Diversion 2 - Collusion (3 page)

Lucky cut him off by rising up on his toes and slamming his mouth against his prey’s. “Mmmmfff?” the guy exclaimed, finally getting into the spirit of things after a moment’s struggle.

Talk, dark, and unwary wound his arms around Lucky, returning the kiss with vigor. “Damn it, Lucky!” he spat when he finally came up for air. “You about gave me a fucking heart attack!”

“Yeah, I missed you, too.” Lucky got in another kiss and a grope to the man’s muscular backside before turning to face the door. He schooled his face into his normal glower.

Bo Schollenberger, fellow agent and warmer of Lucky’s bed whenever possible, lowered his voice to ask, “When did you get back?”
“Just now,” Lucky replied. “You?”
“The same.”
“Wanna come over later? Have supper?”
“What’s wrong with my apartment?”
“My place is closer.”
“No it’s not.”
“Okay, maybe I like having the home field advantage.” Bo snorted. “What are you planning to do, play football?”
Now there’s a roleplaying idea!
Lucky gave Bo his best

Bo crossed his arms over his chest, tapping out a rhythm with the toe of his shoe. “You tackled me a few minutes ago.”
“But you weren’t running. Anyway, I’ll pick up some portabellas and a bottle of wine, you come over, I’ll fire up the grill…” Lucky’s stomach rumbled. “Oh, pack an overnight bag, we’ve got some reacquainting to do.”
“Fine, fine. Have it your way. I’ll come over.” They stood side by side quietly for a moment until Bo broke the silence. “Lucky?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we gonna stand around in this elevator forever, or do you intend to push the button at some point?”
Lucky jabbed the button for the fifth floor, copping a feel as the elevator rose. The door opened, Lucky mouthed, “Later,” and they stepped out into the offices of the Southeastern Narcotics Bureau.
“How’s it going, Schollenberger?” Keith stood at the reception desk chatting with the receptionist. He raked his eyes over Lucky’s choice of attire—Tshirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. “Luc…I mean, Harrison. There’s such a thing as an office dress code. Ever hear of it?”
Why’d he have to lay eyes on Keith first thing? Lucky’s semi- erection wilted. “Yeah, but today’s casual Friday.”
“It’s Thursday, numb nuts.”
Lucky forced his most sarcastic smirk. “It’s Friday somewhere.” He took a step toward Keith. If he slugged the guy now his boss might pass it off as fatigue. Lucky’d only managed about four hours sleep.
Bo neatly inserted himself between Keith and Lucky. “Actually, since it’s three P.M., Eastern Standard Time, he’s right.” To Lucky he said, “Can’t you go for five minutes without picking a fight?”
“Hey! He started it!”
The boss’s intervention prevented bloodshed. “Ah, Lucky, Bo! Glad you’re here. Nice work, both of you.” He faced Keith. “I’ve been looking for you. Would you mind stepping into my office?” With a final nod to Bo and Lucky, Walter strode down the hall. A woman stepped back to allow the man’s bulk to sweep unimpeded down the narrow corridor. Keith trailed in his wake. Would a good ass-chewing be too much to hope for?
“C’mon,” Bo said, a hand on Lucky’s shoulder. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can leave.” He nodded to the receptionist. The woman showed all her teeth in return.
They followed in the direction Walter and Keith had taken, down a long hall to the offices and cubicles of the unsung heroes of the drug enforcement world—the SNB’s Department of Diversion Prevention and Control. Two desks sat side by side in a cube—one a study in disorganization and coffee cups in various stages of emptiness—Lucky’s home away from home. By contrast, the other half of the space appeared pristine— papers stacked neatly, pens organized in an ornate cup. Behind Bo’s desk the Christmas cactus they’d used in place of a tree last December while on assignment trailed long tendrils down the sides of the filing cabinet. Why in the hell had Bo kept the damned thing?
Lucky eased down into his chair on the squalid side of the cubicle, a monstrosity of wood and frayed padding famed for throwing the unwary.
“I take it no one’s gotten rid of the Hell Bitch yet.” Bo jerked a nod toward the chair.
The torture chamber reject had mysteriously appeared in Lucky’s cube years ago, probably left by some asshole. Not one to accept defeat, or remain the butt of someone else’s joke, he’d learned the furniture’s touchy nature and found the orneriness a good match for his own. Besides, every time he left on assignment his coworkers appropriated anything of value left unguarded. No one touched the chair from hell. However, his stapler appeared to be missing.
He leaned over as far as the Hell Bitch allowed, laying his palm out on Bo’s chair the moment Bo sat. “What the fuck!” Bo jumped back up, nearly knocking over the orderly stacks on his desk.
