There's This Guy Page 16

  “Let me tell you about the keys,” Jake began. “And Evancho.”

  He spent nearly thirty minutes talking about his parents and their loose connection to Evancho, then segued into Dallas’s mother and how she made him feel discomforted at first. Jake poured everything he had inside of him out, at one point standing up to pace about the room, conflicted over using Evancho’s back room for his art because it would be seen as favoritism, only to sit back down again when he was overwhelmed by his emotions when he talked about Evancho being proud of him.

  Jake finally came to the end of his words, a skein of muddled colors and bright clashing metallic threads. The clock on the wall ticked away, and he caught himself before he glanced at the time, forcibly rejecting the guilt he felt for taking up her afternoon.

  “You almost looked at the clock again, didn’t you?” Her tone was light and teasing, not the verbal slap he’d come to expect from people. If he took anything away from their sessions, it was the understanding he was worth someone else’s time. It was the hardest lesson she intended to guide him through and the one he knew he needed to learn the most.

  “Almost.” Nodding, he let out a short laugh. “I feel bad asking Dallas to wait for me outside, but he says he wants to. And now’s when you ask me how I feel about that and I tell you I don’t know. But this time I think I do. He makes me feel… good. Him waiting for me. Like I’m worth his time.

  “That’s kind of flipped around, because I’ve always been the one looking at the clock, making sure I’m somewhere early so no one’s mad I’m late, and… it feels good. I’ve never felt this good about someone else before, and… I just want to take care of him. Like he takes care of me.” The couch gave when he pushed back against it, settling his shoulders into its cushions. “Paying attention to what he needs, waiting for him sometimes. Not like I’ve got to keep track, but I don’t know how to explain it. Equals, I guess. That we’re worth each other’s time.”

  “That’s a big step for you,” she acknowledged. “No matter what happens from this point on, you need to hold on to that, remember it for when things feel bleak.”

  “Like when I want to press the trigger on that gun?” He rubbed at his face, then stretched his legs out. “I need to get rid of it. I haven’t, and I should. I don’t need it. I don’t want it, but… why do I keep it? It’s not… right. It doesn’t feel right anymore.”

  “Probably for a lot of reasons. No one can answer that for you, Jake.”

  “That gun’s a part of my past,” he asserted, hating the way the roof of his mouth itched when he spoke about it. “I need it to stay there because I need a future where I’m not tasting gun oil and whiskey in the morning before I brush my teeth. That gun’s like watching the clock. It’s me thinking I’m not worth the time or space. So I need to get rid of it. Maybe even today.”

  “If that’s what you need to do, then you should,” Val agreed, giving Jake a small nod. “We’ve talked about how to surrender it. The detective I know said she’ll take it from you whenever you’re ready to give it up. You just need to take it down there and give her a call. If you’re ready.”

  “Yeah, I am.” The weight of the keys grew lighter in his pocket after he’d accepted Evancho’s pride in him, but the gun—that damned gun his father’d left behind in the house—was an albatross around his soul. What it was, what it meant now dragged him down. “Because I think I’m in love with Dallas, Dr. Shiga…. Val… and I can’t do that… love him or learn to love him… with that piece of metal in my life. So it’s got to go so I can move forward. So I don’t have to watch any more clocks, waiting for the seconds to end. I think I’m ready. I think I’m ready to be in love.”

  Fifteen

  “PRETTY BIG thing… doing this.” Dallas angled the Tesla into a parking space, cranking the wheels slightly into the curb. “She knows we’re coming, right?”

  Jake shifted in the other seat, craning his neck slightly to look at the square glass cubes dominating the block. There was a bit of sunlight left in the day, catching on the red tints in Jake’s rich coffee-brown hair. It was a pleasure to watch him, even as he struggled to turn over a piece of destruction he’d carried with him, an escape route for when life grew too sharp and dangerous for him to live.

  The day was showing on Jake’s face, deepening the shadows beneath his hazel eyes. What they were doing was necessary, but if he could, he’d have spared Jake the trip. The air inside the Tesla was hot with pressure, and Jake’s limbs were stiff with stress. He’d been mostly silent on the trip over, his eyes drifting to scan the streets during their conversation, but Dallas suspected he saw nothing beyond his own thoughts.

