by Wendy Qualls
Lito’s office had no actual windows, so he had to take Dave at his word on the weather, but the idea of a picnic lunch actually sounded really nice. So far he’d mostly been bringing a bag lunch and eating at his desk. The office did have the conference room—which Lito eventually learned was functionally more like a break room than anything else because any conferences any of them had were inevitably over the phone—but Carrie and Heather and Laura Beth tended to congregate there and gossip for their entire lunch breaks and there was no part of those conversations that Lito was even remotely interested in participating in. They were polite enough, and Laura Beth had made a point of bringing in pictures of her son’s birthday celebration so Lito could see how much fun the kids had with the suggestions he’d given, but he’d never felt so much like a fish out of water. Spending some social time with Dave, even platonic, was seriously appealing.
I haven’t had a picnic in ages. What time?
Whatever morning-after awkwardness he and Dave were facing, it had to be better than the alternative.
* * * *
Dave was well overdue for a break by the time Lito pulled into the boat launch area at ten after twelve. It really was a beautiful day—probably the last week of decent temperatures they’d have until the new year, thanks to Alabama’s screwy up-and-down weather—but Dave had spent the last four hours hacking at the invasive kudzu vines and he felt more than a bit ripe. Sweaty and stinky weren’t really ideal for a lunch date. Clearing out the underbrush around the landing had been on the to-do list for months, though, and the exercise gave him a chance to stretch after spending most of the last week in his cramped office, so plant warfare it was. He was gathering his initial debris into a pile in the corner of the parking lot when Lito pulled in.
“Hey,” Dave called out by way of greeting. He waved Lito toward his work truck. “No picnic table here, but I wiped the truck bed for us. I’ll join you in just a minute. What’d you bring?”
“Decided to try that sub sandwich place I keep driving past.” Lito tossed him one of the bottles of water and held up two bags for Dave to pick from. “You prefer veggie or chicken salad? They both looked good so I’m fine with either. I went minimal on the toppings—but you can pick them off if you didn’t like them.”
“Chicken salad, then.”
Dave finished piling up the cuttings and joined Lito on the tailgate of the battle-scarred work truck. They ate in silence for a while, looking out over the water. Black Lake itself wasn’t all that big, but it was murky—good for fishing, bad for swimming. It was beautiful in the sunlight, though. The foliage around them was a mixture of still-green and autumn colors and the dark surface of the lake rippled gently whenever a stray puff of wind drifted across it. Dave tried to remember the last time he’d been out on the water. Just over two years ago, probably—whenever the last practice they’d used the boat had been, before Steve’s ex-wife sold it. Before Jessica quit the team in a show of solidarity with her mother leaving and Steve started drinking more than he ought. Back when the team actually did things together outside of practices sometimes. Rick and Sharon used to have a big Fourth of July picnic every summer, friends and family all invited. It’s how they’d recruited Scooter, once upon a time—he’d been dating someone’s friend’s sister and stuck around because he missed having a dog.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Lito asked. He’d already finished his sub sandwich and was now leaning back against the wall of the truck bed. “Or do I not want to know?”
It was quite possibly the first time all day Dave’s thoughts hadn’t involved sex in general and memories of the previous night in particular. “Nothing much, honestly,” he said. “Was thinking about the lake and realized I haven’t been out on the water since the summer before last. I miss it.”
“What, boating?”
“That and fishing. Well, and running water finds with the team.” God, they were all so out of practice. “We used to have a boat to use—it was Steve’s—but his wife sold it two years ago. Without telling him.”
“Damn.”
“It was her opening shot before she served him with the divorce papers.”
“Damn.”
“Pretty much.” Dave twisted around to settle next to him, sideways in the truck bed. “Not sure whether it’s been mentioned since you’ve been on the team or not, but Steve was actually the coroner here in Black Lake for over thirty years.”
Lito made a noncommittal noise. “Nobody’s said it, but I read between the lines. Got the impression he’s been doing this for a while.”
