by Walker, Max
“I don’t think it’s weird.” Jonah looked at me with a dead-set look in his eyes. “At all. It’s great. I think everyone needs something to keep them from feeling like the world’s crashing around them all the time. I completely get it.” He was smiling, and the way he spoke, it really made me feel like he did understand what I was saying.
And of course he did. Jonah had been shot in the line of duty, missing death by a hair’s width of space. Of course he understood the need.
“Do you guys have a name? Bird-watchers? The watchers?” Jonah spoke with an added flair of drama.
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Birders.”
“Okay, all right. So maybe not as cool as the watchers, but still cool.”
“What do you mean? The League of Extraordinary Birders doesn’t sound cool?”
‘“Now that, that sounds badass.”
More laughing, more enjoying the moment. I felt myself at full ease around Jonah, and it was then that I also felt foolish. Why was I holding so much of myself back from him when he had proven more than trustworthy? He had literally saved my life back in Graffiti Graveyard.
“Birding really helped me when I got back home, though. After my mom passed away.”
Jonah stayed quiet, giving me the space to open up. He must have felt the shift between us, something unlocking.
“She died of a drug overdose.”
“Oh, Fox. Sorry…”
“I blame myself sometimes. She was fine before I left—broken but okay. My dad, he died after driving his car off a bridge. He was an alcoholic. He was an aggressive drinker, and my mom bore the brunt of it. She did her best to shield me. And, like most abuse victims, she couldn’t make it out of his grip. And I… I didn’t help her. I ran. I signed up for the military the first chance I could get. I knew she was torn about it; I knew it must have hurt her. But she was happy to see me go, and to get away from that house.” I swallowed, having to brace myself after being hit by a sudden and surprising surge of raw emotion.
Jonah did something surprising then, and something very much needed.
He reached his hand over and placed it on mine. It was all I needed to gather myself and push through.
“She didn’t get hooked on opioids until I had left. After my father left her with a really bad broken shoulder. I should have been there… I wasn’t. When I got back, it was too late. I lost her. And then my father, the coward he was, drank an entire bottle of vodka and went over that bridge.”
“Fox, I need you to know that none of that was your fault. You did what was best for you, and that’s something I know your mom wanted. Who knows what could have happened if you had stayed. Maybe the world would be missing one more bright soul. Maybe you needed to be out of that situation to survive it. And you did. Now, all you can do is keep going and making your mom proud every single day.”
I was crying. I didn’t realize it until I tasted salt on my lips. I wiped at my cheeks, looking away, surprised at myself. Jonah’s hand was still on mine.
Thank God Jonah’s hand was still on mine.
“I hadn’t thought of it like that before,” I said, speaking only when I was sure my voice wouldn’t crumble. “You know, I opened up like this to someone else. Told them about my mom… They took what I gave them, whittled it into a shank, and stabbed me right in the chest. I found it hard to trust after that. Not to say you aren’t trustworthy—I think we’ve established that I would already trust you with my life—it’s just…”
“Not with your past?”
“Not yet.”
The words sat in the air, mingling with the melodic chirps and trills of the singing birds.
“That’s okay,” Jonah said. “You don’t owe me anything. I’m the one who’s in debt with you for life.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” There was a huge chunk of me that felt terrible for not being able to give Jonah what he was looking for. He wanted a little piece, and I wouldn’t hand it over. “There’s no debts here. Just friendship.”
“Right, friendship.”
The way Jonah said “friendship” made it sound like a bad word.
But what else was I expecting?
I had no time to be bitter about it. My phone started to ring, pulling my attention away from the issue at hand.
“It’s Ayana, the hacker.” I answered the phone, Ayana’s melodic voice greeting me on the other end.
“Fox, my trip ended a little early. Are you close by? I want to get my hands dirty, in a technical way of speaking.”
“I can get to you in the hour.”
“Great. I’ll have a bottle of champagne on ice in the meantime.”
I looked to Jonah, a curious look on his face, and slid the phone back in my pocket.
“Looks like we’re back on the clock.”
23 Jonah Brightly
The hacker we were meeting with lived right off Ocean Avenue in South Beach, which was about a half an hour drive away from the park where we had spent the afternoon.
I was grateful for that time. I was following behind Fox’s car as we drove through the busy Miami street, and while I was paying attention to the road, my mind was definitely elsewhere.
Fox had opened up to me, in a way that was clearly painful for him. I hadn’t been expecting it, even though I wanted it. Fox was a stiff-upper-lip kind of guy, and I didn’t feel like I had earned enough of his trust yet. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to hurt him, he didn’t. Our partnership was still fresh; he had no idea if I was actually out to get him or not. Clearly I had proven I had his back when we were out on the field, but sharp blades weren’t the same as sharp tongues. Information could hurt in ways that knives couldn’t, and by him giving me his past, he was also handing me a weapon. One I would never wield against Fox.
Thick-trunked palm trees lined the road we were currently stuck in traffic on. Music was playing over the radio, but I hadn’t even realized until the song switched to one I absolutely hated.
“Nope,” I said to myself, changing the station.
