Chapter 16
Silas
Taste was a relative term.
Something I hardly ever cared to debate with anyone over. Least of all a sales person consumed with making as big of a commission as possible and tailoring their opinions accordingly.
A pet peeve of mine: dishonesty in the name of capitalism.
Caring what mattered to someone else in terms of personal style or self-expression hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.
Unless a relationship was built on those foundational blocks to begin with, what sense did it make to waste energy worrying about something that was subject to change with time and societal trends?
“You don’t like any of them?” A rhythmic tapping of fingers against a velvet tray, the slight tinge of annoyance clinging to those words.
“No.”
Another tray of gemstones were packed up and taken away, the sales clerk, Rebecca, hardly keeping the sneer to herself anymore. “I’ll see what else we have.”
Four and a half hours spent pouring over pieces of rock harvested from the ground.
Irregularities cut out of them and polished until each one was shiny and eye-catching.
None of which I’d cared for. Having no interest prior in fine jewelry, or gemstones, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for so much as the vision I’d created in my head of the final product.
Finer details were still blurry, soon to be filled in once inspiration struck in the form of ‘knowing when I see it’. As much of a frustrating position to be put in on the jeweler’s end, they’d eventually make back the time spent helping with the money I was about to blow on all of this.
Twenty-seven 2-ct stones and thirty-six 1.5-ct stones.
Quite the commission with whatever gemstones I decided to go with.
Walking in here with my list of specifications had every sales associate in the store kissing ass the moment word was passed around.
Fourteen minutes in had us sitting down at a private lounge in the back of the store to view premium stones not yet out on the floor, and a bottle of champagne chilled in a bucket of ice.
Two managers later and now we’d been saddled with Rebecca, who seemed quite keen on passing us off yet again.
“What are these for, anyway?” Avery folded the size chart back in half again, leaning forward briefly to toss it back onto the glass display counter.
His champagne glass sat half full on the edge of the counter, untouched since the first hour.
Mine was much the same, only a few sips taken to gather the quality of alcohol these people were willing to shelve out on their highest paying customers and using it to gauge what kind of sales tactics would eventually be used.
The lounge was darkly lit with only the table in front of us having a decent amount of light in order to show off whatever optimal cut of the stones caught the light with the best.
Refraction. Clarity. Cut. Weight. Color. All important in making the decision on what to buy to guarantee whatever I was taking home today wasn’t a complete rip-off and would fit the piece that was being created for them. None of which I had any expertise in.
I sighed, folding back into my chair. A headache bloomed along my brow bone, spidering across where I had a thumb pressed into my left temple. “I already told you.”
“You didn’t.” He relaxed back in his chair, too, legs spreading wide while he relaxed. “All you said was that you had some list you needed to buy. I thought we were going grocery shopping.
I peeled my eyes open slowly. “Why in the world would I take you grocery shopping, Avery. I order that shit straight to my house.”
He shrugged at me. “First time for everything.” And then he gestured to the room. “Case in point.”
In the back of my mind, I was beginning to regret not telling him to fuck off when he’d wound up on my doorstep early this morning, demanding I come to the gym with him. A new hobby he’d taken up with busy season hitting at Carmichael’s mechanic shop.
Cold weather brought everyone in for a quick tune up to last throughout the next few months of bad weather. This area certainly wasn’t as bad at the ones closer to the mountains. But our snowfall wasn’t for the faint of heart.
How often did Terran experience a true snowfall in the city?
Not the light dusting that our entire state got off and on until spring but a well, and true, snowstorm that trapped everyone inside for at least a full day before our small towns could unbury us with their two plows.
I’d have to ask him.
He’d be out on the roads by then, patrolling between counties.
Inclement weather needed to be taken seriously, regardless of how confident getting behind the wheel felt.
Rain wasn’t the same as a flurry. Getting caught in something like that without the experience of knowing how to safely navigate through it would end horribly.
He wasn’t about to wind up in my ER again after a nasty wreck trying to get somewhere and catching a spot of black ice hidden under fresh powder.
He’d learn how to drive his cruiser well before the first big storm hit. I’d make sure of it.
