It was so different from everything I knew that he might as well have been telling me a fairy tale, but it was the best fairy tale I’d ever heard, and I made myself believe it.
I guess at some point, we stopped talking about important things. He asked me how my chicken was, and told me about his abuela’s arroz con pollo which was basically just chicken and rice, but the way he described it made it sound way better, way more interesting, than the stuff I used to get out of a can. We talked about Jay’s baking, the little cookies and scones and tarts he made at work, and the grilled cheeses he made on the panini press. He asked me why I loved the Sit and Sip so much, and I told him that I’d never seen so many books. I loved being alone with them, and the way their slick covers and velvet pages felt in my hands. I talked about the way they smelled, and how Gavin let me borrow them and read them at home, as long as I was responsible.
I set my hand on the table, and realized it was covering his. I almost moved it, but didn’t. Flores looked like he was about to say something, or ask me something, but just then the waiter returned. I jerked my hand away, hiding it beneath the table.
“May I take your plates, gentlemen?”
“Gracias,” Flores said.
“Any coffee or dessert today?”
Flores looked at me. I shook my head.
“Just a coffee for me, please. And the check.”
“Very good,” said the waiter, and disappeared.
Flores placed his hand back on the table and looked at me, smiling just enough to make his dimple wink into life. “You don’t have to be afraid, Beck. Not of me, and not of anyone else when I’m with you.”
I hesitated for a moment, but I wanted to touch him so bad. I slid my hand over his. He squeezed.
“So you like books?”
I nodded. “I missed a lot of school when I was a kid. I stayed home a lot. But when I was young, before she left, my Aunt Gillian used to read to me. And when I started school, like in first grade, she helped me practice at home.” I smiled. “We’d write stories together sometimes. Make little books out of construction paper. Stories about…” I trailed off, blushing.
“About what?”
“All sorts of things. It’s dumb.”
The waiter appeared, turning the corner with Flores’s coffee and the bill. I jerked, instinctively, thinking to take my hand back, but Flores gripped me gently, stroking my palm with his thumb. It felt good. I relaxed.
When the waiter left, Flores continued like we’d never been interrupted. “You had fun, and you learned important things, and it brought you and your aunt closer. How can you say that’s dumb?” He squeezed my hand, and I suddenly felt warm, my chest and stomach tight. “Tell me about your stories.”
So I did. I told him about Jangles the Traveling Cat, who could go anywhere he wanted in his magic traveling shoes, and his adventures to the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids and the Amazonian rainforests. He’d always come home, though. His mom would tell him she’d missed him and tuck him in safe.
I guess I got kind of caught up in the story, and the way Flores looked like he really was interested. He even laughed a few times, a low, warm chuckle that made me happy.
As I finished, I realized Flores and I were no longer just holding hands. I was playing with his fingers, squeezing them and releasing them, lacing mine through his, running the pad of my thumb over his rough skin and smooth nails. I’d only been fidgeting, using the tactile sensation to ground me while I told a story I had never shared before. I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it. But once it hit me—the boldness of the touch, the intimacy of it, his allowing me to use his hands as a plaything—I couldn’t think of anything else.
“It feels nice. You don’t have to stop.”
I shivered. I wanted him to let me to find all the ways I could make him feel nice.
I don’t know exactly when I’d started thinking of Officer Flores like this, but after last night in the café, and here in the darkened booth at Carrigan’s, I wanted his fingers all over me. I wanted them inside me.
I think I whimpered.
Another chuckle. “What are you thinking, Beck? What do you want?”
Oh, god. I was hard. Painfully, embarrassingly hard. I thought of those thick fingers wrapping around me and…
I took a deep breath, but I couldn’t speak. My throat felt thick.
Flores released my hand, making me whimper again, and rose up from his seat. Before I knew it, a mass of warm muscle was seated beside me, pressing against me, pushing me gently against the wall.
His mouth so close to my ear. His breath hot.
“Is this okay, Beck?”
I nodded frantically.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
He kissed my cheek. But long and slow. “Okay?”
“Yes.”
He reached up and tugged on my hair, not hurting me at all, but canting my head to one slide. A light scrape of teeth and then a soothing tongue.
“Do you like this?”
“Yes.” My hand was on his thigh, squeezing it. Squeezing it hard. I think I needed to exert pressure on something to keep from screaming, to keep from coming right then and there. The teasing mouth and the low voice and the sense—wherever I’d gotten it—that this gentle giant could make me do whatever he wanted, but that he would never, ever hurt me. I shuddered, and he wrapped a massive arm around me and pulled me to his torso, and I could have died.
“I should get you back to work.”
I gasped, shocked. The thought of Jay, of Gavin seeing me like this, tight as a guitar string, tense and hard, distracted. They’d know. They’d think I was a bad—
“It’s not fair, Beck, and I don’t want to leave you.” God, his mouth was close to my ear. “I want to stay here with you all afternoon and all night, and then take you somewhere private, and…” He chuckled against my cheek, and my heart caught in my throat. “But Gavin seems like a nice guy, and it wouldn’t be friendly for me to keep his best employee all to myself.”
My hand was still on his thigh, my knuckles white as I kneaded the muscle.
