Boys in Blue 03 - Dangerous Distraction (5 page)

“Did you find anything new?”

 

David’s heart sank. He’d meant socially, not professionally. Nate had to know but chose the lesser of two evils. “I’ve a lead. He knows the guy from the alley and said he has a mark.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Don’t know yet.”

 

“Well, when you find out—”

 

“—I’ll call. Hey, that’s not what I meant about seeing you,” David said, going for the obvious.

 

“I know.” “Well?” David asked.

 

He almost heard Nate thinking. Finally, he answered as David pulled into a parking space at the department.

 

“I don’t think so,” Nate said, speaking low. “We don’t want the same things.”

 

David bit the inside of his cheek in frustration. “I want
you
.”

 

“I’m not my dick.”

He turned off his car. Resting his forehead on the wheel, David tried to think of something that didn’t smack of walking on eggshells yet told Nate exactly what he was thinking. “I know you’re not your dick. I didn’t say I wanted your dick. I said I wanted you.” Though to be fair, he did
also
want his dick.

“My ass isn’t a parking space for your cock.”

 

“God, I wish it were,” David confessed. He thought he heard a chuckle from the other end of the line.

 

There was rustling, then another voice came to the line. “Rook, this is Derrick. Keep your hands and dick away from my partner. Got it?”

“What the fuck, man? This is a private conversation.” David’s cheeks heated. He’d known Derrick and Nate were close, but sharing pillow shit wasn’t cool. Especially since David didn’t tell people things they didn’t need to know about his preferences.

“It quit being private when you’re—what did you call him?” There was a muffled answer from Nate. “Yeah, when you’re a
closet monkey
.”

 

“I’m a what?”

 

“Emotional freeloader who gets off by sneaking out of the closet to throw a wrench in things before slamming your gay closet door in his face,” Derrick thundered.

 

“I’m trying to get with him, asswipe !”

 

“It ain’t happening. He deserves someone who’s going to invest in relationship type shit.”

 

“Maybe I want that, too!” David snapped.

 

“Maybe?”Derrick didn’t sound believing.

 

“What I want has got Nate tucked up in there somewhere. Put his ass on the line. I’m done with you. I called to talk to him, unless of course he’s too fucking chicken to take my calls.”

 

“Bite me!” Nate yelled, having taken back the phone during David’s tirade.

 

“Did that,” David said, breathing heavily, but softening his words. “Liked it a lot. Wanna do it again.”

 

“I don’t do quickies. That was an exception I’m not repeating,” Nate answered. “Damn it, Nate. I want to see you. Not just once or twice.”

 

“Oh, so you want a weekly conjugal visit,” Nate translated, flatly.

 

“No. Shit. Why do you have to make this difficult? I want more than cock.”

 

“More than cock, less than serious.Well, Rook, that’s the hang up. I don’t give cock unless I’m serious. Last Tuesday is a non-repeatable offence.”

David felt like Nate was doing a two step on his heart wearing cleats. The conversation made him hot and cold, made him sweat with the sensation that he was losing and losing big. That there was no way to get off the road they travelled, and Nate had a head start. God, if he could only catch up!

“It’s David,” he said, weakly. “Just…just say my name once.”

 

He could hear Nate breathing. Could feel his indecisiveness. “Why is it important to you?”

 

“Because
I’m
not my badge, and it matters.”

 

“Why?” Nate repeated calmly, the strength of his voice increasing.

 

“The badge calls me Rook. To you, I want to be David.” He’d squeezed out the last of his dilemma for Nate to see and trounce. Would he? The exposure stung.

 

Nate sighed. It wasn’t the sound of frustration or pleasure, more one of letting go.

 

David squeezed his eyes tighter, waiting. Moisture cooled the inner corner of his eye and he knuckled it away.

 

“David,” Nate said, his voice soft.

 

David’s cock throbbed in time with his heart. God, was a sweet sound it was to hear his name on Nate’s lips. He was about to say, thank you, when Nate continued in that same soft tone.

 

“What do you want from me?”

 

“I don’t know. Just more than this. There has to be more than this,” David hoped.

 

“It’s called dating.”

 

“That’s—I don’t think…”

 

“Until you’re ready to be seen with me, there isn’t more than this, Rook. We just…aren’t,” Nate finished. “Goodbye.”

