Jack: Grime and Punishment: The Brothers Grime, book 1

by Maxfield, Z. A.

  “Wh-what?” Jack sputtered. “Really?”

  “Were you planning on telling me? Or—”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” Jack felt his cheeks burn and looked down at his shoes. Smooth. “I’ve known Ryan for three days.”

  “God. You must think I piss my days away wearing the McGruff dog suit. I am a detective, Jack. I detect things. I didn’t get my badge from a cereal box.”

  “We can talk later.”

  “Sure.” Dave put his hands in his pockets and glanced around. “Chilly reception with this crowd, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You tell Ryan the truth yet?” Dave whispered. “About your relationship with Nick?”

  “No.” Jack lifted his gaze to Dave’s eyes. “I don’t out my friends.”

  Dave’s face darkened. “Your loyalty is commendable, but don’t you think he should know, if you two are—”

  “We’re not.” At Dave’s snort, Jack clenched his fists. “Look, I can’t just blurt out the truth, not now. Maybe not ever. It isn’t my truth to tell.”

  “The hell it isn’t.” Dave took Jack’s arm and led him away from the others.

  “Hey.” Jack had to move his cane quickly to keep his footing.

  “I get this, the thing with Ryan, and I’m glad for you. He seems like a good guy.”

  Jack eyed Dave for signs he was hurt or felt regret. “He is.”

  Dave’s gaze pierced Jack’s cool. “You know things with me are never going to be like this. It’s what you want, though, yeah?”

  “I—” Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So.” Dave nodded back. “You give me one good reason why Ryan shouldn’t know what Nick did to you and why he did it.”

  The burn in Jack’s eyes intensified. He closed them before hissing, “Because I’m ashamed, goddamn it. There. Are you satisfied? I’m ashamed I let Nick use me, and I was stupid enough to believe—”

  “You’re not the one…” Dave pressed his lips into a white line. He might have had more to say, but Ryan returned.

  “Everything okay here?” Ryan wore a worried expression when he took Jack’s hand in his. The move was possessive, even if Jack didn’t think Ryan meant it that way. It was claiming. “Jack, your hand is freezing.”

  “We’re good,” Dave answered. He took a step back and said, arrogantly, “What about you, Jack? You doing okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Ryan said, “I need a drink. Dave, will you join us?”

  Dave shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. Maybe some other time?”

  Ryan smiled warmly. “Sure.”

  As Dave walked away, Ryan spoke, “Dave seems nice. He’s good to his mother.”

  “He is.” Jack fairly itched for the bourbon in his flask. Ryan gave a last long look at the crowd behind them before he headed for the parking lot.

  While they walked, Ryan confessed. “I knew it was selfish asking you to come today. I knew it, and I did it anyway. I’m sorry I put that kind of pressure on you.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not. I was only thinking about myself, about what I wanted. I was thinking how much bringing a date would piss off my parents.”

  “Yeah?” Jack grinned.

  Ryan studied Jack, his gaze troubled. “Yeah. I’m pretty much a prick where my parents are concerned.”

  “But you were so civil.”

  “You thought that was civil?” Ryan slipped his hand into Jack’s pocket and removed his flask. “May I?”

  “If you let me drive.” Jack wasn’t about to let Ryan drink and drive. His small sip earlier wasn’t enough to impair him. He had a feeling Ryan wanted to get a swerve on.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Ryan tipped the flask up to his mouth. Jack watched Ryan take a healthy swallow, then two more. The muscles in Ryan’s shoulders relaxed visibly before he handed Jack his flask back. Ryan sighed. “Okay. That’s better.”

  “Define better so I can play the home game.”

  Ryan grinned at him. “My parents are such assholes. They act like it’s all my fault we don’t talk.”

  “Nothing’s one-sided.”

  “Well, in a way, they’re right. If only I’d done everything they ever wanted me to without asking questions, we’d be fine.”

  “I suppose that includes becoming a heterosexual.”

  “That’s part of it. ‘My God,’ they say. ‘He’s a nurse, he doesn’t go to church, he’s gay, he’s a liberal Democrat, he drives a hybrid...’ The list goes on and on.”

