by Taylor Lewis
Jonah stared at him, a small part of his mind protesting at the way he was behaving, but he was still too furious at being played for a fool to pay attention to it. He frowned, thinking back to the first time he had seen Kyle – the first time he had thought he was seeing Kyle anyway – and saw him again standing in his office, face pale and shocked and that damn photo frame clutched to his chest. His fingers slackened against Kyle’s jaw and then fell away as he remembered the theory that he and Lopez had worked under for a brief time. Kyle had been hiding something because he was afraid of them finding out about his condition – and afraid of them finding out about his son.
Jonah took a sudden step back and releasing Kyle altogether, watching when the smaller man sagged and then curled away from him, trying to hide his face from Jonah’s gaze. He swallowed hard, his throat clicking dryly as his mind raced and then he said slowly, “You weren’t scared for you.” Kyle’s head snapped up and he watched Jonah fearfully, evidently expecting another attack any moment. “You weren’t afraid for yourself.” His forehead furrowed as he tried to wrap his mind around the only other possible conclusion. “You were scared for your kid. It was Shea you were scared for.”
Kyle stared mutely at him and pressed back against the wall, looking small and hunted in the light from the streetlamps.
Felling like he was oddly detached from reality and as though his voice was coming from far away, Jonah said in a hoarse whisper, “Who’s Shea’s father?” He ignored the cry of alarm from Kyle when he stepped close again and this time pinned him almost gently back against the wall. His hands tightened past the point of pain on Kyle’s shoulders as he repeated urgently, “Gerritsen, who the hell fathered your kid?”
Kyle stared hopelessly up at him and whispered in defeat, “You did. He’s your son too.”
Chapter 8.
Jonah remained completely drunk for an impressive three days before Lopez had enough of his emo bullshit and broke into his apartment. He was lying face down on his couch, an empty bottle of tequila dangling from his limp hand and his legs draped half on and half off the cushions. He groaned and turned his face into the back of the couch when Lopez snapped, “Jesus fucking Christ, it smells like something died in here.” His next groan was considerably more pained when she thumped past him and wrenched open his curtains letting the bright sunshine in from outside. He fell off the couch when she slapped his legs out of the way and threw herself onto the cushions. Rolling over onto his back he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing like hell he’d thought to put his gun in easy grabbing distance so he could shoot the bitch. Or himself. Either was good at this point.
Lopez’s voice sounded again. “Okay, so you actually look like something that’s died. Should I call the M.E.?”
“Fuck. Off.” Jonah swallowed heavily, bile and alcohol trying to crawl up his throat, and managed to drape one arm over his still shut eyes. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
“Love too but can’t, sorry.” Lopez said, not sounding it in the slightest. “Simons is getting pissy about you calling in sick and sent me to kick your ass and get you back to work. Using man-flu as an excuse only gets you so far.”
Jonah jerked when another voice sounded. “God, dude, how much have you had? Jonah, am I going to have to take you down to the ER?” A no nonsense finger peeled back one of his eyelids and Dex Randall’s face loomed suddenly overhead. “You tracking, man?”
It was too much to take. Jonah twisted his head away, also removing the problem of Dex’s cavernous nostrils dominating his vision, heaved once and then twice and threw up helplessly all over himself and the floor.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Lopez sounded totally disgusted and Jonah felt an unsympathetic foot kick his backside while he heaved and moaned pitifully through his stomach ridding itself of everything he had forced into it over the past few days. “You’re a fucking pig, Goldman.”
“Gina,” Dex’s reproachful voice sounded and Jonah shuddered when a broad, soothing hand rubbed between his shoulder blades and another hand rather bravely slipped beneath his chin, positioning his head so that he wouldn’t drown in his own vomit. “This is one of those times that we talked about. You know, when we show tact and care and compassion.”
Above Jonah’s throbbing head, Lopez snorted. “No, this is one of those times where we kick his ass, dump his stinking carcass in the shower and hose him off until he’s passing for human again.” She kicked Jonah’s butt again. “Hey, Jonah, you finished yet?” She waited a few seconds and then sighed irritably, “Okay, Randall, help me get him up and into the bathroom.”
