I took the can and popped the top. “Could you be more crass about it?”
“Yeah.” He grinned as he walked back to his chair with his own pop. “Want me to try?”
I almost snorted pop up my nose at that. “No thanks.” I’d heard Dev when he got on about somebody. I can tell you that listening to him discuss his sex life would burn your ears come Sunday. “Kabe’s smart. Hotter than heck.”
“Yeah? Big dick?” Trust Dev to take it down to the lowest point in the river.
I hedged. “Big enough.”
“Don’t want your old hunting buddy, Dev, to meet him though.”
Time for me to get in my own dig. “Yeah, ‘cause you poach.” Not like I’d cared much back then, but there were a couple of times I’d latched onto something hot, went to take a leak and came back to find them with Dev’s tongue stuck down their throat.
“Hookups maybe, but not someone my Little Bro, Joe is serious about.” Actually, he sounded kinda soulful when he said that…’cause, I think, Dev really did see the world that way. Then he laughed and tossed a napkin he’d just balled up in his fist at me. “What’s this hot Kabe with the kinda big dick look like?”
“Darn, should have brought a picture.” I hadn’t been thinking about that when I’d left the house. I had a couple grainy things on my phone, but, as Kabe said, the thing was so ten minutes ago. “That your computer?” I pointed at this little gadget on the desk that weren’t thicker than my thumb and hardly the size of a sheet of paper. I mean, it looked like someone washed a regular laptop and it shrunk in the dryer.
“Computer?” Dev almost choked. “Computer? Don’t you dare insult my new shiny toy like that.”
Lobbed that piece of trash back at him as I asked, “Got ‘net?” I used my heels to steer my chair up to the desk.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Dev grabbed another slice. “Why? Am I so boring you have to surf for porn?”
I cycled my fingers across the little pad and the dinky log-in screen popped to life. After a moment of me just staring at it at a loss for what to do, Dev huffed, hauled himself up and got the darn thing open and onto the ‘net. I muttered, “Yeah, I’m dying of boredom here,” as he messed.
I started typing. My fingers were almost too big for that tiny little keyboard. I went onto my account on the big ol’ social site. Mostly, I got it for keeping up with my family since we’re spread all over creation—could wish my sibs a happy birthday, congratulate the next boy to get his mission call or check out the newest string of baby pictures of my nephews’ and nieces’ kids. Sitting in my notifications was a friend request from Kabe that I hadn’t acted on for ages. Took a deep breath and accepted it.
Maybe a bit too little too late, but I’d know in a while.
Never been able to do it before, ‘cause I knew, as nosy as some of my brother’s wives were, they’d be checking out who I had on my list. Still, ‘bout time I just come clean. I mean, I’d already been kicked out of the church and they would have all heard some version of my fall. If not, time that they did, I guess. Certainly easier than calling each one on the phone and telling them, I’m gay.
Once that was done, I clicked into Kabe’s profile and his pictures. Figured there’d be one of him—if not a hundred. There, looking me in the face was a whole folder titled: My boyfriend, Joe. Good Lord…well that would spell it out for anyone who checked. I might just have to kill him for that.
In there I found one of us together, at Fred’s place on Thanksgiving, I think Nadia’d taken it. I sat in a chair, looking as amused as a cat left out in the rain. Kabe, one of his soul smashing grins plastered across his face, draped himself over my shoulders.
I looked up to find Dev staring over my shoulder. “There. Happy?” I finished the last bit of my slice with sauce and cheese and all, then tossed the crust into the box.
“Whoa, smoking.” Dev crammed the last bit of his pizza in his mouth and wiped his hand on his jeans before he pulled this smart phone out of his pocket. “You could have just showed me one on your phone, though.” He waggled the thing in front of my face. Then he went to playing with it.
“Hard to see on the tiny screen.” Shot him a glare back. “I just need my phone to make calls.” I never saw the need for most of those fancy gadgets, especially since half the places ‘round here barely got reception, much less those fancy networks you needed to run the movies and chats and such. “All those bells and whistles don’t do me no good.” About a second later a notification popped up. Some idjit named Devon Blackthorn wanted to be on my list. “Really?”
