SURE (Men of the ESRB Book 3)

by Hollis Shiloh

  Obviously he didn't think it could be Damon. To be honest, I didn't, either. He was the kind of guy who, if he had killed someone, he would own up to it later, not run away and try to cover it up. And not to be sexist, but especially if the victim was a woman. He had some pretty fixed ideas about gender roles and being a gentleman.

  They hadn't applied to me; I was the queer guy he sometimes fucked. He was pretty homophobic. A lot of it was internalized, probably against himself — who was I to understand his dark depths? Did that mean he could also be a violent racist? I'd never gotten any hints of that off him.

  Part of me almost wished I could dismiss that as being the case, so I didn't have to get involved, going back and dredging up bad memories. But the captain was right, however much I didn't want to leave my cushy new life. Someone had been killed, and because of the fishy circumstances and the involvement with a drug cartel, it was almost certainly some kind of setup, and her murderer would get away scot-free if they succeeded in having the frame-up job stick to Damon.

  He didn't have to be a nice person to not be the guilty party. And the guilty party would get away with it if it wasn't him.

  For a while after hanging up, I stared into the air, thinking these thoughts and others. I was dimly aware of the comforting (if curious) presence of my boyfriend, watching me, waiting, so peaceful and accepting. This was almost certainly what he'd been talking about before the call: me leaving.

  And yet I didn't see how I could do otherwise.

  Finally I raised my eyes, meeting his gaze. It felt like admitting I needed to go to the dentist for what would probably be a very expensive, extremely painful surgery. It shouldn't be so tough — but right then, it felt tough. I didn't want to face Damon, the precinct, or murderers' emotions yet again. I'd thought that chapter of my life was closed.

  But there was a kid whose mom had been killed. And, if the captain was right, she had been killed and Damon had been framed to put a stop to an investigation into a drug cartel. It was messy — but not something I could turn my back on. I was, however little I liked it, involved now that I knew. And not just because of Damon, either.

  "I think I have to go," I told Ellery.

  He nodded, like he had expected no less.

  #

  Ellery trusted me, but I felt his worry as we said goodbye at the airport.

  I'd gotten the time off from Kevin, along with a company credit card with no limit and a few phone numbers to call in case of emergency. One of them was a counselor, another someone who apparently worked in some kind of pretty intense security sector, and a third a very high-powered lawyer.

  I wasn't sure exactly what kind of trouble Kev thought I'd manage to get myself into in a day or two if he wasn't watching out for me, but from his shadowy emotions on the topic, he clearly expected it to be big. Nice to know he appreciated my talent for trouble. That, or his protective nature towards me had gone into overdrive.

  Ellery didn't offer to come along, and I didn't ask it of him. Oh, he'd probably have said yes, but it would be cruel of me to ask. He didn't need his balance upset for my problems, and he probably wouldn't fare even as well as I had at the precinct, if he had to be around those cops for long.

  Ellery might not sense thoughts, but he was very sensitive to people's behavior, and big, tough, hostile police officers and criminals wouldn't be doing his mental and emotional health any favors. The man who struggled to get up the nerve to tell a scientist he had an uneasy feeling about a batch of cultures wasn't going to be the guy to face down a hostile precinct full of people who resented me.

  He looked at me with a mixture of sadness, resignation, and love. "I trust you," he said softly. "Be safe." And then he gave me another gentle hug.

  "You too," I said against his soft, flyaway hair, breathing in the scent of him. It felt like it would be the last time for a while, but I figured that was just premature homesickness. It was only a couple of days, but it was the first time we'd been apart in a while, even for that long.

  The last time had been a month ago, on a trip with Kevin. We'd texted and called and Skype'd each other endlessly, even though it was only three days apart. It had felt like forever. Maybe I'd gotten addicted to curling up with my sweet-faced, gentle boyfriend. He loved me so much, it was almost addicting to be around, to feel that steady warmth from him, sometimes rising to a heated crescendo, such as when we made love.

  When we'd said our goodbyes, and he drew back, blowing his nose suspiciously hard, Kev approached me to say his farewells. "Be safe," he said. Somehow it sounded different when he said it.

  He drew me into a hug as well, clapping me on the back. I closed my eyes, drinking in the feeling of safety from him. Kevin was something of an anomaly in my universe; he didn't assess me against his own qualities to compare or judge me. He just accepted and liked me.

  I was coming to the conclusion that Kevin really was a bit different from most people I knew, not just because he actually was an honest person, but because he didn't assess people sexually at all. It was refreshing to me. Most straight men looked at me either as competition or else (if they'd learned I was gay) as something exotic and foreign. Even if I didn't disgust them, there was an awareness about my sexuality setting us apart. It was as though, even if I wasn't competition after all, I was something to be assessed and judged and compared to.

  When straight men thought I was straight, the reaction was still slightly more hostile than you'd think. I'm short, and that's enough to earn me some disdain right there. On top of that, I'm pretty damn hot.

  I'm not trying to brag, but you can't be an empath and a sexually active gay man without being aware of where you rate on the sliding scale of hotness. My height weighed against me for most people, but even so, when I could walk into any gay bar and have my pick of men nine times out of ten, I couldn't pretend to be average or mediocre in the looks department, could I? I had a good-looking face and a fit, hot body with some visually pleasing muscle definition.