The next song that filled my car was an old ’90s hit, about love and hearts and time.
I bobbed my head along, tapping on the steering wheel, trying anything to stop thinking about the man sitting in the car ahead of me.
Fox. His heart was shattered. I could see that now.
And I wanted to be the one to put it all back together.
What the hell is going on with me?
I lowered the windows, my small Honda’s interior feeling more and more stuffy by the second.
We inched along down the road, past a busy shopping center, past a red light. All the while, I could see Fox in front of me, glancing occasionally in the rearview mirror, his eyes catching mine for a few brief seconds before we’d look away.
There was something between us. Something that went much deeper than friends, than coworkers. This was serious, and even though it was fast, it was real. Lightning strikes at a speed of two hundred and twenty-two miles per hour… so why can’t love strike that fast, too?
Love. Holy shit.
No. This isn’t love. I’m not even…
…
I am. I am, and I know it.
I’m gay.
Holy shit.
It was the first time I’d ever thought those two words in sequence: I’m gay.
I’m gay.
Holy fuck.
Was I gay?
No, maybe I wasn’t… but God was I attracted to Fox. And not just him—I’d always been attracted to men. I’d always snuck glances, and I always indulged secret fantasies, fantasies I would try to forget about the second I climaxed. I had felt so damn guilty, it would eat away at my insides as I lay in bed next to a lightly snoring Wendy. There were days I’d be too tired to have sex with Wendy because I’d been jerking off to gay porn in the bathroom. Those days hadn’t been all that frequent, but only because I’d fought hard to make sure I denied that side of me.
But then Fox came along, and he made denial
an impossible feat.
Fox was the first man who I ever felt, kissed, tasted.
And in the same way someone starved of chocolate their entire life feels after they get their first bite of Godiva, I was fucking hooked.
This was all too much, too soon, and it was frying my circuits, exactly how a bolt of lightning would do. I needed more time to sort through my frayed emotions, that was all.
I should talk to my brother…
The rest of the stop-and-go way to the hacker was filled with conflicting thoughts and emotions. It felt good thinking those words to myself, but I still had never said them out loud, and I still didn’t trust myself to accept the truth in a time when my life was so in flux. I didn’t even have a place to call my own yet, and that was something that needed to be sorted ASAP. I had been searching for apartments whenever I got the chance, but everything was either too expensive or too run-down. I could look into getting roommates, but at twenty-seven years old, I really would have liked to avoid that.
As we got closer and closer to the beach, the shopping centers and residential homes morphed into towering hotels and boutique storefronts. I could see the building we were headed to on the horizon. It was recently dubbed the gem of the Miami skyline, since it had been a brand-new building created by Fredrico Escala, a world-renowned architect and visual artist.
The building spiraled around itself, with balconies that all had private and breathtaking views of the city and ocean below it. It was a mostly glass facade, but something else that made it stand out was the blast of green foliage that grew up through the building’s exterior. And it wasn’t just potted plants either. There were full-grown trees growing thirty floors aboveground. And the rooftop deck also featured a beautiful garden next to a world-class pool.
We parked our cars a street away and walked over to the towering green structure. Fox was talking about how he met the hacker as we checked in at the concierge desk inside of the opulent lobby, all polished white marble and trimmed gold highlights throughout, with three palm trees thriving in the center.
I tried listening to Fox, but now that I was out of the confines of my car and in his orbit, all I could think was holy shit, I really wanted this man.
“Right this way,” the security guard said after we were checked in. He led us to the elevator bays. There, he pressed his key card to a pad on the wall and the elevator door opened. We stepped inside and he pressed the floor we were heading to.
“Penthouse?” I said, a little surprised.
“She hit it big trading Bitcoins.”
“Got it.”
I tried not to think about how good Fox smelled, but, well, I was failing.
The elevator door opened up directly into a warmly decorated foyer. There was a large Andy Warhol hung up on the wall behind a black leather love seat, and a golden side table holding an interesting statue of what appeared to be a dog standing on human legs.
“Hey, guys.”
Standing in between a pair of polished wooden doors that led into the rest of the penthouse was Ayana, smiling with a dewy bottle of beer in her hand. She was wearing an oversized black T-shirt with a Captain America shield on the front, with a leather belt cinched at her waist. She was tall, her Afro adding a couple of inches to her height. If she weren’t a hacker, I was sure Ayana could walk some kind of fashion show and do just fine, although she definitely didn’t strike me as the heels type.
“Ayana, you’re looking great today.” Fox stepped forward, Ayana coming in with her arms outstretched for a hug. “As always.”
“Nice save there, Fox.”
She looked at me, light brown eyes assessing me from head to toe. “And this? Your new partner? Hi there. Ayana.” She held out a slender hand.
“Jonah,” I said, matching her smile, shaking her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Jonah. Last time Fox came here, I told him he needed a partner. Just felt it about him. Didn’t think he’d find one of the finest in the bunch.”
I chuckled, surprised by the compliment. It was a trend throughout most of my life, when people would call me cute or handsome, and I’d look in the mirror sometime after and never see what they saw. Made me weird around compliments, never sure how to handle them.
