by Rhys Ford
An unknown man held Jae tight in a paw of a hand, his thick fingers closing over Jae’s upper arm. He was bundled up against the cold, while Jae shivered in what looked like clothes he’d borrowed from a giant. The jut of his jaw angrily challenged me to do something about his firm grip, dark stubble darkening his wind-pinked skin.
I rose to the occasion. Easy enough to do. The sight of Jae’s pale face alarmed me. His weaving shoulders downright scared me.
“Let him go.” I grabbed at Jae, holding him up. The man tugged, pulling back. I wasn’t being menacing enough, so I pushed at the man’s shoulder with my free hand, shoving him back down the first step of the stoop. “You’re going to lose your fucking hand if you don’t let go right now.”
“He owes me money for a cab ride.” A thick Slavic accent made him almost impossible to understand, and his eyebrows knitted down into a single line over his broad nose, suspicion curling his mouth. “I let go and he goes inside without me getting paid.”
“I don’t have any money.” Jae’s breath was cold on my neck, and he shivered when the warmth of the house hit him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t….”
“No, it’s okay,” I said, hoping it sounded reassuring. Turning to the cab driver, I told him to wait a second while I got my wallet from the table in the hallway. Pulling out a few twenties, I shoved them into his hand and closed the door in his face, grabbing at Jae before he slid down the wall in a jumble of bones and bruised meat.
He squeaked, trying to hold himself up with the flats of his hands, but his legs gave out under him. Pitching forward, he made an inelegant tumble into my arms, his knees splayed apart. Breathing hard, he mumbled an apology and tried righting himself, only to fall forward again. Slipping off the pair of oversized flip-flops he wore almost sent him to the floor, and I clutched at him again, catching him.
“Did you tell Scarlet you were leaving? Shit, Jae. What the hell were you thinking?” His hands slapped at mine, warning me off. He was determined to stand on his own two feet, and I was just as determined to help him.
“Nuna knows I’d come here,” Jae grumbled, trying to shove my hands away. “And no, I didn’t tell her.”
“Stop before you hurt yourself.” Muttering at him did no good, so I tried scolding. “God, you’ve got as much sense as your cat.”
“Fuck you. I have sense,” he shot back, fighting me to stand up. He wove slightly, shoving my hands away when I reached to support him. “Where is she?”
The cat in question miaowed loudly from the landing, screaming her displeasure at me. Hooking my arm under his, I lifted, letting his weight rest on my shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”
“I can crash on the couch,” Jae said, motioning to the living room. “Neek-neek, come.”
“Can you let me win one argument? Just humor me and let me get you up there.” I was glad to see the cat blissfully ignored him as she did me, sitting down to chew on her toes. “And why the hell aren’t you in the damned hospital? Who let you out at six in the morning?”
“I checked myself out,” he replied, letting me guide him up the stairs. The cat screamed, a demanding beacon. Either she was playing lighthouse or was giving directions to the bed. Whichever it was, she definitely had an opinion about it. “Hospitals are too expensive, Cole.”
The climb up the stairs was tiring his abused lungs, and I stopped at the landing, letting him rest. His black daemon slammed herself into his ankles, and he smiled, an open, bright grin that made my heart stutter. It changed his face, washing away the ice and blooming a warmth over his mouth.
“I told you I’d pay for it.” I didn’t want to let him go, but he bent forward to scoop Neko up. She glared at me from her perch on his shoulder, rubbing her nose on his jaw and peeling her black lips from her fangs.
“You’re crazy. You’ve known me for, what? Three days? Four, maybe? Bad enough I came here.” Jae inhaled hard, getting his breath back. “I can’t afford a hospital. I still send my mother money for my sisters, and I’m not going to make any money for a while until I get the insurance money for my cameras. If they give me money. The police said it looks suspicious.”
“The police came by?” I slung my arm around his waist, letting him settle against me. “When? After I left or before?”
“After.” He shifted the cat, holding her in the crook of his arm. The walk to the bedroom was short, punctuated only by Neko’s mew of protest when she was placed on the mattress. “Those two that were at Jin-Sang’s. They asked where you were. I don’t think they like you.”
