“I didn’t use you.” He moved in my peripheral vision, striding around the table until he stood right next to me, close enough that I could smell leather and coffee and that scent of him I’d drowned in last night, composed of pheromones and lust and intimacy. Until I could feel the heat of his body, a seductive contrast to the air-conditioned chill of the police station. “I started to. I meant to use you, yeah. To spend enough time with you to get an in at Middleton Marine. And if it’d only gone that far, then—”
“But it didn’t only go that far.” I stepped back. I had to get away from him. He sounded sincere, pleading even. Desperate. And why wouldn’t he? He’d acted like such a fucking douchebag, making me think he wanted me for myself. Who wouldn’t want absolution for the way he’d behaved? But he wanted forgiveness for his sake, not mine. “It didn’t,” I repeated quietly, and finally, finally managed to glance up.
Alec had his fists clenched at his sides, and he leaned forward like he was fighting with himself, one part straining to reach me, the other part keeping the first on a tight leash. His face looked ghostly under the crappy lighting. Drained. Pale and with sunken circles under his eyes, like all the willpower that’d kept him going all day had seeped away in the last five minutes.
“There’s nothing I can say that’ll excuse what I did. But I wanted you from the start. I liked you from the start. Nothing that happened between us—last night, was about anything else. Just me and you. Not the case. I swear to you that’s the truth.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. I really had taken some time to think about it, sitting there gazing into Officer Brown’s I Like Big Busts and I Cannot Lie mug. “But it’s not about the fact that we had sex.” Alec’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened. Nope, not his turn. I cut him off with, “It isn’t, and if you think that’s the problem, too bad, because this is about me, not about you. I would’ve taken you home with me the day we met, so it’s not like I need to trust someone to fuck him, okay? And that’s maybe a problem, but whatever. You let me think all the other stuff, the hand-holding and the ice cream and the taking it slow, were about me, about valuing me. And it wasn’t. It was about you not feeling like a dick, like you would if you fucked someone you wanted to use for information.”
Alec visibly flinched, taking a step back, almost a stumble. Yeah, I’d hit that nail right on the head. It gave me a vicious, self-destructive pleasure. More than anything, I wished he could convince me otherwise. The pathetic, needy part of me that didn’t believe I deserved self-respect kept whispering, It doesn’t matter, let him talk you out of being angry, maybe he’ll like you enough to fuck you again and pretend he likes you a little bit more.
But no, fuck that. I was done being that guy. And it hurt so much to stomp on the tiny little embers of hope still flaring inside me that I knew it had to be the right thing to do.
“It was—okay, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by trying to tell you you’re wrong,” he said hoarsely. “But you’re not completely right, either. Yeah. I would’ve slept with you a lot sooner if I hadn’t been trying to do the right thing. But I still would’ve wanted to do all that. Be with you. Get to know you.”
“You could’ve trusted me.” It all came down to that, in the end. “You could’ve told me the truth.”
“Yeah?” he shot back. “Dave was one of my main suspects. That, or the whole company being shady. Would you ask someone to inform on his own family?”
“No, but I wouldn’t lie about everything from my job to my last name to—I mean, do you even have a sister?”
“I didn’t tell you everything, but I didn’t make anything up except my job, and you know the truth about that now. I promise you. Everything else you know about me is real.” He’d moved forward again, a hand reaching out to me. God, he was big. He loomed over me in this little room. I took another stumbling step back. I’d run out of conference room soon, and end up cornered.
I snorted derisively, sounding, for a moment, just like Dave. Dammit. “And what I know about you could fill…pretty much the side of a coffee mug. Or maybe a single page, if we’re being generous. But you know everything about me, right? Ran a background check?” The look on his face answered that question clearly enough. “I don’t know you. And I don’t trust you. I’d started to trust you!”
That came out in an anguished wail, all my exhaustion and stress and broken-hearted misery bubbling up to the surface at once. Horrifyingly, I felt tears forming at the corners of my eyes, my eyelids prickling and burning.
If I cried in front of Alec, I’d have to go jump off a pier into Lake Champlain.