Jonah groaned and tried to swing out when Dex and Lopez manhandled him up, but he was just too soused and ill to manage anything more than weak grunts and twitches of his muscles. With Lopez’s noises of disgusts at his stench accompanying them, Jonah was hauled into the bathroom and propped on the edge of his tub. “Okay, so if you go outside and start clearing up then I’ll help him get stripped off and into the shower.” Dex looked up and motioned for her to leave. “It’ll just take a few minutes.”
“Yeah, not a maid.” Lopez grabbed Dex’s arm and shoved him out of the small bathroom, ignoring his protests and the way he tried to dig his heels in. “You go start clearing up that mess and I’ll clear up the one in here. We’re out when I think he’s ready.”
“Gina!” Dex spun and tried to get back in but she was too quick for him and slammed the door in his face, flipping the lock and effectively shutting him out. Dex hammered on the door. “Gina! I think he’d be more comfortable with me helping him. It’s my job!”
Lopez rolled her eyes as she turned back to Jonah, slouched dangerously on his precarious perch, grey skinned and red eyed. “He’s not exactly in a condition to care, Randall!” She stripped out of her shirt leaving her in just a vest top and moved forward with purpose. “And you’re an E.M.T not Nurse Betty. He’s not bleeding, unconscious or in need of oxygen – I think I can handle this.” She bent, grabbed Jonah’s ankles and lifted to tip him unceremoniously backwards into the tub.
“Gina!” Dex hammered on the door again in response to the heavy thud of Jonah’s body hitting porcelain and his agonised grunt when his head bounced off a tap on the way down. “Gina, what’s going on? Is he alright?”
Ignoring Jonah struggling to grip the side of the tub and haul himself up, Gina reached for the shower head, flicked on the water and swung one leg over the side of the bath to plant a booted foot in the middle of Jonah’s soiled chest and pin him down hard. Not bothering to wait for the water to heat to a comfortable temperature she pointed the shower head directly at his face and let him have it. “He’s fine!” She answered Dex cheerfully as Jonah spluttered and cursed and tried to flail free. “Looking better already. Go get cleared up and put some coffee on, he’ll be needing it in a few.” Taking pity for a moment she directed the spray away from his head and thoroughly soaked his filthy t-shirt and jeans before spitefully turning the water directly onto his face again, cooing, “There, baby, you good now?”
Jonah responded with a garbled string of threats and curses that earned him another two minute blasting with water that was now just the right side of scalding and nearly drowned him in the process.
Lopez grinned. “Tough love, you’ll thank me for it one day.”
~*~*~*~
An hour later and Jonah, Lopez and Dex were sat in strained silence around Jonah’s small kitchen table with coffee and scrambled eggs and toast arrayed before them. Jonah was looking considerably cleaner although his skin still held more of a grey tinge to it than tan and his eyes were half slits in his face, edged in sore red.
Lopez was just pleased that being in his immediate vicinity was no longer making her want to hurl the contents of her own stomach in response to the smell and was calling their intervention a win.
Spearing the last slice of toast with the prongs of his fork, Dex slapped a lavish amount of butter on it and nodded to Jonah’s nearly untouched plate. “You’ve gotta eat something, du
de. You look like shit.”
Jonah lifted his pounding head and squinted at his friend fiercely before propping his elbows either side of his plate and dropping his head to rub the heels of his hands into his aching eyes. “Fuck off and leave me alone. I’m alive, you’ve done your job, now get the hell out.”
Narrowing her eyes, Lopez flicked a look at Dex’s face and then back at the top of her partner’s head – clearly tough love alone wasn’t going to cut it. She was going to have to bring out the emotional equivalent of invading a third world country and practising genocide on its religious and ethnic undesirables. “Nice. You’d think now you got a kid you’d start watching your mouth.” She raised an eyebrow when Jonah jerked his head up and stared at her, saying, “What? You think I wouldn’t figure it out?”
