Dreamspinner Press Year Eight Greatest Hits

by Brandon Witt

  I was in love with a man who was in his first gay relationship. I was the first man he’d ever been with. So what would happen when he decided to test his new fairy wings, find someone a little better? And he would. My own mother had decided to find something, someone a little better.

  Everyone leaves.

  Was I okay? I was in love with a man who had promised me nothing. No.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  He groaned. “You only say that when things are very much not perfect. Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong?”

  “The only thing wrong with me right now is that I’m starving.” I took his hand, pulling him toward the kitchen. “I want fooood.”

  His eyes twinkled as he shook his head at me. “I guess I’ll have to feed you, then. And then fuck the answers out of you.”

  I grinned. Wouldn’t happen, but I would certainly enjoy him trying.

  Chapter 24

  IT WAS turning out to be a hell of a day. My tip to find a bail jumper hadn’t panned out, and now I was waiting two doors down from his mother’s house in a questionable neighborhood, slouched down low with my hat over my face. A couple of youths walked by my truck again, giving me a side eye, and I wondered how long it would be before they tried something. I hated the heat, I hated skip traces, and I hated the fact that Drew had saddled me with this one. But leaving Bella’s interview early had its price. I’d heard the sweet tune, and now that bitch the pied piper was here to collect. I picked at my thumbnail for the third time, trying to smooth the ragged edges I’d created on the second time. It wasn’t like I had anything to do.

  Jordan was going out of town to meet a client in NYC tonight and would be gone for a week. He had booked a redeye specifically so we would get a chance to see each other before he left, and here I was stuck in a hot car on a skip trace. My eyes flickered toward the clock in the dash—I only had an hour to wrap this up before he would have to leave. I still had hope. Just thinking about him lifted my mood, and I knew without consulting a mirror that my face had a big, goofy grin on it.

  The connection to Nick’s phone crackled a little, and I remembered that he had been talking my ear off before I’d drifted. While I was happy for Nick (happier now that I was getting some on the regular), listening to him blather on about Saint Peyton was giving me a headache.

  “—and then I said Peyton shouldn’t be embarrassed to go into a nail salon. I mean, men do go there nowadays. How can manscaping be wrong?”

  Nick had volunteered to keep me company, but I was absolutely thinking of hanging up on him. My fingers itched for the End button. One little button. That’s all it would take.

  He prattled on, oblivious to my inner dilemma. “He planned this wonderful getaway for us, just so we can get away, you know? Reconnect.”

  “You live at a bed-and-breakfast. Where do you get away to? A regular house and a job?”

  “Running a bed-and-breakfast is a full-time job, and it never stops. The guests always seem to need something, and they’re looking to you to provide it. Like a hotel, only the concierge, cook, and maid service is you. I love it, but we do need time away.”

  “Time away to fuck like bunnies?” I teased.

  “Tacky. Just tacky. I don’t know why I’m surprised you know nothing of romance. You and your endless line of men. You’re a serial dater.”

  He said that like it was serial killer, he really did.

  “Shows what you know, Nick. I’m in a committed relationship now. The shop is closed.”

  “Committed?” He snorted.

  “Yes, committed, thank you.”

  “How can you be committed with someone who’s not even out yet? In fact, isn’t he still engaged?”

  Is it still wrong to push someone out of a wheelchair if said person is a real Mitch?

  “No, he’s not still engaged. He broke it off weeks ago. And I’m willing to give him time to come to terms with our relationship.”

  We were still finding our groove, was all. I bit my lip. We ironically had no problems with normal couple issues—he did the cooking; I did the dishes. We walked the beach sometimes after dinner and talked about how it would be when we could take Finn with us. I found out his secret to keeping his home so clean—a short, stout housekeeper named Meredith, which totally worked for me. It meant I could still leave my wet towels on the floor and, three times a week, he could keep his house military clean. We just clicked. Only… it was like all the relationship issues had been replaced by one biggie—one party was altering his entire sexual identity.