“The dog team’s only been since he retired, but yes. He’s been dealing with dead people since before they were using DNA.” Dave finished off the last dregs of his water and set the bottle aside. Talking behind a teammate’s back like this should have felt at least a little weird, especially since Dave couldn’t remember having ever had someone to share details like this with, but it honestly didn’t feel like gossip. The divorce wasn’t something Steve had ever been particularly shy griping about, either. “The two of them were married for most of that, but she had some mental health and medical issues about a decade ago that totally changed her personality. By the time Steve got involved with the team the two of them were already pretty distant. He and his stepdaughter Jessica joined NALSAR together as a bonding thing, but his wife never approved. The divorce was a surprise, but not…well, not unexpected to anyone but Steve. Things were awkward for a long time.”
“That sucks.” Lito rolled up a little piece of his napkin and tossed it at the opposite side of the truck bed. “’Distant’ would probably have been a good word for my parents’ marriage, I think. They had nothing in common.”
“By ‘had,’ do you mean they’re divorced now? Or has one of them passed away?” Dave winced. “Sorry, didn’t mean it to come out like that. I was just curious.”
“It’s okay. And as far as I know they’re still together, but I haven’t spoken with them in almost eight years now.” He grimaced. “No way they’d divorce, though—the Church wouldn’t allow it.”
“Ah.” The conversation felt like it was teetering on the edge of way too personal and was going to tip over into pissing Lito off any minute now, but Dave had no idea what to say to pull it back from the brink. “Um. Catholic, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that why…”
“Why I haven’t kept up with them?” Lito crumpled up and threw another little ball of paper. Fidgeting. Uncomfortable. “It’s mutual,” he finally said. “I told you yesterday about how I got caught sneaking into a gay club.”
Dave nodded.
“My cousin—the one who’d lent me his ID—he found out from some coworker of his who recognized me there. He went and told my parents and there was a big screaming argument about it. I’d known I wasn’t into girls for a few years at that point, had half the gay stereotypes already down pat, but they’d never even considered the idea of me being gay. Mom kept saying she couldn’t understand how I could be ‘corrupted’ so badly by the evil American media.”
“They’re not originally from here, I’m guessing?”
He was rewarded with a tiny flash of a smile. “We’re originally from Lima,” Lito answered. “Peru. My Uncle Diego runs a shipping company in Miami and he recruited his brothers—my dad and my two other uncles—to come work for him. The whole family moved here when I was two years old. My mom still doesn’t speak much English.”
“But they’re both pretty religious?”
“That’s putting it lightly.”
“How did you…” Dave took a deep breath and tried to phrase himself correctly. “What happened between that and you ending up in Atlanta? And how old were you? If that’s not too personal for me to ask?”
“It’s fine—I was a senior in high school. I turned eighteen a few months later. A few weeks after the fight—and my parents realizing the whole gay thing w
asn’t just me being difficult—they essentially disowned me. Well, it was mutual, but the end result was I left. Stayed with my cousin Gabriela for the rest of the year so I could finish school, but we both knew the family would cut her off too if they found out. Day after graduation I packed a bag and bummed a ride with some friends out of town.” He grimaced. “I ended up getting a job as the night clerk in a crappy little Dayspring Inn off I-4 near Orlando, mostly because they needed someone bilingual who could start right away and would work for peanuts.”
“And you liked it?”
“I was good at it.” Lito pinned him with a serious look. “I’m good with people, I’m a natural night owl, and I like fixing problems. Eventually I met the owners of the chain—they’re an older couple from Atlanta, really sweet and very southern but good business sense—and I guess they liked me because I got promoted to night manager and then to the main office in Atlanta to do design and logistical management. It went from there. I’ve been working for Dayspring ever since.”
“Damn.” Dave could absolutely see it, could see an eighteen-year-old Lito pacifying grumpy tourists and being ridiculously charming while doing so. “That really does suck about your family not accepting you, but I’m glad you landed on your feet.”
