“How would you know?” Ollie practically snarled at the guy, though none of this had anything to do with Baker.
“You don’t play well with others, Mendosa. This has more to do with your lack of respect and blatant disregard for this department than anything else.” His finger pointed accusingly at Ollie.
He widened his eyes, checking out the Lieutenant. His long, tanned face was stern with eyebrows pinched and lips pursed together. He wore tan slacks and a dark blue golf shirt with a tiny tennis racket embroidered over his chest on the left side. He could very well have been walking out of a country club rather than a police department. Even his hair was polished to perfection. “Look, Lieutenant. I haven’t disrespected anybody. I’m here to do one job. One.”
“When you’re in somebody else’s house, you respect their way of doing things. You know damn well you should be in the morning meetings. You should be working with your partner. You sure as hell should not be playing hooky to hang out with a witness. Not to mention that you used to dress nice, respectable, and now you come in here looking like that.” He gestured to Ollie, head to toe and back. “I can probably blame that on Walker.” He bobbed his head toward the detective. “You should both take note. Being out in the field doesn’t mean you can throw on whatever shit you pick up off of your floor. You represent this department when you’re out there.” He pointed to the windows.
“With all due respect, Baker. How I dress and what I do in my off hours has nothing to do with my performance. And morning meetings.” Ollie shook his head and chuckled. “They don’t have anything to do with my app.” He picked his phone up and shook it at Baker. The hell with how he dressed. He had on a decent pair of jeans that didn’t even have any holes and a checkered, short sleeve button up that was open over a clean white t-shirt, brand new right out of the package. He wasn’t wearing the board shorts and ripped up Jacksonville Jaguars shirt that his partner sported.
“That’s great. That’s fine. But that attitude doesn’t get you in front of the suspect. Does it?” Baker stared at him for a long minute, while Ollie held his phone. “I happen to think your work on this app is brilliant. So I don’t give a shit what you do all day, but be here at five for an update. That’s the best I can do.”
“Fine.” Ollie watched Baker walk away. He strode through the office like he owned the damn place. Maybe he did. “Thanks for all your backup, Walker.”
“Oh, you did fine all by yourself.”
Twenty-Three – Ollie
Ollie headed back to the place he rented in Five Points. He had nothing else to do. He parked his bike and trudged up the stairs. Once inside, he kicked off his shoes and flopped on the couch. The last few days totally sucked. He could call his boss in New York, who had managed to get him assigned to this case in the first place, but that would be like tattling. He needed to figure out how to show the Chief the worth of the app. Or something.
Without being allowed in on questioning Nick, though, and not allowed real-time access in the field, the results would end up skewed unfavorably. Baker could use the app, do the updates. Nah...he’d lose control over it, and for a first trial, he needed that control. Needed to figure out where to tweak the program.
He could go over his analytics, run diagnostics, and check his code.
He didn’t feel like it. He could do that later.
All Ollie wanted to do was to go over to Jeremy’s place. He wanted to be held and have Jeremy whisper in his ear how everything would work out. He’d never wanted that kind of comforting from anyone. Not since he was ten years old. Not since his foster brother had pointed out to him how his mother never wanted him and would never come back for him, that he was nothing special. He was nothing—like the rest of them, his foster siblings. All the ones before and after, and the ones he didn’t even know and never met, they were all the same. They were nothing. The throwaways. The ones like Ollie.
Ollie hadn’t been bothered by that shit in years. He’d taken advantage of his good grades in math, science, and computers, and gotten a scholarship or two and state grants and loans to make up the difference so he could get through school. He’d worked hard for it—for everything. He sure as shit wasn’t going to give up now. One dickhead wouldn’t stop him.
That didn’t fix his problem with Jeremy, though. It didn’t fix his loneliness. It didn’t stop anyone from leaving him.
Jeremy.
