Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty (11 page)

“That’s how we’re going to end this? On a joke? Or are we going to just ignore what happened back there on the couch?”

The hardest thing he’d ever done was walking into a hospital room where another man lay amid the remains of his shattered life—a man he didn’t know but knew of—and introducing himself as a gay man. Standing in front of that man’s brother, Bobby realized he’d yet to learn the depths of his fears.

Men were disposable. Faceless after a time. Separated only by hair color and maybe mannerisms, but for the most part, he kept his dick happy with the equivalent of living dolls, falling in like maybe a few times but nothing more. Ichiro was going to be different. He was going to hurt, hurt someplace deep down inside of Bobby’s core, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it but walk away now.

If only he could.

“Answer me something first. Why did you pick up the phone?” Ichiro skewed the conversation. “You knew it was Cole. Hell, I knew it was Cole because of that damned Queen song. It’s an earworm. It’s stuck in my head right now. And don’t give me that shit about him maybe needing something. He was at home. Hell, you guys were
just
bailed out of jail. Why did you pick it up?”

“Because Cole’s my first—” Bobby struggled to find the words for his relationship with the quixotic, death-defying younger man. Taking in a sharp breath, he stared Ichiro down and calmly replied, “Because Cole is my first
honest
friend. He didn’t know me from jack shit before I came into his hospital room. I’d just retired from the force a few days before, and I was pretty fucking close to eating my own gun. Then someone—I don’t remember who—called me to tell me what was going down in West Hollywood, and shit… changed.”

“If you didn’t know him, then why did you—you make no damned sense, Dawson.” Ichi ran his fingers through his hair, working out some of the knots Bobby’d put there. “Why go down there if he didn’t know you?”

“Because even if he was shot to shit, Cole lived his damned life out in the open. No apologies. He was either the bravest fucking cop around or the stupidest. And, well, maybe a little of both. Your brother doesn’t stop and think about right or wrong—there’s no question for him. Not a single damned hesitation about what path he needs to take. He’s full bore while the rest of us dance around the edges of our lives waiting for something good to happen.” Bobby exhaled the breath he’d been holding in—probably since before he’d walked into Cole’s hospital room. “You know what I thought? I thought, fuck, here’s this kid who just fucking lost everything, and he’s fighting for a life he doesn’t even fucking have any more. But here
I
am, whining to nobody about how rough my life is because I’m gay, and I’m too much of a chickenshit to tell anyone.”

“You respected him?” Ichiro regarded him carefully, his dark eyes nearly lost in the shadows. “That’s why you went down there?”

“Because I needed him to teach me how to be… fuck, I don’t know, a man? At least an honest one. I’d lived my fucking life in so many damned closets I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag.” Bobby grinned, remembering the first time Cole gave him a hard time for sampling more than one twink a night at a bar they’d gone to. “He’s a good guy. I—wasn’t a good guy. I’m still not, but hell, at least I don’t want to snuff out the one that’s here now. Before—can’t say I was someone I’d want my own mother to meet. Well, if she were alive to meet me.”

“Something else in common, then? Dead mothers?”

“Yeah, guess so.”

It was his turn to rub at his face, and Bobby realized Ichi was right. Somehow he hadn’t gotten all of the concrete dust out of his hair. Disgusted, he quirked a regretful grin at Ichiro. He’d hate to let him go. It was better for things. All around. Ichiro was more like his brother than Bobby realized—a serial monogamist, and that was something Bobby wanted no part of—no matter how much his dick and other parts of his body really wanted the other man. Dusting his hands off, he said, “This
thing
we’ve got—it’s a really bad idea, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” The shadows were gone from Ichiro’s eyes, and they shone bright and dark, reflecting the lights of a city brewing its own chaos beyond the loft’s open windows. “A really bad idea.”

“I’ll nuke some burritos. You should head out.” He took a step toward the door, but Ichiro grabbed his wrist, holding him back.

