Dex in Blue

by Amy Lane

  Dex was running away then, past the other students at their stations, taking off his worn white apron as he walked and pitching it in the hamper and grabbing his leather coat from the long pegboard by the door.

  Kane watched him go with a sigh, thinking that he really did need to save the guy some cookies. Dealing with the cops would make anyone need some of those.

  Roommates

  Dex

  KELSEY lived in Carmichael, which was a nice suburb and all, but when traffic was bad, it was a bitch to get to, because most of it wasn’t really near any freeways. Traffic was clearing up down J Street and Fair Oaks, but it still took for fucking ever, and Dex was irritated because he just didn’t want that girl alone.

  Dammit! Why was it any plan he made, anything he worried about, turned to shit? Goddammit! He’d wanted a good place, a safe place—he’d wanted it to be like any other fucking job: you did it, you were proud, you got paid. Why’d Scott have to be such a fucking psychopath? Man, the guy wasn’t even in the porn for the money! He had everything he wanted—a sweet trust fund, a girlfriend who liked the gay thing as a kink, parents to piss off. That last was probably how he was able to front John the coke for his petty little blackmail scheme, but Dex just couldn’t figure out why he’d want to be that much of a shitacular human being.

  Stuck in traffic, Dex was forced to remember that trip to Florida where they’d hooked up. He’d watched Tommy and Chase talking from across the patio and wished he’d gotten there before they became so close, because he’d been feeling lonely. He didn’t want to cockblock Tommy, though—he figured he’d just hang back. And then Scott, who had that bitter sarcasm, had started talking to him.

  “God, could they be any more Sweet Valley High?” he’d asked, swigging his beer. “So glad you know better!”

  Dex looked at him—dark hair, dark eyes, perpetual smirk—and felt some pride at being jaded, which was soothing because he’d just had to have “the talk” with Chase (and Ethan too, if he remembered right) about not getting attached. It made him feel particularly shitty, like the guy who told folks there was no Santa Claus.

  “Yeah,” Dex said, and he waggled his eyebrows to make it a joke. “All sorts of things you know better in this business.”

  Scott took the initiative then, and oh God, Dex hadn’t realized it until Kane first seized the back of his neck and told him to stay put, but that really turned his key. With Scott, he just knew that it made him more receptive, suggestible. When Scott stepped up into Dex’s space and brushed his lips against Dex’s temple, Dex’s mouth went dry and suddenly he wanted to know about someone else’s plans, and not just his own, because his own seemed to end so very badly.

  “How about you and me, we just cut the shit and do the thing?” Scott purred, and a year and a half ago, Dex had thought that had been clever. He’d had eight years in porn by then. He should have known better.

  God, all the shit he hadn’t known about love then.

  That invading his space thing, the “cutting the shit and do the thing”—that was what porn was all about.

  The forcing a spot in your schedule to watch your boyfriend make five hundred pounds of cookie dough? That was what love was all about.

  All those porn videos, all of those girlfriends he’d felt bad about not connecting with, and the one thing he really wished he could go back and change was that one bad decision about Scott. He’d been so lost, he’d thought that had been love.

  He had to park four houses down from Kelsey just to get past the cop cars, and then he had to push past some cops who wanted to know what the hell he was doing there.

  “I’m her boss!” he snapped. “She called me because she doesn’t have family here. What the fuck happened?”

  There were some snickers then, and Dex wrinkled his nose at them.

  “Boss? What are you the boss of?” one cop asked, and Dex took a deep breath and wished Kane was there.

  “Where is she?” he asked flatly. “She’s scared, and I need to know what happened.” Ass. Hole.

  “She’s in there.”

  Dex blew past the other lingering cops and found Kelsey sitting at her kitchen table, clutching her wrapper tight around her body to protect her from the draft coming in from the shattered window. When she saw Dex, she stood up, and he took three quick steps so he could pick her up and hug her—mostly because she was barefoot and he wanted to get her feet off the ground.

  Dex didn’t have Kane’s bulk, but he still worked out for an hour and a half a day. He flipped her up, thickening stomach and all, into his arms and was comforted himself when she wrapped her arms around his neck. He remembered this from his “Yeah, I’m straight” days—it was still reassuring to know he could protect someone from pain.