  “What’s wrong with driving a hybrid?”

  “That hybrid proves I’ve been duped by the global-warming-conspiracy fearmongers.” Ryan rubbed his temples. “I don’t get along with anyone in my family. The last time Nick and I talked, we had a huge argument about gun control.”

  “Looks like he had the last word.” The words were out before Jack could stop them.

  Ryan’s eyes bulged. “I cannot believe you said that.”

  “I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.”

  Ryan groaned. “You’re hilarious. I mean that. I can’t believe you’ve been able to make me laugh while—”

  “Don’t make it something it’s not. I use humor like Nick used drugs.”

  “No, you don’t.” Ryan stopped when they got to his car. “You use humor to make things bearable, not to escape. People like Nick don’t know how to do that.”

  “Maybe because you grew up with that.” Jack jerked a nod toward Ryan’s family. “How would you ever learn to laugh? Your family’s ice-cold. They don’t have two emotions to rub together for warmth.”

  Ryan didn’t get into the car right away. Instead, he leaned against the fender and regarded Jack thoughtfully. “And you’re a hothead who only lets his emotions show for laughs. Is that it?”

  “Like an episode of Jersey Shore without the accent, baby.”

  “Now’s the time to tell me what I’ve stepped in here.” Ryan toyed with his keys. “I know there’s something between you and Dave Huntley. What is it?”

  “Dave was…last-night guy.” Jack avoided Ryan’s gaze. How should he say something like this? Sex should be like a freeway. On-ramps and off-ramps. Smooth transitions. No braking, no intersections. “He was at my place. He…”

  “I see.” Ryan was silent for a while. “Wow.”

  “I didn’t lie to you. I don’t cheat. What Dave and I have isn’t like that. We never made any promises or anything. We don’t even go out.”

  “If I asked him, would he say that?”

  “God, I hope so,” Jack said fervently. He glanced back toward the chapel where he’d been talking with Dave. “Dave doesn’t do this daylight shit. He said he can’t be a gay cop, and he’ll never, ever…but I would hate it if I hurt him. So maybe I’m stupid, and maybe I misread things. And now I…I feel awful for a lot of reasons.”

  Ryan studied him hard. Finally, it seemed like what he saw on Jack’s face passed inspection.

  “Here.” Ryan handed his keys over. “You don’t need the key to drive. It’s just…symbolic.”

  “Then you’d better take this.” Jack handed over his flask.

  “You know it’s illegal to drive with an open container no matter who’s carrying it.”

  “Yeah, well,” Jack told him. “I guess that’s symbolic too.”

  I guess we’re in this—whatever it is—together.

  Chapter 13

  Jack pushed the On button to start up Ryan’s hybrid, and nothing happened. Well, the dashboard lit up. Since there appeared to be no way to tell if he’d started the car up correctly, and Ryan was taking another not-so-discreet swig from his flask, Jack studied the controls.

  The gas and brake pedals seemed to be where they were supposed to be, but he had to look around for a way to get the car to move. Instead of a stick shift, the car had a toggle, like something you’d find on a golf cart. He put it into reverse without any problems and discovered Ryan’s hybrid had a backup cam, which was handy when
it came to leaving the parking space without mowing down their fellow mourners. The car made a whizzing sound like a golf cart too, but then it growled to life when he shifted into gear and got underway.

  By the time they hit the freeway, Ryan was asleep. Jack heaved a big sigh of relief and tried to put Nick’s memorial behind him. He was probably going to close his eyes that night, maybe for a lot of nights to come, with the image of Nick’s mom and dad behind his eyelids. They’d left the chapel ahead of him, stunned and unhappy. After the service Jack had felt their eyes on him like shards of broken glass. Nick’s family—even Ryan—had long memories, and it seemed they traced Nick’s problems back to the trouble he got into as a result of his attack on Jack.

  Which most everyone believed was entirely Jack’s fault.

  Now, with Gabe and Dave pressuring him to tell the truth, all Jack’s emotional scars were tearing open. They were invisible next to his physical scars, but they hurt in a way time had never healed.

