Immortality Is the Suck (14 page)

he said. “They'll want your report,” he told me. He went off to use the bathroom

before leaving.

I looked at Peter and when the bathroom door closed behind Stan I said,

“You know I can't go into the station in the morning.”

Peter frowned at his hands folded before him on the table. He had that

mulish set to his chin. “Now you want
Stan
to lie?”

“Christ, Peter…”

A big sigh. “I'll talk to him.

* * * * *

Peter walked Stan to the door and in the hallway I saw them stop and

have one of those “partner” moments. The intimacy of which put a twitch in my

eye.

Along with my other new attributes, I seemed to have bat's ears. I could

clearly hear their conversation. “How're you holding up anyway?” Stan asked

Peter.

“Can't take it in,” said Peter.

“You need to sleep. The staff psych man give you anything?”

“Yeah. I hate to take that stuff.”

“If you want to talk the chief into letting you back at your desk, you have

to get some rest, man. You look half-dead.”

“That's not from lack of sleep. I need to get this thing cleared up.”

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A. M. Riley

“Peter, do you even remember what you
did?
What you
said?
If they

hadn't shot you full of tranqs…”

Peter muttered something so low even I couldn't hear it, and they came

farther down the hallway, so I could see them in the doorway. Stan had his

hand on Peter's shoulder in a brotherly way. It made the blood pulse behind

my eyeballs.

From the hallway, Stan cast a black look in my direction. “You know, they

found a kid in the river with a dime bag up his ass last week,” he said to Peter.

Peter's head lifted and his gaze met Stan's. “You think he has junk in him

somewhere?”

“ME hadn't done a preliminary, but since he thought COD was pretty

clear, he was leaving it until today.” He was talking about my autopsy.

“Hey! I'm right here!” I yelled at them both. “And I think I'd know if I'd

swallowed a balloon.”

Stan looked at me like I was the lying scumbag I knew I was. “Did you?”

“No! Jesus Christ. Somebody killed me, man.”

One of Stan's thick gray eyebrows went up. Peter put out his peacemaking

hand. “Okay, we'll look through all of this, prepare a statement, and when I

come in in the morning it'll all be straightened out.”

“What will our friend here be doing?”

“Cooling my heels,” I said, sulking. “I can't go out in the sun.”

“What?” said Stan.

I turned away and opened the refrigerator, standing there looking at food I

couldn't eat. “Hey, Peter,” I called out. “You're out of Tabasco sauce.”

“Don't mind him,” I heard Peter say, low, to Stan. “The past twenty-four

hours have been rough.”

“What do you care?” said Stan. “That's what I don't get.”

I slammed the refrigerator door as hard as I could.

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91

Stan still wanted to haul me in to explain my inconvenient survival to the

chief of police, but Peter convinced him that me being dead might lull

Armante's killers into a false sense of security. “And if someone has a death

sentence on Adam or any of his informants, we need to buy time before they

find out he's still alive. Give us a day,” he said.

Stan finally left.

Later, Peter was reading the files and he came across the thing I'd

forgotten about. Trust me, if I'd remembered I would have dug it out of there

and flushed it or something before he could see it. As it was I was completely

unprepared, watching the sports highlights. Damned Lakers need a better

defense and that's the truth. Peter made a noise and I looked over and he had a

page from my personnel file in one hand and his other hand was covering his

mouth.

Oh. Yeah.

He set down the paper. His eyes were tight at the corners and I half

expected him to come across the footstool at me. “Hey,” I said. “It was either

you or some cat hospital.”

Who was I going to leave everything to? My second cousin I haven't seen

since I was ten?

Peter covered his eyes. God, I can't do anything right. I even fuck up being

dead.

“I'm sorry,” I said for the second time in my life. Afterlife. He shook his

head.

“Can I get you another beer?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his voice kind of husky.

I didn't know what the fuck to do. I finally opted for dealing with it here

and now and I sat down next to him on the sofa.

He dropped his hand and turned his head so that I couldn't see his face.

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A. M. Riley

“I should have left it all to the police benevolent fund,” I said. “Except I

don't know what they'd do with my collection of porn.”

He was silent.

“There's that Colton Ford shower scene in there. I'd hate to see that

wasted.”

I heard something like a soft laugh and I dared to lay my arm over his

shoulder. I knew it was okay when he eased himself into my embrace. We sat

that way for awhile. The news was doing a recap, but they seemed to have

already forgotten me. Thank Christ.

I leaned over and smelled Peter's hair. His head turned slightly. “I don't

think,” I said.

“Sure you do. You just don't think straight.”

He'd turned toward me. I touched his face with my hand. “Nobody else

would give a shit if I died,” I said.

His lashes flickered; eyelids lowered to hide whatever his eyes would have

told me. “Not fair.”

“No, it isn't. I haven't been. I fucked up. You should tell me off.” Peter's

beard was showing and my thumb found the nap of it. I liked the prickly

texture, on top of the soft skin at the nape of his neck. Little goose pimples rose

on his skin as I stroked it. “Go ahead.”

“You're a dick,” he said softly.

“I am.”

He was breathing harder. I could feel his skin warming under my fingers. I

thought it was time to stop worrying about Freeway and Ozone and even Stan.

“Let's go to bed,” I said.

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93

Chapter Ten

The first time I had sex with Peter was a month into our stint as partners

in Homicide. We'd just closed a case, had a light load pending, and decided to

knock off early and share a couple drinks at a sports bar down on Main Street,

in Venice Beach.