His blue-eyed, beach boy, philosopher. He loved Jeremy’s wit and his sexy body. Loved to hear him humming and gently singing. He wished he’d had more time. Jeremy was only supposed to be a hookup, nothing more, but Ollie could admit that he’d become so much more. He didn’t want Jeremy to go, but he was already packing up to head back to Clearwater—leaving him.
He didn’t want to feel sorry for himself. He had some good memories to take home. How Jeremy’s blue eyes flashed and how soft his lips were when they’d kissed. The feel of his hot skin under his hand and the smell of cocoa butter that he’d never smell again without thinking of Jeremy. Ollie unbuttoned his jeans, giving his cock a little more room. It hung heavy with want.
“Fuck it.” He got up and made his way into the bathroom and stripped off his clothes, dropping them on the floor. He turned the shower on and waited a few minutes while it warmed up. Once under the hot water, his cares running off him like dirt, he lathered up and grabbed his cock. His semi-hard dick woke up completely as he stroked and thought of Jeremy.
Alone in the shower, Ollie admitted that he missed Jeremy. More than the fun and more than the sex. He missed having him around. He wanted to poke at him, get under his skin, get him riled up. He wanted to see the passion for life spark in his eyes. Wanted to see his face light up when Ollie did things for him like take him to the beach or give him an unexpected blow job. Ollie chuckled at that but then imagined Jeremy’s lips on his cock giving him the blow job.
Jeremy would tease his head with his tongue and tickle his balls as he sucked Ollie’s cock. Ollie’s hands went to work, mimicking his fantasy. He swirled his fingers around the crown of his dick and reached below to tug on his balls. He imagined pushing Jeremy against the wall and fucking his mouth—Jeremy wrapping his arms around Ollie’s legs and gripping his ass, begging to be fucked harder, and at the last second, he’d pull out and spray his cum all over Jeremy’s lips and face. Jeremy’s eyes would be half-lidded with ecstasy.
Ollie’s orgasm ripped through him, and he came on the shower wall in thick spurts.
With a final sigh, Ollie leaned his shoulder against the cold tile, letting the hot water rinse over him, rinse the evidence away. Physically, he felt better, the pressure alleviated. Emotionally, he felt worse, a longing in his heart made everything prickly.
Twenty-Four – Jeremy
Journal Entry: Taoism says a lot about choices. It doesn’t say when making a choice is preferable to doing nothing. Generally, doing nothing is a choice and one I’ve been making a lot. Things will change around you when you sit back and watch—10,000 things rise and fall. Like Karma, everything has a reaction, those reactions change based on doing or not doing—decisions or no decisions. My path has led me to a place where I have been forced to do something. It is a lot harder to make a different decision after making the same one repeatedly. Like practice. It’s even harder when what you want isn’t yours to choose.
Early Saturday morning, Jeremy woke. He needed to talk to Ollie one more time. Scottie would take him home the next day. He couldn’t stay any longer. The bank hadn’t returned the funds yet, and if he didn’t make some money soon, he’d bounce something for sure. The insurance company would take thirty days to issue him a claim check on his vehicle and it wouldn’t be anywhere near what he needed to get a new car. Every day he didn’t work would take that much longer to get caught up on his finances.
He shoved his thoughts away and rolled over to find his phone on the nightstand, hoping Ollie would answer. It rang three times, but then a sleepy voice answered. Ollie. Jeremy sighed int
o the phone.
“Jeremy?”
“Hi.”
“It’s early. Everything okay?”
“No. I mean, I’m not in danger or anything like that. I, uh...”
For a moment he listened to Ollie breathing heavy and wondered if he’d gone back to sleep. “I miss you, J.”
“I miss you, too. Want to get coffee?”
“Yeah...yeah, sure.”
“Meet me at Coffee Kraze by my house? And...uh, you’re buying. I’m broke.”
Ollie chuckled. “Sure. I’ll buy. Anything to see your cute face again.”
“Cute? Ugh. I haven’t been called cute since I was twelve.” Jeremy got up out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. He leaned on the door jam. “I kind of like it, though.”
“Well, you are. Cute. And sexy. You’re eyes and that sun-bleached hair.”