“Cole doesn’t have to know—about this. About us,” Ichi murmured, his breath hot and slithery over Bobby’s neck. “It’s not like we’re going to—get married or anything. It can be whatever it is until it burns out. No harm in it. We both know what we’re getting into. No one needs to get their nose in it but us.”

For a second, Bobby debated telling the man to let him get on with it, then. To get naked on the bed before he changed his mind and delivered what he’d promised Ichiro during their impromptu romp on the couch.

Because, God, he wanted to be so deep inside of Ichiro, the man would have trouble walking until he was ninety.

“No, Sunshine, I don’t think so.” He paused, taking one last look at Ichiro’s slightly swollen mouth, knowing he’d brought that flush of sexual awareness to Ichiro’s beautiful face. “Because I’m a really bad idea, and you deserve better. You need someone like… hell, you need what Cole has. A guy you can sit around with and have dinner. Or go walking around a fucking farmer’s market and talk about different kinds of rice like it matters. You need that forever thing Cole’s got. You really deserve that. And fuck, Sunshine, I’m not even your goddamn type.”

“Yeah, see—” Ichiro’s breath hitched in his chest. “—that’s the problem. You’re every damned bit of my type—including being a big fucking mistake. So yeah, if that’s how you want it, then okay. I’ll walk out of here.”

“Just promise me, you’ll… you can count me as a friend, Sunshine.” Bobby skimmed his fingertips over Ichiro’s mouth. “You can come here anytime if you need something.”

“What I needed was to get fucked—preferably by you, Dawson.” Ichiro let go of Bobby, dropping his own arms to his sides. “But sure, I’ll keep that in mind. Especially when I need a pat on the ass and to be sent on my way.”

“Baby, better a pat on your ass than you kicking mine,” Bobby shot back. “Because that’s what you’ll do to me if I break your heart.”

“Still so fucking cocky, Dawson,” Ichi sneered. “What makes you think it’s my heart that’s going to be broken?”

Chapter 7

I
T
WAS
so different than in the movies.

So much quieter. So much more orderly.

And with a fuck of a lot less terror.

It was supposed to be a simple trip. He was going to talk to a Vietnamese woman named April, hoping to glean some information for his brother, Cole. A brother who was now crouched in against him, covering him tighter than any hug Ichiro’d ever been given—including from their mother.

To be fair to their mother, she’d also never shoved him facedown into greasy, filthy black asphalt speckled with glass fragments and cigarette butts.

Cole had his reasons. Small, deadly reasons cutting through the air above them and puncturing through cars and windows with little regard for the throngs of people cluttering the Los Angeles streets and sidewalks.

Fear tasted like blood. It filled his mouth with its thick, viscous cloyingness. Ichi thought he’d been shot through the lungs, but when he spat to clear his tongue, his saliva clung to his lips and face and was startlingly clear.

Because from the terror pouring through his marrow and choking in his throat, Ichi could have been bleeding out through his pores.

They’d just gotten out of the Rover when the first shots went off, and Ichi’d stumbled to the ground, panic driving him to cover. Cole shouted at him to get to the back of the car, and he’d half crawled on his hands and knees to find his brother waiting for him as more shots punctured the street’s normal chatter of traffic and city noise. People were screaming in some kind of Spanish, panic puncturing through their words as messily as deep, booming pock-pock sounds of a gun going off. The windshield of an old Toyota parked behind them crackled into tiny, sharp pebbles as a bullet struck the car. A glassy shower sprayed through the air, a few far-flying specks striking Ichi in the face.

“Ichi! You okay?”

He put his hand up against the Rover’s bumper, running his fingers over the stinging spots on his cheek. His brother met his stare, and Ichi wondered if his eyes were as glassy as the windshield’s remains scattered at their feet. He couldn’t focus on anything but the silence rippling over the street. He caught a sob in his throat, closing in on the sound before his brother could hear him, then flinched as another report of gunfire echoed through the broken calm.

