PsyCop Briefs: Volume 1

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Victor, blushing all over again, turned toward the passenger window as if the parked cars on that side were fascinating.

  Lisa bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. It was cute, the way they were so into each other, going at it in the car like a couple of horny teenagers. They hadn’t met until they were, what, in their forties? She was only twenty-seven. Seeing the two of them together gave her hope that somehow, somewhere, there was someone special out there waiting for her, too. Wasn’t there?

  Sí.

  On the Road

  Jacob whisked past me in the hallway, carrying a teetering mountain of stuff. Holy crap, was that his luggage, plus mine, plus the ten-ton audio system we got his parents for their anniversary? “We’re not late,” I said to his back.

  “Just packing the car.”

  “We’re not late,” I repeated, though I suspected that other than any well-hidden surveillance devices, there was no longer anyone there to hear it. Jacob walks fast when he’s got a goal in his sights.

  We weren’t late. We’d probably be early. I knew this because my discomfort around other people provided me with an uncanny knowledge of how long it took me to get from point A to point B. Showing up late is awkward as hell—everyone looking at you when you walk in—but showing up too early is just as mortifying, leaving you sitting there with the host, or the staff, or even standing there entirely and utterly alone, trying not to look like a big dumbass. On time, minus five. That was how arrival should be done. Fat chance, with Jacob handling the details.

  The cannery door banged and Jacob swooped past me again, heading in toward the kitchen now. “Heat’s turned down, calls forwarded, GPS programmed, map printed…anything else?”

  “Nothing left to do but drive there.” I congratulated myself over not adding “phenomenally early.” And if it carried through in my tone…Jacob was way too focused to take any notice.

  I was wondering how subtly I could get away with dragging my feet when a plastic grocery bag whapped me in the chest. “Garbage,” he said.

  Right. Nothing like coming home to a house full of fruit flies.

  Even my jaunt to the alley couldn’t buy me much valuable time, and if I was too obvious about trying to slow Jacob down, he’d only drive faster. I chucked the trash, braced myself, and headed for the car. A long weekend with his parents, I could totally do. I was even looking forward to seeing them. His sister and her kid, though, not so much. When you do the long-term relationship thing, I guess you’ve got to take the good with the bad. God knows Jacob puts up with his share of ups and downs from me.

  In the meticulously packed car, I found him thumbing in an alternate route into the GPS. Or maybe, in his go-mode, he was finding us an alternate to the alternate. With great effort, I forced myself not to sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I freaking loved him being all capable and in-charge. But eventually I found all the checking, re-checking and triple checking a tad bit neurotic.

  “All set?” he asked.

  Hopefully that wasn’t code for, Are you sure you’ve gone to the bathroom? Even my patience has its limits. “All set.”

  The drive itself wasn’t bad. Not only am I accustomed to holding it, since you can’t always drop everything to tinkle when you’re on the scene of a homicide, but I’d limited myself to a single cup of coffee to ensure I didn’t add any more stress to the trip. Once you get out of the city, the scenery is great. And once we got past all the tolls and construction, Jacob could finally un-tense his shoulders and relax.

  At that point I figured I could even get away with teasing him. Just a little. He asked me to hand him some gum, but the pack in the glove compartment was empty. “If I report this, will the Boy Scouts revoke your Preparedness badge?”

  “Oh ye of little faith. Back seat.”

  I should have known. Jacob wouldn’t miss shopping for a road trip any more than I’d pass up a slice of cold pizza on a lazy Saturday morning. I snagged the plastic bag and reached in, prepared to eat crow along with my cashews or Pringles, when I realized the bag had something damp inside. Paper towels. At first I thought my better half had chosen obnoxiously healthy road-food, like freshly washed apples or grapes. But then I hit a layer of egg shells. And coffee grounds. And chicken bones. And then I realized the beige plastic grocery bag looked uncannily like the one he’d had me toss on our way out the door. Same brand, same weight, same size.

  “I’m thinking you don’t want to chew on this.” I held up my hand and gave him a little wave with my coffee-crusted fingers.

