by Walker, Max
Except last night wasn’t Friday. It was Tuesday, and today was my first official workday at Stonewall Investigations as a detective. And here I was, groaning and moaning, half-naked with a splitting headache underneath my coworker’s (extremely comfortable) bedsheets.
There was no time to think about what last night meant. The clock next to the aspirin bottle read eight thirty. The heavy gray curtains were drawn shut, so I couldn’t even tell it was that late in the morning.
I threw the sheets off me. “Shit.”
“Hey, hey, relax. I was figuring you’d be late today. Don’t worry.”
“No, I don’t do that. Fox, I work hard. Hangover or not, I’m working this case with you today. Let me jump in the shower for three minutes. I’ll be right out.”
I rolled out of bed and opened the door to his en suite, revealing a nicely sized bathroom with a walk-in shower, one of those rainfall showerheads calling my name.
“Three minutes,” I said, more to remind myself than to remind him. I closed the door, turned on the water, and brushed my teeth with a toothbrush I had brought. I took off the briefs I had worn to sleep and stepped into the shower, the warm water falling over me but doing nothing to wash away the sins from last night.
I couldn’t think about it because I was already getting hard.
Three minutes. Three minutes.
Fox was waiting for me in the living room when I was finished and dressed, around the seven-minute mark. On regular days it barely took me any time to get ready, so when I was rushed, I could move even faster, especially since I didn’t have to take time choosing what to wear. I threw on what I had yesterday and with a small amount of gel to mess up my hair a bit, I was good to go.
“That was quick. You sure you don’t want to nurse that headache a little longer?”
“I’m completely fine.” A considerable portion of my brain throbbed like a chainsaw tore through it. “Fine. Just need some coffee if we could stop at a cafe real quick?”
“Sounds like a plan. Let’s go.” Fox looked fresh as a daisy. I had no idea how he did it. A glance in the mirror by Fox’s door showed me heavy bags under my eyes and a face as puffy as the Pillsbury Doughboy if he had gone binge drinking the night before a big baking competition.
“Here, I think you’ll need these to survive out there.” Fox grabbed a pair of sunglasses off the collar of his shirt and handed them to me.
“Thank you,” I said, once again finding myself eternally grateful for this man. The second he opened the door and the morning sunlight slashed inside, the sunglasses shielding my eyes became my absolute most favorite possession. “Are these your only pair?” I asked, concerned as we stepped out into the blinding sun like a pair of vampires forcing themselves out into the open. I half expected to hear a hiss from one of us.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” He was squinting against the sun as we walked.
“I’d fight you right now, Fox. I’d get into a fistfight with you and make you put on these sunglasses, because I know the only way of getting these back on your eyes is through a fight. But… I’m just going to say thank you. Again.”
He chuckled, the sound almost drowned out by the growing sound of Miami Beach. As we walked toward Stonewall Investigations, we got closer to the main streets where all the tourists and beachgoers would be hanging out.
“You’re already starting to figure me out, huh?”
“I don’t know about that. You’re a hard one to read.”
“It gets easier,” he said, his big lips curling into a smile. “You aren’t any simpler to read, Jonah.”
“No… I guess I’m not.” We walked side by side down the street, past a few brightly colored homes, and then past some towering hotels with grand fountains of dolphins and whales by their valet, past other hotels that held on to their art deco history with colorful exteriors.
“Besides I’ve got a black belt in karate and tae kwon do, so I wouldn’t recommend fighting me.” Fox had a cocky grin on his face. I tried not to think about how good those lips felt when they were pressed on mine.
“Well, man, I’m a black belt in jiujitsu. So maybe we’ll have to duke it out anyway and see who comes out on top?”
“Maybe we will,” Fox said, still wearing that same cocky smile.
As we walked, I tried not to think about the pounding construction work going on inside my head. It felt like there were multiple sledgehammers and drills doing severe damage in there. I could even feel the scar of my bullet wound as if it were a hot brand, like someone had burned it into my skin hours earlier.