  The majority of straight guys instinctively bristled against my good looks, feeling that girls probably went for "a guy like that" rather than "a real man." Knowing I was gay didn't always change that bristling reaction, although it happened for different reasons depending on the guy.

  Kevin didn't feel that way about me. He assessed me on other qualities. While he liked me, and even liked my face, he never assessed me sexually, either as someone to be desired or as competition. It made him comforting to be around, as I'd been hyperaware of the push and pull of sexual desire and competition for as long as I could remember being sexually aware at all.

  Kevin existed on a different level, and sometimes I thought a nicer one, although it did make him blind to things sometimes. On the occasions when I had to tell him some detail about people's feelings on that matter — only related to what might affect his business dealings, not to pry into people's personal business — he was always initially surprised. That was followed by quick acceptance, and he never doubted my word. But I got the feeling it was something he didn't truly understand from the inside.

  It had taken a while, but I'd finally figured out my boss was almost certainly asexual. I didn't ask him about it; I figured if he ever wanted to tell me, he would. It might not be something he thought about himself, and I didn't want to try to force him to label himself. But that was my read on him.

  Of all the things I loved about him — his protectiveness, his honesty, his take-charge nature tempered by kindness — that was one of the biggest. He didn't look at me sexually or feel threatened by me. He just accepted and liked me for other reasons, nothing to do with my looks or what I might be able to do for him in bed.

  At the same time, it made me laugh on the inside whenever I was reminded that no one else could tell that. Since Kev and I were close, since he would hug me without shame or hiding it, there were people who assumed we were having sex. I don't know if those people refused to accept that I was in a relationship with Ellery, and that my boss and I had
a close professional relationship as well as a friendship, or if they thought I slept with anybody who smiled at me.

  But to be fair, Kevin hadn't thought to dispel the rumors proactively the way a straight man would. He didn't do the tough guy hug; if he wanted to hug me, he wasn't ashamed of it. If he smiled at me, it was pure and honest and not couched behind frat-boy humor.

  And perhaps most importantly of all, he was very protective of me, and possessive in his own way. If he didn't want to have sex with me, he also didn't want me working for any other company, or getting hurt by anyone, or doing anything that would take me away from him for too long. He relied on me professionally and liked having me around for every important business meeting, deal, or inspection. I was his right-hand man, and he treasured me. Plus he'd said more than once that I was his — without being self-conscious about how others took it, or even seeming to realize.

  Despite the way he missed things on the level of sexual attraction and interest, he was very savvy about almost everything else. It was hard to get one over on Kevin Goodwin. It made me feel very safe with him, I must admit. I knew Kev would always take care of me and help me if he could.

  It was the sort of cozy feeling you might have about an older sibling, if they'd always been kind to you and looked out for you. I wouldn't know; I was an only child, but it was something I could imagine quite well. I'd dated more than one big, strong, confident man with the desire to feel safe and protected, whether I'd admitted it to myself or not. Now I had that loyalty from a man who didn't want anything in return and wasn't ever going to feel differently about me. I was lucky. His protectiveness was uncomplicated by other things. He would have felt that way about me even if I quit working for him.

  As he hugged me goodbye, a warm, tight, loving hug, I felt assessing stares on us as people at the airport wondered what our relationship was and judged us both in various ways. But I didn't care. People judged; it was what they did. I just hugged him back, as hard as I could, and breathed.

  "You'll be fine," said Kev, drawing back and looking at me, reaching up to thread fingers into my hair, reassuring me in a way he knew I responded to, although he probably didn't know how much I really did love fingers in my hair (and would never know, because from others it turned me on). "And if you're not, come right back home."

  Home. It was home, now, with Kev and Ellery and the safety of The Shardwell Group's comfortable, safe building, with its plant room and gym and wonderful food and respectful scientists.

  I hoped it always would be home.

  #

  The captain himself met me at the airport, which made me feel deeply uneasy. He was an important and busy guy. For him to make the effort to meet me in person either meant he couldn't trust anyone else not to piss me off — not that we had a great track record there with each other, either — or else it was so important he didn't dare entrust me to anyone else.

  I looked at his face curiously as he drew closer. Did he think I was too much of a bigwig now, and would insist on special treatment? He looked worried, but I didn't get a sense of anything else. Then as he got within a few steps of me I sensed his feelings. They were pretty intense, a swirling mass of conflicted worry.

  The case was getting to him — so many variables. He was unhappy about being responsible for Mercer, for getting this egg dropped in his lap to clean up. But at the same time, he was determined to do his best. It was his job to find out the truth and see justice done. He didn't think Mercer had done it — but he also didn't want to think it, and he knew better than to believe something just because he wanted to believe it, or vice versa. He'd been a cop too long, and a good one.

  I was relieved by all these things he was feeling, but then there was more. When I stepped forward to shake his hand, smiling a little, he felt another spike of concern — about me.

  "Durphy." He shook my hand. He towered over me, as most cops do — including Damon Mercer. "Uh . . . hello again. You're looking well."

