“No,” he says, still trying to wrestle the phone away. The screen goes dark. I brush my thumb over the display, lighting up the keypad for the password.
I look at him, contemplating what Jared’s passcode could be, and he makes a swipe for the phone again.
“No. Jacks, don’t—”
“Four twenty isn’t enough numbers. Need four digits,” I say.
“Use the colon symbol,” Irus says.
“I got it.” The home screen opens up. A big-titted redhead is spread eagle, and I do believe she’s a true ginger. I thumb the home button to bring up the last app. A gossip website comes up. Right there, in full color on the front page, so to speak, is me and Irus naked, spooning in some bed.
“I don’t understand?” I can’t process the photograph. When was it taken? How? “Irus?”
Irus’s expression is unmoving and intent as he gauges my reaction. Did he know about this? Does he know what I’m looking at and what it means? Irus licks his lips. Everything in my vision recedes. Irus is the only man in the room. I hold up the phone. He doesn’t look at it, but keeps his dark gaze locked on mine.
“Do you see this?” I ask. The room spins with my sudden anger. “Look at this, Irus! At least pretend you don’t know what the fuck it is!” I throw the phone at him. He swats it down. The device glances off the granite and clatters to the floor. “You outed yourself? After I asked you—begged you not to do anything stupid?”
“I didn’t—”
“The whole team is gonna take a hit over this one! Don’t you think about anyone but yourself?”
“It wasn’t me. I had a relationship with someone. He tried to blackmail me. I don’t do blackmail.”
“When was the photo taken? Where?”
“My house, the night you had the concussion.”
“I’m naked, in your bed, and you let this prick take pictures? What kind of sick fuck are you?”
“No, I didn’t. The keys. I forgot them in the lock. He must’ve used them to get inside. I didn’t know about the pictures. Not until later. Look, this is for the best. They won’t let you keep Jared unless you’re married. I love you.”
“Love? You let a man plaster naked fucking pictures of me all over the Internet!” My phone rings, saving me from hearing more of Irus’s fucked-up logic. Jesus, it’s Maddox. What the fuck now? “Hello?”
“Mr. McCoy, sorry to bother you so close to the holiday, but we have a situation concerning the case against Coach Paul.”
My tongue feels thick and I can’t swallow. “What is it?”
“Olivia tells me Jared is staying at your home now.”
“Yes.”
Maddox sighs. “As with you, he is crucial to our case. I can’t have the both of you under the same roof. This will look like witness tampering.”
“I don’t understand?” I want to throw something. Perhaps Irus’s fuck buddy, whoever he may be, who launched those fucking snapshots. A goddamn night I can’t even remember. I spare a glance for Irus. The look on his face is one of concern, though. Damn, if he just weren’t so fucking nice. I hate him. Hate him, Maddox, and Branson. Most all I hate Paul-fucking-Phelps. Right now, I just want to blow the whole world up.
“It’s Thanksgiving,” I respond lamely.
“I’m sorry, Mr. McCoy, but I have to come get him. We’ve placed him with a trustworthy person. He’ll be fine.”
“You’re uprooting him. Why are you doing this now?”
The sigh over the phone is long and tired sounding. “Olivia didn’t tell me until this morning. I’ve been out of town. Tracking down some possible witnesses.”
“And?”
“No go. Info was a dead end. You and Jared are still all I have. I can’t take the risk.”
“Goddamn it, why should I trust you? Paul was supposed to be arrested by now. You keep saying one more week, next month, it’ll be soon. Now you want to take everything away from me? Is this because I haven’t done the deposition? Are you punishing me?”
“We’re on our way, Mr. McCoy. Please have him ready. I’m sorry, but I’d like to do it before the holiday.”
Maddox leaves me hanging. The beep in my ear tells me the call’s been disconnected. My brain disengages. This is supposed to be a good time. Jared needs stability and to be around people he trusts. Why take him away?
“Jacks.” Irus puts his arm around me. “What’s wrong?”
I knock his hand down. “Maddox is coming to take Jared away. Witness tampering or something.”
“Maddox?” Garrett looks to Kane.