“You two have some seriously strong energy going on. Like there is a pull between you two,” Ayana said, stepping back and looking between me and Fox, a hand to her neck. “I see it clear as day. Not saying you two need to get down or anything. But there’s something going on. Just saying.”
I was about to say “yeah, I know,” but I swallowed the words instead. Fox, too, was silent.
Ayana arched a knowing brow and laughed. “All right, I get it. Come in, come.”
She turned, taking a sip from her beer as she led us through the doors and into her penthouse proper.
Instantly, I was impressed. The place looked like a homey art museum, with floor-to-ceiling windows all around the living room that allowed for an awe-inspiring view of Miami Beach, the calm expanse of blue ocean contrasting with the concrete blast of the city encroaching on it.
There was sparse furnishing, but what was there felt meaningful and also looked comfortable. The couch was a slate leather that was chunky and screamed out a constant invitation to take a nap on it, while the slick, modern black stone coffee table in front of it looked more expensive than my car.
“Welcome, boys. Make yourselves at home.”
Ayana walked over to the concrete island that separated a kitchen that would make any professional chef weep tears of joy. There was a steel bucket on the center of the island, a bottle of champagne sitting tilted in the center. She set her beer down, grabbed the champagne bottle, tilted away from us, and a loud fizzy pop followed soon after.
“Thanks, Ayana.” Fox received the first glass of champagne. I grabbed the second, offering my thanks, too. We stood in a tiny circle, the three of us holding bubbling flutes of golden champagne. Ayana lifted her glass first.
“To cracking cases—” Her lips quirked. “—and to dancing hearts.”
We clinked our glasses and drank. “Dancing hearts?” Fox asked.
“Yeah, I read it in a book somewhere, I don’t know.” Ayana shrugged and chuckled, her eyes glittering. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, throwing huge streaks of orange and purple across the cloudless summer sky.
“All right, so we’ve got this to trade for your excellent champagne.” Fox pulled the beat-up drug dealer’s phone from his pocket.
“Aw, you two shouldn’t have.” She grabbed it like she was grabbing a dirty sock. “Really.” Her voice was flat before she laughed again. “Whose is it?” She pressed a few buttons, flipping it over and reading the information on the back panel.
“We’re working on getting that new Dragon drug off the street,” Fox started. He gave Ayana a rundown of the case, her face twisting in surprise when Fox got to the part about how we got the phone in the first place.
“Jeez, a knife? And a gun? That could have been real bad, Fox. Good thing it wasn’t, shit.”
“For real,” I added, emphasizing a little more than I meant to. Both Ayana and Fox seemed to find it funny. Fox’s eyes, those striking hazel eyes I could look into for hours, lingered on me for a moment before flitting off to settle across the room. I wondered for a second what he was thinking, what private thought had hit him just then.
“All right, so it looks like your dealer definitely has messages here talking about Dragon.”
“Wait, you already unlocked it?” Fox’s eyes jumped to Ayana. “How?”
“Hacker, remember?” She gave a cocky smile before turning around and starting down a hallway. “Follow me, guys. I’ve got to check something out in my office.”
We went down the short hall, our shoes clicking against the gray hardwood floor, and entered into the corner room at the end of the hall. This room was very different compared to the one we’d come from. This one was pitch-dark, the only source of light coming from a single blue button
blinking on the tower of her computer.
Scratch that—her computers. Ayana turned on the lights, although it was still dim, but I was able to see the seven different computer screens she had above and around her silver desk. It looked like a futuristic control center, made for scanning alien planets and commanding spaceships.
“Wow,” I said, looking around at the rest of the room, which was full of more tech stuff than I could possibly even know what to do with. There were windows, like the ones in the living room, but these had all been altered to have some kind of tint to them, a dark one preventing any of the setting sunlight from getting in.
“This is my hub. Come a long way from the scratched-up Lenovo I’d work on with a keyboard that constantly got stuck and a hard drive that was constantly crashing.”
She grabbed the phone and another device from a cabinet that had seemed to be part of the dark gray wall. She brought those to the desk in front of the computer screens, all of them already up and running even though she had powered them on seconds before. Ayana pulled out the rolling leather chair and sat down, a queen about to dive into her kingdom. She cracked her knuckles and got to work. She connected the phone to the device and the device to the computer.
Fox and I stood by, asking questions as Ayana worked. At one point, I admit I was hypnotized by whatever Ayana was doing on one of the monitors. It felt like watching an artist working on a piece everyone knew was going to be great. There was an excitement and a buzz that came with every click of the keyboard, every new letter added to the sinewy wall of code on the screen.
“All right, so I’ve scrubbed everything, from the guy’s email accounts to his old Neopets accounts. Shit, you guys remember those? Pretty sure mine is dead from famine. I think it was an Eevee? No, that’s Pokémon. Shit, anyway, back to this,” She pointed at the screen toward the lower left. “I’ve got his text messages loaded up here, with filter words triggering those little red flags you see. This message here…” She leaned in, tapped the screen, and the message magnified. “This conversation is sending up the most alerts.”