Yeah, it wasn’t pleasant.
But there also was no way I would be missing this first day of work. I’d take the headache and the exhaustion and deal with it later, just like I’d deal with these confusing thoughts of mine. The ones that told me to push Fox into a bush right here and tongue-wrestle him until we were arrested for public indecency.
We reached the coffee shop without any incidents. Our walk had been pretty quiet, which had me wondering what the hell he was thinking. Was he thinking about what happened last night? Did he remember everything?
The smell of strong coffee and sugary creamer wafted out of the open doors to the coffee shop. There was a short line of similarly hungover beachgoers waiting to order their cold brews. It was a tiny spot, with washed-out pictures of Cuba up on the bright green walls and a couple of scratched-up tables pressed up against the walls for anyone who wanted to hang out. A couple of fans kept a cool breeze going as we waited, still neither of us saying much.
“What’s, uh, what’s on the schedule today?” I asked when we had grabbed our iced coffees and left the little shop. I sipped on the icy cool life-gifting beverage.
“Well, since you’ve woke up early, I’m thinking we can block out the morning so we can comb over the Dragon case again; you can learn it upside down and inside out. Then, this afternoon I’ve got a meeting set up with that dealer moonlighting as Shakespeare. Was supposed to be for Saturday but guess he could bump me up on the schedule. I’m hoping he can point me in the right direction.”
“Our Dank69? Does he know I’m coming with you?”
“I told him I was meeting him with my business partner, yeah. The cover is we’re looking to expand the drug, but we need to talk to the supplier first.”
“Sounds good.”
“I was expecting to tell him my business partner got hit with food poisoning. I should have known you weren’t going to skip out on today. You’re one tough motherfucker.”
“Just wait until I finish this,” I said, raising my already half-empty cup of coffee, smiling even though my head felt like it was being pulled apart atom by atom.
Turns out, I found it pretty easy to smile when Fox happened to be the first person I saw in the morning.
16 Gabriel “Fox” Morrison
Jonah was beat. The hangover was wearing him like a dusty old coat. I could see it in the dark bags under his eyes and the winces he’d give at sudden loud noises or bright sunlight. It made me feel bad, but he was clearly determined to fight through it, so I was determined to make it better for him one way or another. Coffee was my first idea, but I also sacrificed my sunglasses and led us to Stonewall the long way so that we could avoid the huge crowds on South Beach. It was a warm morning, which probably didn’t help how Jonah felt. It certainly didn’t help me, but my headache was a distant thumping compared to Jonah’s, who rated it a “shitty six hundred and sixty-six out of ten” on the pain scale.
“You’re absolutely positive you don’t want to take a couple of hours?” I asked as we walked the shaded path leading to Stonewall Investigations.
“Positive,” he said, exhaling a big breath. He was resilient, that was for sure.
Inside Stonewall, three other people paused their conversation and all turned to greet us. I said hi to Andrew and Holly first, and then turned to Beckham Noble, another one of the detectives. He was in his early forties, hair thick and styled and highlighting
the dusting of silver that was beginning to crop up against the jet black. He had on a warm smile that pushed up his gray eyes and crinkled them at the corners.
“Morning, Fox.”
“Hey, Beck, you haven’t met Jonah, have you? He’s the last detective to join us.”
Beck reached out a hand and shook Jonah’s. “Nice to meet you,” Jonah said. I noticed those gray eyes of Beck’s raked over Jonah’s form for the quickest of moments. A pang of orphaned jealousy cried out in my chest. I stepped an inch closer to Jonah. A move so small, I doubt anyone else noticed.
But it did make me feel a little better.
“Very nice to meet you, too,” Beck said, flashing his pearly whites more than I’d ever seen since I hired him a few weeks ago. He was a quiet guy for the most part, kind of like me. I liked that about him. He was from London, and he was a hardworking detective, already cracking seven cases in the four weeks we’d been open.
