Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
TRICK
“Who’d you score from, Benny?”
“I’m tellin’ you, man, I don’t know anything!”
I stood in the back of the interrogation room with my shoulders against the wall, my arms crossed over my chest.
It had been five hours since I got the call and had to drag myself to a shitty, ramshackle house in a seedy part of town to investigate another goddamn meth overdose, so it went without saying that my patience wasn’t thin, it was fucking nonexistent.
We’d been questioning this twitchy piece of shit for more than thirty minutes, and I was just about ready to wrap my fingers around the guy’s throat until he started talking.
“We have witnesses who put you at the victim’s house right around the time of his death. We even got a description matching your piece-of-shit car to a tee,” Hayes clipped.
“All right! Okay, I was there, but I didn’t buy the shit, man! Clay already had it on him, man. He called me. That’s why I was over there!”
“Damn.” Hayes turned to look at me with a brittle grin. “Talk about a shitty friend. Comes over to smoke his bud’s ice ’cause he’s too cheap to get his own, and then he bails and leaves his boy to die ugly on the living room floor.”
“Shit! Look, I’m sorry!” The guy actually started crying.
“I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have left him. It was fucked.
I just freaked, okay! He started thrashin’ all around, and this foam was comin’ from his fuckin’ mouth, and I freaked!
I never tried that shit before. I smoke bud, bro, that’s it.
But Clay called and said the stuff he scored was primo.
Best he ever had, so I figured why not? But believe me, man.
Seriously. After the shit I saw, no fuckin’ way I’ll touch that shit again.
” He shook his head so fast his stringy hair went flying. “No fuckin’ way.”
“Clay ever mention a name?” I asked, speaking for the first time since we entered the room. “Tell you anything at all about the guy who deals to him?”
“No, nothing! Dude, I don’t even think he knew their names.”
“Their?” I pushed off the wall and moved to the table, taking the chair beside Hayes.
The guy looked back and forth between us in confusion.
“You said he didn’t know their names. So he bought from more than one guy?”
Something seemed to register, and he started speaking at a fast clip.
“Oh! Yeah, right. No, I mean, I think he always bought from the same dude, but the last two times he scored, he mentioned another guy being with him. Said he thought it was weird he got himself a partner, ’specially one who didn’t look like he belonged. ”
Hayes leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “What do you mean, didn’t look like he belonged?”
“Well, Clay said he was tweaked at first, you know, when that new guy first started comin’ around with his dealer.
Said the dude was too clean cut. Looked like one of those suburban nine-to-five assholes or somethin’.
At first, he thought he was a cop, but I guess he was just some guy in the middle of a midlife crisis, thinkin’ he could break bad or some shit. ”
He put his palms on the table and pressed hard as he continued, “But that’s it, man. That’s. It. That’s all he said to me. I don’t know anything else.”
Hayes and I pushed our chairs back and got to our feet. “All right. I believe you,” I stated as I rounded the long metal table.
The guy’s shoulders slumped in relief, and he smiled a dirty, snaggletoothed grin. “Thank god. So I can go?”
“Oh, not a chance.” Hayes pulled his cuffs from the back of his belt and tossed them to me.
I yanked the asshole from his seat and spun him until his back was to me. “You can’t be charged for being a piece of shit, but fortunately we found enough marijuana in your place to charge you with possession with the intent to distribute.”
“What? Oh come on!”
I slapped the cuffs on him and jerked him back around to face me. “We took a look at your jacket, Benny boy. Seems this is your third strike. That’s bad news for you, bud.”
With that, I started leading him from the room while reading him his rights.
Nona
I’d received a text from Trick fifteen minutes earlier saying he was wrapping things up and leaving the station.
I wasn’t sure why it was affecting me now when it hadn’t ever been an issue before, but I hadn’t been able to sleep knowing he was out there late at night, dealing with God only knew what, so I’d decided to curl up on my couch and read a book while Diva snoozed at the other end by my feet.
I had just checked the clock for about the millionth time when I heard the rumble of a big engine coming up the street. Diva’s head came up, and her stumpy tail began to wag. “Looks like your daddy’s back, girl. Why don’t we go say hi?”
Cradling her in my arms, I headed for the front door and pulled it open, keeping the screened one in place while I watched the headlights from Trick’s truck as it turned into my driveway.
He killed the engine and climbed out, rounding the hood and heading up the walkway.
Diva let out an excited yip at the sight of him, so I opened the storm door to step out onto the front porch and put the squirmy bundle on the ground so she could greet him.
I might have swooned just a little when Trick bent to retrieve the puppy and held her to his chest, scratching behind her ears with his other hand and muttering to her as he reached the porch steps.
It was then I noticed the haggard expression on his face, and my insides twisted in concern. “Hey. You catch the bad guy?”
“We caught a bad guy,” he sighed. “But not the one we were hoping to catch. Just another dead end.”
I moved closer, the need to comfort him taking over. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” I said softly, reaching up to place my hand on his arm. “But at least there’s one less bad guy on the streets.”
Lifting his free hand, he rubbed at his forehead and blew out a frustrated breath. “I guess so.”
“Is there anything I can do? Do you want a beer? Or a cupcake? Or maybe both?”
