In my silent, lonely room, I stripped to boxer briefs and crawled into the cold sheets, trying not to conjure up images of Peter climbing into Darryl’s arms.
Whore-Colored Glasses
I woke up to Peter spooning me from behind, his teeth chattering in my ear, “Cold,” he whispered while he insinuated his legs between and over mine.
“Try clothes,” I said, feeling his body mold against me.
“You’re warm.”
“If you’re here about the oral exam, I’m playing hooky,” I said groggily.
He yawned in response, nuzzling the back of my neck. “Too tired to get off,” he murmured and settled into the embrace, hips pressed against my ass. His nudging hardon started a chorus of beats in my pulse. I stiffened—in more ways than one.
I wasn’t used to this Peter. The one who affectionately cuddled with me while he shuddered from my air conditioning. “Good,” I lied. A brief flicker to my bedside clock read 3:22 a.m.
When his hand slipped down my chest, resting against my stomach, my brain twitched on as the slew of questions chugged through it. “I thought you were sleeping with Darryl?”
“Are you telling me to go sleep with Darryl?”
“I’m trying to figure out why you’re here.”
“Because I like you and you invited me?” He rolled off me, and I twisted to watch him push a hand through his hair. In the diminished light, the strands resembled the shade of oxygenated blood. A sense of foreboding started a shiver at the base of my spine.
“You like me, Darryl, and who else?”
“Are you asking me if you and me are exclusive?”
“Definitely not. We barely know each other.”
“I haven’t decided if I like your jealousy,” Peter mused.
“I’m not jealous over a guy I met a week ago.” Yes, I was. Fucking ridiculously jealous over a guy I met a fucking, lousy-ass, goddamn week ago.
“My father married my mother three days after they met.”
“Your father also killed and maimed people for a living. How about we just place him in the Not-To-Emulate pile?”
“And obviously you can’t marry me,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Obviously.”
“It’s not legal in Colorado.”
“Which is of course the only reason I wouldn’t marry a whore I met a week ago, who plays me like the Philharmonic’s conductor, and alternates between hostile, affectionate, murderous, manipulative and horny. We’d have to put Sybil on the fucking license.”
“Who’s Sybil?”
“A woman with multiple person— you know what? That’s not the point.” I twisted full around to sigh at him.
“I thought we were discussing a question, not a point.”
“Then answer the fucking question.”
“I did. You just had your whore-colored glasses on and didn’t believe me.”
“You like me.”
“Yes.”
“Or you feel obligated to me?”
The beat of silence was my answer.
“Okay. So what if I do?” He shrugged, pulling his knees up and leaning back on his hands. The sheet fell below his waist. So did my attention.
Christ. “Because it’s just another way of whoring yourself!” I forced myself to search his face for a response. He lifted a shoulder.
“Again. So what? I’m attracted to you. You like me. You want me. That’s why you’re doing all of this, right?”
What was I going to answer? That I wanted to save him from himself? That I didn’t want what happened to Jesse, to happen to Peter? That Rhonda Pendergrass had given me a taste of what was to come, and that I was wrapping a chain around Peter if I had to, in order to keep him from becoming that.
“I’m just supposed to accept your obligatory fucks and call us even?”
“Maybe I’d be up here for a different reason if every word out of your mouth wasn’t ‘whore’?” He said it so calmly, just resting back on his hands, staring at the ceiling, breathing slowly, that it was hard to tell if he was angry. It took a little work on my part, studying the way his mouth trembled an in the dark, to consider maybe he was hurt.
“Yeah, well, I’m an asshole,” I said.
I could barely make out his flash of teeth. “Do you think you could quit analyzing things long enough that we can get some sleep?”
Curling over on my side, back to him, I waited to see if he’d take up his previous position. The bed dipped and moved as he shuffled down into it, but the only touch he offered was a hand slipping briefly over my hair. “How’s Cai doing?” I asked, swallowing a lump of emotion.