  The afternoon traffic slowed to a crawl, and Jack had plenty of time to relive every moment of the service. To recall every face. Amy, the pretty wife in her black dress and headband. Jack’s kids, a boy and a girl—blond, blue-eyed replicas of their father with just a dash of their pretty mother mixed in to keep things interesting. Ryan’s parents, who didn’t even bother hiding their disdain for their only son.

  Cousins, aunts, uncles. A scattered handful of others, the stalwart few who’d still been in touch with Nick, or those who were curious, and Jack, who’d loved him. Who’d been mourning the death of the Nick he’d loved for nearly fifteen years.

  Jack got to the cause of the traffic problem, a fender bender on the access road. Police and fire were on the scene. He gawked as much as everyone else. The sight of a fire engine still made his heart skip a beat.

  Nick might have been his first love, but those big red trucks and the men and women who worked on them were his true love, and he’d lost both.

  Someone unrecognizable beneath the blank anonymity of the uniform—grimy mustard-colored turnout gear and helmet—waved him by.

  Jack had to swallow down several gulps of hollow unhappiness.

  For God’s sake. It was time to put his disappointments behind him.

  Unless you want to end up like Nick.

  Finally, he made it to the off-ramp by his house. “Ryan?”

  “Hmm?” Ryan rubbed his eyes. His warm, sweet smile caught Jack right in the gut.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. We’re almost back at my place.”

  “I was really out of it.” Ryan sat up and discreetly wiped the drool from his chin. “Have I been asleep long?”

  “You’ve been out since we got on the freeway. There was an accident, so traffic was backed up. It’s taken us about an hour to get this far.”

  “Was it bad?” Ryan asked.

  “I don’t think so. Mostly it was gawkers causing the problem.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I could cook something at my place.”

  Ryan looked down at himself. “All dressed up and nowhere to go.”

  “Okay. Yeah. My place probably does seem like nowhere if—”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Ryan clarified. “I meant we should go out. Somewhere nice, my treat. Not a celebration, but maybe…consolation.”

  “All right. Name the place.”

  “There’s a pretty good steak house in downtown Fullerton.”

  “I’m in. Lead me to it.”

  While Ryan gave directions, he hooked his phone up to play music through the car’s radio. “What kind of music do you like?”

  “I don’t know. Most music. Not a big fan of techno or dubstep.”

  “But you don’t have a preference?” On the dashboard, Ryan scrolled through his playlists until he came to one that read First Date.

  “Wait. Is that what this is?” Jack shot him a quick glance. “Did we just go to a funeral on our first date?”

  “Doesn’t it feel like a date?”

  “How would I know?” Jack pulled at his tie and loosened the first button on his collar. Is it hot in here? “I don’t exactly do relationships.”

  “All right. Since you’re a beginner, I’ll tell you how this goes.” Ryan leaned back into his seat. “First, I put on my playlist. And then you make fun of my taste in music.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Jack listened for a second. Oh, my God. Is that Taylor Swift?

  “The point is you tell me you hate my tracks, and then you say what you like to listen to. We talk, ergo we learn about each other.”

  “So you choosing a Taylor Swift song is some kind of test? Like, if I go along with it, you’ll know I’m an idiot?”

  “Exactly. My first-date playlist is a musical minefield. I’ll know by song nine whether I want to sleep with you. And that’s Carly Rae Jepson, not Taylor Swift.”

  “You already want to sleep with me. And I don’t care if that’s Kylie Minogue. That is not music for a first date with a man.”

  “Ding, ding, ding.” Ryan laughed out loud and advanced to the next song. “First round goes to you, Jack Masterson. But now the game gets tougher.”

  “Okay. I accept your challenge. Do I know this song?”

  “Maybe?”

  The tune was an oldie, not something he’d heard lately. “Rolling Stones?”

  “Got it in one. That, my friend, is ‘Brown Sugar.’ What do you think?”

  “Well.” Jack wondered how he should phrase his thoughts. “The first song says I got my niece’s iPod by mistake, and the second says Grandma, can I play with your record player?”

  “Oh, you’re going to get tough, eh?” Ryan appeared delighted.

