by Gregory Ashe
“Oh my God,” Pari said. “Fix it yourself, North, so I don’t have to hear about Shaw’s alternative mathematics where one plus one equals three.”
This time, there was some definite snarling.
Seven and a half minutes later: “I need to show you something.”
Shaw glanced up. North’s messy thatch of blond hair was even more mussed than usual, and red circles marked his cheeks. His eyes were narrow and promising some serious payback for this bullshit.
“What?” Shaw asked, head down again to hide his grin.
“That’s what I’m going to show you.”
“Can’t you tell me?”
“Motherfucking son of a bitch—” North cut off. “No, I can’t tell you. That’s the whole reason I want to show you.”
“It’s not about that parabolic mic, is it?”
“No.”
“It’s not a bug, is it? Because if you want me to kill a bug, I’m not going to do it. We’ve got enough ghosts in here already.”
“I can kill a bug by my own goddamn self, thank you very much. Get your ass up. Walk your ass back here. Right now, Shaw.”
“Ok,” Shaw said, letting doubt creep into his voice as he set aside the stacks of promotional materials. As he gathered himself up, he shook his head. “No, wait. I just remembered. I’ve got to call the power company because we keep getting that electric bill from the ethereal plane, and—”
North’s voice had unraveled, and it rose into a shout. “For the last fucking time, it’s not the ethereal plane, it’s for the goddamn last tenant!” Then the door crashed shut.
Pari flicked a look at Shaw. “He’s grumpy for a guy who got some last night.”
“He’s North,” Shaw said with a shrug. “He’s always grumpy.”
Half an hour later, Pari stood, stretched, and grabbed her purse. “I’m taking my break. Do you want anything from Shameless Grounds?”
“Actually, yes, they have this vegan pita—”
“I didn’t think so,” she said as she flounced out the door.
No sooner had it shut behind her than the inner office door flew open, and North stood there, chest rising and falling with huge, labored breaths.
“You son of a bitch,” he growled as he launched himself across the room.
Trying not to laugh, Shaw let North manhandle him into their office. North shut the door and pressed the thumb lock. Shaw, grinning, backed away.
“Why,” North cast his sunglasses on the desk and tugged off his shirt, “do you have to be so fucking difficult sometimes?”
“I don’t like feeling objectified.”
“Get those stupid shorts off right now,” North snapped as he shucked his jeans.
Shaw wriggled out of the hot pants but said, “I don’t like feeling like a cheap trick.”
Hopping out of his boxers, North made an aggravated noise. Then, naked and hard, he advanced. Shaw gave up and started to laugh.
“What the fuck is so funny?” North asked as he caught Shaw by the arms and settled him in a chair. For a moment, his dick bobbed inches from Shaw’s face, and then he lowered himself to straddle Shaw’s lap. Shaw whimpered when their erections slid against each other. North had a wicked grin as he grabbed the cropped tank and gave Shaw a light shake. “I asked you a question.”
Shaw opened his mouth to answer, but North rutted against him, and all that came out was garbled noises.
North bent, kissing Shaw’s mouth, his jaw, his neck and collarbone and shoulder. He sucked and bit at the marks he’d left the night before.
“Fuck yeah,” he whispered. “Walking around half-naked, my marks all over you.”
Taking both of them together in one hand, Shaw began to pump.
“Fuck,” North groaned. “I never should have let you out of bed this morning.”
The thin paneling, the distant noise of traffic, the unfamiliar setting, even the knowledge that Pari could walk in on them at any moment—they all combined to set Shaw on fire. But it was more than that. It was this change in North, the sudden lack of inhibitions, his seemingly insatiable need.
“Yeah, yeah, you got me there, oh shit.” North rutted into Shaw’s hand and came, the strain of controlling his volume outlined in his face. When he finished, he slumped forward, forehead on Shaw’s shoulder.
Shaw let his head fall back and finished. As he was coming down from the orgasm’s crest, he felt North’s mouth moving gently across his throat, kisses and murmured words that he couldn’t assemble into anything meaningful.