  He’d claimed to be all right with how things were changing, but little things he did let me know he was still getting used to it. He was unwilling to be affectionate in public and even more unwilling to admit he had a problem with it.

  I tried to be supportive. Mostly by torturing him. Brushing up against him subtly in the checkout line. Offering to get his wallet for him when his hands were full and copping a feel. Hard to explain a hard-on in front of the tomatoes at the farmer’s market. Licking the foam off my macchiato slowly in a way that made him forget his own coffee order. The barista had repeated himself three times, and J’s face was red as fire as he’d finally ordered.

  Sexually, we clicked, and I was thankful for that too. Sometimes we barely made it to the bedroom before we were doing unspeakable things to one another. We’d probably used my couch more for fucking than sitting at this point, to be perfectly honest. He was creative, fun, uninhibited, and always willing to go a second round. Great. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. And just like that, I had wood hard enough to pound nails with.

  “So are you two living together, or what?”

  “It’s too soon for that,” I lied.

  Yeah, we kind of were. I rustled around my console before finding a Diet Coke. It was warm, but I was too thirsty to be picky.

  “I am staying at his place while he’s out of town,” I continued after popping the tab and taking a swig. “Keeping an eye on things.”

  “Snooping through his stuff?”

  “How else can I keep an eye on things? Honestly, no wonder no one ever asks you to house-sit.”

  “Everyone knows house-sitting is bullshit,” he said. I could picture the eye roll from years of experience. “A house sits by its damn self. Doesn’t need you holding up the foundation. That’s some bullshit move couples do to prove they’re in a different, more committed stage.”

  “You’ve cracked the code, boy wonder. What would you have me do, throw his keys in his face? Catch him right in the teeth?”

  I drummed my fingers on my thigh as I surveyed the goings-on of the neighborhood. Little kids playing some sort of tag game in the street, every now and again yelling at the cars that honked to get them out of the way. Two old men had parked themselves on a stoop and were smoking cigars and gesturing wildly. Somewhere in the midst of all this normalcy, I knew Dominic was hiding. I don’t know what made me madder—someone who thought it was okay to commit identity fraud or someone who thought it was okay to make his mother lose the car she’d posted for his bond. When that person was all rolled up into one, he deserved a genuine ass kicking.

  “Mac, are you even listening?” Nick’s voice sounded annoyed. “You used to be a lot more attentive.”

  “I used to be banging you too,” I informed him absently. “I found your opinions about my love life a lot more interesting.”

  Oh Lord, why did I say that? He launched into another speech that had me rubbing my temples.

  I tuned Nick out and eyed the small teal house with the ramshackle fence and sagging drapes. All the windows were open, some with broken screens, and I could hear the sounds of a family’s evening going on inside. The sounds were crystal clear, and even without a line of sight, I could tell exactly what they were. A pot clanging in the kitchen, a spatula against a frying pan. A sink turned on briefly—washing dishes? Water for a boiling pot? Jeopardy blaring from a set in the living room that tossed psychedelic light patterns on two of the dro
opy drapes. A dog, somewhere in the backyard, giving an occasional bark for the sheer joy of smelling food he wouldn’t be getting any of. The mosaic of any American family. Oh, except for the fugitive they may or may not be harboring. God knew if I was the mother he’d skipped bail on, he’d have a bullet in his hide the moment he set foot on my porch. But I’d found that, when it came to family, love often defied logic.

  “Since when are you a bounty hunter, anyway?”

  “Not bounty hunting,” I clarified. “This is strictly a consulting gig.”

  Nick seemed enthralled by the thought of my “bounty hunting,” despite my protest. “You going to try to take him or call it in?” he asked.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “A lot of things.”

  Depends on how big he was, how fast he was, and if I saw him before he saw me. Frankly, I knew Drew wanted me to bring this one in, but this wasn’t Grand Theft Auto. No reset button. If Drew wanted this guy so bad, he should have come himself.

