He wasn’t looking for a do-over with Spider, precisely, but he figured he ought to double-check they were cool. He asked for Spider at the cash register, but the girl said Spider wasn’t coming in.
“Day off?” he asked. “When do you expect him?”
The surly way she eyed him was an unpleasant surprise. “When he gets better. What do you think?”
“Is he sick?” Dismay that Spider wasn’t there to smile and wink at him turned into real concern. “Is he—”
“He lives upstairs.” She crossed her arms over her ample—and amply tattooed—chest and cocked her head in a way that either meant she was a total badass or she’d swallowed a hockey stick. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
“Okay… sure. I will.” What is your fucking problem? He stomped around the counter and headed for the blast-furnace kitchen in back, looking for a way to the upstairs. One of the pizza cooks took pity on him. He directed Theo out the back door and then pointed toward a circular flight of rickety-looking metal stairs. Theo bounced up them, eventually going two at a time because they creeped him out. He knocked on Spider’s door.
He heard slow footsteps on the other side. A long pause before the scrape of a chain. A deadbolt slid back. The sight that met him when the door opened—even through the opacity of a filthy screen door—elicited a gasp. “My God, what the fuck happened to you?”
“S’nothing.” Shaking his head slowly, Spider pushed the screen door open.
“Motherfucker.” Aghast, he took in Spider’s condition. Up close it was far worse. “Talk to me. Please. Tell me.”
Again, Spider shook his head. He’d obviously been jumped. He was shirtless, which made it all too easy to tally up the damage. Two black eyes. Nose broken? Bruises, contusions, abrasions, plus a laceration to one cheek. Split lip. Came from a ring, probably; it would be easy as fuck to prove assault when they found the owner. Nobody ever got every last bit of blood and tissue from jewelry. Spider had clearly delineated boot prints on his back, chest, and torso. They’d probably be able to match the type of shoe on TV, but… who was he kidding? Crime scene was probably long gone, along with the dudes who did it. Unless Spider knew who they were—
“Who did this?”
“You’ll never find them…. They had, like… foreign accents and shit. I don’t have a clue who they were.”
“No.” Theo couldn’t think straight. He already had his phone out to dial Calista’s number. He needed her—she was his partner. Calista’s phone went to voicemail, and he hung up.
He dialed Koa instead and asked Spider again. “Tell me who did this. I am going to fuck them up. The minute you tell me who did this—they’re mine. Got it? I’ll get Koa in on this and we will fuck their shit up so bad. This is our home, Spider. Nobody does this to you here.”
“No… it’s over.” Spider’s warm, happy smile—the one Theo had no clue he’d gotten so attached to—was nowhere to be seen when his hands closed over Theo’s phone. He took it away and cancelled the call. “I just got a little tuned up.”
“When? Last night? Did you get mugged? Was it a hate crime? Did someone give you a hard time ’cause you’re—”
“No, hush. It was nothing like that.” As if he were a hundred years old, he backed up and allowed Theo all the way inside. “Come on into the kitchen. You can make me a cup of tea.”
“Okay, but—” He must have been gay bashed or mugged, right? He wouldn’t call Spider an asshole tourist-looking dude, but maybe someone figured him for one…. An explosion of rage went off behind his eyes, and Theo wanted to stab a knife into his own thigh because he couldn’t think clearly.
He’d taken Spider out to fuck him—on his mother’s land, for God’s sake—let him walk away, and this was the result.
“Did this happen because I didn’t drive you home last night? Did this happen because—”
“Oh, honey, no!” Jesus, Spider sounded exactly like Theo’s mother. How could that be? He’d somehow mimicked her way of chiding him. It drew Theo in and appalled him at the same time, because the sound was so compelling, so… vulnerable and familiar and triggering…. It was as if this happened to his mother.
How could I let this happen? “I should have given you a ride,” he groaned. “Did you make a police report?”
Too softly, Spider said, “No.”
“Why the fuck not?” Trying to understand—trying to hold on to his temper and his anxiety—was killing him. “Who. Did. This. To you?”