Lito studied him intently for several moments before saying, “You actually are, aren’t you? That’s…thanks.”
God, it must have been lonely. “Glad you’re here too, for what it’s worth.” Bit of an understatement. “I know it’s probably not as exciting you’re used to—”
Lito laughed out loud.
“—but I like it. You. Here.” Fuck. He sounded embarrassingly like a middle schooler trying to ask out his first big crush. “What I mean is, thanks for meeting up for lunch with me and letting me pry a bit too much into your personal life. And I’m not just saying that because I want you and Spot on the team.”
“Oh?” Lito shot him a sideways look. A sultry, sexy look. “Does that mean you want a repeat of last night? Because I wasn’t sure until you texted this morning, but now you’re making it sound…”
Crap. “Yes,” Dave said quickly. Too quickly. “Sorry about sending that while you were at work, but I didn’t want you to think…hell. Last night was good and if you’d be up for something similar in the very near future, I wouldn’t be opposed. Just”—he grimaced and glanced down at his grimy Black Lake Maintenance Department uniform, currently covered in Alabama clay and bits of kudzu—“not now, unfortunately.”
“Of course not.” Lito twitched his leg where it was lying parallel to Dave’s, so the toes of his shiny black shoe thunked the top of Dave’s work boot. “If nothing else, my lunch break isn’t that long.” He winked. It should have looked corny but it didn’t. “Not nearly long enough to get into any real trouble, anyway.”
Dave couldn’t help winking back. “Later, though?”
“Take me out to dinner again on Friday night and we’ll see about it.”
“It’s a deal.”
Lito really did have to get back to his office, apparently, but Dave bushwhacked invasive underbrush for the rest of the afternoon with significantly more vigor.
Chapter 8
Everyone was going to know.
Lito gave Spot a good few minutes of attention before getting out of the car the next afternoon at practice, mostly because it was an excuse to delay a bit longer. Surely Dave wouldn’t have gone and announced anything (“Hey everyone, just to let you know, that gay dude I invited to the team totally put out for me last night so we should be nice to him because he’s got a cute ass”) but that didn’t mean nobody else would be perceptive.
He needn’t have worried. The whole team showed up on time, for once, and the sole topic of conversation was how Steve and Nikita found Grayson White. Everybody had already heard the story, or some variation of it, but Steve cheerfully rehashed it for Lito when he joined the crowd around the picnic table.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Steve said for about the fifth time since Lito got within earshot. “Kid was sitting there, huddled up against the rock and wrapped up in half a dozen blankets. Didn’t respond when we were calling his name, so when I first saw him I assumed the worst, but he was actually just most of the way through a bottle of his mom’s rum and didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Told Dave to fuck off. Nikita was prancing around—she knew she done good. I emptied the whole damn treat bag and chirped all big and happy at her until she finally gave me this look like ‘okay, really, I know you’re faking it.’ Twit.”
Nikita paused in her mock-wrestling with Scratch and Sniff to look up at him, a hopeful “Are you talking about me?” on her face, which made Rick laugh.
Dave was smiling too, which warmed Lito’s heart in a way he didn’t want to examine too closely. The man had a gorgeous little-boy smile. It should have been incongruous with his build, but somehow it fit him. He didn’t do it all that often, but when he did it always felt like they were sharing a secret—or that they’d just done something naughty and their teacher was going to find out sooner or later. Lito treasured every one of those smiles he’d earned over the course of their acquaintance.
“Since we’re all here and ready to go,” Dave announced, “I’ll make the official team debrief quick. Y’all did a fantastic job yesterday, and I’m really proud of you. Ditto for Nikita, Scratch, Cheerio, and Zeus. That was tricky terrain in the dark and everyone came prepared to give it a hundred percent. It showed too—I’ve gotten several comments from other rescue squads congratulating us on our find. I also got an update from the sheriff last night to let us know that Grayson is home and doing fine. The EMTs treated him for mild hypothermia and dehydration, and they monitored him at the hospital for a while just to be safe, but other than that he’s in perfect health. So really well done, everyone.”
