“Oh yeah.”
“Hmm. Do you think they would be willing to put the whipped cream in a to-go cup?”
Drew smirked. “I like the way you think.”
Chapter TEN
A COUPLE weeks later, Josh had just come off another Monday night shift and was in the locker room when he heard his name called and a hand landed on his shoulder. He knocked the offending hand away and spun to face his attacker.
“Hey, easy, Olive.” Abe Goldstein held up his hands. “Not looking for a fight, man.”
“Sorry, you startled me.” Josh took a step back, forced his shoulders to relax. He’d been daydreaming about a movie date he and Drew went on last week and had let his guard down.
“I see that.” Abe smiled. “So, you want to go grab breakfast?”
“Why?” He narrowed his eyes, leaned back against his locker.
“Whaddaya mean, why? ’Cuz we want you to. You’ve been skipping out for the last several months now, and Thompson said if I didn’t invite you, she’d come into the locker room and ask you herself. Can you see her in here?” Abe shuddered.
“Who’s going?” Josh crossed his arms over his chest.
“Jesus, man, just the regular crew. We’re tired of you skippin’ out.” Abe raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, just busy.”
Abe looked around the locker room. Josh tensed. What was he up to? Josh scanned the room too.
They were alone.
Abe refocused on him, lowered his voice. “Bullshit. You’re sick of Martin’s crap. We all are. Just wanted to let you know that me and some of the others have gone to the lieu about it. IA has been very interested too.”
“Y-you went to IA?” Josh lowered his voice, his jaw slack. No one liked to deal with Internal Affairs if they didn’t have to. The fact they’d gone at all was even more shocking.
“The lieutenant insisted. Said she’d been trying to get enough documentation together for a while now. You know her. Likes to run a clean ship. Martin and, from what she says, the sarge keep that from happening. Bad for morale.”
“Why now?” If his voice dripped with suspicion, Abe didn’t seem to notice.
“At first, we just wanted to stay out of it. When Dubois went to jail, we were all layin’ low, you know? Hard enough doing our job when you’re a good cop, but you throw some guy with a badge and a power trip into the mix, and soon that’s all everyone sees when they look at the uniform. I always thought you did the right thing there. Can’t have guys like that mucking up the blues.”
Josh didn’t know what to say, but Abe sure seemed to.
“Figured he’d give you some shit, Olive, and it’d blow over. Seemed to be the case. Yeah, the guy didn’t like you, but so what? Who the hell likes Martin anyway?”
“And now?”
“When Dubois died a couple months back, we knew Martin started up again. We figured he wasn’t doing anything too bad, you know? Just dumbass shit. Talking smack and stuff. But at that writer’s conference, he said some things in the bar that freaked us out a bit. Just way over the line. So, me and the guys—and Thompson, you know she wouldn’t be left out—decided it needed to stop.”
“Took you long enough.” Josh wasn’t willing to just forgive and forget. Months of this fucking torture and hardly anyone had stuck up for him.
“Yeah, sorry, man. We know that now.” Abe shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. “If we’d realized he was hassling you so bad, we’d have said something sooner, but we thought he was just spouting off a bit. He never harassed you in front of us before—always behind our backs. We just told him to shut the fuck up, you know? And it’s not like you said anything to any of us.”
“I don’t gossip.”
“No shit. But maybe if you’d opened your trap, we’d have known Martin wasn’t playing around.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“Didn’t say that, man. No, it’s our bad. But after Dubois’s death, you just stopped hanging out with us, didn’t tell anyone what was going on. Thought you were just dealing with some shit and you’d start coming around again after you dealt with it.”
“Bullshit, Abe. You just didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t you.” Josh poked him in the chest.
“Now, wait a minute, Olive. That’s not true. You know Thompson. You know Rodrigues, Scanton, and Black. Shit, how long have we known each other? You think I’d turn my back on you? We were honestly just giving you space to deal with your shit. We knew Martin hated you and was trying to turn the unit against you, but come on. It’s Martin. The guy’s a major prick.”