Jeremy snorted. “Okay. I’ll see you in twenty?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there, J.”
Jeremy tossed his phone back in the bedroom, watching it bounce on the bed, then made his way to the bathroom. He took a piss while the water in the shower warmed up. Then jumped in, singing Summer in the City, the old classic by Loving Spoonful. He couldn’t remember all the words, and it morphed into Hot Child in the City. He couldn’t remember who sang that one.
“No one knows who she is or what her name is... I don’t know where she came from or what her game is...” He stuck his head under the water. “Hot child in the city, Hot child in the city, Running wild and looking pretty...”
He shampooed his hair.
“So young, to be loose and on her own...Young boys, they all want to take her home. She walks downtown, the boys all stop and stare...” He hummed while he rinsed shampoo out of his hair.
“...She walks like she just don’t care. Yeah...yeah, yeah, yeah.” He ad-libbed a few yeahs and hit the chorus as he made sure everything, including his cock and balls, was well washed and rinsed. He sang the last verse from under a towel, as he dried his hair. “Come on down to my place, Ollie... we’ll talk about love, Come on down to my place, Ollie...we’ll make love...” His silly changes in the lyrics helped take the sting away from what was coming with Ollie.
He hit the last note high in falsetto and held it longer than the song normally called for. Then laughed as he pulled on a pair of board shorts and a very soft t-shirt with the St. Augustine lighthouse on it that he’d found in his aunt’s things. The blue made his eyes sparkle. He hoped Ollie liked that and then admonished himself for still thinking so much about Ollie. He grumbled, grabbed his keys and phone, slid his feet into flops, and headed out while popping his cheap Oakley knock-offs on his face.
When he got to the cafe, Jeremy ordered coffee and found a seat by the window where he could watch for Ollie and maybe his Tao guide as well. For a while, neither showed, but then he caught the sound of a motorcycle revving and growing louder. Ollie’s dark hair, made lighter by the early morning sunshine, was still impossible to miss. Anger boiled at the site of the sexy man, parking his bike by the front door.
Anger?
Yes, because he wanted so much more with Ollie and couldn’t have it.
He watched Ollie walk in and wave to him, heading to the counter to order. Coffee in hand, he sat across from Jeremy and accidentally kicked his foot.
“You should probably wear boots or something instead of those deck shoes when riding.”
“Maybe. But I don’t always do the things I should.” His eyes held a spark of mischief that Jeremy found adorable.
“Thanks for coming, then.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I miss you.” Jeremy picked up his coffee, more to hide behind the cup than to actually drink it.
“Fuck. I missed you, too. I don’t want things to be this way.”
“I know. Me either, but it doesn’t matter. The fact is...I’m going home tomorrow. You’ll be back in New York soon. It’s...not meant—”
“J...” Ollie slapped his hand on the table. “We can make it work. We can do something...”
“No. No, we can’t.”
Jeremy watched Ollie sip at his coffee without breaking eye contact. Their eyes were locked to each other. Ollie’s mischievousness morphed into a desperate desire. Jeremy wanted to lean across the table and grab him and kiss him. He sat on his hands and bit at his bottom lip instead. “Ollie...”
“Yeah?” Why did his eyes look so betrayed already?
“I wanted to, uh, I don’t know. I didn’t want it to end with anger and hurt. Us walking away thinking this was anything bad... It wasn’t. This has been great. Amazing even. And I wanted to thank you for it. Thank you. You woke me up. Made me realize how lonely and stupid I’ve been. I guess. I know I need to do things differently now.”
“Oh, fuck me.” He dropped his cup on the table a little too hard, splashing coffee over the sides.
“What?”
“So let me get this right. You’re saying like thank you, Ollie, for waking me up and now I’m going back to Clearwater to find another man—”
“It’s not like that.”
“No? What’s it like then? Because I don’t want another man. I don’t want you seeing someone else. That’s what it’s like. For me. That’s exactly what it’s like.”
