Other Half (PsyCop book 12)

by Jordan Castillo Price

  “You could’ve just said no,” Jacob told me.

  “It’s fine.” There was bran stuck between my teeth and the raisins had left behind a shriveled-grape aftertaste—but I hated being late even more than I hated raisins. “Let’s just focus on getting to our appointment.”

  25

  WE PEELED INTO the church parking lot with no time to spare and booked it down to the pastor’s drab office.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Jacob said. “We’re having some issues with my grandmother.”

  I supposed that was true. Technically.

  We settled ourselves on the loveseat. Belatedly, I realized we hadn’t pre-scanned the PDF, and resigned myself to winging it. Which always worked out so well.

  Pastor Jill said, “Since we’re coming up on the wedding the day after tomorrow, I figured we should pull out the big guns today.” Jacob and I both stiffened—because in our line of work, guns are literal. But the pastor was armed with nothing more daunting than a notebook. “Now, don’t roll your eyes—but we need to talk about the languages of love.”

  I might not have rolled my eyes…but I did narrow them.

  “I know, I know,” she said, “kinda cheesy. But I can’t tell you how many couples I’ve counseled that just don’t know how to appreciate each other. Let’s start with gifts. Vic, what was the last gift you gave Jacob?”

  “Well, I, uh…. Christmas?”

  The pastor’s eyebrows hitched up in surprise.

  Jacob said, “You did pick up that sunscreen for me the other day.”

  True. But I was at the drugstore and he wasn’t. “In my defense, Jacob’s birthday isn’t until next month.”

  Pastor Jill said, “So, Vic, what you’re saying is you only give gifts on special occasions? And how do you feel about receiving them?”

  Jacob failed to stifle a humorless laugh.

  I said, “I’m what you might call a minimalist.”

  Jacob nodded. “Gift-giving isn’t really something we do.”

  “And, be honest now, Jacob—would you like Vic to present you with tokens of affection, or is it more that you’re trying to adapt to his preferences?”

  Like Jacob’s ever adapted to a thing in his life…but I will admit, I was curious as to how he’d respond.

  He considered the question for a moment, then said, “Maybe cooking dinner is the closest I come to gift-giving. But isn’t that more for me than for him? I’m sure it sounds old-fashioned, but I like being the provider.”

  Pastor Jill nodded vigorously. “Interesting. A very perspicacious observation.”

  Okay, I may have rolled my eyes at that.

  She cracked a grin. “That means insightful…but I just like the way all the letter p’s and c’s dance through the word. But the dinner thing also fits another category: acts of service.” That sounded X-rated…but I doubted she was talking about the same kind of service. “In a partnership, it’s important that both sides feel like they’re shouldering a fair amount of the burden. And sometimes the best way to show someone you love them is to lighten their load. Jacob, aside from the sunscreen, what’s the last thing Vic has done for you?”

  Jack squat, I was tempted to say, but without missing a beat, Jacob said, “The supper club. I was busy and Vic took care of it. He handled it so I didn’t have to.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” I muttered. “Not until we’ve actually seen the napkins.”

  Pastor Jill turned to me. “Did you realize, at the time, how much your taking care of that task would mean to Jacob?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t say I gave it much thought.” Mostly, I was trying to duck out of the argument between him and his sister. Wasn’t I?

  “And did he verbally thank you at the time?”

  “No. Why should he? It’s my wedding, too.” Now Jacob was staring at me—I could feel the laser beam look aimed at the side of my head. I turned to him. “You don’t need to thank me for being a grown-up, y’know.”

  “I know,” he said gently.

  “Because that would be pretty weird.”

  He nodded. “I get it.”

  “So long as we’re on the same page.”

  “We are.”

  Pastor Jill said to me, “It sounds like verbal affirmations of gratitude make you uncomfortable.”

  “I just think it’s ridiculous, is all.”

  “Really.”

  “It’s important to me to carry my own weight. No thanks are required.”

  “I see.”

  “Am I being psychoanalyzed?”