Josh huffed. “And a shitty cop.”
Abe chuckled. “You don’t have to convince me. Or the others. Not anymore. After we heard the way he was hassling you and I talked to a couple of his buddies, we realized it was getting out of control. So we did something about it. I don’t know how long it will take, but I just wanted you to know that we’ve got your back.”
Josh snorted.
“No, really. If Martin doesn’t stop his shit, he’ll be fired. May happen even if he does.”
“Yeah, okay.” Josh swallowed. Never good at expressing his own feelings, he simply nodded.
“Well, for Christ’s sake, don’t jump up and down for joy.”
Josh kept a straight face, but it felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest. At least a little. “I’ll do cartwheels if it actually happens, Goldstein. Not too convinced yet.”
“Yeah, yeah, always the cynic.” Abe grinned. “So, you up for some pancakes?”
“I’ll meet you there.”
JOSH SAT in his SUV, his phone to his ear and the car idling. Breakfast had been very enlightening. Uncertainty swirled through his chest. The skeptic in him didn’t want to believe anyone. Except they had seemed so apologetic. Made a small tendril of hope uncurl inside him. That was almost worse than the uncertainty.
Should he call Drew?
Drew had been open with him about everything, even if his hand had been forced earlier than Drew might have liked. Josh wanted to open up to him too, but there’d already been so much he’d held back. He’d lost his family over Eric. He wasn’t quite ready to lay everything out for Drew. Was he? He moved the phone from his ear, gripping it in his hand until his knuckles whitened.
Drew would be understanding….
He would also be knee-deep in work by now. He’d mentioned something about a proposal due for some environmental project on the Chesapeake. Maybe he shouldn’t call.
Josh’s conversation with Abe and the others had shaken him more than he wanted to admit, though. Since when did he become so indecisive? He pushed the Call button.
“Hey, sexy,” Drew answered, his words garbled, loud classical music playing in the background.
“Bad time to call, bem?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry, I had a pen in my mouth. Editing mode.” Drew’s voice came through loud and clear. “What’s up?”
“I just… I needed to hear your voice.”
“Hey, what’s wrong? Hold on.” The music cut off, and Drew’s worried voice carried through the line. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Realized I’ve been holding a lot in.” Josh adjusted the vents so the air-conditioning blew directly on him. Even before noon, Baltimore’s humidity felt like an assault. Dark clouds hovered, but whether rain would cool Baltimore down was anyone’s guess.
“This about us or something else?” Drew asked.
“Work.”
“Whew. Had me nervous for a moment.” Drew’s voice was teasing but turned serious. “What’s going on, Joao?”
“You know how I’ve been reporting the incidents with Bill Martin? Well, I guess I didn’t say anything to the other guys in my unit. I figured they knew what was going on and didn’t care enough to get involved. Seems I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
Josh took a calming breath, a knot of tension balled in his gut.
“I assumed everyone knew what
I was going through. I was pissed and hurt and just shut them all out. Turns out, they had no clue what Martin was doing. And thinking back, he hardly ever said anything in front of anyone except his buddies.”
Drew remained silent.
“Drew?”
“Just thinking about what you said, Joao. That’s… I don’t know what to say. I’m partially mad they didn’t bother to look a little harder, but I also get that you didn’t rush to fill everyone in on all the details.”
“I seem to have a problem letting others in.”
Drew was silent a moment. “I know you haven’t always been forthcoming with how you’re feeling, but you’ve shown me you care. I don’t know if that’s what you mean, though.”
“You know how you said I was so strong? Well, you’re talking to the only guy who has an even worse dating history than you.”
Drew chuckled. “What are you talking about? I think my taste has dramatically improved in recent days. Yours too, if I might brag a little.”
“Eric and I were involved.” Josh leaned back against the headrest, closed his eyes.