“Gotcha!” Glimpsing movement from down the hallway, Lucky busied himself arranging paperclips, wearing a mask of faux innocence. Oh, but he planned to do a lot more than merely grab a feel—later.
“Now see here!” Bo shouted, pausing mid-rant when Walter rounded the corner.
“Hi, Walter!” Lucky grinned. “What can I do for you?” From the corner of his eye he noticed the flush creeping up from the collar of Bo’s shirt. Damn, the man looked sexy all flustered like that.
“I realize you’ve just returned, but I’ll need your reports filed by this evening, and I want you both in my office first thing tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, boss. Will do,” Lucky replied for himself and the apparently speechless Bo. Walter wandered away. Once he left earshot, Lucky sighed. “Damn. I’d hoped for a few days of downtime.”
“What’s going on?” Bo, with the department less than a year, hadn’t been around long enough to recognize Walter-speak for “don’t unpack.”
“I reckon he’s sending us out again.” All during his last assignment Lucky’d looked forward to a few early morning blow jobs. Walter’s cryptic instructions didn’t bode well for waking up with lips wrapped around his cock. If he kept jerking off he’d be at the doctor’s sooner or later for strained ligaments. Hmmm… Did self-induced wrist sprains count as work-related injuries?
“Damn. I’d kinda hoped for a few free weekends.”
“Oh?” Lucky raised a brow. His plans for the foreseeable future included him, Bo, and a bed. “Anything particular in mind?”
“Yeah. The office picnic is this weekend at the park. And I’d like to do a little hiking up near Rabun Gap while the mountain laurels are blooming.”
Unease slithered through Lucky’s gut. Picnic? Hiking? Bo hadn’t mentioned either before. “And exactly when did you intend to tell me you planned to blow me off to go traipsing around in the great outdoors?”
“Blow you… Oh.” It started slowly, a twitch at the corner of Bo’s mouth. One corner lifted, then the other, a dimple appearing in one cheek. He kept his voice to scarcely above a whisper. “When I made plans, I assumed you’d come with me. You will come with me, won’t you? We don’t have to hang out all the time at the picnic. No one will think anything of it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Lucky didn’t reply, merely swiveled his chair around, folding his arms across his chest.
“You do like hiking, don’t you?” Bo asked. Fine time to ask now, after he’d already made plans. “North Georgia’s great this time of year. We can leave next Friday afternoon if we’re both still in town, find us a nice little cabin somewhere, then wake up early and take a day trip up Rabun Bald.”
Wake up early? Not Lucky’s thing. Bleachers, beer, and a dirt track were the limits of his outdoorsmanship these past few years. Although he did have a pair of hiking boots—somewhere.
Bo sweetened the offer. “There’s a great home cooking restaurant nearby. Andit’s far enough away that nobody’ll know us.”
Damn, Bo had to bring reality crashing back down, didn’t he? The overwrought puppy dog eyes tugged at heartstrings Lucky’d forgotten he had. And the prospect of watching Bo’s ass flex beneath a pair of canvas shorts added a whole new level of adventure. “I don’t suppose a little fresh air will hurt me.” Besides, maybe they’d find a secluded spot for some off-trail action. Lucky wouldn’t mind hiking so much if Bo offered enough incentive.
Bo grinned. “I’ll make sure you don’t regret it, old man.”
Old man? Had Bo gotten wind of something? Lucky wasn’t one to make a fuss about birthdays, except for his sister’s and nephews’, and he didn’t plan on starting now. “I’m not that old.”
Bo glanced down the empty hallway before lowering down himself eye-toeye with Lucky. “Prove it. Two weeks this summer. You and me. Backpacking the Appalachian Trail.”
Lucky fired up his computer. Fourteen days of wilderness? No TV? No Starbucks? No home cooked meals? But if he didn’t go, would Bo find someone else to take?
“You have to compromise,”
Lucky imagined his sister saying.
“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do for the good of the relationship.”
Relationship? Were he and Bo in a relationship? Sure, they got together whenever time permitted, cooked together, slept together, fucked each other’s brains out. But a
relationship?
Gnawing took root in the pit of Lucky’s stomach. “Let me think about it.”
Bo settled at his desk, and for a time, the steady
click, click, click
of both men typing filled the conversational void, the clicking from Bo’s side faster and with less pauses to jab the backspace key. Lucky finished first, noting the time displayed at the corner of his computer screen the moment he emailed his report. Five o’clock on the dot. “You ’bout ready?”
Down the hall an office door banged shut. Probably Walter’s. “Mount Walter” didn’t know his own strength.
