“I’ll break it off.” Kabe wouldn’t look at me. If he had, I’m sure I could have met his gaze. “It’s not fair to punish Joe ‘cause I went after him. I chased him, not the other way around. It was all me. It’s not fair.”
“Whether it’s fair is not our call.” She rubbed at her temples like a headache wormed its way into her skull. “All we have to decide is whether his lapse in judgment—who started it doesn’t matter—is sufficiently egregious to require discipline.”
“This is going nowhere,” McCreedy grumbled. Louder he added, “I think we have all the information we need.”
“We are running behind on our calendar.” The Deputy Chief stood. That was our cue to go, although I couldn’t find any strength in my legs so’s I could stand. “We’ll be discussing the matter this afternoon and rendering a decision fairly quickly. You should receive it in one to two weeks. We’ll let you know.” As we walked out of the room he hit me with the biggest of all barbs, “Merry Christmas.”
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Chapter 14
Kabe stalked from the room, brushing past me with almost enough force to push me into the wall. The way he jammed his arms into the sleeves of his parka and fought with zipping it up, I could tell he weren’t happy. Had to darn near jog to keep up with him as I struggled to get my own coat on. We hit the chill air of outside and went a bit down the sidewalk towards the parking lot when Kabe spun and yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Still tugging up the zipper on my jacket, I skidded to a halt on the icy concrete. “What do you mean?”
“How could you do that to me?” He vibrated, just shook.
Tried to reach for his arm, but he stepped away. “Do what to you?” I wasn’t at all sure what he was going on about. I mean, it hadn’t been pleasant back in the hearing room, but I didn’t do nothing to him.
Sheriff Simple cleared his throat and walked on past us, his gloved hands held up in the air like he asked not to be shot in the crossfire. “I’ll be at the truck.” We both watched him go.
When my boss had gone a ways beyond us, Kabe turned back on me. “How could you put me in that position?” His nostrils flared and his mouth hardened into a thin line.
“I didn’t put you in any position.” I huffed.
“The hell you didn’t!” Kabe spat. He pointed towards the building we’d just left. “You kept me in the dark so I just walked in and got slaughtered by a pack of sharks.” Now he stepped close. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in that much trouble?”
I jammed my hands under my pits and shrugged. “There wasn’t nothing to tell.”
“What?” Kabe almost managed a laugh. “The fact that fucking me could cost you your job is nothing?”
“But it ain’t your problem.” It weren’t his problem. All of it was mine to deal with and nobody else’s.
Kabe reached over and shoved my chest. I skidded back onto the snow covered lawn. “The hell it isn’t!” He yelled loud enough the folks back in the hearing room probably heard him. “Do you know how guilty it makes me feel, how God fucking awful it makes me feel, that I caused this?”
“My choice.” I roared back. “You didn’t cause nothing.”
“Fuck that.” He came at me again. “It takes two to tango.”
I jumped to the side to dodge him and skidded some on the slush. “I decided my life.” Pointed at my chest so’s he’d understand. “I knew what I was getting into when we got together.” Didn’t know why he was all upset over this. “It wasn’t your problem to worry about.”
Kabe started to pace. “Goddamnit, Joe, you’re not the fucking king of everything!” He slammed his fists on the top of a metal bench, maybe three or four times, then whipped his hands out to the side. “You could have at least let me know what the fuck I was walking into.” Pointing back at the building again, Kabe hollered, “Holy shit, I’ve got some bitch asking me how many times we’ve fucked!”
I shrugged again. “I didn’t think it’d come to that.” That I did feel bad about.
“How could you not have thought that it might happen?” The tone in his voice called me a moron and worse things.
Couldn’t quite look at him right then so I stared at the toes of my boots. “I figured I’d just admit to it and that’d keep you out of it.”
“But it didn’t keep me out of it.” Kabe’s face went all sour as he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his hip to one side. After a moment of chewing on the inside of his cheek he asked, “So, were you lying to me or lying to yourself?”