And he was also currently drooling up a puddle on the floor in front of Jonah.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Andrew said, perking up. He was wearing a boldly striped shirt, with thick vertical stripes of mustard yellow, white, and navy blue that matched his fresh pair of Adidas. “No office romances.” He crossed his arms, smiling between Jonah and Beck. “Until I get the cameras in for my reality show pitch. And then we can let the drama fly.”
That got us all laughing.
“You two would make a cute couple,” Holly said, and for a second my heart jumped up to my throat. Her dark green fingernail pointed between Jonah and Beck, her eyes lighting with a mischievous glow. “Jussst saying.” And my heart fell back down into my chest.
I was glad the attention had fallen on Jonah and Beck, because if anyone were looking at me, they’d notice a flare of red in my cheeks. I could feel the heat from all the blood pumping to my face.
“Oh no,” Jonah said, his cheeks also a violent red. “I’m straight…ish? I don’t know. Yeah, I’m… but if I weren’t I mean… you’re a good-looking guy… I, uh.”
“He’s got a gay brother,” I said, tossing in the tidbit. Jonah and the rest of the gang laughed, easing some of the tension that had formed. I could tell Holly was thinking “oh shit, I really stepped in it now,” and Andrew was no longer looking at Beck and Jonah but instead, his eyes were jumping between Jonah and me, which was when I realized how close the two of us were standing to each other.
“Invite him to the Stonewall party!” Andrew chimed in. “Beck, you were telling us how lonely you’ve been.”
Beck shot a look at Andrew. “Lonely is a strong word. I meant I’ve been… eh, independent, all right, mate? I’ve been independent. And happy.”
“Mhmmm.” Andrew crossed his arms. “We’ll go with independent, Beck.”
“All right, I got work to do.” He turned to Jonah and put out a strong hand, which Jonah took in his for a shake. “Great to meet you, Jonah. I’m excited to be working with you. Just watch out for that cheeky bastard, all right?” He nodded over to a smiling Andrew, who was making the shape of a halo over his head with his hands.
“You’re missing the horns that hold that ratchet thing up,” I said.
Andrew stuck out his tongue and mimed himself chucking the halo across the room. Holly giggled and turned back to her computer as Beckham went down the hallway.
“So, Jonah, are you excited about working with us?” Andrew asked.
“Oh, for sure.” There was a fleeting glance toward me, one I didn’t let drop. It was a loaded look and it was quick, but the way Andrew’s brows perked up, I had a feeling it didn’t go unnoticed. “I think my brother’s going to be more excited about me being here when he meets Beckham, though.”
That got the room laughing. Good, it would stop Andrew from asking any more questions. I loved the guy, but he was as sharp as any of the detectives here at Stonewall, and I was positive he could pick up on the vibes between me and Jonah. He was also someone with a huge heart who had a lot of love to give; I had picked that up about him from the second we met, which meant he enjoyed playing matchmaker so that he could spread all that love he had.
I couldn’t have that. This wasn’t a matchmaking type of situation. This was a one-and-done kind of deal. These feelings in my chest, the ones that felt like butterflies and rainbows and sparkles and fucking rocky road ice cream, were really just thieves in disguise, and they were poised to steal my heart and never return it.
Jonah stood there, totally unaware of this tug-of-war going on in my head. He looked so handsome, even with a hangover that must have felt like the bubonic plague. He was standing straight, with a warm smile on his angular face, his blue eyes bright and welcoming. Andrew had fallen into a conversation with him and Holly while I teetered on the outskirts, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with these thieving rainbows and butterflies and gallons of rocky road.
“All right, we should start getting ready. We’ve got an undercover interview to get done in a few.” I looked at my watch, seeing we had a couple of hours before we were supposed to meet Dank69. That would give us enough time to go over the basics of the case again and rehearse our cover story.
“Go, go,” Andrew said, starting to shoo us away as if he wasn’t the one who had pulled Jonah into a conversation to begin with. “And good luck today. First day on the job—no pressure, Jonah.”