“You were involved with him?” He could almost hear Drew’s frown through the phone. God, they should have had this conversation in person. “How involved?”
“I thought I was in love with him.”
“Oh wow. Yeah, that’s involved.” Drew swallowed audibly. “So, let me get this straight. You were involved with your partner, who you had to then turn around and testify against?”
“That about sums it up.”
“That’s… horrible. For you, I mean. I can’t even imagine. That’s really brave.”
“Brave? Hardly. If I’d been brave, I would have put a stop to things immediately when I saw he was out of control. As it was, I kept justifying his behavior. Not that he’d hurt anyone before that, but he was angry. I knew he was acting erratic. I just didn’t realize he’d become dangerous too.”
“But you did put a stop to it. You did the right thing, Josh.” Drew’s voice was emphatic, and Josh wanted to believe him. There was still so much guilt. “Did anyone know you were together?”
“We couldn’t tell anyone,” Josh rushed to explain. “Besides, Eric was so in the closet, he made me look like Tinker Bell by comparison.”
“No one knows? At all?”
Josh swiped his hand through his hair. “Well, I told my parents, but that’s when they cut me out of their lives. They were supportive when I sent Eric to prison, but they couldn’t understand why I was so upset about it. I finally came out to them. You know the rest.”
Drew growled. “They… I can’t believe…. Oh, Joao, I’m so sorry. I wish I was there with you right now.”
“Me too, bem. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but it’s not easy to talk about.” An understatement if there ever was one. He’d pretty much gone the last couple years trying not to think about it. Hard when everyone at work kept shoving his actions in his face. And they didn’t even know about his and Eric’s relationship.
He’d thought he loved the guy. But now with Drew sounding so protective, he had to wonder whether that had even been true. Eric had certainly never loved him. That used to hurt. Eric’s death hurt. But recently the weight he felt whenever he thought of Eric had begun to lift. Josh didn’t find himself fighting so hard to push thoughts of Eric away. And the memories seemed to come less and less often now. There wasn’t room for so much darkness now that Drew had entered his life, all joy and laughter and light.
Drew exhaled, the sound carrying over the line. “Thank you for sharing with me. It means a lot that you’re opening up.”
“You’re not mad?”
“No, of course not. I mean, if you can survive the ‘he tried to off himself’ bomb my parents lobbed at you, I think I can survive the ‘he loved a criminal cop’ grenade. We could probably pitch a reality TV show based on those things, though.”
Josh chuckled. “Thanks, bem. I really needed to talk.”
“I’m glad you did. I’m just disappointed I won’t see you until Friday.”
“You sure you don’t mind hanging out at my place all weekend? It’s not as homey as your place, and I won’t be there part of the time. You might get bored.”
“I’m sure. I don’t want you to have to drive back for your Saturday shift and then back again to my place. Besides, I can bring my laptop over and get some writing in while you’re working. The final Chesapeake proposal’s due on Thursday anyway, so it won’t be hanging over my head this weekend. I’m actually dying to write and with work being so busy, I haven’t had time this week. I’m so close to sending it off to my agent.”
“I’m sure she’ll love it.” He could almost feel Drew’s smile through the phone.
“I hope so. But either way, I can’t wait to see you this weekend. Is it sappy to say I’ve missed you?”
“Not at all, bem. Not at all.”
Chapter ELEVEN
DREW SQUINTED as he approached his parents’ house, umbrella in hand. The damp evening air chilled his skin, giving him goose bumps. The rain and resulting cold front was a welcome reprieve from the heat. He wished he could go to Josh’s place to make sure he really was okay, but with both of their crazy schedules, it looked like that wouldn’t happen for a few more days.
Drew was excited to spend the weekend at Josh’s. He’d been there a couple times now, but never to spend the night. Josh seemed to prefer coming to Greenbelt. Considering the tension at Josh’s work and the need to keep their relationship secret, he didn’t blame him. Plus, Drew had the bigger bed.