“Gabe, please.” His brows drew together in what could’ve been concern. Fuck that. “Let’s—we’ll talk later. Let me take you home. Do you want to call someone to come over and—”
“If this weren’t such a fucked-up situation, you know who I’d want to call? The guy I’ve been dating. The guy who knows what kind of ice cream and wine I’d want to deal with this shitshow, the guy who could hold me all night and still be there in the morning.” I stopped, panting for breath, my head swimming. I needed to get out of there. “You’re not taking me home. You’re not taking me anywhere. Don’t call me. Don’t come anywhere near me. I’ll see you at the trial, or whatever, but other than that—leave me the hell alone.”
I escaped around the other end of the conference table, squeezing awkwardly between the chair at the end and a sideboard. My hoodie caught on the chair, and it took me a second of yanking and cursing to pop out of the gap between the furniture.
That was too much, and the tears started to come out for real.
I ran for the door and flung it open. Alec came after me, calling my name, but I charged down the hall, a startled young officer jumping out of my way, and ran straight into Officer Brown. His hands landed on my upper arms, steadying me. God, I wanted to lean into his broad chest and cry. He seemed like someone’s dad. I could work with that. Even someone else’s dad sounded great right then, since my own sure as hell wouldn’t be comforting me.
“Gabe, you okay? What’s—did he do something to you?”
I looked up to find Officer Brown glaring over my head, presumably at Alec.
“No, but I need to go home. Right now.”
“Yeah, kid, you can go home. C’mon. I’ll drive you.”
He steered me out the front of the station, into the cool, fresh night air, almost too cold on my burning cheeks, and into the front seat of his cruiser.
The ride home passed in a blur. I didn’t even give him my address; he must’ve remembered it from all the times I’d given it for various forms over the course of the evening.
I thought I thanked him, but I wasn’t sure. I barely got upstairs and into my condo before I collapsed, sliding down the door and landing in a huddle on the floor, my forehead on my knees. I couldn’t face my bedroom. Or my bathroom, no matter how much I wanted a hot shower to get the fear-fueled sweat of being kidnapped and the funk of hospitals and police stations off of me. All I’d think about would be Alec’s fingers sliding through my wet hair, caressing the nape of my neck, as his cock pushed into my throat. The way he’d made me feel: powerful and vulnerable, desired and seductive and…not loved, maybe. But close.
And all I’d been was used.
Alec
Everything in me screamed to chase Gabe down, grab him, hold him, not let him go until I could make him believe me.
Trust me again.
Instead, I let him go.
Brown staring me down like I’d kicked a puppy right in front of him didn’t help, but in the end, Gabe had the right to tell me to fuck off. I had to respect that. I had to respect him. I already did, of course—a lot more than he knew or believed.
Jesus, watching him clock Whipley with a drug-filled yoga mat was going into my mental-replay greatest hits. I wished I had it on video so I could pass it around the field office. It’d be an instant classic, Gabe all wild-eyed and purple-haired, fierce and brave and wonderful,
knocking that asshole in the face.
With his hands taped, to boot.
I should’ve told Gabe how proud I was, and how grateful.
I wouldn’t get the chance now. And that was a hundred percent my own fucking fault.
Heading back to the motel sounded grim, but not as grim as staying here at the Shelburne police station. And I’d done what I could for the night. I’d interrogated Whipley. I’d made sure the crime scene was secure, and that forensics were doing their thing. I’d talked to everyone who needed talking to, sent all the emails I could stand.
I was done.
The drive back to the motel felt dream-like, or maybe nightmarish. The moon shone down on Lake Champlain, a black-and-white gleaming mirror. Not much traffic at this hour, and the roads felt too empty. The transition into Burlington, with its all-night businesses and glaring streetlights, felt jarring.
And I kept fighting the urge to yank the steering wheel hard to the right and head up the hill to Gabe’s place.
I was too old to stand in front of his window with a boombox over my head, right? Or hang around the front of his building getting drunk and maudlin—I’d do that alone in my motel room, like a grown-up. Or write him bad love poetry.
