12
Cormac is on a high, working the stove at his father’s house, pausing every few minutes to kiss my nose, cheek, forehead , or neck. He puts some music on while chopped vegetables and chorizo sausage simmer in a pan of tomato sauce and the pasta is cooking in boiling water.
“Yo!” Blake calls from the front door, and I leave the kitchen to meet him in the hall.
“Hey,” I have to get my apology off my chest before I explode, “I’m sorry for being, you know, a dick earlier…” he places a finger in my lips to hush me.
“There's no need to apologize,” he says, holding a bag. I’ve got beer and dessert.”
“Yeah, but I feel like I need to explain that sometimes I get knotted up inside, and sometimes I can’t control my emotions-”
“I get it,” he stops walking to look me in the eyes. “I get it, Rae. You don’t need to explain.”
“It wasn’t your fault I reacted like that,” I say to him.
His warm brown softens this time as he runs his fingers down my cheek, stopping at my lips. “I know why you do what you do,” he says softly, running his thumb along my plump lip, before leaning down to kiss my lips long and sweet, no tongue, just lips.
I sigh when he pulls away and licks the taste of me off his lips, lowering his hand to my backside and giving me a light smack. “So, we’re okay?”
“Of course, Rae,” he states firmly. “C’mon, sure smells good in the kitchen. What’s my boy cooking up?”
“Pasta in tomato sauce…” I start as we walk into the kitchen together, and the urge to discuss Gavin the Pig rattles me, but the boys start talking about the mechanics of my silver hatchback, class, food, etc. Every topic flies about the room except the one we should be talking about.
Blake hands us a can of beer each, and when there’s a pause in their mindless conversation, I decide to raise the subject, “The pig.” Blake gulps his beer while leaning against the counter as Cormac stirs the sauce and sausage. When silence falls, I add, “We need to talk about it.”
“You wanna talk about pork?” Blake says, smirking.
“Is that a joke? Because if so, it’s not that funny and rather predictable, actually,” I protest, making his smirk grow wider.
“Okay, bacon, then,” he croons, gulps his beer, swallows, squeezes the can in his hand, and basketball shoots it to the trash can and misses.
“Missed,” I point out, sipping my beer. “Can we talk about the elephant in the room now?”
“Elephant? Not a pig?” he smirks, enjoying irritating me.
“Well, no, because the pig is dead-”
“Roasting on a spit,” he adds, cocking his eyebrows mischievously, and I cringe at the thought of it.
“What happened, and how did you do it?” I ask bluntly because I’m sick of messing around.
“Do what?” Blake asks innocently, breaking off another can of beer from the plastic rings.
A growl comes from the back of my throat that I barely have any control over. “Guys,” I fume. “Be real with me. Please. What happened?”
“Rae,” Cormac’s calming voice in a sea of chaos, “we’ll discuss it over dinner.”
“Are we expecting Gabe for dinner? Does he know what you two did?” They exchange glances, but I don’t catch the expressions, so I’m still none the wiser.
“Nah, he’s working late,” Cormac replies, his back turned, taking out a string of pasta to test.
“Does he always work late? I mean…does he work the graveyard shift every night?” The memory of him dropping that man from the apartment window plays like a movie in my head, often when I’m trying to sleep. That moment still haunts me, not because a man died, but the motivation behind it. Did Gabe let him go deliberately, or did I imagine it? Would he tell me the truth if I asked him?
Blake nods. “Gabe’s a vampire, preferring to hunt skullduggery after dark.”
“So…is he…seeing anyone?” I raise the question and notice a twinkle in Blake’s eye.
“Why?” he smirks.
“I haven’t seen him with anyone, and this house lacks a woman’s touch,” I answer, reminded that I forgot to bring the pot plants home from the glasshouse to lay my mark on it, even if it’s for a week or so.
Cormac pipes up, “Yeah, he hasn’t had a decent relationship since Mom died.” The conversation ends as Cormac scoops up the pasta onto plates. Even though I’m eager to discuss this further, now is not the right time because I need to get the Pig’s murder off my chest.
Cormac loads three plates with pasta and sauce, and we sit at the table. I’m used to eating on my bed while the TV runs mindless junk to escape into, so this seems so formal. “I couldn’t find a TV in the house, so…”
“Nah,” Cormac answers, dragging out the chair opposite while Blake sits beside me. “He hasn’t gotten around to getting one since he moved in.”
Gabe’s life seems empty and lonely – work and nothing else to pull him out of his workaholic head. His job is essential, but there must be a balance, especially living near the lake.
“So…the Pig,” I start. “Explain.”
Several beats of silence pass as if they expect the other to say something. Being cautious and withholding information won’t work for me. I need to know everything and won’t keep asking questions until I’m satisfied.
“Gabe recognized him,” Blake is the first to speak, “in the photograph. He used to work with Gavin here in the Torres Police Department.”
“Oh? I didn’t think the picture was clear enough to identify any of them,” I sigh as an urge comes over me to recheck the pic to see how clear the faces of the other two men are. The only reason I let the boys examine the picture was that I was sure it didn’t reveal much, apart from the blond girl in the middle, the victim. Gavin’s face is the most visible of all four men, and Gabe recognized him in the pic. This raises the question, “Did he identify anyone else?”
Cormac swallows his pasta and sauce, sips his beer, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before answering, “Not sure.”
His answer doesn’t fill me with confidence. “Okay, so start from the beginning. When did Gabe it was Gavin?”