  He looked at the cop who had been sitting by the table, and found his inner Kane surfacing.

  “She’s barefoot and in her nightgown, and you’re keeping her in a room with no window full of broken glass. Really?”

  The officer was young, with dark hair and a face that looked like it had been scrubbed red, and now he seemed uncomfortable. “We’re sorry about that. We were just trying to get her story straight. Who was this guy to her?”

  Dex hugged her tight and kissed her cheek and then walked to the hallway. “I’m gonna put you down so you can go get dressed. I want you to call Ethan and tell him to get that plywood from my garage and get his ass down here so we can board up that window. Then I want you to pack a bag—do you mind sharing with Ethan? He might hug you to death, but I swear, Kelsey, your virtue has never been in better hands.”

  Kelsey hiccupped. “Yeah, baby. I know. Three gay porn stars—it should be the name of a security outfit.” She rested her head on Dex’s chest. “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell me what happened before I go out and talk to the cops?”

  She was shivering, and Dex held her tighter. Dammit, this girl was his friend!

  “He came knocking on my door—haven’t seen him in weeks when we haven’t been at the office, and suddenly there he is, drunk as hell, yelling that he loves me. I… I knew it was bullshit. I called you, I called the cops, and locked myself in my bathroom. When the cops got here, he was bashing in my front window with crowbar.” Kelsey shivered. “Omigod, Dex—he was so coked up, he had to be hauled off in an ambulance!”

  Dex shuddered. “Shit. Shit. Well… fuck.” It made sense. Dex hadn’t known he was using, but if he’d dealt to John, it was only likely.

  “I just don’t know what made him go off like that,” Kelsey said glumly.

  Dex got her to her bedroom and set her down on her feet, and she burrowed in against his chest like Frances—or Kane.

  “He kept screaming your name. I mean, he’s beating my window in and he’s screaming your name!”

  “Oh God,” he muttered, feeling a little sick. “I do. Fuck. Fuck. It’s all my fault—oh God, Kelsey, I didn’t know.” Scott had his pride. Dex and Kane had shit all over it. They should have seen this coming. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. He leaned back against the hallway wall, trying to breathe.

  “For what?” Kelsey snapped. “For not letting him fuck you over? Kane and I both were listening, Dex. I know what Kane signed on to do, I know why, and I know that video never went out. I don’t even want to know what’s on it—all I hoped for was that you two would still be good.”

  Dex nodded. “Fuck,” he muttered again. “’Kay, what did you tell the cops?”

  Kelsey shrugged. “I told ’em that he knocked me up and I kicked him to the curb, and he came back for booty call. It’s the truth, right?”

  “It makes sense, yeah,” he said, but he still felt sick. “God, Kelsey… God. I should have known. He… he’s a predator. He got me when I was weak, he got you when you were sad. We shit on his pride and he had to get us back. I’m sorry. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

  He wanted Kane. He wanted Kane. Kane would find something to say that would make this feel okay. Not let him off the hook, just not make
him feel like shit.

  “Should we tell them the whole thing?” he asked, feeling lost, and was surprised when Kelsey shook her head.

  “Fuck no. What’s that going to get us, Dex? Gonna get Johnnies in the papers, gonna get John in trouble. John’s in rehab. He gave you part of his business ’cause he almost lost it. No. You said it, hon—we’ve got people on the payroll trying to feed their families. Scott’s not going to talk about this—not when he’s down from his high, he’s not. He’ll take the slap on the wrist and go on his fuckin’ way.”

  But Dex was not convinced. “Restraining order,” he said, keeping his jaw tight. “First thing tomorrow. Restraining order on him for you, for Johnnies, for me and Kane. And you’re not staying here tonight.” He looked around the little house—it was tidy but not really decorated. The furniture was plain, there was maybe one poster in the place—Kelsey was a sweet kid, but it was clear she did most of her living at school and at Johnnies. “Let’s even get you a new place, okay? I’ll help. We’ll move you somewhere else. I don’t want him to know where you are.”

  “He knows where you live,” she said softly, and Dex shrugged.

  “Yeah, but I drew blood and Kane humiliated his cowardly ass. No. He’s gonna go for you, because he’s an asshole and he thinks you’re weak.”

