Chapter 4 #3
“Oh. Sure. Do you think you’ll go undercover again?”
“No. Uh-uh.” I shook my head hard. Never again.
Taking care of Josiah gave me a good excuse for something I’d already decided.
“But anyhow, almost all those guys have tattoos. I got a couple of nothing ones, and I decided to do one that would make me seem a lot less like a cop.” I didn’t tell him it was after our informant turned up tortured to death.
After the captain asked me if I was still up for this assignment and I said yes with ice-water trickling down my spine.
Being scared was the source of lots of bad decisions.
Peeling back the tape, I showed him the SS lightning bolts in deliberately faded black on the back of my forearm.
He flashed a look up at me. “Oh, yeah. That’d do it. Although I guess there are white supremacist cops too.”
“I guess.” I pressed the tape back into place.
“Are you going to get it removed?”
“That was my plan, but now I think, covered over.” I peered down at the blank white gauze, seeing a small airport in the pouring rain, and the muzzle of a gun.
A flash. A fall. “I saw a good man die while I wore this and couldn’t do anything to save him.
Maybe I should keep wearing it in his honour, blended into some other design. ”
“Maybe you shouldn’t decide to do anything while fucked up about it?” Callum peered at me, his blue eyes looking worried.
“I’m okay.” I was, mostly, except sometimes in the dark of night. “But I’m not going back to the tattoo artist who did this. He said not one word about how I might regret it, just inked away.”
“Maybe he was scared of the kind of guy who would want one.”
“Maybe. Either way, I want someone I trust to make it right.”
“You know, if you want a recommendation, the artist who did mine is awesome. He’s also a flamboyant gay man, though, if that matters.”
“Why would it matter?”
“If you’re not good with a gay man having his hands on you?”
I barked a laugh. “Then I’d never get laid.”
Callum blinked at me for a moment. “Seriously? Good to know. I mean, we have an out gay player, and he gets shit from some of the fans pretty often, so I’m glad you’re not some kind of ’phobe.
Anyway, this is River’s work.” He tugged at the hem of his shirt and raised it high, baring his stomach, ribs, and chest.
Hallelujah, those were excellent abs. I stayed in shape for my job, and I’d lifted weights and added fifteen pounds of muscle for the bodyguard role, but I’d never been cut like that.
I wouldn’t mind licking those, teasing the crisp red curls of that treasure trail, tracing those ridges and grooves with my tongue.
I’d always liked a guy with a little hair.
Not for you. I dragged my eyes up from his six-pack and spotted the tattoo on his left pec above his nipple.
A gleaming dolphin leaped from the water while a seagull soared above it.
The art was crisp but realistic, the waves almost wet enough to feel.
The nipple below it was small and pink— Art.
We’re focusing on the art. “That’s great. ”
Callum tugged his shirt back down. “My mom loved dolphins. I want to get something for my dad too, but I need the right design, and the cash. Still thinking about it.”
“Your guy’s got talent, all right. Might be the kind of guy who’d see the SS and show me the door, though.” That was another consideration that’d held me back from showing anyone what I wanted done.
“Make your appointment when I can go with you. I’ll vouch for you.”
“You’d do that? You don’t even know me. I might be one of those racist cops, just tired of advertising.”
“And gay?”
I worried about his naiveté. “I might’ve lied about that.”
Callum gave me an odd look, intent, like he was trying to see deep inside me. He scanned the quiet house and the screening hedges, then took a short breath. “One sure way to find out. Kiss me.”
I shivered at the heat that surged in my groin.
“You? Here? Now?” Not that I didn’t want to.
I’d felt that urge back when I saw his pretty face pouting at his tire in the cemetery parking lot, and every minute talking to him now had set off low-level sparks inside me.
And those abs? Callum was totally my type.
But nothing in the late-night browsing I’d done suggested he was queer.
“We’re behind the bushes. No one can see us unless they’re on your steps, but yeah. Bad idea.” He turned away.
A wild impulse hit me. Why not? One moment of fun just for me. “Wait. I’m game. Proof of safety, right?” I set a hand against his cheek. I could see his pulse bounding in his throat. Then I leaned in and kissed him.
His response was tentative at first, then wild, zero to sixty in three seconds flat.
He ran a hand over my head like he was looking for a purchase in my too-short hair, then cupped my head and deepened the angle.
Our tongues met. His taste was somehow familiar and yet exciting, hot and wet and male.
The feel of his soft lips, the nip of his teeth, turned my inner sparks into a bonfire.
And then suddenly he was done, pulling back, breathing hard, his pupils dilated in those sky-blue eyes.
I felt him go rigid under my touch. “Uh.” He sat back on his heels so my hand fell away from his cheek, and rubbed his palms on the thighs of his jeans.
“Safe to say, I think you’re queer too.” I smiled, but my words didn’t erase his frozen stillness.
“I’m not out,” he muttered.
“Well, I won’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t know why I did that.” His eyes darted back and forth.
“Tired of hiding? Or maybe you couldn’t resist my total magnetism and hotness.” I grinned to show that was a joke.
Callum shook his head. “No way. Although you are hot. But I shower with hot guys all day long and I don’t kiss them. Not even the two I know are gay. Although only Docker’s out to the public.”
“You don’t need to explain. You’re fine. We’re good.” His breathless delivery suggested he was freaked, and I wanted to calm him.
He dropped his gaze to my forearm. “I think… you showed me something painfully personal and I… I had to…” He raised his eyes to mine, looking scared.
“And you gave me a vulnerability to balance mine out? Babe, you shouldn’t do that. People will eat you alive.” I didn’t hear what I’d called him until it was out of my mouth. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice.
“Hah.” He turned away to yank up another big handful of the dried weeds, struggling to haul a root up from the soil. “No one gives me trouble. I know how to punch real hard.”
I figured he knew I hadn’t meant the kind of problem you could punch in the mouth. But whatever vulnerability he’d shown, he was stiff and cold now, with everything buttoned away. He pushed to his feet. “Gotta dump this bucket in the compost. Later.”
“Sure,” I called to his back as he strode away. “Your grandpa has my number. Send me the name of your tattoo guy and I’ll text you when I have an appointment.”
He waved a hand to show that he’d heard before disappearing round the corner of the house, but he didn’t reply.
Well, that went well. Not. My own fault for taking a closeted guy up on an offer. Callum might appeal to me on every level, from his tall, muscular body to the moments of vulnerability and the lost-boy look I’d seen come and go. That didn’t mean kissing him had been a good idea, at all.
I should’ve probably reassured him again I had no intention of outing him. But as several minutes passed and he didn’t reappear, it became clear he didn’t want to talk to me. Best thing I could do was pretend that never happened.
So I headed back inside to figure out what Krystal had been paying for furnace maintenance, while tracking Josiah around the neighbourhood on my phone app.
The kid stopped at a gas station for ten minutes, probably for that tire, and then went into the local mall, which meant I didn’t have to worry about him freezing.
Once school was out, he headed to Brayden’s house, and I relaxed a bit.
I’d call him if he didn’t come home before dinner.
Was that app stalking? A breach of privacy? Maybe, but after three months of working with people who had no hesitation making others disappear, Josiah was stuck with my paranoia.
He’s stuck with me in a lot of ways. I sent out a wish into the universe— let me learn how to live with a twelve-year-old and keep him safe, and not drive either of us crazy.