by Jay Hogan
“I have not a single doubt about that.” And I didn’t. “But you do realise the poor guy will have to pass the entire detective muster.”
Leanne snorted her coffee down the front of her shirt. “Fuck.” She grabbed a serviette to dab at it. “In your dreams, mister. I’m not even mentioning the next one’s name till we’re fucking engaged.”
“You can try.” I laughed and handed her another serviette. Those stains were there for the day. “We’re detectives, remember? The real deal.”
“Hah! Some of us are. Others I’d swear are straight out of a game of Cluedo. But enough of me. We came down here to drink this disgusting crap so we could talk about your love life, not mine. I gather this Crohn’s thing you told me about is more serious than you first implied?”
“Yes, in that ‘it’s not curable and it can really screw up your life’ kind of way. Some people need surgery, about fifty percent or more depending on what statistics you read, some even end up with bags.”
She visibly cringed.
No wonder Drake hated talking about this stuff. Still, I could hardly call her on it. It would’ve been me a couple of months ago. So I ignored her and continued. “But Drake’s been in remission for a while now, and his Crohn’s is on the mild to moderate end of the spectrum. As long as he sticks with his program he’s pretty good. Takes his meds, watches his diet, and most of the time lives a normal-ish life. You couldn’t tell from looking at him that anything was wrong.”
Leanne placed her spoon carefully beside her cup and seemed to take a minute to choose her words. “And you’re okay with all that?” She lifted her eyes to mine, concern written all over her face.
I bristled. “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
She shrugged and stared down at her coffee again. “Look, I know it’s probably not what you want to hear”―she lifted her head―“but it seems pretty… restricting, if you ask me. The way you describe it, Drake has to be careful about restaurants, travel, sports… even sex…. I mean really, Caleb? That list pretty much describes your lifelong loves, at least what I know of them. Not to mention he’s saying he can’t put you first in his life.” She shook her head. “That’s some pretty serious shit right there if you ever hope to make a relationship work.”
I couldn’t hold her gaze. The words were too damn close to the bone. And hadn’t Drake just proved that by shutting me out? Damn.
She covered my hand with her own. “Should you maybe consider this timeout as an opportunity to think things through a little more, decide if it’s what you really want, if he’s who you really want? Or even if you’re what’s best for him?”
If I’m what’s best for him? “What the hell, Leanne?”
She put up her hands. “Hear me out.”
I glared at her. “Just be careful.”
She nodded. “I’m not judging you, Caleb. I’m just saying that you have a track record. One that doesn’t exactly speak to your patience or ability to put yourself second.”
“Oh no. You don’t get to—”
But she barrelled on through. “Bluntly put,” she said, silencing me with a steely glare. “You’re a selfish bastard, Caleb, always have been. I’m not saying you’re not kind or friendly or helpful, but you don’t compromise well. You gonna argue with that?”
Yes. No. Dammit, she was right. The whole business with ignoring my family proved that point. I kept my mouth shut.
“I thought not. You’ve spent the last ten years that I’ve known you fucking anything in sight and not caring much beyond what they could do for your dick, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. You’re single and free to do what you want. It’s just that it’s tough to imagine you’ve suddenly changed.” She began counting off on her fingers. “You’ve never had a proper boyfriend, you love your sport, you have a travel plan for the next five years to rival The Amazing Race, and you’ve never shown any indication that you could wait ten minutes to get your dick wet let alone ten weeks if your partner wasn’t feeling it. So excuse me if I’m a little concerned about whether you have it in you to make work a relationship with a complicated man, who has a complicated disease, one that will challenge every one of those things you hold so dear.”
Jesus Christ. Her words slammed into me with their raw-edged honesty, and it must have shown on my face.
She closed her eyes and dropped her head in her hands. “Oh fucking, fuck, fuck. Tell me I didn’t just say all that out loud?”
I snorted and patted her hand. “I wish, but I think I’ll be wearing the bruises for days.”