  “You don’t have to do this. Today’s been kind of big for you. If it’s too much, that’s okay,” Dallas said for the tenth or so time since they’d packed the gun and ammo up into a box. “I can go in and hand it to her if you want me to.”

  “No, I’ve got to do this.” Jake’s long lashes dipped down once, his gaze falling to the box at his feet. “I don’t understand why I want to not do this. It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve….”

  He trailed off, and Dallas reached for Jake, letting his fingers brush Jake’s thigh. He twitched when Dallas touched him, his muscle jumping under Dallas’s fingertips. The freckles were out in full force across Jake’s cheekbones, their light scatter burnishing his paling skin. The longer they sat under the pepper trees’ shade, the paler Jake got, until Dallas was worried he’d pass out from lack of circulation if they didn’t start moving soon.

  They were squeezing the last bit of the afternoon out, wringing the dregs from the day, and Los Angeles’s streets were thickening with traffic. The rush of cars passing them was a waterfall of sound, and coupled with the fragrant spicy green of the nearby trees and the faint breeze flowing through the coupe’s partially open windows, it was a nice, serene spot to sit and watch the world go by. It should have been peaceful, sitting in front of a long stretch of lawn and pathways with odd sculptures crawling up into the air from their circular stone pedestals.

  Dallas hated Jake being denied that peace. Hated knowing Jake’s solution—a finite, horrific solution—to the turmoil raging in his gentle soul lay in a box between his feet. He also hated knowing Jake was the only one who could walk that box up to the detective and hand his death wish incarnate over to her.

  It would do Jake no good if Dallas handed the gun over. Dallas knew all the reasons why he shouldn’t—good, solid, valid reasons—but they battled with Dallas’s longing to grab the box and chuck it as far away as he could… because Jake didn’t need any more pain in his life. Yeah, Jake had to be the one to hand the gun over. It was the only way he was going to heal, but Dallas still didn’t have to fucking like it.

  “Hey, look at me.” Dallas inched closer, or as much as he could in the Tesla, twisting in his seat so he faced Jake. When Jake turned to look at him, Dallas was struck by the guileless trust in Jake’s face and the sweetness of the man’s soul shining out of his troubled gaze. “I want you to know something, and you don’t have to respond or react. You just have to sit here and listen for one minute, and when I’m done talking, you can either punch me in the face or get out of the car and we’ll go do this thing together, okay?”

  “I worry about you and your thinking I’m going to ever punch you. Don’t you think I’ve had enough of that kind of shit from my father?” Jake tilted his head back against the car seat, sighing. “Sorry, I…. God, I can’t seem to shake him off of me. He’s like dried snot I can’t scrape off my skin, and I feel… guilty for being happy about being free of him. And pissed off because I’m guilty.”

  “Okay, all of that? Valid.” A bicycle whizzed by, nearly clipping the Tesla’s side mirror, and Dallas shook his head at the courier’s back, then turned his attention back to Jake. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t play one on TV. I don’t even pretend to know what to take when I’ve got a cold or the flu. I don’t know what to starve or what to feed, and most of the time—a
nd I’m not too proud to admit this—I call my mother to ask her. So, I’m probably the last person you should ask advice from about anything related to your body or your brain.”

  “But?” Jake mimicked Dallas’s slight drawl back at him. It wasn’t a bad mockery. Celeste did a terrible impression of him, especially when she spackled on a country accent so thick it grew hayseeds. “You’re going to say a but.”

  “But I think this gun here is like a piece of your father, and it’s comfortable to you because at some point in your life, you knew your father was going to kill you.” Jake flinched—visibly flinched—but Dallas pressed on. “I think you keep that gun—want to keep that gun—because it’s what you’ve always expected would happen. He would kill you. And now he’s dead, and that’s all of him you have left that can do the job.

