you are the most beautiful and best osa.” She woofed, snuffling his armpit. “All right, not a bear, a valiente, fuerte perrita.”
Carsten was embarrassed when he realized he was feeling jealous of the attention the dog was getting. He turned away to stir the sloppy joe sauce. He didn’t hear Beto get up from the couch but somehow knew he was behind Carsten before his strong hands came to rest on Carsten’s hips.
“What are we having?”
Oh, Beto was playing dirty? Two could play that game. Carsten put the wooden spoon down and turned in his grip. He put his arms around Beto’s neck, lacing his fingers together, their faces only a few inches apart.
“Well, I was starting with the sloppy joes, but if you have other plans, I can go along with that.” Carsten couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He was never like this; he didn’t seduce or tease. But with Beto he felt … safe. Safe enough to brush his hips against Beto’s, knowing they were both aroused.
What was he doing? Even if he and Beto had the beginning of something, Carsten never acted on impulse when it came to men—what had come over him? No explanation came to mind, nothing except … he wanted Beto’s lips against his own more than just a buss, so he acted. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Beto’s, loving the way their bodies fit together, how Beto was the same height as he was, how his hands felt hot on his skin where his shirt had ridden up.
Hot, overwhelming want was not what he expected. One kiss and Carsten was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of need. They’d been flirting and teasing each other; that was over now. Beto moaned into Carsten’s mouth, egging him on. Carsten took what was offered, licking into Beto’s mouth. He’d had coffee recently—the residue of creamer and caramel was sweet on his tongue, and it was Carsten who moaned now.
Beto gripped him hard enough that Carsten would have bruises tomorrow, but he didn’t mind. It grounded him. Helped him to know this, what was happening, wasn’t his imagination. He was really in Beto Hernández’s house about to come from kissing and rubbing against him.
The dog barked. It took Carsten a minute to figure out what he was hearing. Beto pulled away, equally confused, his pupils huge, lips glossy and swollen. Freya barked again, and then they heard the tap on the front door. They both started, jumping away from each other like schoolboys caught under the bleachers.
“I’ll get that,” Beto said. He moved, zombielike, toward the front door. Carsten felt vulnerable and exposed. He didn’t want to be introduced to someone he didn’t know. He didn’t want Beto to have to explain him. He slipped into Beto’s bedroom to wait until the person at the door was gone.
Carsten sat on the bed. The world was off-kilter, or was it he who was off balance and the world was just fine? One thing he knew for sure: He was falling for Beto Hernández. Voices filtered in from the living room, not quite loud enough for him to understand what was being said. He didn’t recognize the guest’s voice.
After a few minutes there was a tap on the doorframe, and Beto stuck his head in.
“Do you mind joining us in the living room.” It wasn’t a question. He had his cop face back in place.
Carsten raised his eyebrows. “Why? Who’s out there?”
Beto let out a sigh as if Carsten was trying his every last nerve tonight. Or maybe he was just as frustrated as Carsten and wanted the visitors gone already. “Someone I think you should talk to about Troy.”
Troy, shit. A stab of guilt coursed through him. He hadn’t thought about Troy in several days. He didn’t know how he was doing, if Troy’d woken up yet; he’d never bothered to try to find his family. Regardless of what he’d told Beto a few days earlier, Troy was from Skagit and had family, biological family, here.
Troy’s family said shit like, “I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it.” Carsten’s was the kind who, when you were fourteen and told your mom you were gay and your uncle had been abusing you for years, shoved you out of the house and into the arms of the worst creep on the block. Neither of them had family they wanted to claim.
He’d taken too long to come up with a reply. Beto stepped all the way into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. “I’m sorry to ask this of you right now. I’d rather finish what we started.” Well, at least there was that.
Beto shoved his hands into his pockets like it was the only way he could keep his hands off Carsten. Carsten wondered who exactly was waiting in the living room, if it was worth the moment he and Beto were missing right now. Because, yeah, he wanted to finish what they’d started too. His erection hadn’t subsided in the least, and it didn’t look like Beto’s had either.
“Who’s out there?”
“Two people: Soren Jorgensen, who you know, and someone he thinks you should meet.”
“That’s awfully vague.”
“To be honest, I don’t know this person, but Jorgensen thinks it’s important, and as far as I trust anyone, I think you can trust him.”
“Do you trust me?” The thought that Beto might trust him—without having a reason to—was refreshing.
Beto, who’d been looking everywhere but directly at Carsten, now looked him right in the eyes. “I shouldn’t. I don’t have a good reason to. I know you’re hiding something, and it has to do with Troy. But I think I do trust you.”
Carsten didn’t know what to think. Trust was not something he’d been afforded much of in his life, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Trust was a gift. Troy had been the only person to trust him, to believe Carsten’s own story without question. Would he be able to pay it forward? “Okay. I’ll see what they have to say.”
Beto led him back out to the living room. Soren Jorgensen was taking up most of the couch, and sitting next to him was Danylo Petyr. Carsten stopped short. Beto was close enough behind that he smacked into Carsten’s back, but he kept him from falling by grabbing his hips with strong hands.
* * *
Worlds colliding. Worlds fucking colliding. Carsten’s skin turned to ice; he felt himself begin to shiver.
It shouldn’t be surprising to see someone from his old life, his past. But it was.
“Dany?” Carsten heard the incredulity in his own voice. How could Dany be here? In Beto’s living room?
“I
love that I hear the correct spelling when you say my name, Hi-C.”
He’d always hated the nickname Dany had given him. “What—why are you here?” He turned slightly in Beto’s grip, barely registering that Beto was still holding on to him. It was a good thing; if someone weren’t holding him, he probably would have turned and run.
Dany looked the same. Exactly the same. And not at all surprised to see Carsten.
“What are you doing here?” Dany asked.
Carsten had no response; he simply stared.
Dany smiled, a familiar, ironic smile taking Carsten back years, back to the overwhelming scent of sea and salt water, seagulls screaming overhead, big men complaining about fishing rights, the government stealing timber—their timber, their land, why should their taxes pay for public school when little shits like Carsten and Dany never went anyway. “I like to say I’m in a witness protection program—except without the protection.”
Soren frowned at this and reached out a huge paw to grip Dany’s thigh. Carsten wondered if his old friend did have protection after all.
Beto let go of Carsten’s hip, grasping Carsten’s biceps instead and steering him toward one of the breakfast stools. The house was too small for a dining room or kitchen table. Beto ate his meals at the counter or sitting on the couch. Thinking about food made Carsten’s stomach rumble, reminding him he’d had dinner simmering when Beto came home.
Carsten looked pleadingly at Beto. “I made sloppy joe stuff. That’s all I can cook that you had ingredients for.” He must be in shock, or something, to be thinking about food when he was being confronted—sort of—by his past.
“I could eat,” Dany allowed.
Beto rolled his eyes. “I suppose you’re hungry too?” he asked Jorgensen, who nodded.
* * *
There weren’t enough sloppy joe makings for four hungry men, so Beto called and ordered two large combo pizzas to be delivered.