“No, they probably don’t,” I conceded. As far as a lot of cops were concerned, I’d asked for what I got. The truth sometimes didn’t matter to the boys in blue. “What did they say?”
“They asked me again what I was doing at Jin-Sang’s and if I thought someone was trying to kill me.” He shrugged as if being questioned by the cops was an everyday thing. “They also asked me if I was sleeping with you.”
“What did you say?” I asked through the open door of the bathroom. There were extra toothbrushes somewhere in the linen closet. They’d apparently gone on safari, and I had to find one for Jae.
“I told them we hadn’t gotten to sleeping yet,” he responded, a teasing lilt in his voice.
“I’m sure that won them over.” I placed the toothbrush package on the nightstand, along with a disposable razor, although I couldn’t see even a shadow on his face. “I mean about Jin-Sang.”
“That I knew Hyun-Shik’s suicide note was really a part of the letter he wrote and that he should talk to you.” Jae scratched at his cat’s belly, a far braver man than I’d ever be to come close to those dainty claws. “They asked me if I saw who shot me, but I told them I didn’t.”
“Did you?”
“What? See who shot me?” He shook his head. “No. Someone came up behind me and the gun went off before I turned around all the way. I told them that before, but I don’t think they believe me.”
“If the shooter was in Jin-Sang’s apartment already, then whoever it was heard you talk about the note,” I said softly. That didn’t bode well for Jae. Someone out there knew he had concrete knowledge of Jin-Sang’s involvement with Hyun-Shik’s death. He blinked like an owl when I told him I thought he was in danger. “Really, Jae. I want you to be careful. It’s why Scarlet and I thought it would be better if you were here with me, where I could watch you.”
“I thought it was because nuna lived with hyung and he can’t afford any more scandal,” he said, pursing his mouth. I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me or serious. “Scarlet-ah, everyone knows about them, but me? It won’t look good if I stay there with them. Hyung doesn’t need that. Nuna doesn’t either.”
“Probably that too,” I said. There were things going on in the background of this whole mess that I couldn’t wrap my brain around, culturally Korean things that I was ill-equipped to deal with.
“You have no idea who hyungmin is, do you?” Jae laughed at my bemused look. “He is someone big with the Korean embassy. His wife stays in Korea, but Scarlet-ah is who he takes with him wherever he goes. In their lives, the wife is the mistress, and it is nuna that he comes home to. They are all happy with that arrangement.”
“Is that what Hyun-Shik was planning? To turn Victoria into his occasional mistress?”
“Who knows what hyung was doing? I didn’t speak to him much. He was busy with work and his son.” Jae chuffed under the cat’s chin, undulating her disgruntled mews. “She’s complaining about the bed.”
“Don’t listen to her. The bed was fine for her scrawny carcass last night.” Giving her the evil eye back, I held out the sheets for him to get under. There were little bruises on his throat, marks from the flying debris of the explosion. “Lie down, and we’ll talk in a few hours when it’s a reasonable hour. I’ll grab some sheets, then turn off the light so you can get some sleep.”
“Where are you going?” I almost didn’t hear him from the depths of the closet.
“The other bedroom has a Murphy bed. I’ll sleep there.” Tugging at a pillow on a high shelf, I ducked when a barrage of linens fell on top of me, burying my feet. I left the mess there, too tired to care and concerned about the fatigue in Jae’s voice.
Carrying out the lone pillow, I stood by the bed, looking down at his drawn face. Despite the bruised look under his eyes, he took the breath from my lungs. He’d gone past the worrisome point on my radar and shot straight down into hellish trouble.
“Can’t you stay here?” His teeth dimpled his lower lip, eyes large and dark in the low light. “Please? I need you to stay.”
It was a mistake, but I nodded, sliding onto the bed and pulling the sheets over my legs. “Move over a bit.”
Turning the lamp off, I lay back into the pillows, wondering if he could hear the pound of my heart. It seemed very loud to me, nearly reverberating in my eardrums. He stretched out next to me, lying close enough for our bodies to touch. It was a king-sized bed, but the mattress seemed too small, and I felt every movement he made, listening to him breathe.