“You know?” Jonah felt the rage that had been simmering under his skin since he had left Kyle, shaken and trembling on his front doorstep three nights before, flash red hot once more. He shoved unsteadily to his feet, fists bunching in reflex and barely spared Dex a glance when he got to his own feet with a muffled noise of alarm around his mouthful of toast. “You fucking knew and you didn’t tell me?”
Looking infuriatingly unmoved by the threatening behaviour, Lopez met him glare for glare and spat, “I found out the same night you did, you asshole. Like I’d ever fuck you over like that.” She shot a derisive glance at his still clenched fists. “And if this is how you reacted to the Twofer then no wonder his fag hag is calling me all the goddamned time demanding to know where you live so she can come cut off your balls and make you eat them. Your baby-momma is too freaked out to leave the house since you saw him.”
As quick as the rush of furious adrenaline had erupted it faded and Jonah collapsed back onto his chair, looking even greyer than before. Dex hesitated before reaching for the pitcher of iced water in the middle of the table. He refilled Jonah’s glass and shoved it towards him. “Here. This is better for you than coffee.”
Jonah stared blankly at the glass and then grabbed it. He chugged the water back in a few harsh gulps and instantly regretted it when his stomach clenched and he nearly brought it up again in a compulsive heave.
Dex shoved his chair back out of range and Lopez pointed a warning finger. “Do not even think about it.” She watched Jonah gulp compulsively for control, completely without sympathy, and then refilled his glass to push it towards him again with an almost gentle, “Sip it. Slowly.
Jonah gulped some more and then reached out and picked up the glass again, taking hesitant sips and eyeing the water suspiciously as though braced for a sneak attack. After he’d finished half the glass he gingerly put it down and turned his dull eyes to Lopez, saying in a low rasp, “I didn’t hit him if that’s what the lying little fucker said. I shoved him around some, but that was it.”
Lopez looked annoyed and then resigned. “Of course you did.”
Looking pained, Dex rubbed a hand over his eyes and said reproachfully, “Jonah, impulse control.”
“Well excuse me for not being Mr fucking Perfect,” snarled Jonah. “The guy’s only been lying to me from the moment we met and hiding my kid from me. We can’t all be Dex ‘Golden Balls’ Randall and bucking for sainthood, can we?”
“No, but we don’t all think primarily with what’s in our shorts either, Goldman.” Lopez’s voice cut like a whip across the steadily rising volume of his voice. “From pretty much the minute you met the guy you’ve been sleazing all over him and acting like a total skank. You didn’t remember who he was – “She held up a hand when Jonah opened his mouth in outraged protest, snapping, “Yeah, you got a good reason, but he didn’t know that, did he?” Jonah’s mouth closed with an almost painful clacking of his teeth. “And on top of all that when you do put two and two together you go postal on him and all but seriously assault the guy not fifty feet from where your kid is sleeping.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “He made a bad call, but you’re no genius here either, okay?”
Another uncomfortable silence fell – Dex’s eyes darting anxiously between Lopez and Jonah because he just hadn’t got the necessary mean gene to get into it with Jonah like Lopez did. He hated it when there was a situation with confrontation needed. Jonah looked away and down at the floor. “So you figured it all out, huh? You know when it happened?”
“Yeah,” Lopez let her body relax a little when it seemed all the anger had left Jonah for the moment and said, “I put two and two together when we saw the kid at the shop and had Lee check the kid’s birth date for me.” She held up a hand when Jonah looked up with a scowl and said, “He doesn’t know why and he hasn’t made the connection between the Kyle Gerritsen who got his window smashed in and the guy he saw you with in the deli. No one knows but us three and baby momma and his hag.” She jerked a thumb at Dex. “Fuck, he wouldn’t know but I wasn’t sure what state you were gonna be in after ignoring my calls these past three days and if you needed some attention I didn’t want to have to take you to the ER and have it on record there.”
Jonah felt his skin flush and after a moment muttered, “Thanks.” He looked up at Dex and grimaced at the concerned look on his friend’s face. “You too.”