“I…wanted to warn you,” he hesitated.
“Warn me?” I twisted again to check over my shoulder. Were they disposing of a third body downstairs?
“He’s painting your living room as a thank you.”
“Huh.” I frowned and thought about the work I’d seen in their house. “My decorator might screech, but I’m okay with that.”
“Your decorator? Seriously? How did you not know you were gay?”
“Never mind, it’s not me that’s the asshole, it’s you.” I responded, punching my pillow and getting back to my sleeping position.
Peter snorted.
“Go to sleep, Detective.” I was already halfway there when he murmured those words.
Blow Job or Coffee?
The next time I awoke, the clock read 4:07 a.m. Peter’s nose was once again nuzzled into my neck, his hand casually strung over my hip. And he was snoring. Loudly. Or maybe it only seemed loud due to the proximity of his mouth to my ear. It was, I guessed, what caused my way-too-early wakeup call.
I felt guilty about doing so little yesterday with regards to the case—besides attempting to tank Del and Marco’s part of it. I needed to get some energy and get cracking. Luis would expect I had made some progress—suspended or not.
Mornings were never my thing. Coffee, a workout and random places to rest my face were required before I could fathom work. Sliding out of Peter’s embrace, I stumbled to the shower and started pushing myself to alertness.
Once I was scrubbed clean, teeth brushed and eyes half-way to opening, I threw on clean underwear and sweats, then sat on the bed to pull on my socks and sneakers.
“Coffee?” Peter mumbled and sprawled across the bed.
“No blow job?” I leaned over to tie my shoes.
“Sure,” he stretched, catching my sideways glance when he pushed the sheet off his waist and exposed his bare cock, an appendage which I’d spent the better part of the shower trying not to think about. Now there it was, curving up against his lean stomach and—
“I was joking,” I lied.
“No you weren’t,” he yawned and flexed his hands until the muscles in his arms and chest tightened. My stomach flopped lazily.
“No, I wasn’t,” I agreed. “Maybe when you’re not comatose.” I rotated back to grin at him, but he was asleep. I wanted nothing more than to lick him from chin to groin. Congratulating myself on my restraint, I instead covered him with the sheet and went downstairs.
Cai Redefines Dork
The entire living room: floors, cabinets, sofas—everything—was tarped using my two-hundred dollar, Egyptian cotton sheets. Skittles wrappers and empty Pixie Stix straws littered the area and sugar-dust glittered all over. The phrase ‘while bits of sugar-dust danced in the sheets’ popped in my head.
Cai was sitting on the back of my sofa, wearing jean overalls that were twice as big as he was and thin with wear. They were the same pair, I dared to guess, that I saw him in the second time we met; and they had enough paint to satisfy a Skittles commercial. Oddly, his white t-shirt was pristine.
He stared across at the mantle, or wall, which I noted was no longer cream-colored, but midnight blue. The contrast with my red, brick fireplace was stark.
“Are you trying to will the monitoring box to stop working?” I grinned, walking into the kitchen to start the coffee.
/> “Um…no?” He frowned and continued zoning out. The wall being the centerpiece of his world.
I watched him while I got the machine ready—this boy who had Peter so enthralled. The bean grinder switched on, and he tilted his head like a bird catching a hunter’s footsteps.
“I give up then. What are you doing?”
“Um…watching paint dry?”
“Do you always answer in the form of a question?” Throwing a leg over the sofa, I planted both feet on the cushion next to his and sat beside him.
“No?” he said, flaming cheeks framing his dimpled smile. Okay, he was charming in his own way.
“So what are you doing?”
“Oh…but…” His blinked at me. If his brows weren’t pulled together in such befuddlement, I’d have thought he was fucking with me.
“Watching paint dry? Literally?”
“Can’t, um…start until it’s done. The primer’s done. I can’t start until the primer’s done. Painting. I can’t start painting until the primer’s done.”
