by Max Walker
And there was a psycho freak tailing me, and somehow they had gotten into my apartment. I felt violated. Someone had entered my apartment and left a message written in blood, and for what?
Beckham returned with a steaming cup of tea. I sat up on the couch and thanked him. He sat down next to me, letting me drink, a comfortable silence washing over us for the moment.
“Olly, who else has a spare key to your apartment?”
So I wasn’t the only one whose mind was racing, even if the silence lulled us into thinking we were both okay.
“Only my friend Tyra. I’d given her a copy of the key when I went to Europe so she could take care of Mason and Jar. But… I mean…”
Beckham didn’t say anything.
“You can’t possibly think she’s responsible, right?”
“I don’t know right now.”
I set the tea down on the coffee table. “No, she’s not. I do know that. She’s one of my best friends. There’s no way. None. Besides, Juan was a thousand percent involved, and I don’t see her ever interacting with that thug.”
“The pig was from the vet’s office and Tyra work—”
“No.” I surprised myself by shooting up onto my feet. I looked down at Beckham. “Tyra is innocent. I can’t. I’ve known her for years, I can’t go on trusting anyone in this world if she had something to do with it. It’s just impossible.” I didn’t know what had come over me. Maybe it was the pressure of it all, maybe this camel just had one straw too many, but something inside me snapped and it snapped hard.
“Just call it off. Call it all off.” My hands shook. I couldn’t stop them, so I stuffed them into the pocket of my shorts. “Cancel the investigation. Do whatever you have to do to back off. It’s not worth it. Derrick is dead. He’s gone and this isn’t going to bring him back. And I don’t want to lose anyone else. I can’t.” I locked eyes with Beckham, whose expression resembled someone who was witnessing a nuclear warhead going off in the far distance.
“Olly.”
“You’ve got to call it off. Let Juan go. He’ll be caught for something else. It’s fine. Just let it all go.”
“I can’t do that, Olly. Not when I’m so close.”
“What do you mean you can’t do that? It should be my call. I’m calling it. This is done—this case is over.”
Beckham stood. He reached for me, but I stepped back. I felt like a pressure cooker, and my top was whistling with steam, about to explode.
“Oliver, this won’t bring back Derrick, but it will bring you peace. And it can stop other people from getting hurt, too. I just need to finish my work. That’s all.”
My circuits were misfiring. All my frustration, my anger, my insecurities, they all welled up to the surface, pushing past the constant veil of positivity I had kept on for so long.
So damn long.
“I can’t do this. This was all a mistake.”
The words fell out of me and landed in the room like boulders.
“What do you mean?” Beckham asked.
The walls were feeling tight. I moved to the window, looking out at Beckham’s backyard. What the hell was going on with me? Why was I self-destructing?
“Nothing,” I said. “I just need sleep.” I rubbed my tired eyes. I couldn’t talk to Beckham right now, not when I was flaring up with unnecessary anger. He was only trying to help me.
“What was a mistake?”
I turned. Beckham stood a few feet in front of me. The orange light from a nearby floor lamp cast stark shadows on his face. His beard had been growing in, the same silvery-gray color as his hair, which was tousled and falling down onto his forehead.
“Us? Is that what you were going to say?”
My eyebrows shot up toward the heavens. “What? No, no that’s not what I—”
“Because if it is, I need to know now, Oliver. You can’t string me along and then mug me off in a couple of months. I’m not here to play around. I’m too old for that shit.”
The shadows on Beckham’s face took on a sharper edge. The warmth in his eyes flickered. “Beck, I’m not stringing you along. I told you I love you, and I mean that, okay? I fucking meant it.” Tears started to flow, uninvited. “You know the last person I told that to? Huh, Beck? The last person I said ‘I love you’ to was Derrick. And you want to know the last time I said it? I told it to him while I watched his life bleed out onto a dirty street. That was the last time I told someone I loved them. So when I say it to you, I really fucking mean it.”
More tears. Beckham was saying something, but the emotions were too strong, the riptide pulled me into the deep end. I didn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t hear his words past the crying.
I walked past Beckham, my hands covering my face, my body racked by uncontrollable waves of sadness.
Inside his bathroom, I shut and locked the door. There, I slid down onto the floor and cried, and I wondered if maybe… maybe I had been asking about our relationship and not the case.
28 Beckham Noble
I’ve never felt like a bigger tit. I could hear Oliver’s muffled cries through the bathroom door, and they absolutely wrecked me. Frustration boiled up inside me. Anger at myself for taking this to a place it didn’t need to be. Anger at the situation, at the fact that we had challenges to face regardless of how we felt about it.
And that was exactly what made a relationship worth it. The fact that there would be challenges ahead and that we’d be facing them together, hand in hand. That’s what made life worth it. We couldn’t lose sight of that.
“Oliver, let me in, please.”
Except I had gone and let my insecurities fuck it all up. Of course I was scared Oliver would get bored of me and move on to the newer, shinier version. It was a fear that had more to do with me than with him, and yet I still projected it directly onto him. I turned an innocent question into a lethal weapon. I may have just royally fucked everything up, all because I was terrified of losing Oliver.
