While he spoke, he jerked my hand up and down, going on about “did I want to see the bedroom?”, because he had started a new mural that, “…looks like someone blasted a hole into the aftermath of the Battle of the Granicus River”, and, “Really, it’s interesting since some people say it went one way and some another”. I stopped listening too closely after “Rabbit likes you”. And I didn’t pick up his voice again until, “Do you want to come in? I—”
“No,” Peter announced at the same time I said, “Yes.” And as if neither of us had spoken, Cai continued to babble as he moved aside so I could enter the apartment.
“—‘ve just finished the living room, and now I’m working on the bedroom. Well, my bedroom, since I finished Peter’s ages ago. And Darryl’s painted his own room.”
I wasn’t sure what else Cai babbled on about as he led me by the wrist towards a hall just to the right of the stairs. I gathered he was saying something about paints and what types he used, but I got sidetracked by the walls.
Where most people might have had framed photographs, Peter, Cai, Darryl and Joe were depicted in various paintings with frames glued to the wall around them. There seemed to be a gradual change in all of the pictures as they boys aged. No smiles to almost smiles to outright laughter in two of the frames. Cai released my arm while I stared at the wall, enchanted. “You’re talented, kid.” And Peter could laugh without reserve. When would I get to see that guy? The unconstrained Peter.
“Thanks!”
“We’re leaving,” Peter announced and leaned over, pulling Cai’s head down to plant a kiss on the top of his forehead. I wanted to be that forehead. Cai shut up suddenly and took a breath—something he hadn’t done since I arrived—and exited back into his bedroom with a bright wave. I caught a glimpse of an unfinished mural on his bedroom wall.
“He’s really talented,” I said.
“He’s a prodigy.” There was a note of both challenge and pride in his voice. And I hadn’t realized he had dropped his guard. Until now.
“Does he go out and do things or just stay here and paint?” I went back appraising the paintings, and waited for Peter to answer.
I thought I might be getting assessed again. “He doesn’t sleep. It’s part of the mania. He’s going through puberty, so it’s difficult to get his meds just right.” Another challenge or maybe a test.
I frowned and tried to reconcile that fact. “He’s bipolar?” I knew some about the condition from being on the job, but not a whole helluva lot. I’d seen what the depressive end of the bipolar spectrum could wreak, however.
“Yes,” Peter answered. Once again I sensed a provocation in his words. I smiled and went back to studying the paintings. “He talks a lot in the manic stages.” There was nothing but warmth in his voice now. Apparently I had passed the test. “It used to be worse, but still he— he says stuff he shouldn’t.” Peter, I noted in astonishment, was blushing a little.
“It’s okay, Peter, I like you, too,” I grinned and slipped my hand into his. He stiffened momentarily and then sighed, liberating his hand, but gently—not yanking it away. I did my mental victory dance again while I checked him out.
He wore black studded suspenders over another wife beater tee and a light blue cotton shirt, unbuttoned and hanging loose around his sides. Despite the suspenders, his jeans hung low on his hips, and as he moved I caught glimpses of pale skin and the elastic of his boxers. There were no bunny slippers, though—just nondescript sneakers. I sighed in disappointment.
“It’s just because I asked for them, isn’t it?”
I was imagining the twinkle in his eye, wasn’t I? “Pretty much,” he said, holding the front door open and trying to usher me out with his glare. So contrary, my Peter was.
The area where he lived was a tiny street where the cars lined each side and left space enough only to allow cars to pass each other by the narrowest of margins. I feared for my Jag, glancing at it as often as I did Peter while we walked in an amiable silence. It was almost as if a truce were in place.
“How long have you looked after him?” I asked.
“None of your business,” he growled. Ceasefire apparently over.
I took a deep breath and pushed him against my car when we got there, caging him with my arms. Leaning forward, I dragged my nose, inhaling deeply, along his neck. “For some reason I can’t get enough of you,” I murmured in his ear. “I think you tease me with these rare glimpses of perfection. And then slap me with a dose of hostility. But mostly, I think you like me. And for some reason that pisses you off.”