“Do you know the White Hill Inn?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“I’m staying there till Sunday. If you…if I’m not pushing you too hard, making you move too fast, then you know where to find me. I will never hurt you, Beck, and I’ll never ask you for more than you’re willing to give. But right now, there’s not much I wouldn’t give you if you asked for it.” He nipped my earlobe and lightning shot through me and I really think he was trying to make me lose it. “Come to me when you’re ready, and tell me what you want, and…”
My uncle came around the corner.
I screamed, and sat up so quickly my skull knocked Flores in the jaw, and I panicked, pinned to my seat but desperately wanting to claw my way to escape.
“Sorry to startle you, gentlemen. Andrew had to leave, and he asked me to check on you.”
It wasn’t my uncle. It was…I gulped in some air, trying to make my heart slow. Flores’s arm still circled me, protecting me. And the man…the waiter…he was big and broad like Uncle Jerry, and he had the same chin and the same shaggy salt-and-pepper hair. It wasn’t him, though.
Flores sensed I wasn’t just startled. He was holding me, holding me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the waiter, but I heard the slap of plastic on leather as Flores placed his credit card on the bill.
The waiter left.
“Squeeze me, Beck. My thigh, or my hand. Ground yourself. I’m here for you. You’re safe.” He pulled me into him, bracing my head against his chest. I sighed and trembled and didn’t let myself scream.
8
Jamie
“So we sat there for a while, till he calmed down. When the waiter came back, Beck got all tense again, but he didn’t, like, lose control. Once I felt like he could handle leaving the booth, you know, being out in public again? I walked him to the bookstore and said good-bye.”
I wasn’t telling Eli every
thing.
I’d kept my hand on Beck’s back, between his shoulder blades, the entire way back to the Sit and Sip, whispering a low monologue to him. I’m here, Beck. I’ve got you, Beck. Nothing can hurt you. He’d walked mechanically, a zombie, but when we reached the store I’d stopped, and put my hands on his shoulder and crouched down in front of him.
“I don’t know what happened, Beck, and you don’t have to tell me. But you’re okay. You’re safe.”
He nodded. I didn’t push.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
He paused for a minute, mouth parted, but then he shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m okay.”
“Bueno, Beck. Good.” I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, then whispered, “You’re stronger than you think.”
He smiled a little, but still looked rattled.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispered.
I squeezed his shoulders and after a moment he walked inside. I ached to follow him, but forced myself to let him prove he could do it on his own. After he disappeared, I muttered, “Pinche culero,” and imagined all the things I would do to whoever had damaged Beck, if I ever got my hands on him.
Telling Eli about the walk back felt like a violation of Beck’s privacy. And the detective was probably cool enough not to break my balls over kissing the guy, especially given the circumstances, but I didn’t want to risk it. I might’ve punched him if he’d made it seem like something it wasn’t.
Eli was furious, though. Wide eyes, flaring nostrils. His big hands trembled as he gripped his coffee mug.
“Abuse,” he said finally.
“Serious abuse,” I added. He replied with a silent nod.
We sat in the Vista Eatery, surrounded by cheerful conversation, and both of us were ready to break heads and spit nails. Eli wasn’t any better than I was about letting abuse go unpunished, especially considering everything Ty had been through.
I could tell he was thinking, though, and that was a good thing. I was off the clock and out of my jurisdiction. Getting Detective Mack on the case would go a long way toward figuring this mess out.
“I don’t know much about him,” he said finally, leaning in and locking eyes with me. “Nothing more than I told you your first night in town. He’s not from here, which means whatever shithead got him so fucked up probably isn’t from around here either. But let me ask some questions.”
“Gracias. I’d be grateful.”
He nodded, staring at the carnage on his plate. He’d stopped playing with his eggs as soon as he figured out where my story was going, and by now they’d be cold and rubbery. “Harlan’s my town,” he said finally. “That means Beck’s one of my people.”
I smiled at him, glad not only for his friendship, but that he was the kind of guy he was, someone who got just as hot as I did at the thought of a bully. I scooted my chair back and tossed some money on the table—enough for our breakfasts and a solid tip. “Thanks for meeting me, güey.” I smiled as strongly as I could, considering what our moods were in the moment, and punched him on the arm as I stood.
“Going to see him?”
I stopped for a moment, looking Eli in the eye, trying to read what he knew, or what he thought he knew. After a moment, I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he said, a little smile in the corner of his mouth. “You’re smart enough I don’t need to tell you to be careful.”
“I guess not. But I wouldn’t take it the wrong way if you did.”
He nodded slowly for a moment, then, “I’ll let you know what I hear.”
“Gracias.”
Less than three minutes later, I was standing at the café, the crowd only beginning to thin from the morning coffee-and-pastry rush. A better man would have waited. I’d been dropping by Beck’s job an awful lot lately, and I worried about pushing him. I’d already triggered him once, and seen him triggered a second time. If I could help him, I needed to, but the last thing I wanted was to come across as a creep, as another fucking predator.