I was about to deny doing either. Then I realized I had been, if not lying, just avoiding thinking on what really might happen as opposed to what I wished would go down. I swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“Joe, you may act like a hick, but you sure as hell ain’t fucking stupid.” Kabe kicked one of the sorry little trees lining the side of the walk. “You had to know!”
“I didn’t want you to worry. I could do that enough on my own.”
“Who cares?” Kabe shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and started walking, away from my truck and towards the street. “You should have warned me what I’d be walking into.”
I jogged after him. “Where are you going?”
“To catch the bus.” He yelled it over his shoulder.
Couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”
Kabe stopped. He didn’t do more than turn his face to glare at me. “If you think I’m spending three hours in a truck with you right now, you’re fucking nuts.”
I caught up to him. “Get in the truck.” I hissed. “You’re making a big deal outta all this.”
“Fucking right I am!”
“I was just protecting you.” Why couldn’t he understand that? “Didn’t want you to worry.”
“I’m not some fucking child! I’m a goddamn adult!” He got right up into my face to say it. “I don’t need you to protect me from the truth.”
“But, I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Guess what…fail on that.” He sneered. “You know I’ve been fucked over a lot of times in my life, but shit, most times I at least get a drink beforehand.”
Tried to grab for his shoulders, make him look me square in the eye, but Kabe ducked outta my grasp. “Why won’t you just understand…”
“Know what I understand? I understand that you’re a goddamn asshole. Think you know what’s best for everyone. Go fuck yourself, Joe!” He pushed me away and started walking again. “Get the hell away from me!”
Where the Sam Hill did he think he was gonna go? “How the heck are you planning to get back home?” Three hours of road stood between him and home.
This time Kabe turned, although he kept walking backwards. “The wonders of Greyhound and a Visa Card. Adults, you know, have credit cards so we can deal with shit like not riding home with assholes.” He emphasized the next, “Fuck you!” by pulling his hands outta his pockets and flipping me off.
I started to go after him when a hand on my shoulder stopped me. I jerked around to find the Sheriff standing there. “Joe, let him go.”
“But…” I couldn’t quite find the words I needed to protest so I just pointed on after Kabe.
“He’s rightly pissed off at you.” Sheriff Simple shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell him what could happen. My wife would have shot me if I’d blindsided her like that.”
“But…” This time the word came out more as a defeat than an objection.
“Get in the truck.” Myron jerked his head towards my vehicle. “Kabe’s a big boy.” He wrapped his arm over my shoulder and steered me in the direction he wanted to go. I kept looking back at Kabe’s disappearing form, not really listening to what my sheriff said. “He’ll find his way home just fine.” Myron patted my arm. “And hopefully cool himself down enough that he doesn’t try and crack your head with a tire iron.”
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Chapter 15
An avalanche
of hot air, overblown ambiance and too-loud patrons letting loose on vacation darn near bowled me over as I opened the door. Wasn’t all that sure I wanted to be here, what with the throw down Kabe and I had the day before. Still didn’t know if that boy’d made it home last night or not. He hadn’t called and he didn’t pick up when I called. Spent most of my day off distracting myself with TV and chores; when the time came on to start out for Brian Head, I let it pass, intending to call and say I weren’t going. After maybe half an hour of staring at my walls, I decided I needed to get out and stop stewing in my own thoughts. So I was late, but I was there.
Place was packed, with folks standing around waiting to get a table. Told the gal at the front I was meeting someone and she pointed off towards the back of the restaurant. Didn’t take me all that long to find Dev in among the ski-bunnies, slope-dopes and shredders. Hard jaw, almost too square and a little jutting, and deep set eyes in a broad, dark face full of angular lines—I always told him he was the ugliest handsome guy I’d ever met.
Dev caught sight of me and gave up a wide mouth grin full of white teeth. While I sidled between tables, he stood. Then when I reached out to shake his hand, he grabbed my forearm and pulled me into a back-slapping bear-hug. “Long time, no see, Joe.”