 

“Wait!” David pleaded. Emptiness filled the earpiece. Too late. Nate had hung up.

 

Nate’s fingers tightened on his thigh, resisting the urge to pull the latch and rush over to Rook’s side.
David
. He wanted to be called David. The word echoed intimately in his mind.

 

“Are you sure?” Derrick asked him.

 

“No.”

 

“Look at him. This is killing him, too.”

Derrick had a point. They’d followed David all morning on the pretence of finding where he got his leads. Nate had argued that if David were withholding information about their investigation, they could follow the dropped threads and make a break in their arms case.

David had done what he said he’d do. He’d followed up on his lead. Then he’d done something he hadn’t confessed to. Something which made David’s investment in the case that much more reliable. He’d thrown himself under the bus for an informant.

“He took a hit for his
rat
at the expense of his own reputation,” Derrick said, his words mirroring Nate’s thoughts.

 

Nate shot him a sour look. “I know.” His fingers released the cotton material as he wiped his palm on his leg. “Protecting an asset protects his interests,” Nate reminded his partner.

It spoke to David’s distractibility that he hadn’t noticed Derrick and Nate tailing him since David had left the precinct. They’d followed him to the rendezvous point, then to the parking lot of the police department. They watched when David called Nate, dropped his forehead on the wheel, wiped his eye when Nate turned him down, smacked his hand on the dashboard, and sat back again, his chin tilted up in defeat.

Even from this distance, Nate could see David’s Adam’s apple work and his chest rise and fall with quick, unsatisfying breaths. You learned a lot about someone’s character watching how they behaved with others. How they behaved in their quiet moments.

“It kills me when my wife cries.”

 

“He’s not my wife,” Nate snapped. “David doesn’t want to be my anything. He just wants sex.”

 

“I don’t think so.” Derrick blinked solemnly at him.

 

“Fuck!” Nate slammed his fist into the door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Whose side are you on?”

 

“Yours, partner. I always have your back, even when you do stupid shit like let the man you’re crazy about walk away.”

 

Derrick’s and Nate’s pagers went off.

 

“It’s Director Chiltz .” Derrick looked at Nate. “We have to go, but I won’t say anything if you need to take a few minutes and stop your investigative lead over there before he enters the building.”

 

“Let’s go.”

 

“Are you sure?” “No. Let’s go, anyway.”

 

Derrick shook his head. “For a smart guy, you’re a moron.”

 

“Hey, if I’m worth the fight, David won’t take no for an answer.”

 

“You’re worth the fight,” Derrick said, gently.

 

“Thanks. Shut the fuck up and drive.”

 

* * * *

David wasn’t taking no for an answer. He needed to find his nerve, but he wasn’t staying away. Okay, maybe he was staying away for a little while, but it was only because he had a job to do, a job which entailed lots of paperwork and phone calls. A job that, if he did it right, meant he’d be seeing Nate pretty soon with some evidence. He wanted that evidence sharp when he
did
see Nate so David didn’t look like a love-struck idiot.

But that was the only reason he hadn’t called Nate back.

 

Really.

 

Had nothing to do with rejection.

 

David went to his desk where the case file he’d been working still loomed in his inbox. Steph wandered over, her arms loaded with papers.

 

“Hi, Rook. How’d the stakeout go?”

 

“It went.”

 

“So…coffee?” she asked, hopefully.Her cheeks pinked.

 

“Oh, right.”
Shit
.

He’d been so caught up with Nate that he hadn’t thought about telling Steph he wasn’t interested. Approaching him in the middle of the floor with the department around him, she must have thought it would be impossible for him to turn her down. Which it was. Add to it the pressure of knowing Nate was
out
and wouldn’t consider a relationship with David since he wasn’t, meant having coffee with a woman counterproductive to snagging the man.

“You told me to hold the thought. So…” Steph continued boldly.

If keeping Nate meant coming out, did he really want that? The ridicule? The guys who’d always looked up to him would have a new concept of who he was.
It didn’t change David, fundamentally. Coming out to your department, to your friends, to the guys you risked your life for, seemed like a mistake. Huge, actually. They knew almost everything about each other. It went hand in hand with the job.