  He cut his eyes to me, glanced down at the bag, then planted his gaze firmly on the road ahead. “Napkins—glove box. Hand sanitizer in the center console.”

  I de-coffeed my hand without comment, though now all I could smell was garbage. Jacob, too, judging by the way he cracked his window even though that meant listening to the wind whistle through the gap.

  If ever there was a moment ripe for a snide comment, this was it. But what was the fun in teasing him when he gave me such obvious ammunition? We all make mistakes.

  Even Mr. Perfect.

  Wood

  Here’s the thing about being in a long term relationship. There’s more involved than just inside jokes and shared mortgages, objectionably healthy things in the fridge, or discarded socks that never find the laundry hamper. Back when a horny, shape-shifting, mirror-shattering entity exploded in Jacob’s apartment and left him with nowhere to sleep that night, I’d suggested he stay at my place. And when we outgrew that place, we found a new one. Together.

  That fateful decision didn’t just score me a boyfriend. It earned me a family.

  It’s not too big, as families go. Jacob has one sister, and she’s always pissed off about something. Her kid is no gem, either. Both parents are still alive, and grandma too, though I think she’s pushing a hundred-fifty. But Jacob’s uncle Leon is the one who shared a special bond with him. He’d taken Jacob to his first concert at age twelve: Weird Al Yankovic. He bought Jacob his first soldering gun. Apparently this was a big thing in late 1970’s Wisconsin. He probably would’ve been the one to teach Jacob to drive stick, too, if his right arm hadn’t been torn off in an industrial accident years before.

  I like the guy. I may not have the history Jacob’s got with him, but he’s easy to talk to, and he always acts excited to see me. Missing arm or not, he could count on our help to put together his new furniture. No doubt Jacob’s dad could’ve handled it, but it gave us an excuse to drive up for the weekend without centering our trip around seeing Clayton play soccer or looking at Clayton’s latest science diorama or sitting there uncomfortably while Clayton looks daggers at us. Okay, he only does that to me, not his beloved uncle Jacob—but the point is, I was kinda looking forward to being the youngest guy there in the male bonding session for a change.

  Leon greeted us at the door with the standard greeting, asking us how the drive was. The missing arm greeted me with a wave. I nodded at them both while Jacob handled the amicable banalities.

  I eased past into the living room while Leon launched into a tale about a certain legendary local speed trap. Even though I’d only seen Leon’s place a few times before, the new remodel startled me with its striking difference. Nothing structural had been changed, but the mishmash of furniture styles was gone. Now there was a theme of sorts. Big, inviting leather couch and chairs, and walls painted various coffee colors, and a sleek flatscreen mounted above the mantel. I thought I’d miss the white walls, but with the monochrome muted palette and lack of clutter, there was a warmth and simplicity to the new setup that I liked. Plus, you gotta hand it to someone willing to remodel at his age. It’s pretty optimistic if you ask me.

  The only thing left to handle was putting together the bookshelves. My fingers were itching to tackle the massive stack of cardboard boxes marring the interior wall of the living room and get those cluttery books they contained in some kind of order. My actual preference would be to drop them off at the local Goodwill, but I’ve learned t
o pick my battles.

  “So where are the shelves?” Jacob asked, once the driving chitchat had been exhausted.

  “Delivery guy left ’em on the back porch. Wouldn’t even think about bringing them inside.” His tone was only moderately annoyed, but his ghostly arm gave a little jerkoff motion to tell me what he really thought. What kind of tool leaves a one-armed guy to fend for himself? Can’t say I disagreed.

  Luckily he had Jacob. And me. ’Cos no doubt Jacob could bench-press those boxes with one arm tied behind his back, but they’d be awkward to wrangle through the screen door alone.

  Jacob strode out first, then stopped so hard I had to backpedal to avoid ramming him. “I thought you were getting the shelves from Ikea,” he said with his words, though his tone clearly announced, What the hell?

  Leon scoffed, “I’m gonna drive all the way to Minneapolis when they got the same stuff right down the road?”

  Hardly the same. I’m no furniture connoisseur and even I know the difference. But Jacob picks his battles, same as me, and he wasn’t about to give his favorite uncle a hard time over something that’d be a royal pain in the ass to return.