  “You’re stronger than that, J. I know you are. And he didn’t deserve you. Not one fucking bit. I know you’ve got to go hand that thing over because it’s something you need to do in order to move forward, but I’m telling you this….” Dallas cupped Jake’s face, feeling the strength of his jaw on his palm and the softness of Jake’s lower lip on his thumb. “I’m not going to let that asshole take you from this world. If I’ve got to follow some short, hairy-footed guys to the edge of a damned volcano to do it, that thing’s going to burn. You’re special, beautiful, sweet, talented, and so damned gorgeous you make my teeth ache, so yeah, one way or another, that gun’s leaving you today. And then, so help me God, I’m going to get you some cotton candy.”

  “It was nice up until the cotton candy.” Jake’s reproach wasn’t serious, or at least it didn’t seem to be judging by the dimple creasing his cheek. “And I don’t think you’re wrong about the gun. Any of it. I do have to be the one to hand it over, and I like that you want to do it for me. I also want to tell you thanks for… well, everything.

  “For being here. For everything. Just… for being with me.” Jake turned his head, his mouth leaving a slightly damp imprint on Dallas’s palm in a gentle, lingering kiss. He leaned into Dallas’s hand, then pulled away, bending over to grab the box by his feet. “I like you a lot, Dallas. Probably more than I should or… I don’t know… I’ve never been in something serious with anyone before. Not really. I don’t know what to do with how I’m feeling, and I don’t think I’ll begin to understand what’s inside of me until I get rid of this. Because I’m ready to put this part of my life… of whatever I was living… behind me.”

  “But then cotton candy?” Dallas poked at Jake’s side, finding a ticklish spot between his ribs. “Because, Jake Moore, I cannot wait to see how you taste with a bit of cotton candy on your tongue.”

  “I really don’t care about the cotton candy, Dal.” A shyness filled Jake’s expression, endearingly sweet and unexpected. Then he whispered back, “I just want to taste you.”

  IT WAS over too quickly. Oddly anticlimactic and without a fanfare or heavenly choir descending to part the clouds and drown the Earth in their glory. Instead a handsome, somber-faced Latina detective in jeans, black T-shirt, and a shoulder harness with a gun in her holster met them in a flat-gray interview room and took the box before Jake could slide it across the table to her.

  Detective O’Byrne greeted them at the front desk, and Dallas laughed when he saw her, telling Jake she’d been the detective called in for the body found at Bombshells. They’d both stopped short when she came downstairs, shaking hands and murmuring about how it was nice to see each other again, and then Detective O’Byrne led them down a hall, asking a passing uniformed officer to grab her three sodas from the vending machine and bring them to the interview room.

  “I just need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Moore,” she said, finally sitting down after the cop who brought the sodas in took the box out with him when he left.

  And that was it. That part of his life was gone. The darkness of its presence and its foul oily metal taste were no longer going to be hovering in the back of Jake’s mind. He didn’t mourn its loss. If anything, he felt freer than he had when his father exhaled his last rattling breath or when he watched the gravediggers toss the first few shovels of dirt over the coffin.

  It was done. He was done. And the first inhale Jake took when the box left the room eased away the barb he’d nursed in him for way too long.

  O’Byrne cleared her throat, catching Jake’s attention. “How long have you had the gun in your possession, and do you have a license to own a gun?”

  “Sorry. I’ve had the gun in my apartment for a few years now, but… it was my father’s.” O’Byrne’s fierce expression concerned Jake, especially when she began taking notes. “I don’t have a license… um… its registration is in the box.”

  “His dad just passed a few weeks ago,” Dallas interjected. “He was in a home right up until he went into the hospital.”

  “Did you bring a copy of the death certificate?” She looked up from her forms to take the piece of paper Jake’d copied for her. “Thanks. Normally we do a quick sheet during gun buybacks, but since you’re here instead of doing it through the program, it’s a bit different. I just want to make sure there’s no questions I haven’t covered with you. Okay?”

  “Sure, fine.” He glanced over at Dallas.

  “Gun buybacks are something the cops organize for people to drop off weapons like guns. Usually in exchange for cash or gift cards,” Dallas explained. “You could have waited to turn it in then, but—”

  “Yeah, no. I don’t want anything for it.” Jake raked his hair back from his eyes. Dallas’s hand snuck into his, and Jake took it, thankful for the touch. “I just want it gone.”