“Straight away,” Blake answers, pointing his fork at my untouched plate to encourage me to start eating. I’m hungry but hungrier for their explanations and motivations behind the killing. “He mentioned it later on when you weren’t around. Clocked Gavin immediately but asked us to siphon his location out of you.” He looks to Cormac. “We got nowhere there, ay?”
“Yeah,” Cormac replies with his mouthful. “The testament of a good person is how well they keep a secret.”
“Really?” I challenge. “I think it depends on the secret.”
He nods in agreement. “Maybe. But in this context, if you can keep your secret, it means you can keep ours since the exposure of one secret will incriminate the other.”
Blake screws his face up, perplexed by the overworded explanation. “What?”
“You know what I mean,” Cormac replies stiffly, shoving another mouthful of pasta into his mouth as I wound a string around my fork.
“Why did you decide to hunt him down and kill him?” I ask, genuinely curious, then shovel the wad of pasta into my mouth while the two boys watch me splatter sauce all over my chin.
“To end your nightmare,” Blake answers, clears his throat, and adds, “and we felt that you maybe…needed help after…you know…what happened with Lyons.”
“I don’t need help,” I argue, hoping they’d agree. “I did a reasonably good job eliminating Lyons.”
“Well,” Blake makes a face, trying not to say the obvious. “Anyway, Gabe clocked Gavin, the ex-cop, and since we didn’t get his location from you, we just did a little digging and discovered he lives near your parents’ place. Is that intentional?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I sigh as the burden peels off my chest, bit by bit. “They threatened to hurt my family if I squealed, so I think he went there to keep an eye on them and wormed his way into my family unit.”
“Are you glad he’s gone?” Blake asks, winking.
“Yes. I would’ve liked to look him in the eye before shooting him, though,” I admit. “And draw out a confession.”
“You can do that with the next man on your list,” Cormac states. “Remind me who he is.”
“Ha ha, good try, but I won’t tell,” I exclaim as he breaks some bread to mop up tomato sauce on his plate. I can’t believe he’s finished eating already.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find out,” Blake says comically.
“How? And why must you steal my thunder?” I hit heatedly.
Blake snorts. “You’re sounding like a real killer now, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want you to get into trouble,” I stress as I have moments where the clouds part and reality hit me hard. I have actually murdered someone in real life, and so have the men before me. This is my new reality now – self-inflicted.
The boys exchange glances again, amusement indenting their handsome faces before Blake cracks up laughing while Cormac, the sullen one of the two, fakes a cough. My cheeks burn, slightly humiliated, as if there’s a secret between them that I’m not privy to.
“Rae, babe,” Blake sniggers with that dimple on his cheek, “we are trouble.”
I look to Cormac to add to this statement since he seems straight as a die with a narrow-minded focus on swim comps and is unlikely to do anything to destroy that. But who is he? “Are you trouble, Cormac?”
He cocks his eyebrow in his usual slightly awkward flirtation that isn’t quite as charming as Blake's. “You know I’m trouble, lady, after banging you against the tree as students walk by.”
My cheeks blush even more when he says that in front of Blake, but the thief tips his head back and laughs, rubbing his hands together in glee. “I can’t wait for my turn to bang you nymph-style.”
“Guys, have you done this before?” I ask as the pieces fall together, although I still can’t imagine Cormac killing anyone.
“Yeah, we’ve fucked chicks in nature before,” Blake answers obnoxiously.
“Blake, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about…you know, Gavin,” my chest tightens in frustration. Blake’s lousy timing to take the piss out of me is rubbing me up the wrong way. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously? We did terrible things.”
The smile washes from Blake’s gorgeous face; then he gulps down his beer, slaps it on the table, and says, “Do you remember who I work for?”
“Yeah, Smiler,” I answer, wondering where this is going. “The same man I work for sometimes.”
“Terrible people do terrible things,” he replies, and my stomach lurches a little.
“Who is the terrible person in question? You or Smiler? I know Smiler is terrible, but are you suggesting that your heart is just as blackened?” I question the charming, warm man before me.
“Not quite as bad as him, but let’s just say he doesn’t hire me just to steal shit,” he replies, tilting his head to the side, waiting for a reaction.
I swallow as a shadow casts across the room, carrying a sinister perspective. “I guess I’m more na?ve than I thought I was,” my voice catches in my throat as I speak, but my message is loud and clear.
“You’re not na?ve,” he replies softly, running those eyes over my face, and my body’s response is to get horny. What the fuck is the matter with me? “I’m particularly good at disguising the truth.”
“That’s been made evidently clear,” I reply. Is the charming thief really a cold-blooded killer?”
His tongue pushes the inside of his cheek while those warm brown eyes flick from my lips to my eyes. “One must not divulge the truth. And…ah…we can play the game with you, sweetheart. Beautiful bombshell is a gunslinging slayer.”
Why is talk about blood and death making me so damn horny? This is a side to me that I hadn’t known existed until today after Cormac told me that they killed Gavin. Blake can see it in me. The parting of my lips and change in breath, my eyes running over his lips and hands, hungry for them to touch me in places I long to be touched.
He leans back in his chair and combs his fingers through his dark curls. “Oh, girl, you’re about to get stung.” Sliding his chair back, he rises, still watching me as I remain seated, and steps behind my chair. I glance at Cormac, who watches on with interest, keen to stick around as Blake takes the back of my chair and tips it forward, and my hands slam on the table.