When I lifted my head to catch his eyes, I was surprised to find him smiling. “I don’t like you,” he repeated, settling his hands on my hips. “Much.” Then he tortured me again by licking his lips, the gold ring glistening in the sun.
“But I have handcuffs and a nightstick.” I waggled my brows.
He pulled his smile into his teeth and released it. “You don’t piss me off as much, I guess.”
“Meaning you want to be naked and covered in chocolate later?”
“I’m allergic to chocolate,” was all he said to that. His fingers curled into my pants, pulling my hips close. But he turned his head when I leaned in to kiss him. “Where are we going?”
“Movie first.” I tried not to sound disappointed, but it trickled through. If he kept everything so distant with me, we had no chance of working out.
Was he worth all this effort? Watching him with Cai told me enough to say, yes. Most definitely, yes.
He grimaced. “We should go. Unless you want to stand out here all day.”
“I’m okay with that.” Hips touching, the scent of him, the warmth of the sun, no hostility. Yeah, I was okay with staying right here.
I sensed, rather than felt, his fingertips at my belt. Then he jerked it, and freed it from the buckle. It was broad daylight. While not busy, there were people around. Not that I stopped him. Even as my button was undone and the sound of my zipper going down sped up my pulse, I just closed my eyes and tried to breathe evenly. I wasn’t sure why I made the effort—I hadn’t had a steady heart rate since his first smile.
I knew he was emotionally distancing me with this behavior. Of that I was certain. But I was somewhat helpless against him. What made Peter more compelling than the sun’s gravity?
Something else I suspected as he leaned in, his breath quick against my cheek. If I let him turn this into only sex, that was all it would ever be. So even when his fingers slid dangerously low, I found the willpower to move away and zip up. “Later,” I choked out as he lifted his glistening finger, opened his mouth ever-so-slightly and sucked the tip.
Dear, sweet, mother of God.
I was now fully embracing the gay.
He Was Nothing Like What I Thought
Somehow I convinced myself to move away and get into the car. I clicked the automatic door locks, and Peter slid in beside me, pulling on his safety belt. I liked that he did that. I didn’t like that he put his feet on my dash, however. Arturo was delicate.
“You’ve had a shitty life,” I said as I pulled out.
“No I haven’t. I’ve had Cai and Darryl and Joe. There have just been bad bumps. Even the road to Disneyland has potholes.” He was rifling through my car, checking out the registration, pulling out bits from the console, flipping on the radio until classical music was playing low. “I’ve had a few potholes. They’re mostly repaired now.” When I turned my head, he was tapping a drawing pencil against his knee. Jesse’s.
“Cai’s why you spend so much time keeping the restaurant afloat?”
“Money is why I do that. Cai is why I breathe.”
“What happens when he goes to college? That has to be soon, right?”
“Soon,” he agreed. “He’s sixteen, but he’s ridiculously smart. He could be enrolled now. He loves high school too much, though.” I loved this relaxed part of him. His hostility had all but disappeared. I decided to talk about Cai for a long while.
“
Here or out of state?”
“Here. University of Denver, I think.”
“My alma mater.”
He grunted in response, finding my detective notepad. He couldn’t read it; my notes were written in codes only I could comprehend. As he tucked it back into the console, I began to question if he wasn’t nervous. The thought made me grin. That was an absurd notion.
“So Cai goes to college. What does Peter do?”
“Bus tables until the diner sells.” He shrugged.
“That’s all you want for yourself? No ambitions?”
Something painful flashed over his features, drawing his eyes into a squint. “That’s all there is for me right now.”
“You don’t seem stupid,” I said.
“You think busing tables is stupid?” he challenged, eyes dark with anger. Anger, apathy, hostility and sexual tension, those were the revolving elements of our relationship thus far.