  “Just making observations.”

  Yeah, right. Nothing is just an observation—plus Pastor Jill was looking at me expectantly. Finally, I realized what she was getting at. I sighed and asked Jacob, “Do you need me to thank you more often?”

  He shifted in his seat. “Not because I don’t feel appreciated. More like letting me know I’m on the right track. You can be…hard to read sometimes.”

  Weird. I’ve always felt like an open book, at least where Jacob was concerned. “If that’s what you want, I’ll start thanking you.”

  “You don’t need to go overboard or anything.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Pastor Jill said, “Is that your fallback response? It’s fine?”

  Oh, I was being psychoanalyzed all right. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to put you on the spot. But your partner just said you’re hard to read. And then you replied that something was fine, but your tone said otherwise. Think about it this way. We’re here to communicate, and this is a great opportunity for you to tell Jacob how you really feel about the subject of gratitude and appreciation.”

  With everyone putting me on the spot, it was hard to collect my thoughts, but I did my best. “Jacob, you seriously don’t need to thank me—in fact, I’d prefer you didn’t. One of the things I like about us is that our personalities, our skills, seem so complementary. You’re the one I lean on, and I’d like to think it’s the same the other way around. No thank-yous required on my end.” I jostled his knee with mine. “But since it means something to you, I’ll make an effort to say it out loud.”

  Jacob was somewhat mollified. He asked Pastor Jill, “If Vic doesn’t want gifts or thanks, then how am I supposed to let him know I appreciate him?”

  The pastor nodded toward our knees, which were still touching. “Physical touch is a powerful language—and it’s also one of the five ways to express your appreciation.” Huh. Jacob and I both went very still, and she hastened to add, “I’m not just talking about sex, either. And I think, in your case, it’s complicated by the fact that as a same-sex couple, in certain social situations it might feel safer not to touch. And, I’m sorry to say, that assessment is probably true sometimes. But even a casual touch—say, to the back of a hand—can speak volumes.”

  Maybe for your average couple. For us, though, it meant we thought surveillance was listening in.

  Jacob said, “There’s a certain image to maintain. At work.”

  “That must be stressful sometimes.”

  Jacob took my hand deliberately in his—luckily not the freshly healed hand—and gave it a bone-grinding squeeze. “It is.”

  “What about you, Vic? You don’t strike me as a hugger, but you seem comfortable enough with physical contact.”

  Apparently I’d managed not to wince. “With Jacob. Sure.”

  “You say that like it’s a given, but rest assured, it’s not.”

  Well, when she put it that way, I supposed I should be grateful that my years of being poked and prodded at Camp Hell hadn’t left more of a mark.

  26

  ON OUR WAY out to the car, I turned over the idea that Jacob and I communicated best through touch. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, since within moments of officially meeting him, I’d jammed my hand down his pants.

  But Pastor Jill was right about one thing: it wasn’t always practical to grab each other. The FPMP was way more liberal tha
n the police department in its attitude about the gays—but work was work, and even the straight married couples didn’t go around hugging and kissing. So, if Jacob was big on verbal acknowledgement, I’d need to start practicing.

  “Thank you for driving.”

  Jacob gave me the side-eye. “Yeah, that’s weird.”

  “But really—I’m not blowing smoke. Even though I hardly ever see repeaters around here, two minutes outside town, the roads turn into the hairpin turns of death. With deer popping out left and right. And zero streetlights. So even though you’re a real leadfoot when you’re pissed off, I’d still rather have you behind the wheel.”

  I pulled up our infamous calendar to see if we could grab some lunch without missing something important. Maybe. If we were quick about it, we could sneak in a quick bite before we moved on to our next task, dropping off our suits to be pressed. As much as we claimed we were keeping everything small and simple, the to-do list was staggering. Or maybe it just seemed that way because our attention was so divided, thanks to Kamal’s notebook.

  We were just pulling into the restaurant parking lot when a monkey wrench fell into our schedule, thanks to a frantic phone call from our baker. We’d gone with a local up-and-comer for our wedding cake. Not because we were fancy. She was just the first one to answer our email.