“Ollie...” Jeremy wanted to hear those words from him, more than anything, but it only broke his heart. “I’m not looking for someone else. I don’t want someone else, but I can’t have you, and I’m not sticking my head in the sand anymore. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve been all following my path and using it as an excuse not to let anyone in. I’ve kept the rest of the world at arm’s length. Because everyone leaves. And this fucking hurts.”
“I guess you’re right about both.” He looked so sad, Jeremy couldn’t stand it. He wanted Ollie happy more than he wanted anything else. “Come on, J. I’ll walk you home.”
Jeremy nodded and dumped his coffee in the garbage on the way out. It’d grown cold and bitter.
Twenty-Five – Ollie
Ollie thought about everything Jeremy had said as they walked back toward his place. He didn’t want those words to be true. He wanted to make it work but couldn’t see how it would.
“What about your bike?”
“I’ll come back for it. I’m not going in, Jeremy. I’m only walking you to the door.”
“Oh.” He sounded so dejected, and Ollie hated to be the cause of that. They stood to face each other, looking, taking in the other one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up?”
“I can’t. This is better. Right?”
Jeremy peered off in the distance, watching birds or clouds or his life in the sky. When he turned those electric eyes back to Ollie, it made his breath hitch. He expected more, but Jeremy didn’t say anything. He took something out of his pocket and looked at it.
“What’s that?”
“Oh. A watch. I found it in my aunt’s stuff. I like it. It reminds me that there’s time for everything. A time to grieve, and a time to love...”
“That’s from the bible.”
Jeremy smiled with the corners of his mouth. It didn’t reach his eyes at all. “I know. I studied philosophy, that includes all religions. There’s a lot of good to be found in the bible... Anyway, uh, I had it cleaned up. Tabby knew a guy, and uh, yeah...Picked it up yesterday. Pretty?” He examined the watch, turning it over in his hands.
“You have my number. Please...use it, like whenever.”
“Ollie.”
Ollie leaned forward, pulling Jeremy in his arms. He fought back the tears as they hugged. When he finally let go, he kept his hands on Jeremy’s shoulders. “Everyone leaves. That feels like the truth. For me. I haven’t let anyone close to me either, J. Not since Hayden.”
“Hayden?”
“My, well, he was my first real boyfriend. I loved him a lot.”
“He left you?” Jeremy’s forehead creased with wrinkles. Ollie pushed Jeremy’s blond locks off his face s
o he could see those stress marks better. He wanted to kiss them away, but he didn’t.
“Yeah. You could say that. He died. Got sick and went to the hospital. His parents wouldn’t let me visit.”
“Oh! That must have been hard. Cancer?”
Ollie shook his head. “No. It was fast. He went fast. Meningitis. Shocking and sudden. Then they took him back home, back to Philly. We were in college. They buried him in Philly. After he went to the hospital, I never saw him again.”
“Gah...Ollie. That had to be hard. You must have been crushed.”
“I was, yeah, but I knew better. See? And I know better now. I grew up in foster care. I learned early that life doesn’t give you what you want—who you want—just because you want it. If you get attached, you’ll get hurt. Even with the best intentions. Like us. Like now. I knew fucking better, and I lost my heart anyway.”
Jeremy pulled him in for a tight hug, but that only made it worse. Ollie hated himself for the tears welling up in his eyes. “We, uh...” He cleared his throat, yanking back the tears. “We don’t have to do this...we can choose to do it our own way. You know what I mean? I think that’s what you were saying. I’ll always be there for you. We may be in different states, but I’ll be there. Only a call away. Right?”
“Right,” Jeremy mumbled into Ollie’s neck. He wanted nothing more than Jeremy’s hot breath on his skin. He gently pushed Jeremy back.
“You aren’t someone I want to walk away from, J. I don’t...”
Jeremy fiddled with the watch then looked at Ollie again. “So, uh...I got into philosophy because of my dad’s girlfriend.”
Ollie smiled at Jeremy’s abrupt subject change. “Okay?”
Time for Love Page 10
