Shattered Glass (2 page)

I aimed the Jag downtown where my tuxedo was getting fitted.

The tuxedo you’re getting married in, Austin. The tuxedo you’re marrying Angelica in, Austin, I reminded myself.

Downtown was a maze of cross streets which, like slippers-boy, were incongruous with the rest of their surroundings. While most streets across Denver ran vertically and parallel to each other, some cruel genius decided to build downtown streets diagonally. Although I had lived in the city all of my adult life

and had been made to study every street when I had patrolled as a rookie, downtown still remained the most frustrating area to navigate. I usually ended up making at least one wrong turn.

And since the streets alternated one-way, whenever I missed one, I had to drive a few extra blocks to get back on track; which meant running into a gazillion traffic lights and waiting for the Light Rail trolleys or shuttle buses to pass. Which also meant that today I was later than I otherwise would’ve been, and I had to call my fiancée.

“Mm, you’re late. What have you been up to?” Angelica’s soft voice, filled with amusement, was about the only thing that could make me smile right now.

“Ogling young, pretty boys in diners,” I replied. As predicted, she laughed.

“Long as it’s not pretty girls.” Static told me she had covered the mouthpiece. “Jeffrey wants to know how long it’ll be until you get here?”

“If I can find a parking spot, and a street that doesn’t lead one way to hell? Maybe fifteen minutes.” “You said that an hour ago,” she reminded me.

“I’m downtown now. Looking for a parking spot.” I flipped off a street sign that didn’t conform to my need to go right, earning a glare from a misunderstanding motorist who yelled, “Cocksucker!” as I passed. I briefly considered rolling down my window and explaining that I was not, in fact, a cocksucker; that it was just that one fantasy. And besides, I was fairly sure I had a bunny slipper fetish, not a cock sucking fixation. That seemed like a lot of information to impart in the second and a half we had before he pulled ahead of me, so I let

it slide.

The fact that I was more comfortable owning up to the slippers thing and not the cocksucker thing was mildly disturbing. I’d rather have a footwear fetish than a sudden attraction to penises? Yeah, that sounded about right.

“Just park anywhere. You can afford the ticket.” Angelica had no logic when it came to money. Her idea made complete sense to her. Paying for a ticket was infinitely easier than finding a legal parking spot. And as a trust fund baby, I could just as easily pay it. The only problem was that downtown also enjoyed a healthy respect for tow trucks. And no one was going to tow away my beloved Arturo—so named after my training officer.

“I see an open lot. Be there in fifteen. Love you.” I hung up after hearing her reply in kind and then pulled into a garage parking structure. After parking and paying, I walked the half block to the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall.

The mall stretched, coincidentally, sixteen blocks, straight down into the heart of the business district. Large granite sidewalks extended six feet out on either side of the shuttle bus lanes. Restaurants, office buildings, outdoor cafés, street vendors, shopping centers and upscale boutiques huddled together on each block. The tailor was at the far end of the mall —not a long walk, but, with the crowds, an annoying one.

The only vehicles allowed on the two-lane road between the sidewalks were police cars, vendor trucks and environmentally friendly shuttle buses. Otherwise, the mall was strictly foot traffic. On weekdays, it teemed with businessmen and women, as well as tourists. In the evenings and on weekends, suburbanites bustled past street performers and the homeless.

Almost half of the dirty outstretched hands belonged to teenagers. They were the ones that I had difficulty ignoring.

Especially today, with the image of that broken boy still haunting my conscience. My gaze kept wandering down to feet, checking for bunny slippers.

I jammed whatever cash and change I had into their hats or hands, until I had to jump on the overstuffed shuttle when I ran out of money. The shuttle wasn’t air conditioned, so I arrived at the tailor shop baked and glazed with sweat like the main dish at a luau. Angelica was too engrossed in a gold tie to notice my disheveled appearance.

“I don’t know. I think she’s still testing the waters. She told mom she was going to Pridefest and ride a Harley naked with some woman called…” She tapped her perfectly manicured nail against a pile of shirts, ”I don’t actually remember what she was called. Something that sent mom into fits because it was definitely female.” Putting down the gold tie, Angelica held up a grey cravat dotted with dark flecks for my inspection. “Navy and silver? Can we see that navy suit again, Jeffrey?” “Great. I wouldn’t even need Jeffrey. I could just wear my dress uniform.” Jeffery threw me a look bordering on murderous and stomped to the back room. Actually, wearing my dress uniform would have been preferable. The idea of wearing another tuxedo for any occasion made my skin itch.

“Mm. You are yummy when you wear your costume.” “Uniform,” I corrected with a rueful grin and chuckle.

“Whatever,” she replied airily and laid the grey tie atop a stack of white button-down shirts. She didn't mean to be flippant about my job; she was just preoccupied with wedding planning.

“Exactly,” I said. “Whatever you want.” “You’re not helpful,” she said and shook her head, smiling absently.

“Because I want to live to see twenty-seven. You’re on the wrong side of crazy with this wedding planning.” “Pah,” Angelica huffed. “You’re exaggerating.” I really wasn’t. Angelica was one of the kindest and most uncomplicated women I knew; but since she’d started planning this wedding, I was a little afraid. And I dealt with drug dealers and crack whores for a living.

She had fired the caterers when they didn’t “condescend to make a buffet style dessert table”. The florist had quit after Angelica had said she wanted the roses to match the bridesmaids dresses, and then promptly changed the wedding colors two days later. She had asked me to tell Mark, one of my groomsmen, to wear heels because he was shorter than all the bridesmaids. I refused and she blamed me for all of the bridesmaids wearing ballet slippers.

Later she would apologize and promise to do better. We forgave her because, in all honesty, the girl who apologized was “our Angelica”, not the crazy bride.