Anguished eyes met mine. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Caleb. I had no right—”
“Maybe so. But you’re a friend, and I know you’re looking out for me even if it rankles. I’m just not sure I have answers for you, or at least not the ones you want to hear.”
“You don’t owe me any answers, Caleb.”
She was right, I didn’t. But I owed myself some. And I owed Drake the courtesy of really thinking about everything she’d raised. For all that I hated hearing the words from her lips, there was no denying their truth. I was that guy. Less than two months ago, that was me. I wanted all those things. Did I really have it in me to be anything different? Did I even want to be?
Even if I had changed my mind about relationships, all that other stuff was still important to me. Was I really willing to change my lifestyle, my goals, my plan? Because if not, then I should walk away now before I hurt Drake. He deserved more. And he’d been right. I’d been pretending, a fair-weather boyfriend as he called it. Could I be more than that? If I were, would I have let him push me away so easily? And what did it say that I had? Looking after him for a day wasn’t even in the ballpark as being willing to care for him when he was sick on and off over a longer period or… hell… a lifetime. Would I grow to resent him? Would he resent me?
God, my head was set to detonate.
“You gonna go see him?” Leanne asked tentatively. “His best friend’s looking after him, right?”
“He was, but Aaron went back to work today. Drake’s mum is taking over.” That had been Aaron’s last text. “He’s still not doing that well, apparently.”
“Oh. His mother. Riiiight.”
I sniffed. “Yeah, I know. Sucks when your supposed boyfriend prefers his mother’s TLC over yours.”
Leanne’s chair scraped back as she stood. “Stop pouting. I’ll, um, get back to my desk. And don’t worry, I won’t say anything about this, I promise.”
“I’d appreciate it,” I said. “This is Drake’s business, and mine. No one else’s.”
“I know.” She placed a hand on my arm. “And I am sorry. I hope it all works out.”
She hadn’t even made it to the canteen door when both our phones went off. She waited while I took the call and made my way over. So much for having time to think.
“Appears we’ve got a lead on the van in our 7-Eleven robberies. You want me to wake Matt?”
“Nah. Leave him. We can deal. Heads I drive.” I tossed the coin and Leanne grinned. Dammit. She drove like a freaking nutter on a good day.
“Suck it up, sweetheart.” She clapped me on the back. “Lewis Hamilton, eat your heart out.”
On the upside, I’d left my donut uneaten. “Christ on a fucking cracker.”
THE VAN lead disappeared in a puff of second thoughts when the guy who’d called in the tip was suddenly nowhere to be found once we rolled up to the location he’d given on the phone. No sign of the van either.
The address was never gonna make Street of the Year, and those residents who didn’t immediately scurry for their burrows at the first whiff of a police car came out to stickybeak and generally clog up the scenery with useless commentary. We spoke to the few who hung around, none of whom admitted to knowing a thing about the tip, of course they didn’t. Then we knocked on a few closed doors for good measure. We got a couple of confirmations regarding the sighting of a similar van in the area over the last few weeks but no number plates o
r anything remotely useful. And there was hardly a shortage of nondescript white vans out there to narrow things down.
Seven thirty found me parked on my couch, beer in hand and feet up on my gran’s coffee table. Mum would kill me for sure, and just the thought had me move them to the floor as if she was about to appear any minute instead of living a couple of hours away. How the hell mothers did that shit was one of life’s abiding mysteries.
My thumb continued its mindless scroll through the channels as I tried to avoid calling my fucking boyfriend to see if he was even still alive, my phone currently thumbing its black-screen nose at me from the far end of the couch. One text was all I’d had, to say he was sorry. One fucking text.
As a result, I was a damn menace at work and had offloaded more responsibility onto Leanne than I should have because my mind was so screwed up fretting about Drake. Not that Leanne had complained—she wanted to be kept busy. And that was another thing. Regardless of what she said, I was still worried. She’d lost weight, that was easy to spot, and she wasn’t sleeping well if the dark rings around her eyes were anything to go by. I resolved to try to lunch with her as often as I could, and keep a closer eye. I had, after all, a newly freed-up calendar.
