by Rhys Ford
Ruan choked on a mouthful of stout, nearly pushing the fulsome brew up through his sinuses and over the table. Unsettled, he began to cough, trying to get a bit of air in past the foaming slurry in his throat. Ivo pounded on his back, but Ruan pulled away, finally catching his breath… just in time to see Spot help himself to a fried shrimp from one of the boxes, then take off down the hall with his prize.
“Shit, I’ve got to get that away from him,” Ruan growled, lifting himself up off the couch. Ivo pushed him back down, gently tapping between his shoulder blades.
“If I go get it, you going to eat it?” Ivo asked. When Ruan gagged at the thought, Ivo chuckled. “Yeah, I thought so. Besides, he’s probably already got it choked down. Maybe you should try to learn how to breathe before you go chasing after him.”
“I didn’t realize you were going to try to kill me. I knew asking you over was a bad idea,” he mumbled, tapping his fist against his sternum. “You are very young, and I’m—”
“You’ve got what? Ten years on me?” Ivo slid back across the sectional, reaching for one of the boxes of food. “You act like you’re fifty. Maybe I’m exactly what you need, Nicholls. Someone to shake off the gray on you.”
Ruan didn’t know exactly when he’d lost control of the conversation, but he was fairly certain it was the moment he answered the phone and found Ivo on the other side of the line. He was normally more steady, surefooted and confident, but there was something about the other man that made him feel like he was fourteen years old, with a mouthful of braces and an ugly haircut his mother gave him while holding a bowl over his head and snipping away with a pair of dull scissors. For fuck’s sake, he caught murderers for a living, but now he was sitting tongue-tied next to a pretty tattoo artist with a devil-may-care attitude even Lucifer would envy.
“I earned every bit of fucking gray I’ve got, Rogers, so I’m not giving it up any time soon,” Ruan shot back, catching a glimpse of a smirk on Ivo’s pretty mouth. “Maybe what you need is someone to teach you how to behave.”
THERE WAS a delicious pleasure in making the older cop uncomfortable. Ivo thirsted for conflict sometimes—that sting of banter he could only get from someone with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue. Ruan Nicholls could hold his own once he got his feet under him, and despite the frequent nuzzling of the detective’s giant cat against Ivo’s knee, the cop had all of Ivo’s attention.
“Regret me coming over?” Ivo pressed, settling back into the couch’s soft cushions. They’d taken off the edge of their hunger, and were now picking through the boxes for favorite tidbits. Ruan won brownie points for handing Ivo the small container of har gow, then upped the favorable ante by digging out another sauce container filled with mustard and shoyu for Ivo to pour over his dumplings.
“No, you’re pretty to look at, and it gives the cat someone else to beg at so I can eat something in peace for a change,” Ruan shot back. “You? Got any regrets?”
“Nah. Although I should have told you to order more shrimp. Didn’t know I’d have to share with Goliath here. Dude, you’re worse than my dog. Go sit down,” Ivo replied, nudging Spot back with his elbow. Surprisingly, the cat gave him one last imperious sniff, then slunk back to the fluffy dog bed next to the fireplace. “Well, shit, didn’t expect that.”
“Sometimes he’s got manners,” Ruan replied, sliding a glance over Ivo. “Unlike some people.”
“I’m very well-behaved,” he teased back. “I just get… sick of everyone hiding behind their perfect little masks and pretty words.”
There was definitely something between them now—a heat that wasn’t there the first time they met over a cop car hood and Ivo’s barked knuckles. Ivo’d been shoving men off of him since long before he rolled into the brothers’ house on its sleepy road, and the cop’s attention years ago had been rigidly professional and detached. Now, however, not so much. Or at least that’s what Ivo’s gut was telling him. Another long rake of Ruan’s green eyes across his legs, lap, and stomach only flamed Ivo’s suspicions, and he debated his conversational options while digging through a bit of crispy noodles Ruan left for him in another container.