“Some guys! I don’t even know. It’s already in my rearview mirror.”
Using the words every follower of Detweiler’s cult-like Plummet philosophy was required to accept as final would have been a stroke of genius, except Theo was a cop, not just a plummeteer.
“Some guy? How many? Were you robbed?”
“Not…” Bleak acceptance. “…in so many words.”
What the ever-loving fuck had happened? Spider’d had a couple beers, so he’d been feeling happy-go-lucky. He’d been a little wasted, but not too drunk to make good decisions.
Had he hooked up with someone who didn’t appreciate his smart mouth?
Had he run into one of the many self-hating queers who trolled for pretty boys just to shake off their anguish. A dude got robbed of his choices sometimes. He got robbed of his illusions. You never got those things back. Theo’s heart ached like it was on fire.
“You need a rape kit?” he asked quietly.
“No.” With an unhappy grimace, Spider straightened his spine. Theo acknowledged his expression as brave and proud. “The sex was consensual. The beating was not.”
Theo forced himself to meet Spider’s gaze without flinching. To meet Spider’s wounded dignity with compassion, without offering unwanted advice, even though a thousand words of caution and consolation and recrimination flooded his mouth. Sometimes things got so bad he salivated platitudes—but this he knew: to communicate with people, he had to let them talk too.
“Tell me what you need?”
Spider shook his head sadly. “A friend? A beer?”
“If it’d be okay with you,” Theo said cautiously, “I’d like to take you to a clinic and get you looked over by a doctor.”
Spider sighed. “I saw my doctor. I’m not a moron.”
Theo relaxed. “No internal injuries?”
“Piss had blood in it, so yeah. Bruised a kidney, I guess.” When Spider turned and Theo saw a heel mark, frost laced over his heart. He’d find out. Someone knew what happened. Someone saw. Whoever did that to Spider hit him enough times—that person’s hands would be totally fucked up from Spider’s teeth. That’s what decided Theo, finally.
“Will you please come home with me, Spider?” For once, he allowed how he was feeling to show. It surprised him that his human face didn’t crack; he hadn’t used it in a long, long time. “Let me look after you until you feel better.”
“If it’s not too much trouble, that’d be… awesome. Really.” Spider’s composure deserted him. He covered his split lip, obviously trying not to cry. Theo put both arms around him.
“Shh. Sweetheart.” Whoever had ruined Spider’s smile—even temporarily—was going to pay and pay and pay.
He needed to talk to Koa about this. This wasn’t about Waikiki, with its hourly influx of strangers from all over the world. He’d taken Spider home, and this… this awful thing had to have happened right on the street where his mother walked with the grandkids.
“Is it okay if I tell Koa? He lives there. He’s going to want to hear about it.”
“I’m sure he’ll find out anyway.” Gently, Spider pushed away. “There was an… incident.”
“What kind of incident.”
“I declined to make a police report. But there were a couple uniforms there, after. Someone called in a noise complaint.” He shivered. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Not if you don’t want to.” But Theo wasn’t happy. He wasn’t done asking questions. He was a man of simple needs. If the attack on
Spider was random, he needed the assholes who did it behind bars. If the attack was targeted—if Spider was targeted because he was gay or because he liked cops—then Theo needed the assholes who did it behind bars after experiencing a taste of what happened to Spider. Not very Plummet-based thinking.
His inner caveman howled for revenge.
“Your face is doing a really sexy thing right now.” Spider gave a pained smile. “What are you thinking?”
“If my face looks sexy to you right now? I think… you’ve got a complicated idea of what’s sexy.”
Chapter Nine
THEO UNLOCKED his front door and opened it wide. He let Spider precede him into a space full of early evening light—golden orange transitioning to pinks and violets in a sunset spectacular enough for a picture postcard.
“Thank you again for doing this.” Spider hugged his duffel pathetically with both arms.