  Kelsey laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, well, I’m pressing charges and we’re going to throw his weak ass in jail.”

  Dex nodded. “Good. And Kelsey? If it comes down to blowing us all out of the water or letting Scott off the hook? You tell the cops everything, okay? Kane and me, we got into porn ’cause we didn’t mind having our privates on display. If we gotta do that for a little while longer, we can do that. I want Scott out of your life.”

  Kelsey shrugged and hugged him. “God, I wish you were straight,” she muttered. “Don’t worry, Dex, we’ll do what we have to.”

  “Good. Go get dressed and call Ethan. I’ll deal with Smiley the Cop.”

  Smiley the Cop was exceptionally dense. “So Ms. Belnap was dating….” The officer squinted at his notes. “Scott? She kept calling him Scott, but his ID read—”

  “Martin Eugene Sampson, yeah. Scott was a nickname.”

  The police officer was not convinced.

  Dex was still talking when Ethan got there with his own truck, the back full of boards and brooms and gloves and shit, and the cop was still getting it muddled. Ethan had started picking up the bigger pieces of glass and throwing them in a big box when the cop suddenly looked at him and then looked at Dex.

  “Wait. Independent film studio? Independent film studio my ass, you guys are porn stars.”

  Dex smiled humorlessly and reevaluated the guy’s intelligence. “Yeah.”

  “So when that guy was screaming your name, he was—”

  Dex flushed. “I’m his boss. I fired him. It was ugly. He moved in on Kelsey, the receptionist, who never hurt a fly and who had her first office love affair with the guy who just broke the window. Look—you can do this big or you can do this right. She is innocent in all this. She never had any sex she wanted the world to know about. The rest of us, we put our name on a contract to have our bare asses on the Internet, but she didn’t. Can we just keep this about a coked-up asshole breaking her window quiet?”

  The cop nodded and watched the muscles in Ethan’s arms flex as he swept up the rest of the glass. Ethan wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he looked dangerous, and Dex laughed a little as the cop got intimidated just by watching a guy sweep a floor.

  “Yeah,” the cop said, turning back to Dex. “Yeah. We can do that. But….” The cop’s voice dropped, and he darted his eyes both ways. “You guys got to sleep with some fine women, didn’t you?” he asked, his voice throbbing with hope.

  Dex hated to burst his bubble. “Yeah, but mostly off set. Johnnies is gay-for-pay.”

  Dex’s best moment in the whole affair was watching the guy almost swallow his tongue.

  And there, for a bare moment, he thought maybe they would make it out of the whole night okay, when the phone in his pocket buzzed again and Kane’s picture came up.

  Sitting outside Lola’s. Hector’s here.

  Oh shit. Dex’s nightmare was complete.

  Don’t go inside. I’m coming right over.

  He’s yelling at her. I can’t let him hit her!

  Call the cops! NOW! Don’t go inside yet!

  Dex looked up at Ethan and tried to hold his shit together. “Dude!” he called while the cop scribbled his statement. “Dude—you gotta take her back to our place. Kane’s brother-in-law is about to start beating on his sister—man, I gotta fuckin’ go!”

  The cop looked up at him, actual concern on his broad red face. “You are having a night, aren’t you?”

  Dex looked at his phone, willing Kane to buzz him back. “I’m sayin’,” he muttered. “C’mon, Carlos, don’t fucking do this.”

  “Gimme the address,” the cop said. “I’ll call for a drive-by, how’s that?”

  The phone didn’t buzz, and Dex looked up at him, almost in tears. “Yeah. Yeah, you do that. Ethan!” he called. “Give this guy Kane’s sister’s place!” And then he couldn’t stand there and plan any longer. “I’m gonna go see for myself.”

  OH GOD. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God—twenty minutes. Down Fair Oaks, then onto I-80, then onto I-5, then off at Truxel, then… fuck. Fuck. Dex wasn’t sure he could have gone any faster without plowing over someone, but he almost found out.

  When he swung off of Truxel and into the little suburb with the big houses, his heart rolled over at the sight of the cop cars. Not car. Cars. And not just cop cars, an ambulance.