  This was a cleaner job, and the fee was huge. The bail bondsman had less than thirty days to bring this guy in and had hired numerous skip tracers and a bounty hunter that had come up with diddly-squat. We had done two weeks of research for this moron, and more than that in surveillance. After the tip from the disgruntled sister-in-law fell through, I couldn’t just slink back to the office. I had to follow a hunch, even if it would truly be the irony of ironies if I found the big lug at his mother’s house. The $10,000 finder’s fee? Not half bad either.

  If I could do it all in—I glanced at my phone again—twenty-five minutes, I’d have a hero’s celebration. Of course that meant giving my beautiful boyfriend a quickie before he had to leave for New York. Maybe even letting him give me head on the way to the airport, which, I had to admit, the formerly straight man had a unique talent and desire for. Cocksuckers like that weren’t taught. They were born.

  Thirty minutes later, I was gnashing my teeth as the sun began its descent and shadows crept through the streets. Not only had I missed my baby, I was going to miss the jumper too. This wasn’t a neighborhood you wanted to find yourself in at night, finder’s fee or not. Just as I threw my cap on the dash, I saw a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. I groaned softly. The “kid,” a baby-faced criminal from the neck-up shot we’d had, clearly enjoyed body-building as a hobby. His red tank showed off muscular forearms with matching pitchfork tats.

  Maybe calling it in would be best.

  Dominic nervously shuffled down the sidewalk, and I took a quick glimpse of his pic on my iPhone.

  “Yep,” I whispered.

  “What’s going on?” Nick whispered back, as if he was the one who had to tackle a bodybuilding kid six years his junior.

  I tucked my Sig in my waistband as he unhooked the ragged gate. No matter how big, how bad, how dysfunctional they might be, they always came home to momma. “Gotta go, Nick. I can’t let him get inside.”

  Just the sound of my truck door closing had his brown-eyed gaze swinging my way, and I dropped all clever deception and sprinted for him. I had surprise on my side, but as I barreled through the gate, I realized he was far too close to the porch. He flew up the steps, but I pushed past the pain in my leg and gave a flying tackle. My hands closed on the thin material of his tank, and before I realized I even had him, we went down in a tumble of limbs. We rolled on the ground, kicking up dirt, brambles attacking my skin like claws. Somehow I wound up on top, and I struggled to pin him, wishing I had a third hand to cuff him. Or the strength to choke him out.

  “Stop. Fighting,” I gritted out, trying to be quiet. Right now it was one on one, but I knew from research he had plenty of family on the inside. I didn’t know whose side they would be on, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the one trying to arrest their little boy. At least that’s what they’d called him in court, when they’d pled for reduced bail.

  He bucked, and I was briefly unseated. Little, my ass. I scrambled back on and rolled him in the dirt. I huffed, slapping the cuffs on his wrists. I almost couldn’t believe I’d subdued the Incredible Bulk, but I had the scratches and a fat lip to prove it. I thought I might have cut it with my teeth in the fray. I licked at the spot gingerly and tasted coppery blood in my mouth. I drew back my fist before remembering he was worth ten grand… although I couldn’t remember whether the bail slip had specified dead or alive.

  “Get… the… fuck off me!” he growled, and I mashed his face in the dirt for making me run. And busting up my face.

  “Good to see you, Dom. Maybe this time the charges will stick? Don’t think Mama will bail you out this time.”

  He roared with fury, and the door opened at my back. We both froze.

  I swung around to see his mother silhouetted in the doorway, housecoat, pink rollers, and all. She had a frying pan in one hand that made my eyes go wide. Oh, Christ on a crutch, the last thing I needed was a frying pan upside the head.

  “Ma’am, I’m just—”

  “Get him off my lawn,” she instructed.

  “Mom!” Dominic shouted.

  She flinched but shook the frying pan threateningly. “This is what was waiting for you on this side of the door. Dominic, you face your consequences. We all have to face our consequences, my baby.” Her face crumpled a bit, and suddenly she was cradling the pan to her ample bosom. “And then you come back here.”