Which brought me back to Drake. If I wasn’t thinking about him, I was dreaming about him, or jerking off to his face in the shower, or worried sick about how he was coping. He took frustration to a whole new level and was pretty much giving an Oscar-winning performance of all the reasons I’d hated even the word relationship for too many years to count.
I’d watched far better men than me be turned inside out and upside down, and put through the damn wringer, all because of someone they were “in a relationship” with. And don’t even start me on love. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Hand your heart to someone to do whatever the hell they wanted with before they threw it back at you beaten and bruised and kicked in the balls? Yeah, sign me up for that one, right?
I hadn’t seen a lot of faithfulness in my generation either, barring maybe in my own family and with Carmen and Pete. Hell, I’d been the other guy on one particular occasion even if I hadn’t known it at the time, so yeah, colour me sceptical. It wasn’t like I thought fidelity was gonna be an issue between Drake and me, though. Funnily enough, I trusted the guy. He was so careful about letting anyone close, physically or emotionally, that it felt a privilege to even be his friend, let alone get invited into his bed. But there were so many other ways to screw with your feelings, case in point, and the way he’d tied me in knots wasn’t making the whole relationship idea any more attractive. Yeah, I know, self-centred, much?
Leanne was right. Maybe I should be looking at this like an opportunity to rethink things, a blessing in disguise. Maybe I’d escaped a big mistake by the skin of my teeth. I was hardly bloody Florence Nightingale, after all. What the hell did I know about dealing with chronic illness? Maybe Drake needed more than I could give, and I’d only end up letting him down. And if I said it a few more times, I might even begin to believe it.
I reached over, flipped my phone face down so I wouldn’t keep staring at it trying to conjure up a message from Drake, and settled in for a binge rerun of Black Adder. I hadn’t even gotten halfway through the first episode when my front door slammed open. Fuck. Me. Only one person made an entrance like that.
“Honey, I’m home.” Carmen’s voice rang through my apartment like a banshee’s wail, and about as welcome. “I know you’re in here so don’t even try to hide.”
The thought had genuinely passed through my mind, and who could blame me?
She… or rather he today, strode into the lounge like he owned it. “Ah, there you are.” He parked his bum on the couch next to me and swept my feet into his lap.
“Daniel, what the fuck are you doing here? I thought you were performing tonight?” It always took me a moment or two to adjust to whatever version of Daniel or Carmen graced me with their presence. Minus the make-up and the dress, Daniel Tamati remained a beautiful man. His coffee skin, hazel eyes, killer cheekbones, and flirty sex appeal that leaked out his ears, tended to suck all the oxygen from any room he entered.
Tonight he was dressed in the skinniest pair of black jeans, with rips in all the right places, and the legs shoved into black combat boots with rainbow glitter laces. A black T-shirt with I Would Bottom You So Hard stamped in white across the front finished the outfit off with aplomb. The man was dressed for serious conversation.
He grabbed my big toe and bent it back at an unnaturally sharp angle.
“Ow.” I jerked my foot from his grip. “What the hell?”
He narrowed his gaze and made another grab for my foot.
“Don’t” was all I said.
“You’re damn lucky that’s all you got,” he sparked angrily. “And to answer your question, yes, I was meant to be on stage tonight. That was until I had to cancel and drive all the way up here because I was too fucking worried about my best friend who’s refusing to take my calls or answer any of my damn texts. Now I wonder who the fuck that arsehole could be?” He tapped impatiently on my foot, which had somehow made its way back onto his lap.
“No one asked you come,” I answered testily. “And did it ever occur to you that I didn’t reply because I knew this would happen? This. You, all up in my business… again. I’m a grown man. I don’t need your help making decisions in my life.” I saw the hurt register in his eyes before it was gone in a flash. Fuck.
He got to his feet, but I grabbed his hand. “No, stay. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean that. I was just—”
“Being an arsehole.” He arched a brow pointedly.