  For a millennial, Candy Myer was awfully intense. But so what? Once the cake was ordered, we’d figured our interactions with her were pretty much done.

  And apparently, we’d been mistaken.

  “We have a situation.” Through the phone speaker, Candy’s voice trembled like she was on the verge of tears. “Flip on your video. We need to chat as soon as possible, or else you’ll end up with a supermarket sheet cake for your wedding.”

  “We’re on the road at the moment,” Jacob told her. “It would be easier just to swing by.”

  “From Chicago?”

  “We’re in town,” I said patiently.

  “Ohmigosh. Oh. My. Gosh. Maybe we can save this cake after all.”

  Once we’d hung up and mapped her location—a three-minute drive from where we currently were—I wondered aloud, “Would a sheet cake really be all that bad?”

  When Jacob didn’t answer right away, I thought maybe he was giving the sheet cake option some serious consideration. But instead of redirecting us to the nearest grocery store, he said, “Imagine if our problems actually were this simple. Suits and napkins and cake.”

  Jacob is usually the optimist, so hearing him sound so defeated really hit home. “Maybe they can be our only problems—just for the afternoon.” I grabbed him by the knee and squeezed until my hand bones complained. “I know we’ll both be fully aware that we’re trying to fool ourselves if we stop thinking about Kamal for a few hours. But take it from someone who’s been fake-married. What I’m doing with you, here and now, feels a hell of a lot more real.”

  Jacob got a little misty as he stared down at my naked left hand…but then another call from Candy lit up the dash, and with a sigh, he ignored it and put the car in gear.

  The cake shop looked a lot smaller in person than it did online—and twice as pretentious. And then there was the name: Crumb. Obviously, the owner was missing out on the golden opportunity to call it Candy’s Cakes. Probably guilty of overthinking it.

  We were “downtown,” but instead of skyscrapers and a lakefront, there was a strip of quaint 1800’s buildings and parking meters that accepted nickels. Crumb was a narrow storefront squeezed between a juice bar and a bar-bar, both of which were pimping ridiculously complicated cocktails. The building’s Victorian details had been picked out in a dozen different colors of paint, and business names were gilded on the windows.

  “I remember this place,” Jacob said. “They used to sell cheap donuts, and half the shops around it were empty. They’ve really spruced up the neighborhood.”

  Given what we were paying for their second-smallest wedding cake, I wasn’t surprised they could afford to be so fancy.

  As we were sizing up the joint, Jacob’s phone trilled yet again. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, sending it to voicemail, and we headed in to meet our fate.

  Inside, the store was sparse and eclectic—everything wood, glass and metal—with exposed ductwork and old, scuffed floors that had been left deliberately unfinished. Three vintage cafe tables filled the front room, spindly metal things that looked none too comfortable. A glass counter offered cupcakes “iced to order.” The only decorations on the walls were floating glass boxes with dramatic lighting, each of which contained a truly elaborate cake.

  As desserts went…these cakes felt way too fancy for the likes of me. But the local go-to bakery had a reputation for being overbooked whenever a same-sex couple needed a cake (nothing that could be proven, mind you) so it was either a supermarket sheet cake, or this.

  Though given the wail of frustration that bansheed out from the back…that supermarket cake was looking better and better. Even if we had to scrape “Congratulations, Graduate!” off the top.

  Jacob picked up a filigreed metal hand-bell off the counter and gave it a shake. We both cringed at the ridiculousness of the tiny little tinkle it made. I called out, “Hello—Candy? We’re here.”

  She poked her head around the corner and nearly deflated with relief.

  While I try not to judge people on their looks, let’s face it, we all do. Candy Myer annoyed me. Primarily her glasses. They were big and round and frumpy beyond belief, the type of frames that were the height of fashion…in third grade. They say all things old are new again, and while I could see the whole retro aesthetic working for her cafe tables, those glasses didn’t do her any favors.

