by Max Walker
“No, no. I’m the one Hazel’s guardian angel sent.”
“And who was that? Who hired you? Who paid for her bail?”
Shonda, walking with an energy that said she owned this place, didn’t even miss a beat when she spoke the name, even though my heart must have skipped six: “Detective Rocky Hudson.”
12
Rocky Hudson
My doorbell rang, the chime bouncing around the walls of my house. I set aside the notes I’d been writing and shut the laptop, closing the screen on a picture of Jesse at his high school graduation, his smile bright and wide, very much unlike the yellowing grin he had acquired over the years. I checked my watch, realizing my food wasn’t supposed to get here for another twenty minutes. I had left the front gate open so that the delivery person wouldn’t have trouble getting in. Did someone else decide to ring my door? I wouldn’t mind a box of Girl Scout cookies if that were the case.
The doorbell rang again just as I reached the door. I peeped through the peephole and was surprised at the face I saw staring back at me, those big brown eyes looking even wider when seen through a fish-eye lens.
I opened the door, the heat and humidity punching me in the gut. I squinted against the bright sunlight and looked down into those spellbinding eyes.
“Sam, what are you doing here?”
How did you even find out where I lived?
“I, well, I’m here to, um.”
Sam stumbled like someone who had been carried solely by instinct.
“Come inside before you melt.” I threw him a bone. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He looked around my foyer, a slight look of disbelief on his face.
“How do you live here… “
“Are you here to audit me? Do you work for the IRS?”
Sam stopped gawking and looked to me, cracking into a smile when he realized I was joking. He looked cute today, wearing a pair of light blue shorts and a white T-shirt, his hair styled so that the front rose in a kind of small wave. His glasses seemed freshly cleaned, the black frames catching the afternoon sunlight flowing in from the floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding him.
“So where’d you find my address?”
“You aren’t the only one with detective skills, okay?”
I crossed my arms and tilted my head. “You asked your uncle if he knew where the house with the top-hat-wearing manatee mailbox was?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, make yourself at home,” I said. “Want anything to drink?”
“I’ll have some water, please.”
I started toward the kitchen, throwing a glance behind me as I walked.
Sam looked like he wanted to tiptoe around the house, like some kind of lost fawn that had stumbled its way into my living room and was too scared to touch anything. “Is that real?” Sam asked, pointing at the Banksy hanging on the wall. The canvas, covered in strokes of evergreen and gold and ivory, took up about half of the stark white wall in my living room. It was framed in a sinewy barbed wire, dropping a thin and prickly shadow underneath it. The light that streamed in from the sliding glass doors bounced off the silver border.
“It is,” I said, admiring the piece with Sam at my side. “I grabbed it when it first popped up here for Art Basel.”
“Oh. Whoa. That’s wild.”
Sam stepped closer to the painting, his eyes wide. My attention drifted from the colorful canvas to the colorful human standing only a few feet away from me. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that even Banksy would have his eyes pulled from his masterpiece to Sam. He had a way of attracting the spotlight without even doing anything noteworthy. He was just standing there, a hand in his pocket, a half grin on his face, and yet he was all I wanted to look at.
“Wow,” Sam said, stepping back from the painting and looking around the rest of my living room. He walked over to the sliding glass doors and made another surprised noise. “That pool!”
I opened the doors and stepped outside with Sam. My backyard was large, not only extending outward in a field of lush green grass, but also wrapping around my house, where the basketball court was.
The star of my backyard was definitely the pool, though. It went to seven feet deep, where a rocky waterfall spilled a roar of water down into the saltwater pool. A green slide curved through the plants that climbed up the waterfall.
The water rippled and glittered under the sun. It was made even more tempting by the heat and humidity that made me break out into an instant sweat.
“I can’t believe you’ve got a waterfall with a waterslide through it. Who are you?”
There was a lot more to that question than I think Sam even realized.
“Do you want to give it a go?”