I snorted. “Pretty much. Stay, please?”
“I wasn’t leaving, sugar.” He patted my hand as you would a child. “I was heading for that bottle of tequila you’ve got stashed in the back of your cupboard.”
“But—”
He covered my mouth with his hand. “I’m talking, which means you shouldn’t be, got it?”
I nodded, and he dropped his hand.
“Good, ’cause if you think for a minute you can get rid of me with a little piss and vinegar, you’ve got shit for brains. I’ve got twenty years invested in you, Cal, and I know when you’re talking through your arsehole, pretty as it is. Now slide over there and get comfortable. You’re gonna talk, or you’re gonna have a hell of a headache in the morning, likely both.”
God, I loved this man. “Where’s Pete?” I called out as Daniel rustled up the tequila and a couple of shot glasses from the kitchen. “I imagine he’s not happy with you driving all the way up here?”
After setting the glasses on the coffee table, Daniel poured us each a shot, then plopped down beside me and raised his in a toast. “To friends and lovers.” He pinned me with a glare. I ignored the dig, clinked my glass to his, and downed the shot, hissing and sucking in a breath as it hit my stomach and threatened to bounce right back up.
“Pete was the one who insisted I come.”
Now that did surprise me. Pete was always complaining, in a good-natured way, about how Carmen’s friends continually ate into their couple and family time. For some reason, Carmen had become the Dear Abby of the K Road LGBTQ community. I didn’t get it. The mere thought of going to Carmen for sensitive advice on my love life gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies. Not that I needed to ask. She was hardly shy about doling it out unsolicited. Case in point.
Daniel continued, “Mind you it might have had something to do with the fact that every second sentence out of my mouth the last three days has been something like ‘that fucking motherfucker’ and ‘who the fuck does he think he is?’ and ‘why do I even bother with that cocksucker?’… anyway, you get the general idea.
“Finally today, he said if I didn’t get my arse up here pronto, he was gonna volunteer me for the kindergarten circus trip, and Lord knows I don’t look good in sticky fingers, popcorn, random vomit, and candy floss. Not to mention the clowns freak me out. They’re like Hannibal
in drag.” He looked away.
Now that sounded more like Pete. “Wow.”
Without even looking, Daniel cocked his fingers at me and fired. “Bingo. So start talking.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. Carmen might be scarier of the two personalities, but Daniel could hold his own in the bitch department any damn day of the week. Then again, he was here, caring about me, as always. My irritation quelled.
“I’m sorry. About not calling.”
“Hmmph.” He didn’t look at me.
And who could blame him? I’d been such a dick. “And I am glad you’re here. I’ve been so caught up in my own shit. You shouldn’t have had to take time off work and come up here just to make me talk. You’ve got a family. You should be with them—”
This time he gave a low growl and a reply, something that sounded like, “Damn right.”
I took his hand. “It was… unforgivable of me. I really am sorry.”
He squeezed my fingers. “Not quite unforgiveable, just… fucking rude.”
I bit back a laugh. “You’re right. So, what do you want to know?”
He finally turned to face me, or rather scowl at me. “Don’t even start with me, buster. Everything. I want to know everything. But first, drink that.” He poured us both a second shot, and I downed it as ordered. If nothing else, I was warming to the idea of… well, drinking, anyways.
“Alrighty.” He pierced me with a glare. “So, first off, pray tell what did you do to the poor boy?”
I choked on the remnants of tequila making their way down my throat, and pulled a serious pout. “What makes you think it was me?”
Daniel bestowed his most patient look on me. “Because statistics aren’t in your favour, sweetheart. You know more ways to cock up a possible good thing than you know how to blow a guy’s dick, and that’s saying something.”
“How do you…? On second thought, no, I don’t want to know. But this time you’re wrong. I really liked the guy, Daniel.”
His expression flicked from surprise to being strangely amused. “I feel an odd urge to take your pulse,” he quipped.