“I think wasting your life busing tables when you’re smart, is stupid.”
“You think I’m stupid, but then I’m too smart to bus tables.” He laughed softly, genuinely smiling. Oh God, that grin. My groin tightened.
“I think you’re smart. At least a smartass.”
“Pots and Kettles, Detective. Pots and kettles.”
My eyes were on the road now, but I dropped my hand to the divider, just to see if he might ditch the bravado and take it. We went about six blocks before he did, gazing out the window as if he didn’t care or notice. He had another case of buyer’s remorse two seconds later and abandoned my hand, tucking his in his lap.
“Anyway, when Cai graduates college or the restaurant sells, I'll try a translating career.” With the way he squinted, I wasn’t certain he meant to tell me that.
My eyes widened, and I turn to him briefly, then back to the road. “You speak another language?”
“I speak six languages.” He was trying to impress me. My mental-victory-dancing self was getting worn out.
I nearly ran us into a telephone pole while fixating on his smirk. “Six?” Sadly, what I was thinking was: ‘Can he say ‘fuck me’ in all of them?’
“Yeah, before—” He stopped. “When I was younger, I was into foreign films. My mother was fascinated with Dr. Zhivago, so I started learning Russian when I was like seven. And then we moved in with Joe, and Cai got into graphic novels and that led to Manga and so forth, so that led to Japanese and Korean. And you can’t live in Colorado without knowing Spanish. When Joe died I was working on my B.A. in Chinese Languages.”
“What the fuck are you doing busing tables?” I said furiously. All that wasted talent just pissed me off.
He studied me for a long while, as if judging what to say. I had to pull over because, frankly, Arturo feared for his life at this point.
“We needed the restaurant income. I won’t die if I don’t graduate, Detective.”
My turn to stare. “I get it. That’s why you agreed to see me. Date the rich cop.” Why should I have been surprised he was using me? He wouldn’t kiss me, he didn’t even particularly like me. I sat back and breathed, angrier than I’d ever been in my whole life—at myself.
“Now who’s stupid? And insecure?” He flicked my ear. “Who didn’t want to go out with who?”
It was disconcerting getting chastised by someone six years your junior. I was not insecure. I was a perfectly normal combination of arrogant and narcissistic. “Flicking me is not your way of saying you’re into S & M, is it?” The eye roll in response was well worth another flick.
He gave me a suspicious glance, probably because I was grinning like an idiot. “What?”
“You like me.”
I received a combination eye roll, lip twitch. “I like your ass.”
“Uh huh.” I grinned my stupid grin the rest of the drive to the theater.
Falling
The movie theater was situated downtown. Of course, I got lost and frustrated. The more I cursed and roamed around, the more Peter hid a smile in his teeth.
“Stop laughing,” I grumbled, wanting to kiss him breathless.
“Don’t cops have to take some sort of test about the streets?” I heard his damn grin while I focused on the road.
“I know the fucking streets,” I said testily. “It’s just the shitty ass street designers built them sideways, probably to confuse the whores and junkies when they ran into a building instead of another street to walk.” Ah, shit. Peter’s eyes lost all trace of warmth. “I didn’t mean…”
“What are you doing with me, Austin?”
Falling for you, I said silently. “I like you,” I sighed taking his hand. He jerked it away. “Dammit, Peter, you’re not a whore.”
“I know that.” He scowled at me. I took his hand again, stubbornly holding on as he tried to pull away. “You trying to make a point to your rich daddy?”
“No.” I gave up on trying to work this maze of streets and pulled into the first lot where I saw a free spot; though it was fairly far from the theater. “Did you look me up?”
“Didn’t have to look far. Apparently you’re dad’s a local celebrity. I saw enough.”
“Which is why you tried to cancel our date,” I surmised.
“Desmond Glass’s boy fucking a male whore.”