Eyes glued to his computer, Bo replied, “I’ve still got a bit more to enter.”
“You sure? I don’t mind waiting a while.” Actually, Lucky wasn’t about to risk something coming up and stealing Bo away for the night. He had plans. Big plans.
“Yeah.” Bo tore his eyes away from his computer screen, managing a smile that didn’t quite match the weariness in his eyes. “If you don’t mind, go on by the grocery store and pick up whatever you want for dinner. I’ll be along after I’m finished here.”
If he had his way, Lucky would rather shop with Bo, even if they drove out of their way to ensure they didn’t bump into anyone from work. Although Lucky had worked off the prison sentence he’d earned for trafficking narcotics and regained his freedom, he’d never discussed the terms of Bo’s probation. A pharmacist caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, now Bo’s career rested in Walter’s hands, the same as Lucky’s had. Walter undoubtedly knew that the two agents he’d assigned to play house for a former stakeout continued to “fraternize” long after they’d wrapped up the case—Walter knew everything. Would he make it an issue? Lucky didn’t dare find out.
Once when he was a kid, he’d broken his mother’s cake plate and left the pieces lying on the counter. She left them there. He knew he’d broken the plate, and she knew the plate was broken. For a week guilt ate him every time he entered the kitchen, and he tiptoed around his mother, waiting for her judgment. One morning the pieces were gone.
“Seeing you on your best behavior, wondering when you’d be punished was punishment enough,” she’d told him.
Walter had to have known Lucky’s mom. They employed the same techniques.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said.
Alone he wheeled a cart up and down the aisles of the local Publix grocery store, paying closer attention to his purchases than usual, even resorting to reading ingredient labels. He normally avoided too much information about whatever poisons he shoved into his body. Bo, a long-time vegetarian, lectured with the best of them about the evils of bacon, caffeine, sugar, and any other tasty morsels lurking in Lucky’s kitchen cabinets. With Bo performing regular inspections, Lucky finally gave up trying to find hiding spots and learned to eat better, for the most part. He carefully guarded his stash of Oreos hidden in the top of the hall closet— reserved for junk food emergencies.
Trading pork chops for baked chicken and French fries for baby field green salads resulted in ten pounds disappearing from Lucky’s midsection. Five mile runs replaced afternoons spent lounging on the couch, egged on by the enticing challenge, “Catch me and you can have me.” Lack of caffeine meant Lucky spent far fewer nights staring at the ceiling praying for a little shut eye, and more time actually sleeping. Being screwed senseless before bedtime helped, too. Still, the occasional “not good for me” reward helped make all the leafy green veggies more tolerable.
And then there were portabella mushrooms, the not-quitevegetable. A little seasoning salt, Italian dressing, and time spent on a grill transformed the humble fungus into food fit for kings. Lucky piled the cart with three times the mushroom caps needed for a single meal. Bo wouldn’t mind cooking enough for leftovers, would he? For some reason, Bo’s always turned out better than Lucky’s. Lucky’s mouth watered at the prospect of a morning omelet with mushrooms, or of spaghetti the following night, chunks of portabellas flavoring the sauce.
Once Lucky arrived home, he hurried through a general spruce up. Did he need another shower? Nah. Getting all duded up might give Bo a swelled head—he’d never hear the end of it.
He unpacked the groceries at lightning speed to make up for the time lost to grooming, glancing out the window occasionally to watch for Bo, and replenished his Oreo supply. Hiding spots sparked momentary alarm, and he dashed into the living room to retrieve his sister’s letter. He ripped the envelope open and out fell a card and three photos: one of Charlotte and the boys, and one each of Todd and Tyler—their school pictures. They’d gotten older, but Lucky couldn’t tell much from a head shot. They both favored their mother, not their father. Thank heaven for small favors. He read the handwritten inscription.

I miss you and am looking forward to the day we can be normal again (or as normal as we get) and you can come for a visit.

Damn how he’d love to go north and check on Charlotte and the boys, but how did someone explain that Uncle Richie is now Uncle Simon and “you can’t tell Grandma he’s still alive” to kids? Instead of making life easier, starting over added complications. Lucky hated complications, nearly as much as he hated not being able to visit his sister.