“I’ll feel better if I can make sure you’re okay. You take the bed.” Theo suspected Spider was going to enjoy having someone to take care of him. Since it dovetailed with Theo’s Integrity, Respect, and Fairness in the Spirit of Aloha gig, and taking care of people was why he got into law enforcement in the first place, Theo got enormous personal satisfaction from having him there. He pointed to the bed. “I’ll get you some tea.”
“I can help—”
“Do you know what my mother would do to me if she thought I let my date get hurt and then didn’t do everything I could to help?” Theo wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Believe me, you’ll be doing me a favor.”
“This had nothing to do with you. I swear”—Spider’s voice cracked—“this was all me.”
“Tell me again,” Theo implored. “Go over all of it so I understand.”
“There’s nothing more to tell. I met up with a friend on the way home and we got to talking”—the way he averted his eyes told Theo a helluva lot more than that happened, but who cared, really—“someplace pretty private, but not entirely private.”
Spider should be safe with his friends on the street. People made mistakes. They got carried away. Didn’t give anyone a right to hurt them.
“Go on.”
“I guess I was a little wasted, and maybe I pissed off the wrong dudes or whatever.”
Spider had changed his story twice—no, three times now. You couldn’t force someone to talk. You could only remind them you were on their side. If he was doing it to protect himself, that was one thing. If he’d gotten into a fight and didn’t want Theo to know about it. But Theo’s gut told him that wasn’t what this was.
Spider’s stubborn refusal to answer questions protected someone else. Either a criminal asshole or someone he cared about. And because of that, Theo wanted more than ever to talk to Koa, who knew Spider personally, who was presumably his friend. For once Theo had to give Koa his due. Theo wasn’t from around here.
But Koa’d know what to do.
To get Spider settled, Theo offered him a shower and a change of clothes.
“Don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything, okay?”
“You really are a Boy Scout, aren’t you?” Spider leaned against the bathroom door and buried his face in the super soft, brand-new bath sheet Theo gave him.
“No.” Did Boy Scouts plan terrifying revenge? “I’m not.”
“It’s okay.” Spider dropped his hands to give him that sad look again, the one that said you’re a fool, and I like you anyway, before closing the door between them. But it wasn’t okay at all. Spider was obviously in pain. This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen to Theo’s friends.
Koa answered on the first ring. “Palapiti.”
“My place.” Theo didn’t waste time. “We got a situation.”
“Who and who’s going?”
“Just me. You hear Spider got fucked up last night?” Silence for too long a time. “Bro?”
“I didn’t. How bad?” Koa asked.
“Bad. You know where I live at now?”
“Yeah,” Koa admitted. “Your mom told me you’re in that new condo place. Which number?” Theo told him. “On my way.”
Fuck it. What was his mother doing, keeping Koa apprised of every move he made? Koa is not the boss of me.
After Koa hung up, Theo got himself a beer. He took it out to the balcony because when he heard the shower running all he could think of was Spider’s lean, thin frame covered in welts, lacerations, and deep bruising. Goddammit.
Despite the sudden urge to double-check on Spider, Theo forced himself to stay outside. Rather, there wasn’t a window, and he only listened at the door a couple times. When the sliding door finally opened and Spider joined him, he was proud of himself for showing that much restraint. Spider looked better, actually; his face was no longer covered in sweat and grime. Still, his face and body were battered as fuck, and he moved like an old dude.
“Sit.” Theo pushed one of two nice padded chairs Spider’s way. “I’ll get you a water.”
“I’d rather have a beer,” said Spider.
“Your kidneys can wait on that. What do you think?”
Spider acquiesced. Theo returned with two waters and handed one to Spider, who drained half in one go. “Slow, please. I can make you a sandwich to go with that, if you like.”
Spider shook his head. “Still a little queasy.”
“Concussion? Did you really see a doctor?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
The knock on the door said “law enforcement,” even if Koa didn’t bother identifying himself.
“Who’s that?” Spider gripped the arms of his chair. “Who did you call?”
“Detective Palapiti.”
“Why would you do that?” Spider leaped from his chair. “I told you I won’t report this.”