  “Not a problem. Just a few more questions.” The cop gave Jake a quick glance. Her unreadable dark eyes and flat expression were hardly reassuring, but her tone was gentle. “Do you know if it’s been used in a crime?”

  “A crime?” That shocked him. He hadn’t ever imagined his father using the gun, especially since he’d never told Jake about it. Finding it was as startling as O’Byrne’s question, and he didn’t know how to answer her. Clearing his throat, he shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so?”

  Jake tightened his hold on Dallas’s hand. He had questions as soon as he found the gun. Where’d it come from, and why did his father kill his mother with a cast-iron skillet instead of a bullet? Opportunity and rage? There’d never been any question in his mind about his father’s duplicity. There’d been too many signs, too many sly confessions alluding to his killing of his wife, but the gun…. Why hadn’t he used that instead, and where had it come from?

  “I don’t know,” he repeated, then sighed. “Look, my father? He wasn’t a good man. There are things he did… pain he caused… I can’t undo. This gun, I’ve had it with me because… it was his. A part of him I never knew, a violence way past what I thought he had in him. I think the only good thing I can say about him is that he didn’t use this on me or my mother, and that’s the only good thing I can say. If it was used on someone else, I don’t know. Maybe because I wouldn’t put it past him. So… maybe.”

  “Maybe is good enough. I’ll have ballistics check it out.” O’Byrne jotted something down on the paper, then flipped it over. “Has it been fired recently?”

  “No, I’ve cleaned it. I learned how to do that to take care of it but….” Dallas’s fingers squeezed in, a velvet band around Jake’s hand, and his breath caught in his chest. “But I’ve never pulled the trigger.”

  And now he never would.

  “That’s it, then.” She patted at the paper. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  “No, I think I’m good.” He was about to get up when Dallas tugged at his hand.

  “Actually, I’ve got a couple. Not about the gun,” Dallas assured her. “It’s about the man we found in the loft space. Have they identified him? Thing is, if he doesn’t have family, I don’t want him to end up in some hole without a marker. I spoke to someone else about it, one of the coroner people, but she told me I’d ha
ve to talk to you. Was going to call, but….”

  “Since you’re already here?” O’Byrne tucked the paper into her pen’s clip. “You seem a bit too invested in this, Yates. Something you want to tell me?”

  “Just want to do what’s right by this guy, Detective,” Dallas replied. “He died in a building I purchased, and no one knew he was there. The previous owners don’t know him, and unless you’ve got a family you’re going to send him off to, he’s going to get put in a numbered box and buried on top of other people whose lives were so shitty they died without anyone knowing who they are. I don’t know about you, but I was raised better than that. I might not know the guy, but it doesn’t mean I’m not responsible.”

  “I work homicide, Yates. Having someone do the right thing isn’t a common occurrence in my day to day.” She glanced at the door as someone knocked. Then a handsome Hispanic man popped his head in, glancing over Jake and Dallas quickly. “You need the room, Montoya?”

  “Captain just wanted to know if you’re wrapping this up. He’s got a couple of questions for you on the girl they found the other day.” Montoya spoke with a smooth accent, a lush roll of simmer and spice, but not the Mexican Jake heard around him at work. “I can go back and say you’ll be a bit.”

  “About ten minutes, tops.” This time her smile reached her eyes. “Don’t want to keep the old man waiting.”

  “I’ll tell him you said that,” the other detective rumbled. “The ten minutes. Not the old man.”

  “Nice, I’ll owe you,” she promised him. The detective closed the door behind him, and O’Byrne took a moment before speaking. “Okay, what I can tell you is someone in Narcotics believes he knows the man you found. Nothing’s definite right now, but based on his clothing and everything else, it’s a strong possibility. I can’t tell you there’s going to be family to pick up the remains because from everything we know about this man, he wasn’t exactly the nicest of guys to be around. Coroner’s leaning towards natural causes just at a cursory look, but there hasn’t been time to do an autopsy.