“Well,” Shaw finally croaked. That was all he could come up with.
“Yeah,” North said with a chuckle. “God, sometimes I feel like I could get off from looking at you. Especially when you play so fucking hard to get.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes, North’s face against Shaw’s shoulder again, the bigger man’s body still. Come was cooling and drying on Shaw’s belly. He ran his hand down the bumps of North’s spine, pressed his palm against the small of North’s back, a position that was almost an embrace. North settled against Shaw’s hand with a contented noise.
“This is fun,” Shaw whispered. He had to stop because his mouth was so dry. He tried again. “Sneaking around like this, it’s hot.”
North made a pleased noise.
“But don’t you—I mean, maybe if we told a few people, so they didn’t keep trying to set us up—”
North’s head came up. His ice-rim eyes were unreadable. “Tell them what?”
In the storefront next to them, the Jonas Brothers were wailing about being suckers for you.
North leaned back, tapped Shaw’s arm, and tugged the tank up and off. He used it to clean up Shaw’s belly and then held it, crumpled, in one hand.
Shaw focused on an ominous-looking bulge in the acoustic tiles. It suggested water damage. Maybe a serious structural problem.
“Come on,” North said, and the friendly tone couldn’t hide the irritation in his voice. “We talked about this. We’re friends.”
“Friends with benefits,” Shaw said. “Will you get off me, please?”
“I don’t get why we have to have this fight over and over again. We’re so good at this, Shaw. We’re good at being friends. We’re good at giving each other shit. We’re good at working together. We’re good at fucking together.”
“You weigh a ton.” He pressed on North’s chest. “And I want to clean up before Pari comes back.”
“Look, every relationship has its natural level. This is ours. Best friends and fantastic sex. When we tried it without sex, we had problems. When we tried to make it more than friends and sex—”
Shaw moved, rising fast enough to dump North on his ass.
“Jesus Christ!”
Moving around the desk, Shaw shrugged. “I asked you twice.”
“Damn it, Shaw. I’m going to have bruises on my ass.”
In the bottom drawer of his desk, Shaw found a change of clothes. “That’ll give you a good story for all your other hookups.”
“For fuck’s sake.” North gathered himself, but Shaw was already moving toward the door. “We broke up. We agreed that if we were going to do this, add sex to our friendship, we weren’t going to get weird about it.”
Shaw threw open the door. He huffed, trying to get close to laughter while being a hundred miles away from it.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.”
But Shaw was already out in the hall. He shut himself in the bathroom.
North hammered on it once. “Open the fucking door.”
Shaw stared at the yellow tiles, the yellow sink, the yellow toilet. Chartreuse, he thought. Maybe someone had called this color chartreuse instead of old tennis ball or moldy orange.
With a muttered “Fuck this,” North moved away from the door.
Warm water. Soap. Paper towels. Then Shaw pulled on the clothes: a sailor-collar shirt of peach-colored linen, and cutoffs. Cold water fo
r puffy eyes. In the reception area, the bell jangled, which meant Pari was back from break and it was now safe to exit. North wouldn’t press the issue while Pari was around. At least, Shaw hoped he wouldn’t.
When Shaw opened the bathroom door, though, North popped out of their office like an angry Norse jack-in-the-box. He was dressed again, and the t-shirt was tight around his biceps.
“You know what? When we’re having a fucking conversation—”
“North?”
The voice was older, cultured, self-assured. Shaw turned.
He recognized the man: Mr. Laguerre. Tucker’s father. Which, in some nightmare logic, made sense right now. Why wouldn’t he be here, Shaw thought, when everything else is so awful?
“Dick,” North said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know—” He shook his head. “Are you—is Cathy—” He laughed and rubbed his mouth. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I need to hire you,” Dick Laguerre said. “Tucker’s been arrested for murder.”
Chapter 3
THE WORDS ECHOED IN North’s ears, and for a moment, they were gibberish. Tucker’s father stood in front of him, here, in the Borealis office. Dick Laguerre, talking about murder. The summer sunlight coming in through the front windows was too bright; North wiped his eyes.