“I didn’t call him because he’s a cop, Spider. I called him because—” Because he’s Kekoa. “I thought he was your friend.”
Bang. Bang. Another knock accompanied by a shout this time. “C’mon, Te, I don’t got all day.”
Spider let Theo open the door. Theo saw the exact moment when Koa’s brain registered Spider’s presence, because he paled.
“Jesus. What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m fine.” If Spider’s spine got any more rigid, he’d break in two.
“He’s not fine,” Theo announced unnecessarily.
Spider shot him a look that should have maimed him, at the very least. Koa merely said, “That’s some terrific pointing out of the obvious, there.”
Koa hid his emotions brilliantly. Theo often worried hiding his meant losing control of them, or losing them altogether—becoming the guy who shows up to an early-morning crime scene with a Toaster Strudel in one hand and a flask in the other. So while Theo allowed his anger to show, except for the slight pallor he probably couldn’t control, Koa’s face might have been granite.
“He should have seen a doctor. We’re not clear yet on whether that occurred.” Theo dared Spider to fess up.
“Way to be awesome, Te,” Spider muttered. “I called a friend who’s a nurse, okay? I didn’t see a doctor.”
“And what did your friend say?”
“See a doctor.” Spider remained petulant. The brief flash of anger Theo caught in Koa’s eyes meant he wasn’t so chill after all. No one else would have caught it, but maybe Theo still knew him after all.
“You want anything to drink? I’ve got beer, tea. Water.”
“No, thanks.” Koa hadn’t even glanced around at his place. This wasn’t exactly how Theo’d pictured this moment. And he had pictured it, goddammit.
“I don’t want to invade your privacy, Spider.” Theo wanted what was best for him; couldn’t he see that? “If you think of a way for me to help, let me know.”
“Do you think you could let me and Koa have some privacy?” Spider asked.
Dismayed, Theo glanced around. There was nowhere to go inside the apartment. And if he went onto the balcony, he’d be stuck there for God knows
how long. He looked into Koa’s eyes again. The man gave away nothing, which seemed weird, considering how far they went back. You’d think he’d at least shoot a guy a cajoling smile or make a play for some kind of familiarity if he wanted his behavior to escape notice. It was almost as if he was daring Theo to take him on faith or fuck off.
Koa carried a mile-wide chip on his shoulder. And if Spider wanted privacy, then… whatever.
“I’ll go get coffee.” Theo picked his keys off the hook next to the door and grabbed his phone and wallet. “You have my number.”
Spider caught his sleeve. “Thanks.”
He turned and kissed Spider gently on the corner of his lips. “If Koa doesn’t take good care of you, I’ll beat him up.”
“You and what army?” Koa’s frown wasn’t quite as… frowny. His eyes radiated a warmth Theo hadn’t seen in them since the night outside the bar. My God. Had he cracked some part of the Kekoa code? Had he leveled up in his old friend’s eyes? Gone from hopeless wannabe to…. What exactly does Koa see when he looks at me?
Theo stepped out the door. I probably don’t want the answer to that.
Theo almost walked past Ragno. He wasn’t hungry, and the girl at the counter had treated him like the Antichrist earlier. But it was as good a place as any to get a beer. And he wanted to learn anything he could from her, as well as anyone else who worked there, about what happened to Spider. If he drank there, he could ask.
“What’re you having?” The girl with the tats was tending bar now apparently, because some equally colorful young person stood behind the register.
“Whatever’s on tap. IPA?”
“Spider’s at your place now?”
“Yeah. It’s just”—he motioned toward the complex—“next door practically. I can give you the apartment number if you want. Feel free to visit.”
“It’s fine. I’m sorry about how I acted before. I thought he was being stupid again.”
“Again? How?” Spider seemed reckless. Not stupid.
“How do you think?” As though he should know what she was talking about, she gave an eye roll. “He hooked up with someone who gave him a beating like that a while back.”
Hawaii Five Uh-Oh Page 8