I attempted to smile at him. “Are we fucking?” He just scrutinized me with dull eyes. I was trying to read him, but he had this magical, well-rehearsed way of locking out every emotion. “Okay, here it is. My dad’s an asshole. I spent most of my life pissing him off or pleasing him in one way or another. That stopped a long time ago. I also have ambition which makes walking around with a male whore something of a contradiction. I’m doing it anyway. Because I can’t seem to stay away from you. I’ve fucking tried. And I don’t want to want you. That’s just not how things work I guess.” The quiet that followed had me swallowing a lump the size of a coconut.
“I’m hungry.” Was that his way of forgiving me? Did I even need forgiveness for anything?
“For my cock?”
“Unless you’re prepared to have it fried and dipped in marinara before I chew it, I’d think of something else.”
“That sounds painful.”
“Then I guess you’d better feed me real food, Detective.”
“I’ll hazard a guess that you want Italian.”
Lips. That is all.
Peter ate enthusiastically but with a delicacy that surprised me. Every bite he placed carefully in his gorgeous mouth, licking off any remaining sauce from his lips. I barely ate my food because I fixated on the ritual before me. My mouth watered, but not for food.
“When are you going to let me kiss you?” I finally asked.
He sucked at his fork and then set it down. That was on purpose, right? That fucking had to be on purpose. “When you beg for my dick in your ass,” he said a little too loudly.
Plates clinked and a few gasps resounded in the distance, and I blushed. “That was on purpose,” I accused and smiled apologetically at the old couple gaping at us from a nearby table. Change of subject was in order. “Anyway, how’d you know I was a closet case?”
Wiping his lips with his napkin, he set it beside his cleaned plate. Both his brows and lips were lifted in amusement. “Have you ever done anything with a guy?” I shook my head and sat back.
“Guys don’t need to woo or date,” he said. “Most, anyway. We fuck. We suck. We sometimes become boyfriends afterwards. There’s no courtship. Not always true, but for the most part.” He shrugged.
“You don’t think that you have a jaded opinion because you were— of what you…did?”
“Because I was a whore you mean? It’s not that much of a stigma in the gay community, Austin.” I longed to be the glass of water he lifted to his mouth.
“You seemed offended when I called you one,” I pointed out.
“Because,” he stared through the couple at the next table, then back to me. “Because of the way you said it.”
“Maybe I just don’
t like thinking of you with other men.”
“Or maybe you classify hustlers as worthless,” he threw back.
“Maybe I did,” I agreed, emphasizing the past tense.
He smiled and took another sip of water, standing up as he did so. “I have to go take a piss,” he announced. The web of his hand blurrily displayed through the glass as he set it down. I locked on to the blue stain—that strange tattoo. Same place, almost the same design.
The first one I had seen was a little less defined, and reminded me of amateur tattoos done with a Bic pen and mom’s sewing needle. Peter’s tat was more refined than Jesse’s, but they were identical in lettering: “ISS”. With the s’s overlapping.
A continuous mental image looped in my mind: Jesse sliding his money onto the table the last time I saw him. I didn’t pay much attention to the tattoo back then, just thought it was weird. I did remember pondering where he got twenty bucks to toss down, so the moment stood out. Dave and I had made a pact. After months of seeing the money we gave him funneled up his nose or down his throat, we decided: no cash. We’d pay his rent, food, anything else, but nothing he could use to buy drugs or booze. Now I knew what we had done—what we had forced Jesse into. He had been whoring himself out. Ten years later, I finally understood a little of what our friend had been reduced to, and maybe, why he gave up.
As Peter walked away, I could almost feel the hiss in my chest releasing thirteen years of oppression. A dawning of understanding washed over me. Peter was the Jesse that could have been. And some piece of me believed the universe gave me a do-over.
Not only was I an asshole for reasoning like that, but it was dangerous. Peter was dangerous.
I didn’t care. This was it. My heart pounding in my chest, I debated on whether to follow him or sit—or run. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. Then I got up, leaving a fifty on the table.
Shattered Glass Page 12