Sneaking my phone out of my pocket, I pulled up a fresh web browser. “The cops in the area. What kind of model do they drive?”
Avery paused. “Why?”
I hated repeating myself. “What kind of cars do the precincts have? Dodge Chargers?”
I could feel his eyes on me, staring holes into the side of my head while he wore some predictably twisted up expression of confusion. “It depends.”
I held back a sigh, looking up from my phone. “On?”
He shrugged. “What the officer needs it for. They do drive Chargers, yes, but many of them drive SUVs, too. Others drive the sedans. It will depend on precinct funding and what they’re allotted for their fleet.”
Leave it to Avery to bust out the car facts he’d osmosis-ed from his partner the second he got a chance to. Then again, invaluable information when deciding on what car to purchase and have shipped to my house. A sedan was practical and most often used by the cops I saw cruising around town.
Easy to learn in and take for a spin in Palmerston High’s parking lot after the first storm of the season hit and cancelled classes for the day.
Wait a second.
My thumb hovered over the ‘more inventory’ option, pausing.
What the fuck was I doing?
Was I actually considering purchasing a practice car for Terran like he was my teenaged son learning how to drive for the first time?
That man was a grown adult and could learn on his own time how to navigate a winter advisory. It wasn’t my job to teach him, nor had he asked me to.
We hardly knew each other. Stepping in when I knew nothing of his background was as insane as it was insulting. My assumptions were giving me a false picture of him, not at all taking into consideration his life before Ellington Heights that was completely unknown to me.
For all I knew, he was an expert at driving under disastrous conditions.
There was a lesson to be had here. I should’ve never promised to buy him another set of chains to begin with. Dipping my toes into uncharted waters had my mind racing to too many avenues it didn’t need to be going down.
This was supposed to be a cut and dry process.
Both of us benefited from our sexual chemistry.
Both of us had a good time letting loose for the evening and exploring each other’s kinks.
Leaving it at that would save us in the long run when either party, eventually, wanted to cut things off and move on.
Bedroom activities wouldn’t last forever.
Sooner or later, they’d grow tiring and stale.
“Since when do you care what kind of cars the cops around here drive?” Avery asked.
“I don’t,” came my curt reply while I shoved my phone back into my pocket.
Too invested in something that didn’t matter. Too focused on the wrong thing. His safety was not my concern. He had an entire fucking precinct to look after him. A rotating door of visitors I’d seen come and go first hand while he’d been recovering.
That man had no shortage of people who gave a shit about him.
Why add myself to the list when I didn’t need to be in order to enjoy his body?
My frustration with not finding what I wanted here was beginning to bleed into other aspects of curiosity, piquing it where it didn’t belong. Terran was... an acquaintance I slept with once and would ultimately again if Wednesday went well enough.
I was looking forward to it—more than that if I sat with my feelings for longer than a minute or two before the familiar feelings of wanting to crawl out of my own skin hit me—and was interested to see what gifts he surprised me with this time around.
My going out of my way to purchase high-end gemstones to replace the ones that were lost when I’d disposed of his first set was simply me paying him back.
I knew what it felt like to lose something valuable against your own accord and respected anyone who was willing to pay it forward with retribution.
The artisan I’d found overseas, while most likely not the same one he’d bought his first one from, had an incredible catalogue of work I couldn’t pass up commissioning.
If I was going to be staring at this piece of jewelry permanently wrapped around that slutty little waist of his—my goddamn kryptonite, it seemed—for the rest of the time we slept together, then I needed to like it, too.
Sparing no expense in getting it made properly hardly mattered when Terran would be wearing it for the next few years, at least. More, if he took care of it like he had his last one. The devastation in his eyes upon realizing what had happened to it was something I still thought about.
Why not rectify it and call it even?
“Silas.”
My gaze snapped over to Avery, his brow raised high. “Where did you go?”
“What?”
He nodded toward the counter, Rebecca having returned with another tray of gemstones. “She wanted you to take a look at them.”
Oh.
To be frank, I was getting tired of that cop consuming my thoughts.
Last Friday was supposed to purge me.