But it had been so hard to leave Beck yesterday afternoon, and, after tossing and turning and worrying about him for a good chunk of the night, I didn’t have much patience. I would see him, if he was free, and I would make it as clear as I could that he had the power in our friendship. And then, if he let me, I would do what I could to take that haunted look out of his eyes.
I asked a harried-looking barista if I could talk to Jay, and then a harried-looking Jay where I might find Beck, and then, with Jay’s permission, made my way into the stockroom.
It was a fairly sizeable room, cool and dark, and seeing Beck’s thin frame at the far end of it made my stomach stop doing somersaults. He was kneeling beside an open cardboard box, making notes about its contents on a clipboard, but when he heard the whick of the door opening, he jerked and looked up at me, startled, before letting a slow smile burn across his face.
“Buenos días, Beck. Jay said I could sneak back here and talk to you for a few minutes.”
“What did Gavin say?”
“I didn’t see Gavin. Think he’d mind?”
Beck glanced down for a moment, then back up at me, shaking his head. “He’d probably say it was okay.”
“Good. And it’s okay with you? Me showing up at your work unannounced?”
He nodded, maybe more eagerly than he’d meant to. My heart melted a little.
“I’m not busy,” he said. “I’m almost finished with inventory.”
“Good. I like seeing you, spending time with you. But you can always tell me to back off if you need me to.”
“I don’t need you to.”
“Good. But if you do. Okay?”
He nodded.
I walked closer to him and sat down beside him on the floor. “You doing okay, Beck?”
He flushed a little, but nodded, then, “Yes. I’m sorry about yesterday.”
I reached out and took his hand, moving slowly enough that he’d have warning, that he could move his hand if he wanted to. He let me grip it in both of mine.
“No, Beck. No apologies. You did nothing wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Do you believe me?”
He shrugged.
“Fuerte, Beck. Por favor.”
There was a long pause before he met my eyes, but then he spoke. “I don’t know. I hate being scared. I hate…” He swallowed and blinked, like he was fighting to hold his emotions back. I squeezed his hand. “I hate you seeing me like that.”
“May I hug you, Beck?”
He nodded, and I wrapped my arm around him and pulled him close to my chest. “We all get scared, Beck. I promise. And I don’t know why you were so scared yesterday, but I don’t think any less of you.” We sat for a moment, me rocking him gently. “Can I tell you what I think?” I asked finally.
He nodded against my shirt.
“I think you’ve been through a lot. More than most people can understand. And I think the fact you’re here, working a job, and trying to get better, I think the fact you and I have gotten so close so quickly, these things mean you’re strong. You get scared sometimes, and you react out of fear sometimes, but I have never seen you do anything to be ashamed of.” I pressed him closer. “I’m not going to ask if you believe me, because you probably don’t. But I will ask you to trust me. You don’t have to agree with what I’m saying, but you do have to know I mean it. Okay?”
He nodded again. After several seconds of feeling his head against my heartbeat, of smelling his clean hair and clean skin, after sharing his warmth, I gave him a final squeeze and let him go. He sat up. His skin was pale, and his eyes a little pink, but he looked fine. Strong.
“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“You don’t have to,” I continued. “But if you want to tell me, if you want to talk to me like a friend, I’m here, Beck.”
He sigh
ed, and then spoke, not quite looking me in the eye. “That waiter… The second waiter? Who brought the check?”
“Yes?” My blood ran hot, even before he could complete the sentence.
“He looks like someone I used to know.”
“Oh.” I cooled off a few fractions of a degree, knowing I wouldn’t have to go to Carrigan’s and break a chair.
“My uncle. He looks like my uncle, a little. And…” Another shrug. “And I never want to see my uncle again.”
“Siempre el pinche tio,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Lo siento. Sorry.” I shook off my anger and forced a smile on my face. “You’re so brave, Beck. Brave and strong. Valiente y fuerte. Sometimes talking about pain, it makes the pain real again. I thank you for telling me that, but I never want you to tell me more than you can, okay?”
He nodded.
I leaned in again and kissed him, softly on his temple. I heard him gasp.
When I pulled away he was looking at me in that way again. Like he had in the café two nights ago, or the restaurant yesterday. I wanted him, right there. Right there on the floor of the stockroom. It wouldn’t be ideal, but the immediacy would make up for any discomfort.
But I couldn’t. Not without his consent.
I reached out and slid my fingers under his chin, lifting that perfect little face toward mine.
“Ay, mi tesoro. My treasure. My perfect, precious Beck. I—” I swallowed. “My feelings for you, they’re complicated, si? I want to give you so much, and I want to be so much for you, but I never want to push you. I never want you to feel like I’m forcing you. If you want something from me, Beck, you have to ask for it, okay?”
His cheeks flushed the most beautiful pink I’d ever seen, and then he opened his mouth.
“Can you kiss me?”
“I would love to kiss you.” And then I did.
We sat and kissed, and after a while I stood, lifting his feather-light body along with me. He was warm and wet and hungry, and I let him devour me, surprised and proud of his ferocity. I did notice, though—and it pains me to say this—that he was…inexpert. Our teeth clattered together a few more times than I would have liked, and, although I certainly like a wet kiss, there was a little more tongue than I expected.
Here For You: For You: Book 4 Page 5