  Her words seemed to take all the fight out of him, and he allowed me to haul him to his feet. I led him away to my truck and knew she watched the entire time. He didn’t speak as I opened the driver’s door, but his grimace said it all. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to run by putting him in the passenger seat and circling around the truck.

  “After you.” I gestured, and he rolled his eyes before scrambling in.

  He got stuck on the gearshift, and I gave him a push, waiting as he wormed his way across the console. My phone rang, and I clicked the Bluetooth. “Yeah.”

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey yourself.” Hearing Jordan’s voice just reminded me what I was missing to pick up this lug, and I gave him another push. Not so gentle this time. He grunted and finally fell into the passenger’s seat. I knuckled the lock and the child safety locks and clambered in. “Have you left yet, or do I still have a prayer in heaven of seeing you?”

  “Already through security,” he said and laughed as I groaned. “Trust me, this isn’t what I wanted either. Did you get your guy?”

  “Got him,” I said, starting up the truck to get the hell out of Dodge before it got any darker. “I’m a little banged up, though.”

  “You?” Dominic gave me a surly look. “You gave me a black eye!”

  “I don’t remember doing that,” I told him. “Oh yeah, and shut up. I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Jordan was clearly trying to stifle amusement on the other end. “I wish I could tend to your wounds. And everything else.”

  “What would you do?” I asked, pulling into the busy traffic carefully.

  “I would kiss them to make them feel better.” His voice went low, almost whisper quiet. “Then I’d suck on you to make you feel great.”

  “God. How much to buy a ticket to New York again?”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m due two weeks’ vacation after this, and I’m taking it. Maybe going someplace where clothing is optional? Maybe I’ll see you there?”

  “You mean our bedroom, dear?”

  I was gratified to hear his laugh again. “Be careful. I left my car and took a taxi, so you can use it instead of the rust bucket queen. Water my plants, dammit. You always forget. They are not plastic. Don’t erase my shows from the DVR—I will know and you will pay. And… I’m going to miss you.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” My throat was not tight. “I’ll see you in a week.”

  I clicked off and drove, silently. The joy of catching the elusive jumper was suddenly eclipsed by loneliness. Get a grip, Mac. He’s not even gone yet. The depth of my feeling was scari
er than I could express verbally. But he will be. And not just to New York.

  “Dude, is that like your boyfriend or something?”

  I forgot how loud my Bluetooth was sometimes. I gave Dominic a glare. “Yeah. So?”

  “Gross. You don’t fight like a queer.”

  “You don’t look like you’d enjoy another black eye. And yet here we are.”

  He huddled next to his door sullenly, but I didn’t care. This douche bag made me miss my last fucking for a week. He was lucky I didn’t dropkick him to Chicago. I switched on the radio to something low and classical to distract myself. Reminded me of Jordan—he was so fucking classy sometimes, and I loved to tease him about it. Drinking wine and playing piano and all manner of things I’d previously laughed at but now found kind of sexy. Everything he did was kind of sexy. I shifted in my seat, remembering him on the bed, losing himself to the rhythm of my body. Man, a week was a long time.

  Chapter 25

  I DANCED into Drew’s office, ignoring both the fact that he was on the phone and the hand he put up to shoo me.

  “Yeah, uh-huh. I’ll tell him. No, he just came in.”

  I waved our check under his nose. Stuck out my tongue. Our finder’s fee had finally come through, and I was beyond proud. After all, I’d risked life and limb (and wrenched my knee pretty good) bringing that goon down.

  “Yeah, I’ll talk to you later,” he said, scowling at me. “He won’t go away.”

  “Nope,” I said in a singsong manner. Did the Roger Rabbit beside his desk. When he finally hung up, I stuck the check under his nose again. “And you thought I couldn’t get him.”

  “If I didn’t think you could get him, I wouldn’t have sent you.” He tried to take the check, and I held it back.

  “This is worth a vacation, don’t you think?”

  He growled, grabbing for the check again. When I wouldn’t relinquish my bounty, he sighed. “I guess.”

  I beamed and held out the check, which he snatched. “Two weeks, my friend.”