“No. I don’t want to go!” Jared rails at me. “You fucking promised, Jacks. You fucking promised!”
My heart thumps visibly in my chest. “I don’t want you to go either.”
“Then tell that feeb no!”
“Jared, it’s just until after the trial. Then I can get you back.”
“What trial? They can’t even arrest the motherfucker! We don’t mean anything to anyone! No one cares about us, Jacks! No one cares what he did to us.”
“I know it feels that way.” My voice sounds hollow, even to me.
“I thought you had your shit together. I thought you had all the answers. You could make them go away. Fuck this shit.”
“Hey,” Irus snaps. “Don’t you talk to him like that. It’s not his fault.”
“What the fuck do you care? You don’t give a shit about him. All you want to do is fuck him.”
Irus’s hand snakes out and smacks Jared across the face. I shove Irus away, blocking his way to the boy. Big tears splash Jared’s red cheeks. The boy sputters a litany of profanities at Irus, who looks about ready to crawl under a rock. The shock in his eyes doesn’t ease my fury.
“He doesn’t get it,” Jared yells at me. “He doesn’t give a fuck. You promised, Jacks. You promised everything was going to be okay. You’re a liar.”
Jared grabs his coat and runs outside. He kicks through the snow. I watch him in the yellow light flooding the backyard. Larry and Moe follow him at a safe distance. I’m worried he’ll run away, but he just drops down in the snow, sitting on his ass in the cold of the night. Kane slips out the slider and settles down with Jared, an arm draped over the kid’s shoulders, now shaking with sobs.
Fists clenched, I round on Irus. “I want you out. Gone. Get the fuck out, before I knock you out!”
“Jacks, calm down. Let’s take a moment to breathe.”
“I can’t trust you,” I say, the emotion punching me in the throat. “Go home. Take your family. Have Thanksgiving at your house. The turkey’s in the fridge. I don’t want it.”
“You’d love that. For me to leave, so then you wouldn’t have to deal with any of this fucked-up shit. You wouldn’t have to deal with me saying I love you or you not saying it back. You want me to leave to make it easier on you. I’m gone. Jared’s gone. And you get to sit inside your head and wallow.”
“I was fine until you showed up,” I say, grinding my teeth.
“Bullshit. You weren’t fine. You were fucking Terry Branson, getting into fights in the locker room, hiding behind a smoke screen of friendly banter and sportsmanship. Flirting with me but hanging back like you were scared. I know I was, but I’m done being afraid now. I’m out. I’m a gay football player and I’m fucking proud.”
“Good for you. So happy you found yourself, but you betrayed me! Don’t you fucking get it? I can’t forgive you. Trust is all I had in you. Go apologize to Jared, and go home.”
“I’ll apologize to Jared. The kid deserves it, but I ain’t leaving. Fuck you on getting off easy.” He jabs me in the chest with a hard finger as he walks past me. At the door, Irus slips on his shoes and shrugs into his coat. He glances back at me and I almost break.
Garrett shifts his feet, shattering the moment as he grabs a coat to take out to Kane. The two men file out the door.
“Baby-child, tha’ man ya just kicked to the curb would walk through a fire for ya,” Bert says, a dark tone in his voice, like I
somehow signed my death warrant.
“Yeah, well, first he’s got to salvage his career.”
“Yur career ain’t over, and everyone knows what side yur bread is buttered on, honey.”
“It’s more over than you think. I’m done, just most folks don’t know it yet.”
I’ll take another bottle of that whiskey, please.
Outside, Irus pulls Jared up into a hug. He brushes the snow off the kid. Jared wipes his eyes as Irus talks to him. His entire focus on the boy. Irus’s hand on Jared’s shoulder intends to comfort him. Not sure it does, but Jared doesn’t move away like he usually does, which may be a sign.
Lights flash through the trees. A car grinds through the snow. I go to the door and find a black SUV sitting in the dark with the lights on, but the motor shuts off quickly. Maddox gets out and almost slips in the snow on his way to open the passenger side door. The bastard was already on the way when he called.
