Chapter Four
Revelations and Relentless Pursuit
Nick
The café is crowded with the lunch rush, but Matt heads straight for my table without even looking around. Just werewolf things. “So what did you want to talk about?” he says as he sits down on the chair opposite mine. Then looks down. ”Oh my god, whose dog is that?”
Mickey takes the attention, like the showman he is, and springs up, demanding pats from Matt.
“Whose dog are you? Are you lost?” Matt coos, scratching behind Mickey’s ears.
“Ugh, what was that voice?” I blanch.
Matt turns to me. “Did you bring this dog?” He frowns in confusion.
“Oh, yeah, I have a dog now, Matt. Keep up,” I wave him off.
His eyebrows shoot up. “What do you mean you have a dog? How are you going to take care of it? When are you ever home?”
See, my freakout was totally valid. “Meena kinda forced me into it?”
“Kinda?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure I could have said no, but I—”
“—Am physically incapable of saying no to anything ever? Yeah, I’m aware,” he completes.
I roll my eyes and tell him everything about the recent werewolf victim and where Mickey fits in all this. He knew most of it already, since he is a Bureau agent himself and a firefighter.
Mickey gets bored by the lack of attention and makes himself at home under Matt’s chair.
How much does this dog sleep? He slept through the entire drive to the pet store yesterday, then to the Bureau clinic to get his blood tested for drugs this morning, too.
He did spend some energy destroying my rug sometime last night.
Maybe that made him tired? The damage was truly impressive. It will need to be burned.
“You’re not hoping the killer likes the dog so much that they’ll visit your house to abduct him, and then you’ll get into a fight over Mickey rights, are you?” Matt asks dryly.
“No, of course not. That’s crazy,” I laugh.
We’ll do an intricate high-stakes chess match.
That’s way cooler than a fight. Especially because if it’s hand-to-hand combat, it’ll be over in five seconds.
I wouldn’t waste such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like that.
It doesn’t even matter that I suck at chess and I’ll lose for sure.
But think about all the angst and the tension.
Then, I’ll have to arrest them anyway because I’m a responsible cop. But I can easily frame that as my final betrayal.
Goosebumps. Literal goosebumps!
When our food arrives, I tell him about all the latest gossip my mom shared in our last phone call. I know she’ll narrate everything to Matt next time they talk, but he tolerates it.
My parents fostered Matt when he was twelve, and I was nine.
He was extremely traumatized when he joined my family because his previous human foster family was horrible to him after they realized he was a werewolf.
He was just a child. How they could treat a child like that, I’d never know.
But now I have their address and numbers saved in my phone, so they’d better stay off my radar if they value their lives.
“I took Mickey to get a check-up at Elliot’s,” I confess during a rare lull in our conversation.
He sighs. “Please tell me that was the only time you saw him this week?”
“Umm… that was the only time I saw him this week?”
“Dude. You’re still stalking him, aren’t you? If Oliver breaks up with me because I let him introduce his friend to a stalker, I’m going to be so mad.”
“That man is never breaking up with you,” I say confidently. Their love was one for the ages and frankly quite rude to the single people around them.
Matt shakes his head, but a small smile manages to escape from his scowling face. “You know that wasn’t the point,” he says. “I still don’t understand what you’re trying to do here, man?”
I sigh. “I did a thorough background check. He has no werewolves in his family. There can be friends, but the question is why the fuck would he lie when he saw you at the Christmas party?”
“Maybe he was scared?” he offers. The fact that he didn’t even blink at my illegal background checks tells me I’ve trained him pretty well.
“He voluntarily hangs out with you guys all the time, and he was at the engagement party with a room full of werewolves. Why would he do that if he was scared?”
“Voluntarily might be a stretch, but point taken. So your solution to that is what? Keep following him around? For how long?”
That’s a fair question. I’ve watched Elliot almost every day for the past six months.
Spent every minute of free time I could scrounge around him.
And I haven't got anything to show for it other than deep bags under my eyes and a growing pile of pending work I can no longer procrastinate.
I was so sure I would catch him with some proof, but the worst he has done is visit a random park a few times.
Eventually, watching him became a habit I can’t shake even if I tried. This need to be around him in case he does something to prove me right. And—
“Okay, hear me out. Why don’t you just talk to Elliot like a normal person instead?” Matt suggests before shoving some more pasta into his pie hole.