After work, Drew had called Josh to check in. He seemed more relaxed than usual. Drew wasn’t surprised. He knew what it was like to keep relationship secrets from those you cared about and the toll it took. He could only imagine how much worse Josh had it, since he couldn’t even be honest about his sexuality, much less who he loved. And it had torn apart Josh’s relationship with his parents. Drew didn’t want that to happen in his own family, though arguably it had already been going on.
Which was why he was standing in front of his parents’ place now, a steady rain sliding off his umbrella. If Josh could open up to him, he could at least try to take care of his own shit so it didn’t spill over, any more than it already had, into their relationship.
Before he reached the door, it swung open and his mother’s worried face greeted him.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She wrung a dishcloth in her hands like she was trying to choke the life out of it.
“Hi, Mom. I told you I’d be coming by. There’s no reason to panic.” He smiled, hoping to ease her tension, but if anything she seemed more agitated.
“Come in. You’ll catch a cold in this weather.” She waved at him impatiently.
Drew had a hard time not rolling his eyes, but he followed her inside to the living room. “Is Dad around?”
“He’s at Ian’s helping with some sort of bookshelf project. Why? Do you need to talk to him? I could call—”
“Mom, please. Just relax, okay? There’s no big emergency, I promise.”
She harrumphed. “Well, I’ve reheated some leftovers. You can take some for your lunch tomorrow too. I know you don’t have that many options near your work.”
Drew didn’t laugh, but it was a close thing. There were probably a couple dozen restaurants within a quarter-mile radius of his work.
“Thanks, Mom. Listen, can we talk?” He pointed to a large beige sofa.
“I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Drew chuckled, though butterflies were taking flight in his stomach. “You’re freaking out over nothing. I just want to talk.”
“You can talk while you eat.” His mom didn’t bother looking over her shoulder as she marched into the kitchen. He followed in her wake and found a plate with garlic roast lamb and a heap of colcannon sitting on the eat-in bar. It could easily feed three people. “I’ve made an apple crumb cake too.”
“Wow, this is amazing. Thank you.” He pulled up a s
tool and began eating more out of habit than hunger.
She stood on the other side of the counter, watching him eat. Then she cocked her head, narrowed her eyes.
“What?” he said, quickly swallowing down a bite. Why was he so nervous? He wanted to have this conversation. He did.
“Are you sure nothing’s going on? You haven’t stopped by in a while. You’ve hardly called.”
What she meant was “not since their fight a couple weeks ago.”
“Mom, I actually came by to talk to you about the other night.”
She waved her hand. “Oh, Drew, you know how we all get. I’m just sorry Josh had to see it.”
“Me too. But that’s just it. I think it’s going to keep happening if we don’t make an effort to change it. Both of us.”
“What do you mean?” She’d gone back to choking the life out of the poor dish towel.
“I mean, I plan to keep seeing Josh. Even though he has a dangerous job. Even though he could break my heart. I also plan to keep writing. If I’m successful enough at it, I’ll leave my job and make writing a full-time gig.”
“But—”
Reaching across the counter, he clasped her hand to stop her from breaking in. “I understand you and Dad are worried about me, and I know I’ve added to those fears. But I need you to know I’m okay. And I’m going to be okay. Even if Josh breaks up with me. Even if my writing only ever remains a hobby. I’ll be okay.”
“Drew—”
“Please listen, Mom. I really need you to hear what I’m saying. I’m not a kid anymore. I know I acted like one when Brian”—his mom sputtered like she always did when Brian’s name was mentioned—“dumped me, but I’ve grown up since then. I was naïve, and I hid everything the way he wanted me to. From you guys, from my friends. Anything he wanted, I did. That was a mistake. I’ve learned from it. I won’t ever be in that kind of relationship again.”
“You don’t talk to us. I had to find out from your brother that you’re still seeing Josh. How do we know he isn’t treating you badly—”
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