“No pressure,” he replied, sounding a little like someone who was feeling the pressure. We went down the hallway, leaving Andrew and Holly behind in the lobby. As we walked, I tried not to think about how close our hands were, or how Jonah’s heat was practically radiating off him in waves and cascading onto me. I tried not thinking about pushing him up against the wall and stealing a risky workplace kiss from him. I tried not thinking about how good he felt when I’d had my hands wrapped around his rock-solid length last night.
I tried not thinking about any of those things. I tried very hard.
And I failed miserably.
* * *
We were meeting the drug dealer in an area of Downtown Miami unaffectionately dubbed “the Graffiti Graveyard.” It was a street of abandoned and run-down warehouses left behind by an exodus of companies during a particularly rough economical year. Quickly, the area was taken over by an unruly element. No matter how often the police tried to clear the warehouses, the rats always managed to regain their hold, eventually forcing the police department to focus its resources elsewhere in a city where crime wasn’t exactly uncommon.
Drug dealers, pimps, thieves, gangsters. They all frequented the Graveyard.
And now Jonah and I were entering it.
My blood was pumping, and my pulse was quickening. It felt a little like entering into an active war zone. I could feel eyes on me, even though I saw no one.
It was a good thing we had the time in my office to prepare. I hated going into any situation feeling unprepared, especially when that situation could quickly turn into life or death.
This was serious. All of our warm smiles and flirtatious jokes had vanished, and in their place was a sharply focused determination to get in, get what we came for, and get out.
The only sound was the crunch of rocks underneath our shoes, which echoed around the abandoned warehouses, amplifying the sound.
We were supposed to meet at “Osiris,” which I knew had to have been code for the big graffiti mural of a pyramid. It covered the entire rusted facade of the central-most warehouse, its massive barnyard-like doors permanently opened as though the looming structure were shouting out into the void.
Maybe it was shouting at us: Turn around!
We stopped in front of the towering pyramid. The shadow of the warehouse covered the entire area, the sun sitting behind the dead structure’s crown.
“This is the place, right?” Jonah asked.
“Should be.”
We moved to the side, getting closer to the warehouse, feeling less exposed. I checked my watch and saw it was already five minutes past our set meeting time. There
was no Dank69 in sight. Were we being stood up by our drug dealer?
“You two looking for Dank?”
The voice caught us by surprise. A thin man walked from out of the warehouse’s gaping maw, his head shaved bald, his eyes set deep and dark. There was a thin scar that crossed his upper lip and traveled down across his cheek. His clothes were baggy and immediately made me uncomfortable.
A lot could be hidden underneath the folds of baggy jeans.
“You Dank69?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Sure am.” He stopped a few feet away from us. It was close enough for me to smell how badly the man needed a shower.
The guy was shifty. His eyes were small and beaded, and his black sweater, stained with who knew what, smelled like methane and rust. Chemicals. It mixed with the strong body odor wafting off him, making my head spin.
I was on high alert, not only for myself but for Jonah. I was clicking back into military mode, when it was just me and my squadmates. Five soldiers, all of our lives feeling linked as we fought the odds. Back then, all I had stopping me from crossing the thin border between life and death were the guys in my squad, each of us watching a back, everyone responsible for the other.
That’s how I felt about Jonah. If there were bullets flying, I knew in which direction I’d be going.
“So you two want some Dragon? Neither of you are cops, right?”
“No,” Jonah answered, tone steady. “To both of those questions. We’re here because we want to get in the business. We want to get on the ground floor of this thing before it blows up.”
Dank narrowed those already tiny eyes. “Entrepreneurs, eh? Want a third jumping in?”
“It’s a strictly two-person operation.” I didn’t want this to last longer than necessary. I had to cut to the center of it. “So, who’s your supplier? How can we get our hands on this drug?”
“All right, so let me get this straight.” Dank sucked on his yellow teeth, the incisors as sharp as a canine’s. “You want me to give you information that can one, get me killed, or two, Get me pushed out of my little corner of this drug world. That sound about right?”