Maybe it was something in Sam’s carefree attitude that triggered my spontaneous side. Normally, I stuck to the rails and rarely deviated. I enjoyed the control of knowing what was going to happen and when, as much as I could know, at least. So spontaneity was never really my thing.
But, all of a sudden, here I was, already pulling my shirt up over my head before Sam could even answer.
“Noo, I’m okay.”
“Come on.” I grinned, feeling a kiddish sort of excitement spread through me. “We can chat in the pool. It’s the perfect day for it.” As if proving my point, the lone cloud that had momentarily shaded the sun shifted, my backyard flooding with sunlight.
“Wait, I don’t even have swim shorts with me.”
“You’ve got underwear on?”
Sam took a moment to think, smiled. “Yeah, today, yeah.”
“Mhmm,” I said, laughing. “Well, there you go.” I untied my sweatpants and let them fall, leaving me in a pair of black Armani briefs. I thought I heard Sam exhale a “wow” under his breath, but that very well could have been my imagination.
Sam’s open ogling definitely wasn’t my imagination, though. His eyes fell straight down to my package, before they jumped to my black-and-white thigh tattoo, the arrangement of flowers leading up so that they disappeared under the briefs before peeking over the waistband, a couple of flowers barely kissing my hip.
He seemed to like what he saw, his gaze working like a fire poker, tossing the lumps of coal in my chest and spreading the flickering flames.
It was nice. Not necessarily being gawked at—that happened more times than I could count, as arrogant as I knew that sounded. It really did get old after a while. But with Sam, it felt different. I suddenly wanted to stand there for as long as he needed to devour me with his gaze. I wanted to run a hand down my abs and over my bulge, just so I could put on a show for Sam, so I could really give him what I knew he wanted.
What I wanted.
Fuck. This guy’s got something special. I don’t know what it is, but… fuck. I can’t even think straight.
And not just because I was now picturing both of us butt-ass naked. For a flicker of a moment, I entertained the idea of grabbing him by the hand and leading him away from the pool. Taking him upstairs, up to my Velvet Room. In there, I could show him what pleasure really was. I could take him to heights I was sure he’d never witnessed. I didn’t have even a sliver of a doubt that I could turn him inside out, making time pass us by in waves, the door to the Velvet Room remaining shut as our bodies continuously became one. I had a feeling I knew why he was here, though, and it had nothing to do with me laying him out on a table and tasting him from head to cock to toes.
Instead of taking him upstairs, I shot him a sly smirk and motioned at him with my chin.
“Your turn.”
13
Sam Clark
Oh God, did he hear me say “wow”?
Oh bajeezus, now I’m staring. Like, I just fully checked him out. Did he notice?
My eyes almost fell out of my head before I was able to drag them back up to Rocky’s. His half-cocked grin told me everything I needed to know.
He totally noticed.
I could feel heat blossom in my cheeks, matching the heat that rose
through my core. I audibly gulped. How the hell was I supposed to strip down to my (hopefully not ripped anywhere) Hanes boxers when this glorious man was now standing in front of me? He had a freaking six-pack, for crying out gay. And the six-pack had those little V-muscles that dipped down below his briefs, as if they were pointing the way to where my face now wanted a permanent residence.
And the tattoos. Holy shit, the tattoos. He looked like more of an art piece than the Banksy hanging inside his living room.
Also, what the flipping fuck, he has a Banksy. How much would that have even cost…
The thigh tattoo had an arrangement of photorealistic flowers, different kinds that complemented each other perfectly, some of them getting lost underneath the black briefs. An octopus’s tentacles curled around his leg, almost seeming like it was moving. And that wasn’t his only tattoo either. He had a colorful splash of words on his left rib cage saying “brighter than bright,” and he had a beautiful watercolor hummingbird on his chest, the vibrant blues and greens glowing like they were inked with stardust.
A full masterpiece stood in front of me, and I was floored.