“Been a while,” I agreed as I tried to untangle myself without either looking too self conscious or coming off like I was pushing Dev away. I didn’t know none of these folks, so I didn’t really care what they thought. But the big ol’ public hugs and such weren’t how I’d been raised and it kinda made me uncomfortable. Plus for one second it felt all sorts of odd, my mind flashing back to nekkid and sweaty moments kinda like it.
Dev didn’t notice, or pretended he didn’t. “Went ahead and ordered a pizza.” Pulling a chair away from the table with his heel, he pointed at the seat. One of the few folks I’d let order me around. I sat at the same time he plunked his rear in his chair. He rolled his head and shifted his shoulders. When he moved, the knife blade points of the turtle’s claws from the tattoos circling a set of biceps that could only be described as huge flashed under Dev’s rolled up sleeves. “As I recall you’re not too picky.” I didn’t think it was possible for Dev to throw any more double meanings onto that sentence.
I ignored every last one of them except the most basic, “Nope.” Somehow I knew I was grinning like a fool—couldn’t believe Dev could raise a smile in me right then. “Fine with just about anything as long as it ain’t crazy.” Okay, well, I could play the innuendo game too. It’d been way too long since I’d got together with Devon. “Don’t figure you’re going to go order anything crazy.” He might do a lot of crazy things, but his food choices wouldn’t hit my weird-o-meter. No way would I mention any of the other thirty-thousand crazy things he might do in a room full of folks.
He chuckled, like he knew we both shared in the joke that nobody else around us was privy to. “Meat, cheese, sauce…nothing fancy,” he said, before taking a swig of his fake beer. Dev and I connected on lots of levels…neither of us being drinkers was one of them. We came at it from different directions, but both of us ended up at the same spot.
A glass of lemonade already sat on the table above my plate. Dev and I knew each other like I knew the psalms on Sunday. “Where’s that dang dog of yours?”
“R.K.?” R.K. stood for Road Kill, what the little in-bred whatchamacallit almost became before Dev rescued it from the side of a highway. “With Mom.”
“What, you went somewhere without that little monster?” I teased.
“He’s not a monster.” That was like saying Jeffery Dahmer weren’t a serial killer. I’d seen the stitches in Dev’s hand after that vengeful critter stole a knife off the counter and hid under Dev’s couch with it.
Where Dev went, the dog usually went. “And why didn’t you bring him?”
‘Course R.K. and I had an understanding of sorts; he didn’t mess with me and I didn’t wring his fluffy little neck.
“If I brought him here, he’d just be stuck in the hotel room all day, chew up everything and piss on the carpet, you know.” Dev shrugged. “I mean, with me out on the slopes, I wouldn’t even have time to check in on him.”
“Yeah, not a monster…” I managed not to snort out any of my lemonade as I said that.
Dev glared and then shook his head, likely ‘cause he knew he lost that battle. “You look beat, Joe.”
“I’m okay.” I played with the water beading down the side of my glass, making little faces in the condensation. “Just a lot of things going on, you know.” I took my thumb and wiped all the smiles away.
“Where’s your new thing?” Dev teased. “Left him tied up in your truck?” Maybe he thought teasing with me might bring my spirits up some. “Don’t want him to meet old Dev? The guy who gets you all in trouble?” We ain’t never got in any legal trouble mind you—bad for both our jobs—still, Dev and I’d come through some hairy situations in the day.
I blew out a big ol’ breath. “He ain’t exactly speaking to me right now.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Dev rocked his chair back on the rear legs and just stared at me a bit down the line of that hawk beak of a nose of his. Finally, he asked, “That one of those things going on?”
Couldn’t look at him for a bit. When I did, I read the sympathy stamped on his broad features. I shook my head and managed to get out, “Not really up to talking about it.” Kinda glanced around the room. “Not with all these folks around.”