  There was something he wanted to tell me. But I didn't want to rush him and unnerve him, or end up in a snarky pissing contest. "Thanks. I have a nice boyfriend and the job's going well."

  He blinked, but that apparently wasn't enough to anger him. He just nodded. His brow seemed more furrowed than back when I used to work with him, and that was pretty fast to age — it had been less than a year since I was there — so I guessed this case was really weighing on him.

  Enough chat. "So, tell me about the case," I said as we fell into step together. Like most tall, aggressive people, especially those in law enforcement, he had no notion of shortening his walk to match someone else's. I had to jog to keep up with him.

  He carried one of my bags like it weighed nothing. The man had twenty or thirty years on me easily, and I worked out constantly, but he could still make me feel inadequate when it came to strength. Even seated behind his desk, he was tough. Here he seemed massive and tireless.

  "Case? It's more than a case. It's a black eye for every officer in the department — bad if he's innocent, and worse if he's guilty." He shook his head, scowling.

  "Well, share with me." I was not panting — definitely not. It was just hard to juggle my remaining bags while jogging to keep up and talking at the same time.

  "No. I've told you more than I was supposed to already. Internal Affairs has had a word. You have to speak to one of them first to be sure you're not too biased to be involved in the questioning."

  I stopped suddenly. "What?" I'd never talked to IA, and I'd never really been a cop, but my time in the department had given me a share of cops' instinctive fear of IA. Many of the guys I'd worked around had thought they were corrupt and out to make the department look bad, wasting time, punishing good cops, etc.

  Of course, they'd also thought I wanted to rifle around through their thoughts, and they were certainly wrong about that. Some of the guys were pretty bigoted. Maybe they were wrong about IA too. I got myself under control from the first surprise and nodded.

  "Any special reason?"

  He glanced at me. "Yes."

  I felt it then, and blinked hard. It was a complex mix of emotions rolling off him strongly. But the strongest was guilt and regret. He felt responsible for something . . . something that happened between me and Mercer . . . where I'd been hurt.

  Old news. I rolled my eyes. "It's really not a problem," I insisted. "I can do my job without being biased."

  "Well, tell that to IA and we're golden," he growled, feeling angry with himself more than with me. He was responsible for his department and anyone who worked there, even part-time like the whiz-kid undercover genius Mercer.

  There was enough evidence from things the other cops had seen that the captain knew Mercer had been ragging on me more than once. I hadn't admitted anything, and I doubted Damon had, either, but the fact was we'd had sex, he'd hated me, and it had made life tough sometimes, especially when he went out of his way to show me. Still, I wasn't about to dwell on that past when I had such a good life now, and I certainly wasn't going to use my abilities to hurt him — like by faking a reading I wasn't getting.

  I wouldn't risk my career over something like that, and more than that, I wouldn't want to. If I wanted to hurt someone, I wouldn't help a drug dealer frame them for murder. It would be beneath me, and would hurt too many other people in the process. Besides, being jilted and insulted wasn't enough to make me wish a murder charge on someone.

  At the station, a few folks gave me smiles or cautious nods of greeting. Most of them stayed out of my way. Nobody seemed super happy at the station today. It was a pretty big thing that was happening here. It wasn't really about me, but my presence didn't make things more fun for most of these guys. Let's face it, I wasn't exactly Mr. Popular.

  The captain ushered me in to talk to an Internal Affairs officer and left us to it. His feelings were dour and grim — and again, that guilt lay on him. He seemed to have the feeling Mercer had actually hurt me or gay-bashed me or assaulted me or something. Nope
, I wanted to tell him, just my feelings. But it was such a complicated thing, and my natural instinct was to hide everything about the relationship from those in authority.

  Even if we weren't friends anymore — maybe hadn't ever been, if he could turn on me that way — I didn't want to out the guy. He might not be gay; he might be bi, pan, searching, or something else. But he sure was good at gay sex, and he sure did have some conflicted feelings about that. He'd taken some of those out on me, but I was basically over it.

  At least I hoped I was. I'd have to see him again real soon.

  The IA officer was at least as dour as the captain, but without the level of personal anxiety. He wasn't having the best day ever, and didn't like his job very much. I thought I'd gotten better at reading nuances like this recently.

  Perhaps having Kev listen so carefully to all my impressions and take them seriously had made me take them more seriously, too. If I sensed something, I paid attention — and I listened harder now, too. It had become a habit, to pay attention to everyone I was around instead of trying to shut them out.

  Kevin and Erin and the others at The Shardwell Group had worked tirelessly to make sure I was in a safe, almost cocooned environment, and even when I was working, I wasn't surrounded by extreme hostility most of the time. It felt safer to open myself up as much as I could, these days. I was still doing it — although I had a feeling that if I'd tried to come back here to work, I'd have managed to break the habit real quick if I didn't want to be curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth. Nothing about this work environment had been particularly safe for me.

  "We need to go over a few details here," said the officer, in the droning sort of voice that used to make me want to fall asleep in class. Or start twitching, or doing crazy things to get attention and keep myself from going mad.