  As for me, I felt a comforting pang of nostalgia from the box’s tacky green and white graphics. It had been so long since SaverPlus sank money into updating their look that it was practically retro-cool again.

  We set to work dragging the oversized boxes inside. Once they were in—and this was no mean feat, given the angle of the screen door and the location of the cabinets around it—Jacob and Leon popped open a box and started puzzling over the instructions. The shelves looked pretty slick in the photos, ladder-like things that leaned into the wall on brushed metal poles. While they were less utilitarian than the white pressboard stuff I usually chose, I’d assembled so many cut rate SaverPlus specials in my time, I had an edge over everyone else. I knew that furniture like I knew which donuts in the corner store had the best jelly inside. The instructions sound like they’re written by a drunk man. There’s always a mysterious extra part in a little plastic baggie. And the Allen wrenches included in the box really hurt your hands.

  “Heavier than I thought,” Jacob huffed as we wrangled the shelf pieces out of the box.

  “That’s primo particleboard for ya,” I agreed.

  While he paused to scope out the bookshelves’ future home, I took a moment to catch my breath. When we first came in from the cold, Leon’s house felt toasty warm, but now that we’d been exerting ourselves I was sweating up a storm. I mopped my brow with the hem of my T-shirt. Once I was done blotting, I found Jacob gazing at my bare stomach like it contained the secrets of the universe.

  If the two of us were alone, I’d blurt out, “Hey, mister, my eyes are up here.” Because, come on, what a hokey thing to fixate on. But as much as I liked Leon, he didn’t know me well enough to tell I was being a total smartass. Plus, it was dangerously like flirting. And flirting and family should never mix.

  I thought I felt my man’s gaze on me while we got all the pieces and parts lined up and counted. Especially when Leon announced, “Good thing it fit through the back door.” Not only did Jacob glance at me, but a tiny smile quirked the corner of his lips.

  Evidently being around his family brought out the teenager in him. And I had to admit, there was a certain charm to it that drew an answering smirk out of me.

  Leon was too busy looking meaningfully through the reader part of his bifocals to notice. “All right. First things first, get the foundation together. One of you hold it up by the base.”

  Say what?

  “Now find the shaft. The big one.”

  Uh oh.

  “Aim it at that hole.”

  Seriously? SaverPlus Instructions Guy wasn’t drunk the day he wrote up these particular how-to’s. He was horny.

  I held the base. Jacob met my eye and gnawed hard on the inside of his cheek while he leveled the shaft at the hole.

  “Okay,” Leon said. “Screw it in.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed and bit down on my tongue a few times. When I opened my eyes again, Jacob’s mouth was clamped shut tight with the effort of squelching laughter.

  While Leon was occupied with the instructions, I murmured, “You’re really good at screwing that big shaft in.”

  Jacob cuffed me on the shoulder. It would’ve been funny, if not for the fact that I happened to be holding a screw. It flew out of my hand and rolled with great purpose to the heater vent halfway across the floor.

  Leon was closest. He dropped the instructions and dove for it, both arms grabbing. I suspect he might have even caught it if the non-corporeal arm had any effect on the physical plane. Unfortunately, the screw was on an escape trajectory and even a ghost arm couldn’t stop it.

  All three of us went still and listened to the sound of it pinging down the ductwork for a good minute. “That won’t end up lodged in anything important,” I asked, “will it?”

  “Furnace is at the other end of the basement,” Leon said. That was good, I supposed. A furnace sounded like a big-ticket item, not the sort of thing you’d want to grab on impulse from SaverPlus.

  Leon re-counted the remaining screws and shook his head. “We had just enough of that size. Why couldn’t it have been one of the big ones? There’s three extra.”

  Not very surprising. That’s SaverPlus furniture for you.

  Leon hauled out a yellowed cigar box full of nails and tacks and washers and screws from under the kitchen sink. All three of us sifted through it for a good several minutes before we had to concede, the one that got away was an oddball size, which didn’t surprise me either.