Not that any poetry I wrote wouldn’t be bad. My one attempt in high school had gotten me a C plus and a lifelong hatred of anything that rhymed.
Gabe deserved better than my efforts at poetry. Gabe really did deserve better, full stop. I’d realized that early on. It’d just taken him a little while to figure it out for himself. I hoped he did know it, and that he’d kicked me to the curb out of self-confidence and not simply anger. Not that I hadn’t earned his anger, but being furious with me wouldn’t keep him from trusting another shady asshole down the line.
And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no matter how much Gabe blamed me, he’d blame himself even more for trusting me.
I pulled up in front of the motel and turned into one of the guest parking spots. Two hipsters with yoga mats and lots of glinting piercings in their faces were standing in my assigned parking spot and smoking a joint, the plumes of smoke drifting hazily in the motel’s floodlights.
Weed was legal in Vermont now, right? I couldn’t remember, and I also couldn’t give less of a shit.
Usually I’d have rousted them out of my spot and scowled at them until they slunk away.
Tonight, I simply couldn’t muster the energy.
Fuck, I hated Burlington.
And myself. Mostly myself, honestly. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel, closed my eyes, and tried not to see Gabe’s glistening eyes, pale cheeks, and downturned mouth as he’d told me he never wanted to see me again.
I had a feeling I’d be seeing that every time I closed my eyes for a long, long time.
16
Alec
“Are you fucking stupid or something?” I flinched and pulled the phone away from my ear. I could still hear my sister. I could’ve heard her from space. “What the hell is wrong with you, Alec? What the hell! You didn’t even try to make up with him?”
“He said he never wanted to see me again!” What the fuck did she want from me? I should never have told Amanda about Gabe. Rookie mistake. I should’ve gotten drunk alone again that day, like any self-respecting thirty-one-year-old man with a broken heart, instead of caving to the longing for some sympathy and driving the twenty miles to see my sister. “I’m not going to harass him, okay? He made his feelings clear.”
“No,” Amanda barked at me. I’d cautiously brought the phone back to my ear, but I gave it a couple of inches of space again. I’d put her on speaker, but in the nearly empty cavern of my desolate bachelor apartment, her voice would only echo too much for me to hear her clearly. “Okay, yes,” she said, a little more quietly. “He made his feelings clear. But maybe those weren’t all his feelings.”
I wanted to beat my head against the wall, but I settled for flinging myself down on the room’s one decent piece of furniture, my giant leather couch.
Yes, I was a cliché. But my couch actually fit me when I stretched out all the way.
“What are you, the psychic fucking hotline? Yes, I’m sure he does have conflicting feelings. But it’s not my prerogative to try to know what he wants when he’s already told me what he wants.” That sounded garbled as hell. I tried again. “He told me what he wanted. I listened. If I don’t, that makes me an asshole. More of an asshole.”
Amanda didn’t say anything for a second, and I tipped my head back, letting it sink into the couch, staring up at the ceiling. Summer sunlight filtered in through the apartment’s small windows, gilding the off-white walls and ceiling in bright, distended rhomboids.
“You’re in love with him, Alec,” she said at last, far more softly than my outspoken sister usually bothered to speak.
And that hurt like a knife right between the ribs. I’d been trying to keep those words out of my head for the past three weeks, ever since I got back to Albany and had nothing to do but brood. Et tu, Amanda? Christ.
I forced my reply out through numb lips, not even aware it wasn’t a denial until I’d already spoken. “That doesn’t matter.”
“You’re my brother, and I love you, even though you’re an asshole. It matters to me. You’re depressed and heartbroken, and I hate it. This guy actually liked you,” she opined—with an incredibly unflattering note of wonder in her voice. “He liked you. You shouldn’t just give up.”
I slumped farther down into the comfort of my couch’s embrace, kicking my socked feet up on the coffee table and having to shove a pizza box and two beer bottles aside to make room. My big toe poked out of the left one. I’d been opening my mouth to argue about the heartbroken and depressed thing, but the evidence seemed to be stacking up against me.