And horny.
And suddenly very, verrrry shy. This wasn’t like being on a webcam and playing video games for random people on the internet. This was very real, and I felt nervous all of a sudden. Like I was at the same pool party my high school crush, Tony Swanson, was at, and all I wanted to do was sit under the shade and secretly ogle the perfect body rippling under the golden sunlight.
At that same pool party, Tony ended up making out with three different girls and bumped into me without saying sorry, so it clearly didn’t go well.
“Maybe we should just, uh, dip our feet in?”
“Sure,” Rocky said. And then the incredibly hot asshole turned to the pool, put his hands up, and went at it in a run, jumping off the edge and cannonballing straight into the deep end. A wave of water rose and crested onto the floor, some of it splashing against my feet.
He rose out of the water like a freaking Atlantean god, his dark wet hair falling onto his face, which he shook off as if he were in a slow-motion music video. I could practically make out the individual drops of water that flew off him.
Fuck it.
I just had to take the plunge, like Rocky had done. Why not? Sure, I was running on two hours of sleep and pure adrenaline, which may have been clouding my judgment, but I really couldn’t see a reason why I shouldn’t just jump into the pool in my underwear and actually live for once. I could experience something that didn’t have to do with a computer screen and some pixelated characters. I could be spontaneous and go with my gut, instead of listening to my fears and anxieties.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my socks, stepping onto the warm, sun-baked concrete. The water underneath my toes kept them from getting too hot. I took my shirt off next, folding it up and placing it on the chair next to the fire pit. Next were my pants. I glanced to the pool, where Rocky was swimming underwater from one end to the other.
Before he could emerge, I hurriedly undid my pants and dropped them. My gray boxers didn’t have any holes in them, but they also didn’t exactly flatter me. They were loose around my thighs and didn’t have a button in the front, so I was one wrong (or right?) move away from my dick popping out like it was Groundhog Day and it was looking around for a shadow.
Well, looks like the penis found its phallic shadow! Six more weeks of winter and testicular shrinkage ahead.
I followed Rocky’s lead and ran to the pool, jumping and cannonballing the same way he had. Instantly, my body felt refreshed. The pool was the absolute perfect temperature to ward off the summer sun, and it also worked to wash away the building nerves. Under the water, I opened my eyes and saw Rocky’s bottom half directly in front of me.
I wasn’t sure if it was the magnifying effects of water or if it was actually Rocky, but wow was he bulging.
I swam up and broke through the surface before I could latch onto him like a sex-starved piranha. I took a breath and rubbed the water from my face, much less elegantly than Rocky had done.
“How’s the water?” he asked.
“Perfect. You were right, this was a good idea. I feel like my body really needed this.”
The sound of the waterfall filled my ears so that I spoke louder to compensate. It had a relaxing effect on me, making me forget about the fact that I was currently inside the home of a mysterious detective who had way more money than he’d ever let on. I definitely wasn’t expecting this when I woke up on my parents’ couch this morning, that was for sure.
“There are days I spend just floating around in here. Especially if I’ve just closed a really difficult case. This pool is my happy place.”
“And I can see why.” I looked around, admiring not only the pool but the surroundings. There were elegant palm trees lined up on the perimeter of the property, their large leaves fanning in the gentle breeze. There were slate-gray boulders surrounding a small pond where the backyard curved and stretched on around the rest of the mansion. I couldn’t see any of the neighbors from where we treaded water in the pool, the houses next door obscured by the wall of palm trees.
With my jaw slightly dropped, I said, “This is a total paradise.”
Rocky, water glistening in little diamond shapes up and down his neck, leaned back against the pool’s edge, placing his elbows up on the concrete. The light caught his eyes just right, making them reflect the azure blue of the water and causing them to glow impossibly bright.
“So.” Rocky’s voice pulled my full attention to him like a bass on a hook. “Aside from coming over to take a dip, what other reason do I owe this surprise visit to?”