“Please, Olly.”
The cries quieted, but the door remained locked. I leaned back on the wall, rubbing at my forehead to ease some of the building tension.
This shouldn’t be like this. I should be in that bathroom, holding Oliver and comforting him, not on the other side of a closed door, unable to do anything but wait.
I balled my fist. This was a new level of helplessness I wasn’t used to feeling. Part of me wanted to punch a hole into the wall, only to get rid of some of the pressure inside me.
After what felt like an hour, the door to my bathroom creaked open. Oliver stepped out. His eyes were puffy and red, his gaze falling down to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Olly.” It was the first thing I needed to get off my chest. “I didn’t mean to go at you like that. I let my insecurities take control. If I could, I’d take that moment back.”
Oliver wiped at his cheeks, under his chin. “What insecurities, Beck?” He looked through tear-streaked eyes. The light was off in my hallway, so Oliver’s face was lit softly by whatever light leaked over from the living room. There was a neon-green tint to the scene, coming from a small palm tree nightlight I had placed in the bathroom.
Oliver never looked more familiar to me. Even with what little light there was in the hall, I felt like I was looking at my soul mate, like I could paint a picture of him with my eyes closed and come out with a photorealistic copy of Oliver’s face.
“I’m scared of you leaving me. Scared that you’ll toss me to the side like a used toy.” I could see Oliver winding up to protest, but I cut him off. “And you haven’t done anything to make me think like that. Nothing at all. You’ve only given me more reasons to love you, every single day I find a new one. Whether it’s the way you tilt your head when you smile, or the way you always have to tie your left shoe before your right, or how you do these weird little bird noises every time you’re thinking hard about something. Every day, I find something to love. And with every new thing added to the list, it’s one more thing I’m scared of losing
.”
“You won’t lose me. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“I know. Logically, I know that. It’s just in here.” I pressed two hard fingers against my chest. “I can’t shake the fear that our age difference is going to drive you away. Just looking in the mirror, I feel reminded by it. With every new crow’s-foot, every new forehead crease, it’s a visible reminder that there’s no way of bridging the time between us.”
“I don’t care about bridging it, Beck. I know that’s impossible. What I care about is walking across every other bridge in my life with you by my side.” Oliver’s hand found mine. His fingers, soft and thin, dipped between mine, locking our hands together. “And just for the record, you may see all that, but I don’t. All I see is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Even if I don’t know the difference between an Instagram and a Snapbook?” It was a little bit of a lighthearted joke that still carried plenty of truth to it. Seeing Oliver and all his popular social media accounts had made me feel self-conscious, only because it felt like such a faraway world from the one I had lived in for so long.
Oliver’s lips quirked into a smirk, a moment of much-needed levity during the storm. “Would it change anything if I said I’m jealous that you grew up without all that crap? I kind of wish I didn’t have to even think about the number of people ‘double-tapping’ on my photo. And I grew up with that shit. You know how messed up in the head that makes you?”
A laugh rose up out of me, strange but welcome.
“And that’s not to say they’re aren’t great things about all the social meeds. I get to see pictures of celebrities eating sponsored ice cream while also simultaneously staying in touch with all of my friends from college. And then, all in the same ten-minute span, I could get a comment on a photo from my drunk aunt Laureen telling me that my smile was heaven-sent and that she wishes I wrote her more.” Oliver’s grin was growing. “See? Magical. But also a huge pain in my ass.” He stepped closer to me. “Unlike you. I want you, Beckham. And only you. That’s not going to change for anything.”
I believed him. I really fucking did.
But I needed to hear it said. Maybe it was the investigator in me, but I had to ask the question. “So me being sixteen years your senior doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it doesn’t bother me. I’ve seen how quickly time can become irrelevant, Beck. Suddenly, a sixteen-year age gap is shortened to nothing through some tragic accident or sidewalk homophobic attack that leaves someone dead. I’ve learned the hard way that life is short for everyone, so why the hell am I going to make it harder for myself by fighting my love for you?”
Those stormy blue eyes were holding a category five hurricane. He meant every word he said. There wasn’t a doubt in my bones.
“Okay?” Oliver asked. I realized I was quiet. “I love you, forever and always.”
“I love you, too, Olly.” We leaned in for a kiss. It felt like we were stepping into an old dance routine, one which our bodies knew all the steps but needed a few seconds to warm up.
His lips, soft and warm against mine, instantly eased the turmoil that had rocked my world hours before. His kiss was a spread of cool aloe vera over a scorched sunburn.
After we shared that healing kiss, the two of us moved out of the cramped hall and into the living room. Oliver took a seat at the dining table next to the kitchen. The window was open, letting in a warm breeze from outside, rattling some of the blinds.
I went to reheat Oliver’s tea in the microwave.
“Thank you,” Oliver said when I set the steaming cup back in front of him.
I took a seat opposite him with my own mug. It was decaffeinated green tea with a dollop of honey thrown in, soothing every part of the throat as it went down.