“I didn’t give up. I respected his wishes.” Maybe if I kept repeating that, she’d leave me the hell alone. And maybe I’d convince myself, too, because I’d started out hating Burlington. And maybe I still did mostly hate Burlington. But my internal compass had reoriented, somehow…and while Gabe lived in Burlington, that’s where my lodestar would be. I had to force myself not to go to Burlington every single day, and damn was that ever an impulse I never thought I’d have. “I need to leave him alone.”
Amanda sighed, noisily. The way she did almost everything. “I’m not saying blow up his phone or stalk him or anything. Just—don’t let him go without letting him know how you feel. You apologized, but you didn’t tell him how much he means to you. If he can’t forgive you, then he can’t, and maybe I wouldn’t even blame him.” Thanks a bundle, sis. I rolled my eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me!” I sat bolt upright. Fuck. She really was psychic. Sisters were such a pain in the ass. “And do something to show him you care. I don’t think words will be enough, so get creative.” A squawk, a crash, and a bunch of yelling erupted in the background. “Aw, shit. Hey! Cut that out! Not you, Alec. Stop it! Did you bonk your knee? Is your brother okay? Seriously, I told you not to stand on the—I need to go. Good luck! Call me later!”
The line went dead.
Well, thank God for toddler nephews, or Amanda might’ve kept torturing me for as long as her phone battery lasted.
I tossed the phone on the couch and let myself sink even deeper into it myself. It already conformed to the shape of my slumped body.
And if I stayed here and kept wallowing like this, the couch and I would become one, a single squishy entity surviving on beer and whatever crumbs fell into the cracks between the cushions.
When had I even gone to the gym? Or out for a run?
Fuck, at this rate Gabe wouldn’t recognize me if he ever let me see him again. Or at the trial, which might not even happen, anyway. Whipley’s lawyer had been working on a plea bargain, basically dropping the attempted murder charges, against Gabe and me, that the prosecutor had been pushing for in favor of a guilty plea to kidnapping and trafficking. Whipley had a lot of pressure on him to take the deal, even though he’d hope
d to get out of the kidnapping charge, at least, if he went to trial. I didn’t think he would, but I could see why he’d want to. Either way, his associates—the idiots who’d been laundering some of the money through their yoga studios, selling drugs on the side, and disposing of the yoga mats in their gift shops—had all turned on him. One of them had noticed me hanging around, it turned out, and had also seen me at the police station. That was how Whipley had ended up putting two and two together after meeting me at the party.
Water under the bridge. He’d be going away for a long time no matter what. I’d done my part, except for the never-ending paperwork.
If there was no trial, though, I wouldn’t see Gabe there. And I had no excuse for going to see him otherwise. He’d specifically said not to call.
And do something to show him you care. I don’t think words will be enough, so get creative.
I sat up a little, unsticking myself from the leather cushion. I had the windows open despite the heat, because I hated air conditioning. But I was sweaty and gross.
And I had a beer stain on my sweatpants.
Yeah, time for a shower. Time to grow the fuck up and either do something about this constant, grinding pain in my chest, or move on.
I picked up my phone and sent off a quick email. It was Saturday; I could take Monday and Tuesday off work. Hell, I could take the whole week if I needed it. Jenna had made it crystal clear, as I growled at her over my cup of coffee the other morning, that I would be so much more than welcome to take some vacation days ‘any fucking time now, Special Agent Grouch.’
Shower. Hotel reservation. And then get on the road to Burlington.
Time to get creative. I’d try not to hope too much, but I couldn’t help the little unfurling of something like it deep inside.
Gabe
“Will three o’clock on Thursday work for you? I know the day after tomorrow is short notice, but Dr. Wilson and Dr. Ghosh have busy schedules, and it’s challenging to coordinate them. Dr. Ghosh had a cancellation.” Dr. Wilson’s assistant sounded like everyone’s stern third-grade teacher, and I was pretty sure she sounded like that when she talked to Dr. Wilson, too.
Undercover (Vino and Veritas) Page 16