Sure, the cop left him his card, but Ivo had been the one to reach out, even if it’d taken him a good half an hour of contemplation before dialing the number. Half of his motivation was fueled by Gus’s challenge, but there was something deeper, something elusive driving him. It was surreal to be sitting in the living room of an old San Francisco house, barefooted and perched on a couch while eating Chinese food with the man he’d lusted after in half-realized dreams. He’d never thought about the actual human being attached to the name and face, at least not until he knocked on Ruan’s front door and it dawned on him, he knew nothing about the man who opened it.
He lived his life by reading people, but now he was talking to someone who excelled at never showing his hand. Ruan’s discomfort was short-lived and he’d moved into a position of control, quickly establishing his own territory in their conversation. He knew what buttons to push to keep Ivo back, laying down thread-thin traps baited with quips about age and manners.
The nearly naked space was a tell, a transient area Ruan Nicholls came home to and perhaps even spent time in, but it wasn’t where he kept his soul. That much Ivo knew without needing any of the fancy degrees Lucas racked up. Judging by the engraved plaque fixed to its frame, the folded flag on the mantelpiece belonged to the sacrifices of a woman who’d died a few years ago, the years of her service firmly placing her much too old to be Ruan’s mother unless she’d had him very late, and the tattered Christmas card next to it was almost bald in spots where fingers rubbed off the translucent glitter embellishing the snowflakes printed on its front.
But it was the oversized dog bed placed next to the fireplace that told Ivo all he needed to know about Ruan Nicholls—that and the scatter of toys tucked into the room’s corners and lodged against the coffee table’s legs. The detective definitely was compassionate, because as much as he grumbled about the cat, it was with a depth of affection Ivo usually only heard when his brothers were talking about each other.
Ruan Nicholls definitely knew how to love. Maybe grudgingly so, but it was there. And the dichotomy of his gruff, whiskey-sharp nature, combined with the softness in his voice as he coaxed his cat over to take a piece of chicken from his fingers, somehow—stupidly—made Ivo’s heart skip.
He was tired from having to work two shifts and pack in a bunch of flash inkings he hadn’t planned on doing. His fingers ached, and the small of his back reminded Ivo he wasn’t as young and mobile as he had been when he first started tattooing. Or it could have just been spending eleven hours crouched over various body parts with his hand cramping around a vibrating machine. Calling Ruan Nicholls was impulsive, but Ivo liked to live on the edge of stupidity sometimes. Funny how sitting down in the sparsely furnished rectangular box of a living room with a man who looked like he’d had just as rough of a day calmed the prickly, alum-sharp slivers of Ivo’s busy mind.
There was a quiet in him he never seemed to be able to find but always searched for. It tantalized him when he drew, tickling at the edges of his mind with a silken promise of something Ivo could never grasp. Art and tattooing gave him enough respite from the noise to keep him sane when, apparently, all he needed to do was pick up some late-night Chinese and share it with a cop.
“My brother Bear always says I push things too far,” Ivo said as a way of offering an olive branch. “I guess I’m too used to being the bratty younger brother.”
“I could see that,” the detective replied, nodding as he picked through the small bucket of kung pao chicken. “I’ve got little brothers, but they’re a lot younger. My dad’s on his third or fourth wife. I’ve kind of lost count, but she’s nice. They live in San Diego, so it’s not like I know them, and the oldest is about thirty years younger than I am, so we don’t have a lot to talk about.”
“I’ve got a nephew that’s three. He’s easy to talk to. His m
ain interests are dogs, firetrucks, and poop. Also farts, but I kind of line that up as the outdoor activity of pooping. Chris keeps things simple.” Ivo laughed at Ruan’s look of disgust. “He’s the first kid I’ve ever really been around. I mean, there were always foster kids around, but not like I was attached to any of them. It’s kind of cool, because he opens up his mouth, and parts of Gus fall out of it. Then every once in a while, he gives you this look that I see on Bear’s face, like when he knows you’re bullshitting him and he’s about to call you on it.”
Curiosity flickered across Ruan’s gaze and he cocked his head, chewing on a piece of chicken. Chasing it with a sip of beer, he swallowed, then asked, “I thought your brothers raised you. Or did you guys foster kids?”