  Leon grabbed his jacket. “I’ll run over to the hardware store before they close and pick up some more of these. You want pizza? While I’m out I’ll grab a pizza too.”

  I was about to offer to help, but judging by the neat stack of Towne Pizza boxes next to the green plastic recycling tub, Leon could single-handedly wrangle his pizza just fine.

  While Leon forged out to gather supplies, I set about putting away the stuff we weren’t currently using anymore, since that’s how I roll. Besides, no one wants to step on a wayward tack. I began shoveling everything back into the cigar box, which wasn’t as easy as you’d think with a big guy leaning over my chair, mashing himself into my back and pressing his goatee against my ear. “Gimme a hand,” Jacob purred. “I need you to hold the base.”

  I laughed it off, since really, who gets turned on by something so cheesy? Except I think I might have squirmed. Minutely. And Jacob never misses anything. He said, “I’ll show you my big shaft if you show me yours.”

  He ran his fingertips down my forearms and trapped my hands in both of his, lacing our fingers. I tried nudging him off me with my shoulder blade but didn’t quite succeed. “Keep your pants on, mister. We’re in your uncle’s kitchen.”

  “And?”

  “And…it’s your uncle’s kitchen.”

  “Leon’s not here. Even if the right screw is sitting on the hardware store counter waiting for him and the pizza’s ready-made, he’ll be gone twenty minutes. At least.”

  Good point. Especially since Jacob could pop my cork in less than five if he set his mind to it. And my cork was feeling pretty frisky, what with all the shafts and the holes and the screwing.

  I reached behind me and fondled him somewhere random—the hamstring, I think—but it was enough to signal that his cheesy pickup line was working. Once Jacob had my blessing, he dove right in for the kill. He clamped onto my neck like the true predator he is. I’m such a sucker for the neck. He knows it. And he knows I know he knows…which makes it all so much hotter when he goes for it.

  Screws and washers pinged to the linoleum as I struggled to my feet with him glommed onto my back, a chair between us and both my hands trapped in his. The chair tipped when I extricated myself and turned, and the two of us staggered toward the fridge where I mashed him up against it and planted a deep, needy kiss. A few plastic magnets popped free, and a sticky note
with a phone number on it transferred itself to my forearm. I ground the fronts of our jeans together, and my burgeoning hard-on was met with one just as promising.

  Jacob squeezed his hands between us and started working open my fly. “Wait,” I gasped against his wet lips. “Not here.” Not where his uncle could just walk in on us if he turned back because he forgot something.

  As one, we cut our eyes to the tiny half-bath off the short hall to the dining room. I made it there first, and Jacob squeezed in behind me and pulled the door shut. He stared at it briefly. No lock. So he spun me around to use my body weight to anchor it shut.

  A door-mounted towel bar prodded me mid-back, and I replayed some memories of another time and another bathroom. The layout wasn’t like the can at my ex-partner’s basement. Too cramped. Plus the frosted window let in a different kind of light. But there was still an old-man-bathroom feel to it that evoked a pleasant deja vu.

  Jacob wasted no time shoving my jeans down, then his. He was about to kneel—I know his body language by now, and I’m well-versed in most of his moves, too—but I stopped him by cupping the back of his head and pulling him into another kiss. I eased a hand between us and grabbed his dick. Stroked it. Not feverishly, not like we’d wreckingballed our way through the kitchen. Slow and steady. Like I had every confidence that we’d get where we needed to go, and we’d do it in the few stolen minutes we had. Because I wasn’t done kissing him yet, and that’s what I wanted. To savor the rasp of his whiskers against my lips, and revel in his sheer bigness pinning me to the door.

  While we kissed, he grabbed me and started stroking, matching my pace. My back arched and my hips flexed, like my whole body wanted to get in on this thing we were doing. So simple, nothing more than a quick grope. But so right.

  Moisture kissed the edge of my forefinger as it met a drop of precome, and I stole my hand away, just for a half second, to give my palm a nice lick. Jacob grunted, then spat into his palm and mimicked the gesture. A rush of giddiness surged down to my groin when he grabbed my dick with a wet hand and stroked me hard.