That got me my desired reaction. The hardness melted from his features, and his eyes glinted with humor. Seeing that, and knowing I was the one who gave it to him, made me feel like David conquering Goliath. That look right there was better than any cake or sweet I could ever bake up.
“You still have cupcakes, sweetheart?”
Taking his hand, I led him into the house and closed the front door behind him.
“The rate I was going recently, I’ll probably still have cupcakes a year from now.
” I guided him to a stool and he took a seat, putting Diva back down so she could sniff around while I went to the fridge, pulled out a beer, and uncapped it, passing it to Trick.
“That’s the best beer you’re ever gonna have.
It’s the summer ale from The Tap Room. Rory gave me a sixer at wholesale.
And I swore to her that if I ever had another kid, I’d name it after her. It’s that good.”
“Is that something you want?” he asked as I grabbed the last two cupcakes from beneath the glass dome, put them on a plate, and set them on the island in front of him.
“Is what something I want?”
“More kids. Do you want more kids?”
I paused at that question, only considering the answer for the first time in years.
“I haven’t really thought about it since Tris was born.
” Opening another beer for myself, I took a sip before admitting, “I think a large part of me knew Chris wasn’t going to be forever.
I didn’t see it then, but looking back now, there were signs.
He wanted more kids. Honestly, I did too.
I’d always wanted a big family. But every time he brought it up, I was had a million reasons why we shouldn’t.
” My throat was suddenly dry, and I had to take another sip from my beer to combat the scratchiness.
“It was self-preservation, I think. I didn’t even realize I’d been holding myself back until it was over. ”
Trick’s mercury gaze drilled into mine, his stare holding me captive as he admitted, “I know what you mean. I glorified what I had with Emma right after it ended. I turned her into something she wasn’t, wanting to hold on to those good times.”
The beer in my belly began to churn as acid slowly crept up my throat. I cast my gaze to the side, unable to look at him. “Yeah, well I think it’s easier to hold on to the good memories than the bad. We’re all guilty of that.”
“I guess you’re right.” He lifted the beer bottle to his lips and took a pull. “Damn, baby. You were right. This stuff’s the shit.”
The tension melted from my shoulders as I nodded. “Right?”
The bottle clinked as he placed it back in the counter and went for the cupcakes.
I watched his fingers as he peeled back the paper wrapper and brought it to his mouth.
Those big full lips parted as he took a bite.
I was transfixed, watching his jaw work and his throat bob as he swallowed, and when his tongue peeked out to swipe the leftover icing from his bottom lip, I felt a quiver between my thighs.
A groan of pleasure rumbled from his chest, and I had to brace against the island to keep from melting to the floor. “Christ, I don’t think there’s anything that tastes better than this. Jesus.”
“You like those, you should try my blueberry muffins. I make this brown sugar crumble topping that’s insane. Last time I baked those, it got a little out of hand, and I ended up making about a million.”
“That another bout of the stress baking your kids keep mentioning?”
Embarrassment washed over me, and I let out an awkward, uncomfortable laugh. “Something like that.”
His attention homed in like a laser beam. “You wanna tell me a little more about that?”
I cleared my throat, hoping my face didn’t look as red as it felt. “Uh… I guess you could say I have a habit of baking when things are stressful. A lot of baking.”
“And you’ve been stressed lately.” It wasn’t a question, and I started to grow uncomfortable as he hedged.
“Yeah.”
“Because of me?”
I kept my head bowed, tracing the veins in the marble with my fingertip as I spoke. “Well… yeah.”
“Shit, Nona. I’m sorry.”
My head shot up, and I finally found the nerve to meet his gaze.
“I know. You’ve said that, and I believe you.
I’ve just….” I pulled in a fortifying breath, needing to get these words out.
They’d been leaching their poison inside of me for far too long.
I’d said them to my friends, but I knew the only way to dig that poison out by the roots was to say the words to the person at the very center of that pain.
“I’ve liked you for so long, Trick. I think I started falling for you the moment I laid eyes on you.
I used to watch you with Emma, and, well.
..” I shrugged. “I was jealous. She had you, so as far as I was concerned, that meant she had everything. The night of the wedding, the way you looked at me? I’d never had a man look at me like that.
And it was you. I felt like maybe I was finally getting what I’d wanted for so long.
You came home with me, and it felt like a dream come true.
So when you took that away… it hurt,” I finished on a whisper.
Trick came off the stool and rounded the island so fast it nearly gave me whiplash. “I’m a fucking idiot,” he growled, taking my face in his hands.
“It’s ok—”
“I’m fuckin’ crazy about you, Nona,” All the air expelled from my lungs on a wheeze. “I knew I was making one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I walked away from you that night. I just didn’t realize it as soon as I should have.”
“Trick, you don’t have—”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night, and when you froze me out for that month and a half, it was torture, baby.”
My heart was beating so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. Grabbing hold of his waist, I fisted the material of his shirt and dropped my forehead to his chest. “I hated it too.”
“It took me a while to see what’s been in front of me this whole time, but my eyes are open now.” He slid his hands down my shoulders to my arms, pushing me back just enough that he could look in my eyes. “My eyes are open, and all I see is you, Nona.”