It was a moment Ivo never encountered before, not in any relationship he’d ever had. His pool of friends were tight, a small number of people—mostly other tattoo artists—and the 415 Ink crew’s backstory was well-known in the industry. He’d gone through his teenage years with everyone knowing his business even before he met them, and anyone he even remotely, casually dated never got any further than physical with him. He liked it that way, worked hard to keep it that way. He had enough entitlements to last a lifetime, or so he thought. Now there was a gruff, rugged cop with cunning eyes and the world draped across his shoulders asking him questions he normally deflected or people already had the answers to.
Leaning back, Ivo stared out at the paths he could take with a single sentence. Something held him, held his tongue in, and the discomfort was odd. It wasn’t as if people didn’t know his life, especially since most of the tattoo artists he met along the way came loaded with their own opinions of him. But it was different with Ruan, more intimate than sex, actually. After scooping up the last piece of har gow, Ivo tucked it into his mouth and chewed slowly, picking through the words in his mind.
“Tell you what,” he finally said, tucking his used chopsticks into the paper sleeves they’d come in. “Maybe that’s something we can get into the next time we get together.”
Ruan chuckled, as darkly spicy as mustard stinging Ivo’s tongue. “I don’t get a lot of free time when I’m working a case. It might be a while before we can do this again.”
“That’s okay,” Ivo replied, standing up and brushing down his jeans, getting off as much of the cat hair as he could. “You’ve just got to decide if I’m worth the wait.”
“Oh, trust me, kid,” Ruan responded, his eyes darkening with an emerald storm. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, you’re definitely worth the wait.”
Six
“DAMN, HOW the hell did it get to be two?” Ivo peered blearily at the clock mounted to the art room’s short wall. As tempted as he was to leave his drawings all over the broad table they’d set up in a former storage room at the back of the shop, Bear was opening in the morning and his oldest brother would be more than happy to hand Ivo his ass if he left the place messy. Slowly gathering up the sketches he’d started for a client’s back piece, Ivo yawned, wincing when his jaw cracked. “Shit, okay. Time to head home.”
Standing was an exercise in and of itself. His legs were cramping from sitting too long, and the small of his back ached from spending hours bent over, first a woman’s hip, then hunched over his drawings. He’d kicked off his shoes a long time before, mopping the shop’s floor in his bare feet. Then, not wanting to risk breaking his neck on the slick concrete floor, he’d left his heeled boots by the reception desk. Wiggling his toes, Ivo shoved the last few sheets of paper into his oversized leather portfolio, making sure the edges wouldn’t catch when he zipped it up.
“Question is, take this all home or leave it here?” Ivo suppressed another yawn, his jaw already aching from its first pop. “Shit, I don’t even know if I’m opening with Bear tomorrow. Fucking Mace. Taking Rob on vacation screwed the schedule up so damned much.”
He was bitching to bitch. And sadly, venting to an empty tattoo parlor didn’t seem to pack the same wallop as when one of his brothers was there to take the heat.
His phone buzzed in his back pocket and Ivo sighed, knowing without looking Bear was wondering what he’d gotten up to. Sending Bear a reassuring text back while he began to work one boot onto his aching foot, Ivo finally gave up trying to balance himself on one leg and sat down on the couch under the shop’s iron-grate-shuttered window.
The boom of something striking the glass shook off any hint of fatigue hovering at the edge of Ivo’s brain. He turned, nearly falling off of the couch when his booted foot slid across the slick floor. Grabbing at the table, Ivo flinched when another strike to the glass created a spiderweb across the pane. It was hard to see between the iron slats of the shutters, but Ivo could make out a man’s pale face pressed up against the glass, his nose pushed up and his lips smearing blood over the cracks. The face disappeared only to be replaced by a fist coming down on the spot again, deepening the fractures. After jamming his other foot into its boot, Ivo grabbed the baseball bat sitting in the umbrella stand by the reception desk and bolted through the shop’s front door.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ivo brandished the bat in his left hand, keeping a grip on the doorknob. As late as it was, foot traffic on the pier was nonexistent and the cars in the road were few and far between. The grate behind the front window wouldn’t hold up to repeated thrashings, and if it went down, anyone could crawl through the open space and strip the shop clean. “Get away from there!”