His heart beat frantically, trying to keep up with the heaving breaths his lungs kept pushing out. Ichi put a hand to his chest, moving his fingers in small circles to calm himself down. It was no use. His heart tripped into another foxtrot and then swung into a full mosh when Cole pulled a gun out from under his jacket.

Cole patted Ichiro’s shoulder and peeked around the end of the Rover. “Stay here.”

“What are you going to do?” Alarmed, Ichi grabbed his brother’s arm, his pulse racing and erratic. “You’re not going out there.”

“Kinda gotta.” The amiable, charming brother he’d come to know and love was gone, replaced by a fierce, stubborn defender. Cole smiled gently, reassuring Ichiro with a quick wink. “Stay here. Get over there between those buildings; then call 911.”

“Cole,
no
.” Suddenly his heart stopped. Or at least it felt dead. There was another shot, and he jumped, startled by the sound. It was too near—too intimate—and he held on to his brother, refusing to let go. They’d come too far, had become too close. Ichi didn’t want to lose Cole. Not now. Not ever. And he clung harder, refusing to let go of any scrap of family he had left to him. “Stay
here
.”

The sounds of gunshots faded off, but the air was sharpened with screams echoing against the surrounding tall buildings. Someone close had their world shattered, and Ichi stilled, wondering if he would be next to lose a piece of his heart.

He was about to pull Cole back down, ready to ignore the gun and anything else just to keep Cole safe, but his brother stopped him with a shake of his head. Cole cupped the back of Ichi’s head, his fingers lightly threading through Ichi’s long hair. He bent forward, kissing the top of his younger brother’s head, and Ichi knew Cole would be leaving him there, alone, to face the nothingness of his fear.

Swallowing, Ichiro nodded when Cole asked him if he was okay.

“Yeah, I just… fuck.” Cole’s tenderness broke him, and Ichi resented the cowardice creeping up in him. Flushing guiltily, he let Cole go, sucking in the stink of the street’s filth when he tried to control his shuddering breaths. “God, this must be how Jae feels every time he hears you’re in the hospital.”

“Yeah, you two can go bond over that later.” Still reveling in his older-brother status, Cole shoved him away, a teasing push back, until Ichi’s legs shot out from under him and his butt hit the dirty street with an inelegant plop. “Now stay here. See if you can get the cops to come. I’m going to check on what’s happened.”

“And if someone’s been killed?” Ichiro asked softly as he pulled his cell phone out.

“Then it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve stumbled across a dead body.” Sadly, it was the truth. “I’d say I’d be right back, but honestly, with my luck? If anyone comes up dead, it’ll be the woman we need to talk to.”

I
T
WAS
too much to process. For Ichiro anyway. There’d been blood everywhere—or at least not where it was supposed to be. And as much as Ichi tried, he couldn’t get the smell of burnt metal and hot skin out of his nose. He heard Cole speaking to the cops again, to the female detective about the women someone’d found in an apartment nearby. More blood. More death.

He’d stood over a woman’s body—an almost woman—and amid the chaos and thunder of police, terror and crying, Cole became something different than what Ichiro knew. Staunch and unmoving but tender enough to console a crying Hispanic woman who’d witnessed the shooting.

The tenement was a slum. There was no other way to put it—not in Ichi’s mind. It towered up around a tiny courtyard, its cracked cement edges prickling with dry grasses and weeds. A splash of blood beaded across a bright chalked-in sidewalk hopscotch game, purple and pink grit floating on drying brown dots. A hand moved him away from the blood, carefully guiding him clear of the scene. A glance told him it was a police officer, his voice a soothing but firm thread to cling to, but for the life of him, Ichiro couldn’t make out his face in the rush of images and shapes coming at him.

A second later, Cole appeared at his side and, so American in his need to touch, wrapped an arm around Ichiro’s shoulders to pull him in close.

It took everything Ichiro had in him not to pull away and step back behind his oh-so-familiar public face, distancing himself from his brother and the bloodbath around them.