I could only stare back at him. It was like he thought faster than he talked, but didn’t wait until he had a full sentence. Was that his meds? “I have an Xbox,” I pointed out and then went to point at my laptop as well, only to see a sheet covering my coffee table. “And somewhere under that mess is a laptop. I even have porn.”
“Oh…um…” More blushing and a small shuffle away from me. “I, um…porn…”
“Gay?”
“I—” He studied his knees. “Reckon I’m not sure, sir.”
I remembered why he was in his predicament suddenly and cursed my own stupidity. “Sorry, that was insensitive. I also have tons of regular movies.”
Smile flashing, he said, “Yessir. It’s okay,” in a strained voice.
“Sir? Sir’s my father. Actually never mind. My father is ‘Dick’. I’m Austin.” His skin practically glowed with shades of red most artists would kill for. “It’s okay if you are, you know?”
He laughed boyishly and granted me another shy, approving smile. I had a feeling all his smiles today were just the smallest bit forced. He was trying, I speculated, to keep us all from worrying about him. “Hoped maybe I was like Peter,” he said. “Don’t think I am.”
“Why would you hope that? Do you think something’s wrong with being gay, Cai?” The temptation to ruffle his hair was extreme enough that I gripped the edges of the sofa on either side of me and scrutinized the wet spots of paint spattered on my sheets.
“Oh…no.” He laughed again. “Just…well, better chances, right?”
“Chances at what?”
“Love?”
He blushed brighter and laughed harder at my look, wiping the back of his hand along his forehead and leaving a cheerful, blue stain of paint behind. “Cai, I might just join your cult.”
“My…cult, s—Austin?” He bit one side of his lip. Was that something he’s learned from Peter? Or Peter from him? Cai’s gesture was unique in the way his nose wrinkled up. It was adorkable. I definitely wanted my kids to be like this one.
Minus the whole cold-blooded killer part.
Unless they were girls and just starting to date. Then I might arm my kids with grenades.
“So what are you going to do with my wall?”
He followed my gaze, head tilting in deliberation. “Something like Starry Night with a more modern gothic feel?”
My head canted the opposite of his as I, too, examined the blue space. “Not that tree, though. It’s too creepy.”
“The dark, deformed church?” He murmured. “Kinda makes a beautiful sense, don’t it?”
I closed my eyes and pictured Van Gogh’s masterpiece. The small peaceful town, the brilliant blues of the tumultuous sky, and the golden moon and stars. Among all those bright, hopeful hues, the tall dark tree-like structure could be a distorted version of the church below.
“You think churches are evil?”
Instead of answering he said, “I didn’t kill him, sir…Austin.” He had the softest voice, his accent buried beneath breath. I strained to hear him.
“You’re pleading guilty.”
“Yessir. Ms. Jackson didn’t approve, either, but then I told her I did it. And how it’d be easier to prove than innocence. Don’t think she believed me.”
“You gave her the strategy?”
He started another blush, piling it on the others. Soon, I was going to have to turn up the air conditioning, before he overheated the house. “Yessir. But I don’t want you to think I killed him. I would have. But I didn’t. But Miss Jackson can’t let me lie in court, you know?”
Which was more shocking? The ‘I would have’, the ‘I didn’t’, or the strategy?
Or was the most extraordinary thing that I believed him?
“I can understand those feelings.”
“Think so?”
“No,” I said.
We stared at the wall. The coffee maker huffed and puffed in the background before exhaling in completion. Then silence.
“I was saving myself,” he murmured. “Antiquated and silly, but I was.”
Before I could joke about antiquated being a big word for a sixteen year old, I told myself Cai could school me seven ways to Sunday with his IQ. While my brain scrambled for something clever to say, he schooled me in another way.
“Did you know that diagnosing bipolar disorder in children is nearly impossible?”
Interesting subject change. I wasn’t sure how to go with it. “No, I didn’t.” I’d let him talk, that was how.