A pair of dark boots appears from the passenger side, followed by a cane. Maddox hands whoever is in the car down to the ground. With Maddox’s help, a man with dark, disheveled hair and a face shadowed with stubble limps toward my house. As they get closer, I can hear the two men bantering like an old married couple. Not able to make out the argument, but I catch the last remark from Maddox.
“Bish—ugh! You’re retired. I don’t need you to be a cop.”
“You’ll fuck this up with your goddamn shit people skills,” says the man Maddox called Bish. Who the fuck is this guy? I’m getting real sick of people lately.
“You can’t have him until after the holiday. I made a promise,” I call. “Go away.”
Maddox looks up from helping the man to the door. “I’m sorry, Mr. McCoy. I have to take him. Is he ready?”
“See, shit people skills.” The man with the cane yanks his arm away and extends his hand to me. “NYPD Detective Bishop Frank—”
“Retired NYPD,” Maddox says.
“Nice to meet you…Jackson? I’m a big fan,” Bishop Frank ignores Maddox.
“Bullshit, you’re a New York fan.”
He chuckles and nods his head. “Still, I can appreciate great ball skills. Unlike people skills, of which my partner has none. He’s always been shit with people. It’s why he’s a feeb and why he brought me along.”
The man seems to be studying me the entire time he speaks. He’s jovial, smiling, but I feel like he’s assessing me for some reason.
“Bish,” Maddox warns, his voice holding a hint of an argument waiting to come.
The man waves his hand like he’s flicking a fly. “You don’t scare me, Cole. Not one bit. As far as I can remember anyway.”
Maddox’s expression softens. “No, you’ve never been afraid of me.”
“Good. Jackson, FYI, I hate the name Bishop. Call me Frank. Where’s Jared?”
Frank bullies his way through the door. I bite my tongue and glare at Maddox as he passes through my doorway. Miss Beulah squeals in the kitchen when the men tromp inside. She engulfs Frank in a huge hug. What’s with all this hugging these people seem to do? Maddox steps up, surprised to find Beulah in my kitchen, and offers her a hand. She pulls the man in and squeezes his ass under his black woolen overcoat.
“What are you doing here, Miss Beulah?” Maddox asks, suspicion in his voice.
“Visitin’ my nephew and his boyfriend for Thanksgivin’,” Beulah says proudly. I want to correct her, but Maddox whirls on me, his face tight and unreadable.
“You know Beulah? This isn’t good.”
“Why?” I ask, thinking his reaction is completely inappropriate for the situation. What could be so wrong with knowing Bert—Beulah Beaumont?
“I know Miss Beulah,” Maddox says, pointing at his chest. “I know her. Don’t you see? It’s yet another connection. Another way someone could spin this as a conspiracy against Paul Phelps. Too many connections.” Maddox mutters the last part as Kane and Garrett file into the house with Jared close behind. Irus has his arm around the boy. Their expressions twist my heart. How can I have failed so miserably? Now Jared no longer trusts me, and Irus would do better to just leave.
“Kane.” Maddox crosses the room as if the rest of us have disappeared and hugs Kane like a lost lover. Garrett allows it for a moment, but then pulls the men apart. Kane moves to Frank and brushes a finger along Frank’s forehead, under the long flop of dark hair. Frank grins and shrugs his shoulders.
“Could be worse,” Frank says. “I could remember everything.”
“I’m glad you don’t,” Kane says.
Miss Beulah’s loud voice startles us. “This here’s my nephew, Irus. Honey, these are the two wonderful men I told ya about.”
“Yeah, I gathered that, Auntie,” Irus says. He seems tense. There’s an undercurrent here I don’t understand. Something to do with Kane and Maddox? Frank? Well, I don’t care. They can all go away.
“Well, this complicates matters.” Maddox frowns at me. “We need you to do this deposition right away. You’ve stalled long enough. We need to get what you know down on the official record right now.”
“Fuck you, Maddox. Don’t come into my house making demands. What’s your problem?”
“My problem is we have my two star witnesses in a house full of my friends! What do you think that is going to look like to a grand jury?”
“We can fix that,” I say. “All of you can leave right now. Get the fuck out. Everyone but Jared. The kid stays. I promised him.”