  “It’s not that I dislike either song on principle.” Jack stopped the car at a light. “But we’re talking first-date music here.”

  “Okay, how about this.”

  Uh-oh. Smooth jazz. What the hell do I know about jazz? “This is a trick, right?”

  “Not really.” One of Ryan’s eyebrows rose like Mr. fucking Spock’s.

  “Okay. See, I like this. It feels like beach music. Playing volleyball in the sun all day. Bonfires and brews at night. Fish on the grill and slow dancing and sex up against the brick wall by the bathroom. How’s that? I say, yes. That’s first-date music.”

  “Gzzzzzt.” Ryan tilted his head to an odd angle. “Wrong. That’s not how first dates go.”

  “That’s how my first dates go.”

  “You said you don’t do relationships.”

  “I don’t, but I’ve been on a shitload of first dates.”

  Ryan’s gaze could have lit Jack on fire. “Moving right along.”

  Ryan advanced the song again.

  Jack wagged a finger at Ryan. “Okay now, that’s just cheating.”

  “There’s no cheating on the first-date playlist. I made the first-date-playlist game up, and there are no rules except what I say, and this is perfectly legit.”

  “But this cannot be first-date music,” Jack reiterated.

  “Just because you’ve never heard it, or it’s different, doesn’t mean it isn’t first-date music.”

  “I’ve heard it.” Orchestral music swelled in a way particular to fifties films. Horns and harps and strings and percussion that clip-clopped along in a western cadence. “I know exactly what that track is.”

  “The hell you do.” Ryan relaxed back against his gray leather seat and crossed his arms. His expression fairly crackled with doubt. Someone behind them honked, and Jack realized he should be paying more attention to the signal and less to Ryan’s goddamn narrowed blue eyes.

  “The hell I do indeed, my slightly shit-faced friend.” Jack pushed down on the gas pedal. “That’s the music from the movie Shane. I’d know it anywhere.”

  Ryan flung his hand out and gripped Jack’s knee. “Oh, my God.”

  “What.” Jack braked and glanced around frantically. There were no imminent collisions, no oncoming cars, thank God, but now they were getting w
ay more honking from angry drivers. “Shit, don’t do that to me. You’ll get us both killed.”

  “But you’re the first person I’ve ever dated who’s recognized that track.” Ryan’s grip was like iron. “Ever.”

  “I ought to recognize it. That’s my grandfather’s favorite movie. I must have seen it a hundred times.”

  “You watched it because your grandfather made you?”

  “Hell no. I watched it the first time for Pop-pop. After that, I watched it because of that scene where Alan Ladd and Van Heflin are chopping wood. I watched that with—” Jack stopped himself. The first time he realized why he couldn’t take his eyes off Ladd and Heflin in the stump-pulling scene was when he’d watched it with Nick. “I like a man with an ax. It’s a firefighter thing.”

  “Oh, my God. I can’t believe you know that track.” Ryan sighed dramatically. “That scene was how I knew I was gay.”

  “That film’s older than both of us put together. Where’d you even find the sound track?”

  “I had to rip it from my DVD.”

  “Okay, that’s not weird or anything.”

  “The movie Shane is the litmus test as far as I’m concerned. We can skip the rest of the songs now and go straight back to my place.”

  Jack laughed. “I thought you were hungry. You were taking me someplace nice, remember?”

  “Okay, we can eat. But you could probably eat with your feet and still get laid tonight.” Ryan turned off the radio. “Turn right at the next intersection, and you’ll see a parking lot on the left. We’ll have to park there and walk. Downtown gets busy on Saturday afternoon.”

  Jack covered Ryan’s hand with his. “I want to know what the other first-date tracks are. Maybe I have a test of my own.”

  “Oh, hello. If you’ve got a test, I’ll pass it.” Ryan laughed lightly. “But I don’t suppose it will come to that.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “I’m not getting my hopes up.” Ryan’s smile was stalwart, but his eyes were slightly sad. “You said yourself, you don’t do relationships.”

  Jack’s breath caught. “I suppose I could rethink that at any time.”