“Look, pizza ain’t here yet.” He let the front legs of the chair drop with a thud. “Why don’t I tell them to put it in a to-go box?” Dev rested his elbows on the table and his chin on his fists. “We’ll go back to my hotel and chew the fat there. It ain’t the Ritz, but I got a mini fridge and a microwave. Can actually hear each other and not have to yell over all this noise.” We didn’t, exactly, have to yell. But the volume we had to speak at to be heard…well I normally reserved that for ordering suspects around.
Licked my lips before answering. “I don’t want to put you out.” Something told me that I might not be ready to be that up close and personal with Dev. I mean, we were just friends. But we were a certain kinda friends.
“Joe, I ain’t seen you in going on almost a year. I’d rather hang out with you and catch up than soak up the surroundings of some high-end pizza joint.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. It’d be okay, I guessed. “I ain’t so good with being around all these people right now anyway.” Not like he and I always got to fooling around—actually most times we didn’t. “If it weren’t you, I’d have blown it off. Like you said, it’s been too long.”
“Great.” Dev reached across the table, grabbed my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Give me a moment.”
I just nodded. It took us a little bit after he caught the waiter’s attention to get ourselves squared away and out the door with a large pizza. Hustled across a plain of asphalt littered with swaths of grayish snow banks. I left my truck where I’d parked since the pizza place shared a lot with an IHOP and the big lodge. All three of them were owned by the same guy. The arrangement let visitors think they had some choice in where they hung out.
The temperature outside hovered just above colder than Hell’s last half acre. I tugged up the zipper of my old plaid field coat then shoved my hands into the slash side pockets. I’d bought fancier jackets, but I’d never found one warmer. Dev muttered curses into his chest until we made it to the side door of the lodge. He fished out his card key, slid it into the reader and yanked open the secure back door into the hotel. The hallway weren’t all that warm, still it felt twenty times toastier than outside. Dev led me down one hall and up another until we reached a door that look just like every other one.
After shoving the keycard in the reader, Dev shouldered the door to his room open, balancing the pizza in one hand and trying to shove his key back in his pocket with the other. “Welcome to my stunning accommodations.”
I caught the door with my arm and
pushed it open for him. For all of a second, up against his back like that, I smelled him; warm and kinda musty, like good leather. I swallowed and mumbled, “Not too shabby,” while trying not to breathe too deep. And honestly, it wasn’t too bad. The room, I mean…if you liked fake wood beams and sage green—carpet, paint and basically anything not made of wood or metal.
“Yeah, better than I could have afforded on my own.” Dev walked through the room and dumped the pizza box on the table under the back window. “Picked up the room and a pair of three-day lift tickets in a raffle for the community center.” He shucked his jacket and hung on the back of an armchair that looked better than one that belonged in a doctor’s lobby, but not quite nice enough for your own living room. He plunked his rear down, flipped open the pizza box and grabbed a slice. “I guess one of the fire department guys knows someone out here. Gave the spare lift-ticket to some college kid.”
I grabbed the only other chair in the room, a padded desk chair, and wheeled it up to the table. “What, you didn’t bring a date with you?” I mean, I figured that since I only saw stuff I kinda recognized as belonging to Dev: suitcases, kit and all. That and there was only one set of ski clothes drying on the luggage rack in the corner.
He shrugged. “I ain’t seeing anyone right now. So I figured I’d just take the time and get away for a weekend. Then I remembered you’re up this way.” He pointed to my chair. “Sit yourself and dig in. I think the guy threw in a couple paper plates.”
Like I needed a plate? I reached over and snagged a slice. “So, what you got going on in your life?” Managed to cram half the slice in my mouth as I talked.
“Same old shit, different day.” Dev talked around a mouthful of food. Neither of us felt like we had to pretend we were at Sunday dinner. “Ain’t been to Vegas in a while.”
I shrugged. “Neither have I.”
“But you’ve had a reason, huh?” Like he just realized he hadn’t offered me nothing to drink, Dev hauled himself up, took a few steps to the mini-fridge and popped it open. “So tell me about where you’ve been sticking that beer can dick of yours.” After rummaging a bit he held out a can of store-brand pop for me. “What’s he like?”
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