Angelica was the barracuda lawyer to whom I could send troubled kids and expect her to defend them vigorously from prosecution. She routinely tried to cook dinner and laughed harder than I when it ended up smelling like an outhouse. She

dropped her head and snored loudly when I talked about sports.

She burped and watched Saturday morning cartoons.

Angelica was not flakey or indecisive. Until she had to pick chiffon or silk, or roses or chrysanthemums.

Truth be told, I didn’t recognize her during wedding planning.

So I preferred to steer clear of it.

“Should I stay for another fitting, or have we determined my uniform will work? Or maybe the navy suit he already made?” I asked. Jeffery, carrying said suit, was approaching us. The sound that echoed in his throat conjured up images of choking cats.

“We’re going with the navy suit,” Angelica decided with a perfunctory nod and wrinkled her nose at the bundle Jeffrey held. “Oh, not that one, Jeffery, the one with the mandarin collar,” she clarified.

The strangling cat sound erupted as a screech from Jeffrey.

“That was black, mademoiselle. Not navy!” I stifled a grin.

“Mm. Oh, Jeffrey, calm down. It’s basically the same suit, just in navy.” She patted his wiry hair and walked toward the back rooms. Jeffrey’s face was red enough to sub as a police light. “Don’t disappear, Austin,” Angelica called over her shoulder. I watched the way her ass moved under the halter dress. “And stop leering. It’s unnerving poor Jeffrey.” “Wouldn’t dream of leaving.” Or of stopping my leering.

“But I’m reasonably sure you’re the one unnerving Jeffrey.” The little man made another choked sound and tensed so hard he shook. Being fitted for another suit while a pin-wielding Jeffrey was in the apoplectic throes of agony, officially made me a masochist. By the end of the day I’d have enough pricks to prove it.

I should stop thinking about pricks. And bunnies. And pricks fucking bunn—“Please, I beg of you, stop her, Monsieur Glass,” Jeffrey pleaded, his pinched face staring up at me while he shook the nylon bag containing the suit. The tailor’s nervous eyes twitched from Angelica at the back of the shop, to me. I couldn’t blame him; she was now investigating a beige suit jacket. “I haven’t completed one suit!”

“Now, now, Jeffrey, eight more weeks and we’ll both be put out of our tailoring misery.”

Two hours later, Angelica twined her fingers with mine as we walked toward my car. We would split up for the day before arriving there, as she had “things to do that would only annoy you, Austin.” The wedding colors had been officially changed to navy and silver; though by the next week I expected them to be red and gold, or even pink and black. I was relaxed enough that my mind wandered back to slippers-boy as we moved quietly through the mall. Which relegated me to Biggest Asshole on the Planet.

I needed to stop thinking about it.
Him
. I felt like such a jerk.

Especially since I was so lucky to be with her.

“Austin?” Angelica prodded me out of my musings. “What are you thinking about?”

I offered a guilty smile at her furrowed brow. “How lucky I am,” I said, touching her hand to my lips while wiggling my brows.

She laughed musically and leaned into my arm. The bump

was too soft for any effect other than to cause me to look at her.

I winced when I compared her tanned shoulder to freckled skin.

I was a bastard. Angelica was beautiful, both inside and out, and to compare her to some grungy man-child was Grade—A douchbaggery.

“My dress came in today,” Angelica sighed blissfully, her green eyes glazing over. Unbidden, I pictured eyes the color of the sky.

“Can I come in your dress today?” My brows waggled again, earning another bright laugh from her.

“Mm. Maybe later this week. Oh, and don’t forget we have the gala next Sunday.” We stopped at a nearby hotel, using their taxi stand to get her a ride home. With a quick kiss and a gentle wave, she climbed into the first cab that pulled up and they drove off.

Continuing the Douchebag of the Year theme, I walked the half block, got into Arturo and drove thirty blocks out of my way to pass slipper-boy’s diner.

I honestly had no idea why I was there, or why I couldn’t keep my mind off him.
Him
. I even had to keep reminding myself it
was
a him. Not a her. No breasts. And, I guessed, no vagina. Definitely a him. And my fantasies were filling with images of
his
mouth on naked things of mine.

Naked things. With a guy. Naked things with a guy. Surreal.

I sat outside for half an hour with those words buzzing in my ear, before giving myself a mental slap and driving home. I resolved to forget about Bunny Slippers.

A block later the resolve crumbled as I began picturing those slippers’ ears flopping around with the guy’s feet in the air while

I pounded into—

Jesus! Okay, that’s just disturbing.

We Played Football Together, They Can’t Be Gay Back at my apartment, I sat at the computer and shuffled through websites. The moment I found myself downloading the wrong kind of porn, I figured I should go out. I needed to get my mind off sex. It was nearly an impossible feat, so I settled for keeping my mind off sex with a
guy
. Seriously. What the fuck?

I wasn’t gay. You don’t go twenty-six years before the gay gene suddenly just kicks in. It didn’t work like that. I was sure of it. Not that I knew that much about being gay. I had one friend with same-sex orientation, and Dana hadn’t spoken to me since I asked her to describe her honeymoon in graphic detail—and then made vibrator noises. Actually, I would have called Dana anyway, but she was out of town until the end of the month.

Obviously Angelica’s sister came to mind. But Jessica had about as much figured out as I did. And if she was a lesbian, well, I probably would be less interested in that aspect of gay life than my current dilemma. I decided to call my best friend.

When I was in eighth grade, I used a self-timing camera to take nude pictures of myself in various stages of erection. I then exchanged my biology teacher’s slides with the images. The teacher, in a state of panic, kept rapidly pressing the ‘next’

button. It was like a pornographic flip-book. That was the last straw in a very heavy pile of straws. I was expelled, and I ended up transferring mid-year from boarding school to a public school near home.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have included my grinning