  Oh fuck. Two.

  And Kane’s sister standing at the door much like Kelsey had, in a bathrobe, clutching Frances to her chest. Lola was screaming, and Dex stopped the truck so short on the curb he’d have a bruise on his clavicle for a week. He didn’t notice and he didn’t care. He came sprinting out of the truck toward the whole debacle, spotting Kane sitting in the back of an ambulance, holding an absorbent ice pack up to the side of his face, streaming blood. He was swatting at the poor girl in the paramedic’s outfit and looking around for something that Dex couldn’t fathom.

  Dex got to him and elbowed the paramedic out of the way, stooping down and holding his hand to Kane’s face before Kane even knew he was there.

  “Jesus, asshole! I told you not to go in there!”

  Kane beamed woozily up at him. “Yeah, I know. But he came out to his car and got a crowbar, Dexter. And he opened the door and I could hear the baby cry. I don’t know… did he hit her? I don’t know. I got out of the car to stop him with the crowbar and… I think I got a punch in….” Kane looked at his knuckles, which were split and bloody on both hands, and Dex figured he had.

  “Yeah,” Dex said, his stomach ten times worse than it had been when he’d seen Kelsey. “I think you got two in. And I think you got a crowbar to the head.” Oh Jesus. Jesus. Fuck. “What were you thinking?” Dex’s eyes burned, and he thought about the helpful cop at Kelsey’s and how maybe if that guy hadn’t gotten there, Kane would be bleeding on the lawn while Hector….

  Oh God. More cops. Another statement. All Dex wanted to do was wrap his body around Kane’s and never fucking let him go.

  “You heard the part about the crowbar, right?” And Kane, being Kane, was not being sarcastic. He honestly thought Dex hadn’t heard.

  “Yeah, Carlos. I heard the part about you being brave and fucking awesome and fighting a dragon with a crowbar.” Dex grabbed his hand and stood up, looking at the paramedic. Kane’s face was bleeding a lot into the towel, and his cheekbone was swelling up. It looked bad. Really bad. And then Dex noticed that it wasn’t just Kane’s face but that he had a gash on his left shoulder and his left bicep and forearm. He’d obviously blocked with his left and led with his right, and his left arm just lay in his lap, limp and bleeding. Dex fought hard to hold himself together. He looked at the paramedic, who was quietly and competently working
around him, and said, “You’re going to need to take him in, aren’t you?”

  The girl—she was pretty, blonde, and maybe Dex’s age—looked up and nodded. “We’re thinking concussion, and his face is going to need stitching. We’re not sure if his cheekbone is broken or not, and he might have a crack in his skull. He’s going to need a whole mess of tests and stuff before they let him go.”

  Dex nodded and seriously considered going fetal on the lawn, but that wouldn’t help anyone, would it. He just stood for a moment and stroked the uninjured side of Kane’s face, pushing the hair back from his forehead and thinking that it was like that fucking deer in the road. Nobody saw it coming.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Kane said into his stomach after a moment. “I mean, I’m gonna be okay and all, but I was scared. I was scared for a minute. I mean, if I get taken out by some asshole like Hector, who’s going to take care of you?”

  “I’m sayin’,” Dex muttered, closing his eyes. “I can’t even make cookies without you. I can’t look myself in the mirror without you. I can’t look forward to my day. Jesus, Carlos. You gotta take better care of yourself, okay?”

  Kane nodded against his middle. “Yeah. Tonight was a… an accident. We won’t do this again.”

  Dex looked up to Lola highlighted at the porch and yelling in Spanish at the cop who was trying to get her statement. “What’s her problem?” he asked, mostly to change the subject before he started bawling there and scared the shit out of Kane.

  Kane listened for a minute. “She wants to know where they took Hector. I mean, I woke up on the ground and the cops were putting him in a car and taking him away. The ambulance guy helped me over here, but I never got to talk to her. I guess she’s saying she wants to know how she can bail him out of jail.”

  Dex’s skin washed cold and his vision went white. “She what?” he asked faintly, and at that moment, the paramedic tapped him on the arm.

  “Sir? We’re going to help him up into the bus and take off now. We’re going to Kaiser, off of Cottage and Arden, do you know where it is?”