The man reeked. The ten feet separating him and Ivo wasn’t enough to mask the sour, greasy odor of unwashed skin and hair. The man’s eyes were wild, his face framed by shanks of tangled hair, and the clothes he wore were thick with grime and oil. Leering at Ivo, he raised his fists up, then brought them down hard on the glass, cackling loudly when the pane cracked further. He panted heavily, struggling to stay on his feet. Then he laid his hands flat on the broken pane, blood from his cut hands smearing over the shop’s painted logo. Too skinny to be even close to healthy, the man’s gaunt features and skeletal hands were marbled with blown out bruises and tiny lesions, his limbs shaking despite him propping himself up against the building.
“I said get away from the glass!” Ivo warned. He didn’t want to swing, but if a good solid push wouldn’t get the man to step back, he would take it. Ivo heard the door lock behind him, and some small part of his mind scrambled with terror at the thought he’d left the keys inside of the shop. “Just move along. Don’t be an asshole, dude.”
“Too late for that. He’s already an asshole.” Another man’s voice broke through the first’s panting, and Ivo pivoted to keep both men in sight, turning his back toward the busy street. Unlike the glass-breaking idiot, the man’s brawn nearly blocked out the light coming from under the covered walkway’s eaves. He moved in and the light ran a silver line down the edge of the knife he had clutched in his right hand. “How about if you hand over what you’ve got in the cash register?”
“How about if I shove this up your ass? Because I’m pretty sure I can get it to fit,” Ivo snarled back, hefting the bat up. A shadow moved out of the darkness behind the brawnier man and Ivo sucked in a long breath, not liking the odds. “What? Now three against one?”
“You know, as pretty as you are, you need to check your eyes, Ivo.” The man stepping onto the sidewalk left the darkness behind, bathing in the string of lights trimming the eaves. “SFPD. Drop the knife and get down on the ground.”
He’d only seen the cop a couple of days ago, but Ruan seemed even more worn down than when they’d shared a dinner while fending off Ruan’s beast of a cat. The detective might have looked tired, the lines on either side of his mouth deepening with disgust, but there was no mistaking the deadliness of the weapon he had aimed at the man holding the knife. Ivo caught the glance down to his footwear and the cop’s silent, heavy sigh.
“You okay, Ivo?” The detective didn’t spare Ivo another glance, but he didn’t take it personally.
“Nice to have my o
wn personal stalker,” Ivo replied, finally earning himself a sour look from the cop. “Yeah I’m good. Just out fighting crime? ’Cause you’re missing your cape there, Bruce.”
“Keep this up and I’m going to be tempted to shoot you, not them,” Ruan snarled when the skinny guy began to pace. “Don’t make any moves. Get down—”
“No, no, no. I don’t want this, Harry.” Yelping, the skinny man took off, his limbs flying over the sidewalk before Ivo could even blink, and the knife wielder smiled carefully, stretching out his arm to put the knife on the ground, his eyes never leaving the cop’s face. But he held on to the weapon, lowering it slowly.
“Fucking dick,” the guy Ivo supposed was named Harry said. “But how do I know you’re not going to shoot me once I drop it?”
“Should I go after him?” Ivo put a bit of sarcasm into his voice, waving the end of the bat at where the skinny man had been standing moments before. “I could have handled—”
“Don’t say you could have handled it, and no, don’t go after him. We’ll find him later,” the detective cut him off. “Harry, if I don’t hear that knife hitting the ground in one second, I’m shooting your knee out. And after I’m done doing that, I’m going to be asking about where I can find your asshole friend.”
The knife hit the sidewalk, clattering loudly. Clearing his throat, the man mumbled from his crouch, “Just having some fun here. No need to—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Not tonight. Get on the ground, sir. Face down. Hands on the back of your head,” the cop barked, keeping his weapon trained on the man spreading himself out on the sidewalk. “Ivo, stay back so I don’t accidentally put another hole in you, especially since your brains seemed to have leaked out of the one you’ve already got. I’ll hold him here while you call 911. Then after that, you and I are going to have a little talk about common sense and where the fuck you can pick some up.”