“Tell me about Rick. What was he like?” Jae murmured, running his fingers along my side. I tensed, unsure about the contact. He traced a ridge of scar under my shirt. Raising the shirt hem, he examined the keloid with his fingers, splaying his palm over the starburst. “If you can.”
I didn’t want to, but Jae deserved to hear the truth. I tried to focus on the facts, numbing the pain in my heart. “What do you want to know?”
“You said he was shot, but that’s all you’ve said.”
“We were having dinner, and I was kissing him goodbye before I had to go back to work. I was a detective then. I worked Vice,” I said, trying not to relive the night. Rick’s grin was a watery screen behind my closed eyes. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing him through tears or time was taking away my memory of his face. “I saw him die before I felt the bullet. He was shot first. Then I was hit and went down.”
“Did they catch who did it?”
The question was so innocent, and I didn’t know how to respond. Of course he’d want to know if the bad guy was caught, but I loved the bad guy as much as I loved Rick. Ben was my best friend, as much of a brother to me as Mike and Bobby.
“My partner, Ben, shot us.” I stumbled over the words, searching for how to talk about losing so much in one night. “He shot Rick in the head first and then me. He emptied his gun out. Later on, another cop found him in our unmarked. He’d killed himself, probably right after he killed Rick.”
“Why? I mean, why did he do it?”
If I had the answer to that, I probably wouldn’t have spent every night since fighting nightmares and sleeplessness. I’d been Ben’s partner longer than I’d known Rick. He’d been a constant in my life, much like Mike. To lose him as well as Rick nearly killed me, and I still had no idea why.
“I don’t know.” Sheila, his wife, had asked me the same question, then walked away when I had no response. I had no idea where she was or what she was doing. I was the godfather to Ben’s oldest daughter. I’d watched their kids on nights when they needed time for their marriage. Sheila cut me out of her life as smoothly as Ben cut Rick out of mine.
“Did he love you?” Jae pushed himself up onto one elbow, dislodging the cat from his leg. “Was Ben in love with you?”
“Baby, Ben didn’t leave us anything. Not a note. Not anything.” Admitting my helplessness was hard. I’d lost three years asking that same question: why. And still was no closer to an answer. “I went nuts for a bit afterwards. Didn’t know up from down. Bobby helped me out. Redoing this place gave me something to do while I tried to figure things out.”
“Then you became an investigator?”
“Gave me something to do. I missed working Vice. I thought it would be a lot of divorce cases,” I admitted. “Finding dead bodies wasn’t on the agenda.”
“I didn’t want to be one of the dead bodies you found.” Jae sighed, pulling my shirt back down. I briefly missed the warmth of his hand. Then he tucked himself against me, hooking his ankle over my shin. I burned under his touch. He was making me crazy with his breath on my neck.
“Jae, why did you ask how Rick died?”
“I didn’t. I asked what Rick was like. I wanted to know why you loved him,” Jae said, nesting into the pillows. “How he lived is more important to me than how he died. Maybe it should be for you too, no?”
LYING next to Jae was torture. I’d sooner have been able to fall asleep under a water drip than endure the feel of him against me. Every little hitch in his breath jerked me out of my doze, and I turned to check on him, staring down at his prone body until I was sure he was breathing okay. His cat gave me owl eyes from her perch at the end of the bed, and finally I got up and headed downstairs.
“Don’t worry. He’s safe from me right now,” I informed her, sitting on the bottom of the stairs. I tied off my second sneaker when the house phone rang, and I scrambled for it, not wanting the ring to wake Jae up. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Princess.” Bobby laughed at my breathlessness. “What the hell are you doing? Wet dreams at your age?”
“Dick.”
“And a big one too,” he teased back. “What time do you want to head over to the hospital to go stare at your pretty little boy?”
“No need,” I said, wandering into the living room. “The pretty little boy checked himself out of the hospital this morning and came here. I’ve already had a round of why-did-you-do-something-that-stupid with him and lost miserably.”