“Huh. That’s not a bad idea, really. I can pretend to be his friend,” I nod.
“No, you can actually be his friend.”
“You’re his friend. What do you know about him?” I tilt my head, waiting.
Matt thinks hard. “He’s a vet?”
“Alright, don’t give yourself a headache. You’re right, though, I should hang out with him.” Then a light bulb goes off in my head. “I need to date him.”
“What? Why would you date him?”
I nod. “I’ll ask Elliot out.”
“What the fuck?”
“It makes so much sense. I could date him and then figure out whatever he’s hiding.” Yes, this is perfect. Maybe I can't catch the serial killer or the celebrity murderer all by myself. But this? This I can do.
I can figure out if Elliot Rhodes lied to us, and I don’t have to wait for forensics to come back with results or be on the receiving end of Marcus’s stink eyes when I inevitably keep bugging him until he gives me autopsy reports.
I’ll ask Elliot out, we’ll go on a couple of dates, and I’ll stealthily interrogate him until he slips.
And he will.
“...concerning because this isn’t even the craziest thing you’ve said—And you’re not even listening to me,” Matt is saying when I tune back in.
“No, you’re right. I need to make him open up to me, and then I’ll have all the answers,” I say. Sure, it sounds a bit unhinged. At least, no one can accuse me of not being self-aware.
“You’re straight. It’s so wrong to lead someone on like that, and Oliver will definitely break up with me when he finds out,” Matt says.
“He won’t, and I’m not,” I say.
“You’re not what?” he asks, frowning deeper.
“I’m not straight,” I say, confused.
“What? Why didn’t I know about this?” He looks genuinely hurt, his mouth pouting.
“I thought everyone knew? We’ve had intense conversations about Jensen Ackles’s generational sex appeal. I introduced you to RuPaul's Drag Race.” I mean, how is this a surprise?
“I—I thought you were trying to show your support by immersing yourself in the culture,” he claims.
I wave him off. “I did that by sneaking Playgirl for you without our parents knowing.”
He scrunches his nose. “I wanted to tell you that was a bit too much support.”
“You say that now when you don’t need them anymore. I didn’t hear any complaints before. I was the most supportive brother.” I really was.
Matt sighs. “Have you ever dated men before?” he asks.
I shake my head. “But not because I don’t want to. I just kept finding wonderful women, so that became …the comfort zone for me? I wouldn’t mind dating Elliot, though. He's hot. Not that it’ll be real, of course.”
“Okay. Thank you for telling me you’re what?
Bi?” He continues when I nod, “I want you to explore this, I really do. But this is not the way to go about it, Nick. You can’t have your first relationship with a man because you suspect he’s lying.
Just tell Meena, and she’ll start the protocol we specifically have for situations like this, and you can go find a nice man, if that’s what you want. ”
He’s right. He’s so right. Then, I think about Elliot.
His skilled hands. His perfect lips. Those sleek, crisp pants.
“But I’ve already put so much time and effort into this.
Besides, you know how swamped the Bureau is.
There’s no way they’ll assign another agent to this when they’ve already interrogated Elliot once. I have to see this through,” I stress.
Matt shakes his head gearing up for an argument.
Before he can start pointing out flaws in my flawless plan, I add, “And you know what? He might say no. I promise I’ll tell Meena if he refuses me and breaks my fragile little heart,” I say, dramatically rubbing my chest.
“And if he says yes?”
I swallow. “Then, we’ll go on a couple of dates, and I’ll make him talk. Don’t worry, I won’t fall in love with him or something stupid like that.”
Matt nods slowly and goes back to eating, secure in the idea that Elliot will say no.
Looking back at all our past interactions, I’m sure he will too.
But that doesn’t explain my heart going a mile a minute right now.
I feel this rush in my body that I only get when I find a break in a difficult case.
Matt leans in across the table. “You don’t think you’ve been following him because you’re into him and you’re being creepy about it?” Matt looks serious, like he really needs to hear my answer.
No. Is it? “No.” I nod.
Matt throws up both his hands. “Had to check,” he says before going back to vacuuming food into his stomach.
“So, you're asking out a man, and you have a dog. That’s a lot of life-altering changes. You sure you don’t need a minute to think this through?”