There was a general round of whoops and cheers.
“I do want to remind you all to make sure you’ve got backups for both you and your dog—food, water, and batteries for your flashlights—and also to make sure you have a phone charger in your car just in case. We didn’t end up being able to use GPS on this one anyway, but next time we might and a half-dead phone does nobody any good. That’s not a criticism of anyone except me.” He wrinkled his nose. “I only realized my phone was almost dead after I got home so I figured it was worth a mention. So in short—good job, y’all kick ass, and Steve and Nikita win the prize.”
“Literal or metaphorical?” Lito whispered to Scooter. Scooter just winked and tilted his head toward the parking lot. Lito looked over just in time to see Sharon pull something out of her van and toss it to Rick, who then lobbed it at Steve’s chest.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Steve laughed, then held the object up for everyone to see. “You got her a chew toy with what, eight squeakers in it?”
“Ten. Because I know how much Nikita loves to annoy you.”
Steve flipped Dave the finger, which only prompted laughter from everyone else.
“It’s not an every time thing,” Scooter explained in a low voice, “but Dave, Rick, and Steve all like to razz each other whenever they get the chance. And Nikita really does go nuts for squeaky toys—Steve says she can’t sleep until the noisemaker is destroyed, which means he doesn’t get to sleep either.”
Spot had never particularly cared for noisy toys one way or the other, but Lito nodded knowledgeably anyway.
“So with that out of the way,” Rick said in a louder voice, “let’s run the pups who didn’t get their exercise in yesterday. That’s Spot, Sniff, Lumpy, Woozy, and Zeus. Y’all have a preference who goes first, or where?”
“I’d just as soon do a run on the south trail,” Sharon volunteered. “I haven’t had Sniff down there in ages and he’s due for a good, solid, ground scent.”
Steve raised his hand. “I can do that. How far do you want me to go, and how complicated do you want the trail?”
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“Let’s say a pattern of seven minutes walking and three sitting and we’ll see how long it takes to catch up? Simulate a lost dementia patient?”
“Got it.” Steve broke off from the group and started walking toward the far side of the parking lot. “I’ll text you after the first ten,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Dave?” Rick asked. “You want to take one of yours up the north side, or do you want to work with Lito and Spot first?”
They’d been running Spot for a good hour at almost every practice, and Lito abruptly felt a bit guilty that he hadn’t realized the concentrated attention meant Dave wasn’t getting to do much with his own dogs. Some team player I’m turning out to be. “I don’t want to take up all your time,” he said. “And Spot and I really have been, haven’t we? Go ahead—your dogs are probably getting jealous of all the fun Spot’s had recently.”
“They’d get jealous of a ham sandwich. And then forget about it two minutes afterward.” Dave scrubbed a hand through his short hair, but nodded. “Yeah, okay. Let’s… Janet, you want to walk with Sharon and I’ll take Scooter and Lito for a two-man find? Or would you rather hide?”
“I need the exercise.” Janet sucked in her stomach and shimmied her not terribly large breasts. “Going line dancing with a guy from Scottsboro on Friday night, and it’d be nice to not be winded after two dances.”
“This the insurance guy?” Sharon asked. Janet’s love life was impossible to keep track of, but she had almost no TMI filter so it was hard not to overhear. Lito already knew way more about the problems involved with heterosexual sex after forty than he really wanted to. The insurance guy with the fabled giant cock (as told to Janet by some previous woman he’d dated and then related to the team in between practice searches) had been the flavor of the last few weeks. Luckily, Sharon and Janet ducked off to the side to chat about line dancing and hot dates and big cocks so Lito didn’t have to hear the rest. For all Janet’s enthusiasm about men and sex, she’d probably faint if she knew what happened on an average Friday night at any of the more entertaining gay clubs in Atlanta. (And on the heels of that thought…had Dave actually said he went clubbing in Nashville? He was probably mobbed in less than a minute, if so, because damn.)