“You’re out now.” Grinning, Dev reached over my shoulder and messed with the tiny keypad, accepting the request for me. “This way I can find out what you’re up to when you don’t use that ancient cell phone of yours to call me.”
His profile popped up on the screen. “Seriously, Dev.” At the left, an image of him, without his shirt so you could see his tattoos and him and his nasty, tiny little fluff-ball dog he rescued, nose to nose. “That picture?” I swung the chair around and glared. “That’s how you want to be seen by folks?”
“So, wait.” He ignored my question. “If you don’t have one of these toys, how the hell do you hook up?” His thumb slid over the screen of his phone. “Look.” He turned it so I could view the small screen. Rows of these tiny pictures of guys covered the display. “Seven gay guys looking for love within cruising distance.”
Trust Dev to use it for sex. “You would have something like that on your phone.”
He got a good ol’ chuckle out of that. When he’d calmed down a might, Dev sat heavy on the edge of the bed right across from me. “So what really happened. I mean seriously…” He reached over and popped my knee with his fist. “Why ain’t he here with you?”
I didn’t have a whole lot of friends I could talk over stuff with, especially this kind of stuff…relationships and all. “He’s pissed off at me.” Dev and I hadn’t started out that way, but we sure enough ended up there. When we got together, there weren’t nothing sacred between us. “That day you called, he’d gotten a subpoena for the POST hearing I had.”
“POST?” Dev may have been an officer, but he weren’t from my state.
“Peace Officer Standards and Training…” Pitched my empty pop can into the trash sorta as punctuation to my thought. “They’re like internal affairs for the whole state.”
“IA? Fucking Shit!” Dev almost choked getting it out. “You didn’t tell me that IA was involved.” He rocked forward and grabbed both my kneecaps with his hands. Staring me deep in the eyes, Dev asked, “What did you do, Joe?”
I stood and started pacing the little bit of floor. “I took up with him.”
“They pulled you in for being gay?”
“No.” I flopped down on the same bed where he sat, my arms outstretched, my legs hanging off the end, and stared up at the ceiling. “That just got me excommunicated.”
“You know…” Dev huffed as he turned and leaned over. With two fingers he thumped my forehead. “When you said a lot had been going on, I didn’t think you meant, like, your entire life being pulled through the wringer.” Moving his hand so that the big paw cupped my skull, he started this kinda gentle squeeze release pressure rub. “You gave me the bones of it, but come on, what happened?”
Felt good to be touched by him like that and in other ways as well…”Like I said, someone caught us out on it.” Still, I figured he wouldn’t go no farther right then. Don’t know how to tell it. Not like he and I hadn’t gotten on together in the past, but I knew, just down in my bones, it weren’t about that. This was just someone who knew me intimately. He knew what I did and who I was. And for all that, he liked me, understood me. Between us, friendship meant more than all the tea in China. I huffed out a little frustration, “It got a little nasty, but what could I expect different?”
“You’re okay though? Nobody…I don’t know, come at you?”
“There’s been some nasty things here or ther
e.” Most of it, thank the Lord, weren’t up and personal. “Got my truck tires slashed a month or so ago. When it all came out, at first, this guy, who liked a girl who apparently liked me, thought he’d defend her honor by taking me on.”
He stopped rubbing, tilting his hand up so he could see my eyes. “And?”
“I came outta that fight better than Ramon did.” I’d ended up on top of him, introducing my fist to his face over and over.
Dev snorted as he settled down against my side. “I bet.” The two of us, shoulder to shoulder.
“Got a fine for disturbing the peace offa it though. Hundred bucks outta my pocket and an infraction on my record.”
“Shit.” The extended hiss on the front part of the word said it all.
“Most folks don’t seem to have a problem.” Most didn’t. Even some who did, they just tucked it in their back pocket and didn’t say nothing.
He rocked his body into mine. “Yeah, but the ones who do, they give you headaches.”
I nodded. “That’s the truth.”
Dev sat back up. “Okay, so, you’re out now.” Then he reached over and grabbed my junk. “Welcome to the club.” He was laughing as he said it…like this was some kinda joke baptism or something.