“It’s a promise you should not have made,” Maddox says with a frown. “It’s one you can’t keep.” Maddox hands me an envelope. “The paperwork from the judge. You have to give him up, Mr. McCoy.”
Kane moves toward Maddox. “Can’t you let him stay, Cole? Jared is safe here. We can all protect him.”
“I’m not worried about him being here. I know he’s safe. It’s the grand jury. I can’t take any chances. Paul Phelps has consistently eluded all indictments and investigations for years. Jared’s not the first kid or the last. He’s just the one who had the courage to step up and say enough.”
Jared looks at me, an accusation in his eyes, and he sees all my weaknesses. “You didn’t give your deposition? Why? I did it. I had to tell them everything. Fuck, Jacks, I always thought you had your shit together.”
Irus squeezes Jared’s shoulder but looks down at the tile floor. He thinks I’m a coward too. They don’t understand. I’ve been here before and suffered the disappointment when no one but Bert would help me. When the cops refused to believe me. Paul is gonna get away with this, as always. Why should I suffer through it again?
“I’ll testify,” Miss Beulah says. “I’s there when tha’ man hurt Jackie.”
I flinch at the name, but when Beulah uses it, there isn’t the same sting. I feel safe. Like I did that night when his jersey covered my whole body. The same warmth and safety I feel every time I pull on my own jersey.
“Wait a minute,” Maddox says. “I’m not following. You were there, Miss Beulah?”
Her voice deepens a little. The timbre, so close to Bert Beaumont’s, makes the hairs on my body stand up. The anger in her voice is palpable. “I kicked tha’ bastard’s ass for touchin’ tha’ boy. I’ll do it again.”
My mind slams shut. I’m unaware for a moment of anyone around me. Just Paul. A hand touches my back and I jerk. I close my eyes and smell the musky scent of the showers. My eyes open when I hear a voice close by, and Frank is standing in front of me.
“Jackson, let’s go talk. Okay? Privately.” Frank’s dark eyes are soft with worry but also knowledge. Wisdom reflects in his face, and just his expression calms me.
“Yeah, sure.” Without thinking, I turn down the hall to my room. It used to be my sanctuary until Paul made it a horror chamber. The walls close in on me the minute I step across the threshold. In the middle of the room, the bed sits like an unmoving witness to what happened years ago, despite the fact I changed the mattress since then.
I sit on the bed. F
rank wheels over the desk chair. He sits and watches me. Is he looking for signs of weakness? Is Frank here to judge what kind of witness I’ll be on the stand? After a few moments, I fidget and look away.
Frank’s soft voice filters through the air. “Cole brought me here tonight to help you. I’ve been working with abused kids for a while now.”
“You a shrink?”
“I’m a counselor. Kane inspired the career change. Olivia brought me in because at first Jared wouldn’t talk to a woman. Cole thought since what happened to you was when you were a kid, I might be able to help you deal with the dredged-up trauma.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, standing to leave.
Frank doesn’t flinch. He just looks up at me calmly and says, “Yes, you do. True, you may not want the whole world knowing the details, but I think you want justice more. Justice for you, but mainly for Jared.”
My throat dries up, and I try to swallow. The lump bobs but doesn’t dislodge. Like I can’t breathe but I’m getting all the air I need. My palms sweat. The sound of Paul’s voice in my head arouses too many emotions. The shame creeps up along with the heat in my body. It’s not the first night Paul fucked me that my body is remembering but all those nights in college when I gave in to him because it was easier. Because it satisfied a need in me. Shame has kept me quiet. I was a child when he first started playing with me, but in college, I was his slut.
“People can’t know,” I whisper.
“You were a child. There’s no shame, Jackson. He took advantage of you. The man destroyed your youth.”
“You don’t get it. Why I can’t be a witness—”
“Tell me why you can’t be a witness. Talk to me. What we say here is between us, and I won’t tell Cole without your permission. You’re safe with me.”
Frank leans toward me in the chair. The squeak of the leather reminds me of Paul’s office at the university. Of a time when being on my knees was the path of least resistance, when it kept Paul from going psycho on me.
“Paul and I had a relationship while I was in college. After my mom died, he began coming to the house…for sex.”
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