“I tried to kill myself once. Peter stopped…um…hustling, then. After that…he watched me so closely. Kept track of everything. My moods, my actions, the way I slept. Always right beside me and checking my temperature by kissing my forehead or sitting by me at night. Then he started going with Iss more. Dealing drugs. That’s how he got caught.” He picked a loose thread off his knees and chewed it. I stayed silent. “Iss— Peter told me. He told me to stay away from Iss. But Peter’s love is like a vise, and it squeezed so hard.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s not your fault, Cai.”
“It is,” he nodded vigorously. “He told me to stay away from him. I just was so tired of everything. Of being smothered. Told what to do. Don’t stay out late, Cai. College applications, Cai. Don’t go to Rachel’s house, she’s bad news. Take your meds. Stay away from Iss.”
“It doesn’t matter if you went in Iss’s car to defy your brother, or even that you stayed in Iss’s house. Iss was more than fifteen years older than you. He was a big guy. And, most importantly, you didn’t want it.”
Working on Vice, I knew the only way to get this through Cai’s head was to repeat it over and over. For everyone around him to repeat it. It had to be ingrained. Thoroughly. Much as I wanted to hug him and stop that flow of tears, having a man touch him might trigger something. So I sat there and stared at the wall as his tears fell and hoped my words comforted him.
“Peter never cries.’ He laughed, smudging his face again as he wiped it with the meaty part of his palm.
“I’m sure he does. Just not in front of anyone.”
Cai shook his head, inhaling the paint fumes that were making me lightheaded.
“You really don’t know him.” Movement out of the corner of my eye had me checking his fingers, they drummed against his knee in a tidy rhythm, until he reached into the front pocket of his overalls and pulled out some more Pixie Stix.
Without glancing over, he offered some to me. I plucked one out of the fanned bundle and ripped the top open with my teeth. Both of us tipped our heads back and poured the sugary powder onto our tongues. My mouth watered, creating a paste that made my tongue shrink with its tartness.
“This is vile stuff,” I slurred, swallowing ungraciously.
“It’s awesome. You’re just too old.”
“Old? You little shit.” I tossed the crumpled wrapper at him, bouncing it off his head. If not for the crusted tears on his face,
the moment might have been funny.
Out of the blue he extended a key, lifting the palm of my hand to accept it. “What’s this?”
“When you came by Saturday, Peter kept trying to get you out of the house.”
“Yes?”
“You need to see why. And bring it back here.” The smile he gave me was a mixture of naughty and shy.
I squinted at him and stared at my palm to consider the key. “It’s not a porn collection or sex toys is it?”
“You really don’t know Peter at all,” he mused. “He’d never keep that stuff where I could find it. But that right there? That’s the key to knowing Peter.”
The brass teeth grinded against my skin as I fisted it. My ticking pulse could be measured with parade drums. I was so eager to drive to their house, calling Cai on his terrible play with words slipped my mind.
Chapter Fifteen
Did I Just Agree to More Pussy?
As I stood and readied to leave, Cai spoke up again. “I have an ulterior motive for having you go to the house.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “You wouldn’t be Peter’s brother without an ulterior motive for everything.”
Cai’s attention fastened to his knees. “That wasn’t very kind.”
“You’re right.” Properly chastised, I sat next to his feet. “I’m not a very kind person, Cai.”
“Cruelty is an effortless answer to fear.”
“Who said that?”
“Um…me?”
“You’re too wise for your own good.”
“You’re too cynical for yours,” he tossed back, blush and half-grin firmly in place.
“The motive?” I veered us back to the original topic.
“Begone?” Which brought a raised eyebrow from me, followed by a, “My cat,” from him. My lips turned down in distaste. He winced and added, “She’s litter box trained.”
“I don’t care if she can flush the toilet. I hate cats.”
“Oh…um…okay.” His smile dimmed to a point and disappeared. I checked my shoes for puppy fur, and Cai for my footprint.
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