“I take back what I said about the investigation.” Oliver’s words weren’t surprising. I knew he had been speaking through his frayed emotions. I knew that at the end of the day, what Oliver wanted most was to find the fuckers who did this. He wanted closure and he wanted to put Derrick’s killers behind bars, and I was sure as hell going to do it.
That’s when it hit me.
“Bloody hell.”
“What?” Oliver asked. “What is it?”
“Bloody fuckin’ hell. How am I so stupid?” I pushed back on the table and stood up, going for my phone which I had put to charge on the kitchen counter.
“What’s going on, Beck?”
“Just before you called me, I was sent a video file. The corner store I tracked down had switched to a digital system the same week you and Derrick were attacked. They were getting robbed left and right and figured to go all out. The videos are compressed and then stored in a server for, get this, seven years.”
“One more year and…”
“Yup. The video would have been deleted. But it wasn’t. So I went and checked it out, but the video was corrupt. I remember reading about something like that happening in the police report, but they were never specific about what store. And the police never bothered to push harder. They didn’t ask to take the tapes or do any troubleshooting.”
Oliver’s brow arched like the London Bridge. “You’re telling me… if those cops had just turned the computer on and off again, this entire thing may have been solved already?”
“It wasn’t exactly that simple. Also I don’t know if this is even the answer we’re looking for. I haven’t even seen the footage.”
I went back to the table, sitting down next to Oliver. My thumb hovered over the Play button. He leaned over, both our eyes trained to the screen.
The video started playing. The footage wasn’t the best, but it was clear enough to see the faces of everyone who passed the front of the shop. The video started off during the middle of the day. I clicked on the fast-forward arrow and watched as the tape scrubbed forward, plenty of people walking through the frame over the day. As night started to fall, the number of people started to lessen until the streets became empty.
I played the video at normal speed when the clock in the corner said eleven forty. This was around the time of the attack. If anyone had crossed down this street, then they would have been caught on film. We just had to—
“There!” Oliver pointed at the screen. I paused the video as two men took up center frame.
By now, the sun had set, and the video quality only got worse, but the corner store let off enough light from inside to illuminate one of the men quite clearly.
It appeared like the two men were both wearing the same dark sweaters Oliver had described. They were still wearing the ski masks they wore during the assault, but one of them had already taken off his gloves, the pockets of his jacket stuffed with them.
“Look,” Oliver said, noticing what I had picked up on.
The video wasn’t clear enough to make out perfect detail, but there was no doubt that the hand on the camera was tattooed with the same letters as Juan’s hand.
This was it. This was exactly what we needed. Oliver swallowed loudly, his hand moving to cover his mouth. The realization dawned on him as well.
“They can arrest him with this, right?” Oliver asked when he found the ability to create words again.
“With this and your testimony, he’s done.”
“But who’s that second person?” Oliver leaned in, as if he were going to fall into the screen. “Press Play.”
I listened. We watched the footage another dozen times, speeding it up and slowing it down, trying a few different tricks to try and get a clearer view of the second person, but nothing worked. They were shielded by shadow, Juan being the only one close enough to the corner store to be identified.
“Do you recognize the way they walk?” I asked, trying to jog something in Oliver’s memory.
He considered it for a moment, chewing on his lip. “No… I mean, kind of? They seem oddly familiar, but I can’t pinpoint it.”
We stayed up for another hour. Adrenaline kept us awake a
s we scoured the internet for video-clarifying software. I tried changing the brightness and the contrast, even tried layering the video on top of itself like one website suggested.
Nothing worked. If anything, the shadows only got worse.
“It has to be Juan’s brother, Mario.” Oliver sounded exhausted. A yawn followed his statement.
“I’m not so sure. Mario’s a little bigger than that.”
“Yeah, but this was six years ago. Maybe he started going to the gym more. It has to be him. We have that text of the two working together to fix a ‘problem.’ Those two are a team. They followed Derrick and I, and they killed him.”
I didn’t want to argue. I knew it still wasn’t enough to lock Mario up behind bars, but I was confident that we could get Juan, and that could be enough. People tend to crack when they’re offered plea deals. He might end up giving us the name of the shadow-man himself.
For now, though, I knew we had to get some sleep. It was already two in the morning, and this day felt like it had lasted at least seventy-three hours.
I closed the laptop. Oliver stretched on the couch. He looked up at me as I stood, his eyes big and bright. “Can you carry me?” he asked, putting out his hands and closing his eyes.
Without another word, I bent down and scooped him up.
“Whoa, whoa! I was joking!”
Too late—I had Oliver in my arms and crossed the living room. Oliver giggled, wrapping his hands around my neck. I dropped him on my bed. He bounced on the mattress, and more laughter filled the room. Oliver reached out and grabbed my hands. He pulled me down onto the bed, the mattress sinking underneath us.
I kissed him then, our faces only a feather’s distance apart.
“I’m going to the police with what we found. Juan’s going to jail.”
“I really hope so, Beck.” Oliver took a deep breath. It tickled against my lips as he let it out. “And I hope he’s the one leaving those threats. Because if he’s not…”