“Why don’t you come back to our office?” Shaw said. “North, do you want me to—”
“No.” North’s head bobbed as though on a loose string. “I mean, yes. Come on, Dick. Let’s sit down. This has got to be some kind of misunderstanding.”
Impossible, back in their office, to miss the smell of sex. Impossible to miss the faux-walnut paneling peeling back from the studs. Impossible to miss the water-damaged acoustic tiles and the rusty bleed-out from the drop ceiling’s grid. Impossible to miss Shaw’s desk, it’s usual insanity: the Five Below wall clock he had disassembled, turning the second hand into a “phallic gnomon to represent the sexual dimension of time”; the charcoal-stained toothbrush being used to clean a coach-pitch trophy that had once belonged, according to the plaque, to a girl named Seema Naidu; an uncapped Speed Stick; a rubber band ball that Shaw had once spent an entire afternoon trying to saw through with an eight-and-a-half by eleven printout of Adrienne Rich poems; and a boxed set reprint of The Little House on the Prairie books. Impossible to miss, in other words, the fuckery of North’s life.
They sat. Dick looked around. His face didn’t show anything, and he was too polite to say anything. He was an older version of Tucker, with a more patrician cast to his features but the same classically good looks, the same boarding-school coloring. Today, he wore a white polo and preppy khaki shorts. He was tan from hours on the back nine. Once, in a moment of drunken bitterness, Tucker had claimed that his father’s proudest moment had been when he birdied on Tea Olive at Augusta. Maybe that explained why, in those first shocked seconds of seeing his soon-to-be-ex father-in-law, North had thought Dick Laguerre had driven all the way down to Benton Park to talk golf.
“Mr. Laguerre,” Shaw said, “why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“Please, Shaw. Call me Dick. We’re all adults here, and whatever—” His gaze slid from Shaw to North and back to Shaw. “—unpleasantness might have occurred, I think we can all behave appropriately.”
The Laguerres, North thought with a sudden smile. The house could be burning down, and Dick and Cathy wouldn’t drop that amiable detachment. What had North expected? For Dick to lose his shit because here North was, with the man he had left Tucker for, and the office smelled like a horny teenager’s laundry hamper? Then the smile died. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Dick, what are you talking about? There’s no way Tucker killed someone.” North ignored the shadow on Shaw’s face. “If the police took him in for an interview—”
Dick held up a hand. “Not an interview. He was arrested, North. He called our lawyer, and our lawyer called us. Biff is convinced he can get Tucker out on bail, but the earliest he could get a hearing was Monday.” For a moment, Dick looked older, and his hand trembled as he smoothed the hem of his shorts. “Biff says—well, it doesn’t matter. Tucker will be out of that awful place on Monday; that’s what matters. What we have to do now is begin preparing for his defense.”
“Who do the police think he killed?” Shaw asked.
“A man named Rik Slooves.”
Shaw shot a look at North.
“You know him?” Dick asked. “I understand he used to be a professor at Chouteau, but now he’s some kind of banker or investor or something.”
“We know him,” North said. He didn’t add that Rik Slooves had fucked every boy he could convince to hold still for five seconds. He didn’t add that Tucker and Percy and most of their other friends had, at one point or another, fallen victim to Rik’s charms. “Why do they think Tucker killed him?”
“Biff said Tucker was upset. He said Tucker was doing his best to explain, but certain facts remain unclear.” Dick’s smile was worn thin. “I believe that means my son had been drinking and doesn’t remember clearly what happened, but from what Biff was able to gather and pass along, they found Tucker with this man. After he had been—well, you understand.”
“Mr. Laguerre,” Shaw said, “if Tucker was drinking, and if they found him with the victim, it sounds like—I guess I’m saying, I’m not sure what you’re asking us to do.”
“I know how it sounds, Shaw. I’m well aware of how it sounds. But my son is not a murderer. I refuse to believe that he had anything to do with this man’s death, no matter what the circumstances suggest. And I’m disappointed—very disappointed—that you’d think anything to the contrary, although I suppose, considering the nature of your relationship, it’s not unbelievable that you’d wish the absolute worst for Tucker.”