I left out the discussion about Rick and Ben. Jae’s words were too raw in my brain still, scraping diligently away at bleeding scabs. I didn’t want to admit to missing Ben. Hell, I didn’t want to admit to wanting Jae, but I did that. Under duress.
“Nice.” Bobby whistled under his breath. “What are you doing talking to me?”
“Small thing called smoke inhalation? Oh, and common sense.” I reminded him. “I was going for a run to get the cobwebs out.”
“Want me to go with you? It’ll take me a few minutes, but I can get over there.”
“Nah, I’m okay. Just going around the block a couple of times to work off the edge. Maybe do some thinking.” The rain spat at the window, a gentle patter compared to the deluge earlier. It would be a good time to run, cool enough to push myself into a good sweat. “Come by later if you want. You won’t be interrupting anything.”
“God, you are the stupidest asshole I know.” Bobby hissed at me through the phone.
“I seriously doubt that.” I laughed at him. “I’ve seen the guys you take home, old man. I’m going to go running.”
My cell phone weighted down a pocket of my sweats, and with luck, I’d be back before Jae woke up. I didn’t have a lot of faith that his cat wouldn’t chew on the piece of paper I’d left on the nightstand, obliterating the number into illegibility. Closing the door behind me, I shook the tired off my body.
The air outside smelled of asphalt and puke, a perfume wafting over from the bar across the street. Tar glistened from its wash, black smears left on the sidewalk from a failed roofing attempt by the Indian restaurant a few doors down. Hooking my foot against the stoop, I stretched, letting the burn of my muscles try to warn me off, but I sternly told my legs we were going for a run no matter what they said.
I wasn’t even going to acknowledge the suggestions my cock whispered at me.
The pound of the sidewalk on my feet felt good. Falling into a steady pace, I let my mind go, feeling only the rush of air in my lungs and on my face. The scar along my ribs started to ache, seizing up. I worked through it, pressing the flat of my hand against my side. A cramp began to spasm under my palm after another mile, and I finally gave in, slowing to a trot before stopping, bending over to gain control of my breathing.
I was just about to head back when gravel hit the sidewalk next to me, popped up by wide tires. Lifting my eyes, I grimaced at Bobby’s wide grin and nonchalant wave. The sides of his truck were caked with mu
d, drying chunks falling off and landing in the gutter by my feet. Dressed in a flannel shirt and ball cap, all he was missing was a coonhound riding in the bed and maybe a gun rack to complete the picture. The passenger window rolled down smoothly, and his grin got wider when I eyed him suspiciously.
“You look like a redneck,” I said, steadying my breathing. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me heaving to catch air.
“Get in, Princess. And I come from fine redneck stock,” he shot back, reaching over to unlock the door for me. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Peaches and hunting, that’s what makes America the fine, proud country that it is.”
“You were in the closet way too long.” I slid gratefully into the truck’s cab. The air conditioning felt good on my heat-soaked skin. Grabbing the towel he offered me, I wiped at the sweat on my face and neck and cracked open a bottle of water he had in the cup holder, draining half of it down my dusty throat. “Next, you’ll be listening to country western.”
“Young boys don’t get as sweaty dancing to country music as they do techno,” Bobby pointed out. “Sweaty boys lead to half-naked boys, which is a thing of beauty to a gay man. In case you forgot.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” How could I forget? I had a thing of beauty in my bed which I’d left to go running. “God, I’m an idiot.”
“Glad you’ve finally realized what we’ve all known.” Bobby swore at the Mini that cut in front of him. “Damn specks. Now, why are you an idiot this time?”
“Because I’ve got Jae-Min in my bed and no damned idea who killed his cousin.” I wanted to rub the tired out of my skin, but it was nothing a strong cup of coffee couldn’t take care of. “I’ve got no suspects.”
“Did you tell the cops?” Bobby slanted me a look before pulling into a drive-through coffee hut. He ordered two black coffees with sugar, pulling up to the window to pay.
“It was ruled a suicide, remember? As far as they’re concerned, he did it to himself,” I responded, taking one of the paper cups. The steam smelled great, invigorating my senses. “Shit, I don’t know that he didn’t kill himself. It’s a whole bunch of maybes.”