“I live close to here,” he'd said. “Don't try to drive home.” So we'd walked

back to his place.

Now I figured at the time that my secret was pretty secure. You described

your stereotypical fairy and I was
not
the one you pointed to as an example. So

I was pretty damned surprised when he turned his deadbolt, hung up his

jacket, threw down his keys, grabbed my chin, and planted a big, wet, slobbery

kiss on my mouth.

Surprised and pleased, I should say.

We'd been having sex off and on for over a decade since. Not that I was

counting.

Peter's exactly what floats my boat. Hard and muscled and covered with

golden hair. Like a tough teddy bear with dangerous blue eyes, and a tight-

lipped mouth, sure of what it wanted and how to get it.

Right now that mouth was down around my navel, drawing up a mark on

my belly.

“Hey, can you slow down?” I asked him, and he looked up, surprised.

See, something was different. Something had changed in the past twenty-

four hours that I couldn't put my finger on. But I wanted to see his face. I

wanted to hear him breathing in my ear while we did it.

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A. M. Riley

Now he crawled up next to me, a playful smile on his face. “You feeling

okay?”

“Yeah.” I let my fingers fall down the slope of muscle on his shoulder. I

could hear his heart speeding up.

Maybe that was part of it. I'd never before known that when I looked at

Peter, his heart sped up. I'd never been able to feel his body heat up when I

touched him. I'd had no fucking idea Peter was so affected by me and it was

making me feel a little strange. Not bad strange, just strange strange. More

aware.

I touched his face and his eyes darkened. His lips parted and I planted a

soft kiss on them. I encircled his wrist with my thumb and forefinger. His wrist

was so thick, my fingertips couldn't quite touch each other. I remembered that

on the shooting range, he could sometimes fire one-handed. Now he raised that

hand and it really amazed me how a hand so strong could touch me so gently.

His fingers traced my lip and I kissed them. His mouth followed. This

tough little mouth that withheld so much from strangers, softened and pressed

against mine. His tongue was hungry.

We rolled. His hand was gentle on my cock, drawing it out of its shell, so

to speak, until my hips followed his rhythm, trying to push into his touch.

He laughed softly and said, “You want me, big boy?”

“Oh yeah.”

He was languid beneath me. We found a rhythm and it was slow and good

until the end when I was suddenly desperate to get deeper inside him.

Later, I got up and sat and watched him sleep.

Peter always slept like an old dog by the fire. On his side, legs twitching as

he moaned and whimpered in his sleep. Chasing those bad guys in his dreams,

I guess. And I wondered, for the first time in all this time, if he ever dreamed of

me?

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95

I slipped off the watch Stan had returned to me and turned it over. The

engraved words were thin and spidery. “
Always. Peter
.” I remembered when

he'd given it to me. It hadn't been a special occasion, or anything. Just a night

when I stayed after sex and we were watching the news recap.

“Hey.” He came back into the living room and set two beers on the table.

Next to mine, an oblong jeweler's box. “I keep forgetting to give you this.”

I picked it up. “What is it?”

He'd strolled into the hallway and his voice came from near the bathroom.

“Open it.”

By the time he'd come back into the living room, I had it on my wrist.

“So.” He looked worried. Rubbing at the back of his neck. “Is it okay?”

“What? The watch? It's perfect, Peter. Thank you.”

Still he remained standing.

“Peter. I love it. Would you sit down?”

A flush saturated his face and he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He sat. After a

minute I threw my arm over his shoulders and felt him ease himself into the

embrace. I could feel the heat in my face as well.

Later, I'd dragged him back in the bedroom for a second go-round. We lay in

the tangle of sheets, his head resting on my chest. “You can stay if you want,” he

said.

I could feel my heart start beating hard, my respiration increase. His head

moved as if he heard and felt the change in me. “Or not,” he said.

“Yeah, I've got an early call in the Palisades,” I said, closing my eyes and

trying to elicit my happy place. My nonsuffocating, nontrapped place. “It would

be easier if I stayed here.”

Peter's entire body relaxed again. “Okay.”

That was about as romantic as we'd ever become, but I knew, didn't I? The

only reason he'd never said anything was because we both knew I'd have a

fucking heart attack if he did.

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A. M. Riley

So I could pretend that I'd been shocked when Peter had made that

drunken statement the other night, but I'd be bullshitting myself.

Peter moaned in his sleep and rolled to his stomach. He was still naked.

Muscled shoulders, freckled back, the curve of that perfect ass.

“You got something you need to talk out?” He'd just shown up that morning,

something Peter never ever did. Even worse, I had the suspicion that he'd been

watching my apartment for a few weeks.

“Christ, no.” I put some distance between us, moving around my bike to

check what looked like a new drop of oil there on the pavement. “Like I told you,

I've been busy, Peter. Nothing's bothering me, nothing's wrong. I'm clean,” I said

before he could even open his mouth to ask it.

Seated on the lip of a brick wall outside my apartment complex. His arms

folded and he's got that pout he gets when he's thinking hard. Gives me a

glimpse of Peter as a kid.

He can't put into words why he's bothered, but I know why. I have been

avoiding him. Every time I see him my head's in a mess afterward. So I've just

been staying away.

He spoke something unintelligible in his sleep and his hand moved,

fingers curving, as if reaching for something, his arm stretched upward,