  Since she was a high-maintenance vendor who’d insisted on multiple video chats before she even took our deposit, I’d been prepared for the glasses. What I hadn’t banked on was the mom-jeans.

  I truly don’t get millennials.

  “What a relief—you have no idea—I. Can’t. Even!” Candy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “All right. I’ll just come right out and say it. The strawberry coulis is not happening.”

  She needed a meeting for that?

  Apparently, she took our stunned silence as some kind of recrimination. “There’s normally another week left in the season, but with the heavy rain we saw a few weeks ago and an early warm-snap, all my local vendors are tapped out. And now I have nothing to put between your layers.”

  No doubt we could hit the grocery store and grab her a few perfectly serviceable cartons of strawberries. But sourcing local had been the subject of one of our numerous video chats, so I knew better than to offer. Those berries might have come from somewhere outlandish, like Michigan.

  “What about raspberries?” I suggested.

  As if I’d proposed filling the cakes with pterodactyl meat and dodo eggs, Candy said, “Raspberries aren’t in season! They won’t be for weeks.”

  “Vanilla frosting is fine,” Jacob said—and he used his no-nonsense, authoritative voice, too.

  Which didn’t work on Candy….at all. “No it isn’t. It’s too sweet. Far too sweet. You’ve got to balance the sweetness. You need acid.”

  At this point, I definitely did—or at least a Valium. But I hadn’t taken anything stronger than an aspirin since my encounter with the habit demon, and I wasn’t about to start using again over something as trivial as a cake.

  “Mascarpone?” Jacob suggested.

  “With a Genoise sponge? My reputation will never recover.”

  “What about that?” I gestured to the nearest display cake—but not the kind with “naked” frosting, which to my mind looks like I attempted to frost a cake myself…with a hockey stick. “Can’t we just use that one and call it good?”

  Mom-jeans looked at me like I was soft in the head. “That’s a facsimile cake. It’s not real.”

  “I know what facsimile means.” Back in my day, after I walked to the precinct—barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways—my de
sk would be covered in them. But before I got too snippy about it, an incoming text bleeped in my pocket.

  It was our florist. And unlike Candy, he was the epitome of stoicism. The text read: Call ASAP. Flowers DOA.

  Even with the complete lack of drama, it wasn’t a message you’d want to receive two days before your wedding. I tilted the screen so Jacob could see, and he said, “They’re just down the block. Divide and conquer? I’ll sort out the cake filling—and don’t worry. I’ll make sure there aren’t any raisins in it.”

  “I only use sultanas,” Candy interjected, followed by some ramble about a vineyard in the Driftless Region. I wasn’t really listening, though. Mostly, I was harkening back to the couples meeting we’d just come from, and the fact that not only did Jacob’s personality complement mine, but he also knew me pretty darn well.

  “Thank you,” I told him—with no snarkiness whatsoever. Because to say Candy got on my nerves was putting it mildly.

  Normally, I would have left it at that. But then Pastor Jill’s comments about physical touch came to mind. And when could I show affection to my future husband, if not during the process of dickering about a wedding cake?

  I caught his hand and went in for a kiss. He stiffened. This was not something we did outside our own home, in broad daylight—or maybe the car…which probably needed detailing now we’d gotten frisky in it. But we couldn’t claim we needed to act professional for work. Not here, not now.

  Jacob stiffened. We bumped noses, and my lips glanced off his.

  I found myself weirdly disappointed. Yeah, it was just a kiss. But it seemed to me Jacob’s big, gay hometown wedding was a statement—a triumphant affirmation of who he was. And at a time when he was questioning everything, he really needed to plant a flag in the ground and say, “This is who I am.” Especially at a time when he was questioning that very thing.

  I turned to go, but before I got away, he grabbed me by the shoulder and gave the whole kissing thing another shot. This one landed squarely where he’d been aiming, and lingered there, warm and just a little wet, while his strong, warm hand cupped my jaw and our bodies angled to fit our peaks and valleys together.