Shaw’s cheeks reddened, and he leaned back slightly.
“That’s not fair to Shaw,” North said. “And it’s not fair to me either.”
In reception, the bell jangled again, and Pari called, “I’m back.”
Dick crossed his legs. His foot beat an empty measure in the air. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “Biff called sometime after three, and as you can imagine, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I’ve spent most of the morning reaching out to friends. They all want to help, but of course, they all have their excuses. ‘You have to let it play out’ is what I’ve heard most often. The most I could get was a promise from an old fraternity brother to do his best to make sure Tucker made bail, although I’m not even sure when he’ll be arraigned. It’s all been…frustrating. But that’s no excuse, and I’m sorry for saying what I did.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Shaw said. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this.”
With a stiff nod, Dick said, “Thank you.”
“Do you have some reason,” North tried to find the right words, “to believe Tucker was framed? Or that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“It seems…unlikely that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what Biff conveyed, that does not seem possible.” Dick held up a hand to forestall North. “I’ll let Tucker explain that to you. I’m not sure what I want you to do, if I’m being honest. I suppose I want you to find the truth. If we know what happened that night, what really happened, it will exonerate my son.”
“We’ll—” North began.
“We’ll need a moment to discuss things,” Shaw broke in.
North flipped the bail pull on the center drawer a few times. He straightened in his chair. He looked over at Shaw.
“A few minutes, please,” Shaw said, smoothly but firmly. “If you’d wait in the hall, Mr. Laguerre.”
“Of course,” he said, standing. “And please, it’s Dick, Shaw. We can drop the formalities.”
When the door had closed behind him, North said, “We’re taking this case.”
“I don’t—”
“We’re taking it, Shaw. That’s final.”
&
nbsp; Some of Shaw’s hair had slipped free from its tie, and he blew it out of his eyes. “North—”
“Unless the next words out of your mouth are ‘I agree completely,’ stop.”
“Can you hear yourself right now?”
“Ok, let me get this straight.” North pushed back from the desk. The chair glided across the mat and then bogged down in the shag carpeting. He lurched out of the seat, didn’t know what to do with his hands, and made fists at his sides. “You get to say what cases we take, no matter what I think.”
Shaw drew his knees up to his chest.
“When Matty came to us, I didn’t want to take the case, but we did. Because you decided we would.”
“I—”
“And when Chuck’s boss went missing, remember that? We took that case because you wanted to, even though I thought it was a bad idea.”
Fingers laced together, Shaw pulled his knees up tighter.
“And the Slasher, Shaw. Everything we went through with the Slasher. That was you. And that stupid romance convention. And for fuck’s sake, we spent six hours in May turning over rocks looking for a leprechaun Peeping Tom because your witch friend claimed he was watching her when she celebrated her black Sabbath naked. So fuck what you want. We’re taking this case.”
Ruddy streaks marked the hollows of Shaw’s cheeks. He lowered his feet slowly. Then he stood. For some reason, North was surprised by how tall he was, as though he’d forgotten or misremembered, or as though Shaw were a stranger to him.
“Do I get to say something now?”
“What do you want to say?”
“If you want to do this, fine. I know I—I know how I’ve done things in the past, insisting I get my way, I recognize that’s been a problem. For us. For how you and I—for the way things ended, I guess. So I’ll support you in this, and I’ll do whatever I can. But can I at least ask why?”
“Why?”
“Why do you want to do this? After everything Tucker did to you—”
“This isn’t about him.”
“Oh North.” Shaw sounded so infinitely sad about it that for a moment, rage scrambled North’s vision.
Struggling to keep his voice even, North managed: “It’s not. Tucker’s a piece of shit; I don’t want anything to do with him. But his family was always good to me. They’re decent people, and they’re kind, and hell, Dick treated me more like a son than my own dad ever did.” That slip, and the look on Shaw’s face, made North hurry on. “So, I’m going to do it because he’s asking me to do it. And you know what? Even if Tucker is a piece of shit, he deserves justice.”