Used my elbow to knock him in the hip and he let go. “You ain’t exactly marching in pride parades.” Shifted a bit to relive where my jeans suddenly became too tight. My dick pretty fondly remembered what Dev could do with his hands.
He glared for a moment, then he was back to all smiles. “But my family knows, most of the folks around town kinda figure.” Shrugged, like it didn’t matter much, as he said it.
“That’s California though.” Definitely not a town of sixteen hundred in the mountains of Utah.
“That’s farm country in California. Your beat, you got ranches and mountains. My beat is orchards and dairy farms.” He dropped his forearm right across my chest, knocking a little wind outta me. “So don’t go feeding me none of the ‘I’m more hick than you.’” Dev threw my way of speaking back me. “We done played that game before.”
“You know what I mean.” I kinda swept my hand out like I showed him a vast expanse of scenery. “They look out towards the ocean and there’s ‘Frisco with all it’s got going on.” Added a snort for effect at the end of that statement. “So I’m guessing a quietly gay peace officer just don’t twist their shorts much.”
“Okay, I give up on that one.” He sidled back down against me. “Now why don’t you tell me about this other shit that’s going on? What was this whole administrative hearing?” Dev’s voice went all serious on me. “I’m figuring by your tone it wasn’t a wage and hour dispute or just about that fight. Come on, you gave me some of it, but fess up.”
Without even really thinking on it, I shifted over a skosh nearer. I kinda needed the contact right then. “Lord, yeah, ah,” I hemmed and hawed a bit, “all had to do with Kabe.”
He slid his knuckles against my thigh. “Didn’t you just tell me it wasn’t about you being gay?” That light friction of his touch brushing the denim was like this little low familiar hum in the back of my brain.
“That ain’t it.” I took a deep breath before spitting out, “Kabe’s got a record. He’s on probation.”
“What for?” Both words got separate emphasis, in the same voice Dev might use when he pulled someone over.
“Drugs, trespass.” I shrugged like it weren’t nothing major. “The feds popped him hanging onto the side of a damn with just his fingers and toes. And he was holding for someone.”
“Really.” I could tell by the way Dev said it that he thought my dick had the reins and my brain had moved to South Jordan. “And that’s the story he told you?”
I rolled my head to glare at him and found him already staring back. “Dev, I’ve been in this business a while.” I had; ten years worth of it. In that decade I’d heard just about every line in the play book. Still, Kabe’d never once shined me on about what he’d done. “Admits he knew it was there and what it was for.” Not once did that boy minimize, or try to shift blame. “He’s never tested dirty. The boy says he don’t do drugs, and I believe him on that.”
Dev snorted. “I don’t know as I’d believe that.” Most officers wouldn’t, we’re a pretty suspicious fraternity.
I gave him the only thing I could in light of his attitude. “Trust me on this.” There weren’t no way I could convince him, he have to make up his own mind on it.
“If you say so.” Dev didn’t sound all that convinced. He hauled himself up and sat there on the edge of the bed with his hands hanging between his knees. The conversation just dropped off a cliff for a bit, then Dev came back with a quiet question. “So was it the type of crime or just that he’s on probation.”
Reached out and tugged on the belt loop of his jeans. “The probation thing.” I admitted. “Utah’s real strict on it—defines it as being in custody.” And even with Dev being a deputy himself—pretty cut and dried on what the law was and was not—I knew I could tell him and he wouldn’t judge me for it. “I’ve been damn near sick about things since I got notice. And Kabe kept pushing on me, but you know, it weren’t his thing to worry about. We was together, so him worrying wouldn’t change a darn thing.” Then I sat up and picked at the seam on my jeans. “And I thought, I really, really thought, that if I just admitted it, they wouldn’t actually want to talk with him.” I huffed out a breath all full of the worry I’d been holding in for days. “Maybe that equaled stupid, but you know, it was my problem, not his.”
Dev looked off towards the window so’s I couldn’t read his face. “Guess he got pulled in for an interview?”
“Worse, they called him as a witness at a full blown hearing.” Just the memory of it made me all tense again. “It was anything but pretty. They rode him hard. He sassing them, ‘define sexual contact,’ and this Fed from back east mouths back, ‘one of you gets it up the ass.’”