Dex nodded, looking concerned and reassuring. “Anytime, man. You know I’m here for you whatever. All you gotta do is....”
“Oh my God,” said Lopez, agonised, “Shut the fuck up, you fucking pussy.” She ignored Dex’s wounded expression and looked expectantly at Jonah. “So what are you gonna do? You just going to let him disappear back out of your life or you gonna make a play for the kid?”
Jonah’s face darkened. “That’s your business how?” A brief flicker of something like hurt showed in his eyes before they clouded with anger again. “Gerritsen wasn’t even going to tell me about him. Don’t think I’m gonna get much of a say one way or the other. He’s made it pretty clear I’m not exactly daddy material.”
Lopez stared at him and then shook her head, reaching out across the table to put one hand on his forearm in an uncharacteristic gentle move and tightened her hold when Jonah tried to wrench his arm away. “I was with his girlfriend when he was out with you the other night.” She met Jonah’s eyes when he looked up, startled, and explained, “I needed to make sure of my facts before I busted the whole thing open for you.” She stared at him solemnly and said with sure emphasis, “He made the decision to tell you about the kid a couple of days before he agreed to go out with you. He was going to front up and tell you everything and offer you the chance to get to know your son.” She watched when Jonah’s skin bled to a nasty off-white and continued, “I didn’t tell the girl what happened to you or why you didn’t recognise him because that’s your story to tell. He was going to tell you the kid was yours even though he thought he was just one of your forgotten hook-ups and take a chance that you were gonna be okay with it. That’s gotta say something, right?”
Jonah swallowed and tried to keep the angry expression on his face, snarling, “So, what, that makes it okay that he played me and lied to me? You’re taking his side and making excuses for him now?”
Lightning fast, Lopez’s comforting hand came up and slapped him round the side of his head. “I’m on your side, you asshole, and don’t you forget it. And I am not making excuses for him, okay? I’m giving you reasons. He did something dumb and he’s paying for it. From what his little gal pal told me you knocked him on his ass showing up the way you did and he’s been trying to get back up ever since. He thought he was gonna be alone in this forever and then all of a sudden you’re strutting though his door all ‘Let’s fuck’ eyes and ‘How you doin’?’ and, as far as he’s concerned, you don’t even remember him from the last time you got him to drop his pretty panties and, oh yeah, completely changed his life.” She shook her head and said irritably, “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but the hag raised some good points. He’s not just looking out for number one here. He’s got the kid to consider and if he fucks up then it’s all on him. There’s no one else to t
ake the shit or the fall. He went out with you to try and see the man behind the asshole and figure out the best way to tell you about the kid.” She raised her eyebrows pointedly. “If you can sit there and tell me you could have thought of a better way to handle the situation then you’re a lot brighter than I ever gave you credit for.” She paused to let that sink in and added, “There was never gonna be a good way to handle this, Jonah. He freaked out and then did the best he could with what he had.”
Jonah looked at her for a long moment and then scrubbed a weary hand over his eyes. “What a fucking mess.” He slumped in his chair, rubbing harder at his eyes and trying to hide the sudden stinging there. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.” He thought again of Kyle, shocked, pale and huddled in on himself when he had stormed off and left him, and muttered, “I really fucking went for him. He probably thinks I’m some kind of psycho. No way he’s gonna let me near the kid now.”
“That what you want?” Lopez held up her hands defensively when Jonah dropped his hand to glower at her. “Hey, I’m just saying. Not like you’ve ever shown any interest in that side of things before and our lives aren’t exactly what your little princess and his buddies got going on.” She shrugged. “From what the girl said they’ve pretty much surrounded the kid with show tunes and a rainbow of ribbons since he was born – we’re more the blood, guts and battered bodies end of the spectrum.” She jerked as thumb at Dex. “Even Randall here. Our lives aren’t exactly what you’d call easy and if you’re gonna lose interest a few months down the line or figure that diapers and little league don’t hold up to the job or tying one on with the boys at the weekend then I figure it’s probably better in the long run if you just cut them loose now. Let him move on and find someone else to step up if that’s what he wants.”