That was the thing about these confessions to men like the ones in the building. Rook knew their type because he was their type. They held the legal system in their hands, saw death on a daily basis, and worked puzzles a mathematician wouldn’t touch. They were self-aware in a way most people weren’t, knew how much space they took up and exactly how to put down an attacker.

You couldn’t make them uncomfortable with violence. They lived it. Rook lived it. They were birds of a feather. But give them something fragile to the soul, something emotional, ammunition that wounded deeper than any bullet or knife, that cut to the core of who a man was...could he trust them? Could he trust that they wouldn’t twist that knowledge deep in his gut and leave him empty and bleeding without the friendships of his fellow law enforcement officers?

That, he didn’t know.

 

“Rook?” Stephasked, laughing nervously. “It’s just coffee.”

 

Just coffee to her, but his entire life to him.Did he play off being gay and have coffee with Steph , or did he turn her down? Or did he turn her down and tell her the reason he did so?

 

Nate flashed before his mind’s eye. He wanted Nate something fierce. Nate was confident, sexy,
free
. David envied the freedom. God, he wanted that.

There was a chance that even if David
came out
, Nate still wouldn’t want him. Yet David tired of driving long distances to find someone who understood him. Those moments were precious few. Nate existed in his own world and made it work. There was hope found in that knowledge.

“Yeah, I’m just thinking about my schedule. Sorry,” David muttered, stalling.

 

“Tonight’s open.”

 

“I’m meeting an informant,” he said, lying. Johnny would call, not show.

 

“Saturday?We can have lunch, down on Nicolette,” she said, referencing the foot mall downtown.

Even if Nate wouldn’t have him, David needed this for himself. He’d never bring home a wife to his parents. He’d never invite his detective partner over to barbeque with the
little woman
and the kids, but damn, it felt energising to think seeing Nate without hiding.

Nate rocked his world. David liked being near him, liked the way Nate looked at him. Having Nate at his side wouldn’t be embarrassing, it would be
hot
.

 

“Actually, Steph , I’d like to have lunch or coffee with you, but you should know something first.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“I’m gay.”

 

The industrious background static of the office dimmed. “You…”

 

“Are gay, yes.I’m gay,” he said repeating it with more confidence. His heart fluttered like a stupid butterfly in his chest. He sensed the eyes of his co-workers on him. God, he hated that feeling.

Stephsputtered, blushed. “Oh, I didn’t know. I mean, not that it matters. It was just lunch or coffee or—but if you don’t want to, I mean, if it makes your boyfriend uncomfortable, I totally get it. My sister’s best friend is gay. Not my sister. Just her best friend. And I like her. She’s not butch or anything just, you know…” Steph seemed to realise she was babbling through a lame ass, politically incorrect explanation. “Gay,” she finished.

“So she’s gay?” he teased.

 

“Yeah.” Stephblinked at him.

 

David smiled widely.

 

She sighed. “Are you sure you’re gay?” she breathed.

 

“Positive.” He leant over slightly. “Not even a little
bi
. If I were, I’d have hit on you a long time ago.”

 

* * * *

“ Goddammit!”David slammed his foot on the accelerator, not caring when he raced through a red light and another car veered out of the way before laying on the horn. He gripped the wheel tighter, narrowed his eyes as though the squint would help him see through the descending night and rain-glare on the road.

He hit the speed dial. “Dispatch, send an officer over to nine-forty-seven Juniper. I want that house under watch until I say otherwise. Got it?”

 

With the confirmation on the other end that the police were on the way to Dwayne’s house, David focused on making it through the maze of backstreets to Nate’s house.

Johnny had come through. The guy in the blue hoodie had been a hired hand, all right. Out to the highest bidder, Cizone did odd-jobs. Johnny and his buddy Dwayne had come face to face with the bastard when they’d sold a couple of filed down handguns from their trunk. Johnny would have to answer for that later. Tonight, David took the inside information.

Cizonehad shot up their tires, stolen the inventory, and threatened to feed them their balls if they were caught selling guns on Jasper White’s turf again. Cizone had made good the threat on Dwayne and a quick call to the county morgues had turned up the dead, castrated body of Dwayne Pollack. Dwayne was dead, but his sister, Lita would be safe. For now. If he got hold of Jasper White, she’d be safe forever.