“Holy…” Dev turned towards me, his jaw all slack and his eyes wide. Then he wrapped one of those big old arms around my shoulders.
“I darn near died right then.”
I sagged into him. I mean, he and I, yeah we fooled around, but he was my big bro, Dev as much as I was his little bro, Joe. I was probably closer to him than my own blood. There weren’t nothing I couldn’t talk with him about—at least when we were together. With him so far away, we didn’t get a chance to connect all that often.
“And I couldn’t do nothing but sit there and watch. Then he’s all pissed at me after. We’re outside Salt Lake and he’s so mad he wouldn’t even ride home with us, me and my boss. He had to catch a bus or something.”
Shook my head, I still didn’t get why he been so riled up…I could see a little pissed, but that boy had been spitting nails. “I don’t know what he’s thinking though, got some hair up his butt that I was holding things back from him and all. It ain’t his life, it’s mine, you know? He just ought to calm down and be reasonable.”
Dev set his hand against the side of my head and shoved. “Reasonable about what, Joe?” Almost knocked me clear off onto the floor. “Reasonable about you lying to him? Or reasonable about a bunch of police folks he don’t know grilling him about sucking your dick?” The laugh he gave me reeked of nine kinds of bitter. “Me, being the reasonable sort I am…I probably would have blown your damn fool head off.”
“Make me feel so much better there.” Just to be crosswise I elbowed him in the ribs again.
“Not in my job description.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me an officer stare down. “So you’re pissed at him, and you didn’t want him to be worried ‘cause you were just going to take the fall…” Then Dev’s face went slack. “Holy shit, it is love.”
Naw, it weren’t nowhere near that. “I’m not sure I’m ready to go that far.”
“I wasn’t ready to catch an incendiary grenade in Afghanistan, but it happened anyway.” Slow and easy, the smile crept back onto his face. “Cupid’s arr
ow hurts a lot less.” He slapped my thigh with the back of his hand. “Damn, you’re so dead. Broke our pact and everything.”
“Pact?” I snorted. “We had a pact?”
He swung his finger in the air between us. “Yeah, that whole unwritten thing about you and me and heading to Vegas every so often.”
No reason for us to stop being friends. “We can still hang out.” I liked hanging with Dev. “Heck, if Kabe keeps up on this, we’ll go back to how it all used to be.”
Screwing up his face like he thought I done gone crazy, Dev asked, “Do you give up on your cases this easy?”
“What?”
“Oh, come on.” Dev threw a whiny little girl’s voice onto his next words. “‘He got mad at me and it’s all over.’” Rolling his eyes, he went back to his normal don’t give me bull tone. “Shit, you sound like my sister. Go find wherever you misplaced your nuts and screw ‘em back on. You’re having a blow out, it happens, it’ll blow over, stop being a wuss and give it a little time.”
“I’m not being a wuss,” I protested.
“Oh, hell yes you are.” He shoved my head again, just not as hard as the last time. “Okay, I want the whole thing, no detail left out.”
I drawled out, “You sure you didn’t lose your balls?”
“No. This isn’t,” Dev rolled his shoulders and tossed his head, “dish it girlfriend!” He gave me a laugh. “This is get it out, hash it out some so when you see him next you can have something, kinda close to a real conversation and not a whoop-ass session.”
The conversation had gotten a might too serious for my tastes as well. Could feel my mouth kinda tightening into a lopsided grin. “I like whooping his butt,” I teased. As I said, there weren’t nothing I hid from Dev.
“Really?” Dev’s eyebrows went up. “This I’ve got to hear.”
I don’t know how long we kept talking after that. Went over all how I’d met Kabe and Nadia and all sorts of things that happened during the past several months. When I sidled off, not saying what really hit my mind, Dev caught it and hauled me back on track. Gave him some of how Kabe and I were together, although I didn’t understand some of the questions he’d asked—all about Sirs and boys and titles. When I said, I only tolerated Kabe’s mouth going so far, Dev laughed and called him a brat. Thought that might be apt, but I’m sure I missed something behind that word from the way Dev smirked. In between my rambles, I found out all about Dev’s half-sister and his foster mom and the new crop of kids at her place.
Spin Out Page 15