Right. The reason why I’d even come here… what was the reason again?
“Well, first off, I wanted to say thank you. What you did for Hazel, it’s more than anyone’s ever done for her. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she’d be here, too. I’m sure she’ll call you sometime tomorrow.”
“Was she okay?”
“Shaken up and in shock, but she’ll make it through. She always does.”
Rocky nodded at that. I drifted over to the opposite end of the pool from him, my boxers almost sliding off as I swam the last bit. He said something to me, but I couldn’t hear him over the sound of the waterfall. He put a finger in the air and then swam across the pool, feet splashing in the air, his butt lifting from the water and revealing those two perfect globes covered by the skintight black underwear. They were being pulled back slightly, showing me a brief flash of skin and crack.
Sparks shot off between my thighs.
He emerged right next to me. I could now see the different flecks of crystal blue he had inside his eyes, along with a couple of beauty marks that dotted his face. He was clean-shaven today, so if I were really inclined, I would have been able to count up all the marks, maybe even playfully trace them with a finger.
With my tongue.
“I was asking how you were doing.”
“Oh, right.”
You know, just trying to cope with having my roommate murdered, my best friend framed, and my hottest sex dream come to life all in the span of twenty hours.
“I’m fine.”
He smirked, his cheek revealing the hint of a dimple. I wasn’t entirely sure why that surprised me, but it did. I wanted to see more of it.
“You sure?” he asked.
“As fine as I can be, I guess.” I leaned back and let my legs float up. My toes curled, water swirling between them.
It felt good to float. Letting the weight of it all just drift off, so that nothing else carried me but some hydrogen and oxygen molecules.
For a moment, I closed my eyes.
When I saw Hazel’s bloody hands, I quickly snapped them open.
“I’m just worried, you know? I don’t want Hazel going back to jail. I know she didn’t do it.”
Rocky let his body do the same as mine, his legs floating out in front of him. We were far enough from the w
aterfall that we could hear each other perfectly, but still close enough so that we were gently lifting with the ripples caused by the cascading water.
“Shonda is one of the best attorneys out there. If anyone can get Hazel out of this, it’s her. And while Shonda works her magic in the courtroom, I’ll be turning over every rock I can so that I can find who Jesse’s actual killer is.”
Whoa, I wasn’t expecting that. “Oh, Rocky, I didn’t know… I don’t think Hazel even knows that you’re going to investigate this. It’s a much bigger case than hunting down stolen underwear… I mean, I can give you a down payment, I guess? Can we do that for, you know, detectiving? Detective work? Sleuthing?”
Rocky laughed, the dimple appearing again before he looked away. “I’m not expecting, or accepting, any money.”
“You’ve got to take something. I can Venmo you like… $500 now?”
“Seriously, don’t even think about it.”
“I just… why?”
“I’m not exactly wanting anything right now. I don’t need a fee that’ll potentially leave you in debt. I want to help, and I’m going to.” His tone took on the sharp edge of a sword. “And that’s that.”
And that’s that.
It sounded so final. Like the blare of an air horn at the end of a marathon.
Except nothing about this felt final. Somewhere, tucked away in my bones, as deep as the marrow, was a feeling that this was only the beginning. Of what, I had no idea. But of something. I caught myself staring into Rocky’s eyes, that feeling overtaking me, swelling over me like a tidal wave.
Our feet touched under the water, and it jolted me back to reality. My entire body stiffened, my heart hammered. I looked away, ahead at a small black bird that had landed on the freshly mowed grass, pecking away at whatever inhabitants lived between the bright green blades, completely unaware their death was hopping over to them on thin, silent legs.
My mind felt like a Ping-Pong ball that had been dipped in grease and set on fire. One second I was thinking about how close Rocky and I were, how I could almost stick out my tongue and lick the water droplets off his face, and the next second I was thinking about Hazel and the fucked-up situation now surrounding us.