In Another Country Page 6

  So, yeah, functioning. But functioning didn’t mean living.

  He got up and drank coffee and went to work and got shitty takeout and very very carefully didn’t drink, and stared at sports on television. Didn’t watch them, stared at them. Went to bed each night and lay there for a while feeling and thinking nothing at all, and jerked off so he could sleep, and very very carefully fantasized about nothing at all while he was doing it.

  Five days into this was the day Tupper was supposed to head back to Canada. Dec was pretty sure it was going to be a morning flight, and he spent a few stupid minutes at work that morning wondering who was taking him to the shitty little Fayetteville airport. Maybe he was going all the way to Raleigh/Durham instead.

  Dec pinched the bridge of his nose—shit, did he pick that up from Tupper?—and firmly told himself that it was not his fucking problem how Tupper got to whatever airport he got to, the Mounties would be taking care of that, and they were never gonna see each other again.

  “Never what?” Rollie said from the next desk.

  “What?”

  “You just said ‘never.’”

  “Never talk to me again, was what I was gonna say.”

  “Jesus, chill out, Dec.”

  Dec took a deep breath, blew it out, and actually managed to grunt, “Sorry.”

  When he got home that night he was twitchy and restless. Different from the just...deadness of the last few days, but still not fun.

  He told himself he should go to the gym and take it out on the speed bag, which sounded completely logical, but he found himself putting on a Ramones record and dancing a little on his living room rug, instead. Dancing was usually a good-mood thing and this...was not a good mood, so that was confusing, but he finally figured out, halfway through “I Wanna Be Sedated” that he’d been kind of hiding, here, the last few days. Because he didn’t want to bump into Tupper.

  Which was stupid. Not like it was a tiny town to begin with, and Tupper had probably retreated to Fort Bragg, himself. But the upshot was, after almost a week of nothing but work and hiding in his apartment, now that Tupper was in another damn country again—Dec needed to get out. And not to the gym, either.

  “What I need is to get laid,” he muttered to himself, and he grabbed his leather jacket, rubbed a little more gel through his hair and headed out to Hotshots.

  The drive was weird. He didn’t have the...excitement from when he was headed over to meet up with Tupper and case the place for work. Well, he still had at least one kind of excitement, but he was pretty sure whoever he hooked up with tonight, they weren’t going to be working. They probably weren’t even going to be talking. This kind of shitty and angry and horny all at once mood, Dec was probably going to end up on his knees in the alley without ever asking the guy’s name.

  And yeah, his brain was still working well enough to remind him that there was a reason he never went to the nearby clubs when he wasn't on a case.

  Because he could get fucking busted, was why. Because he could get fired from his job. And aside from the fact that he needed to pay rent...over the last week or so his job was the only thing getting him out of bed, ever. He really didn’t want to find out what he’d do if he didn’t have to do anything.

  But Jesus, there was no way he could deal with the hour-ish drive to Wilmington tonight.

  He argued with himself all the way to the club and by the time he got to the parking lot other people had joined in on the fight in his brain. Carter was telling him to have some goddamn sense, and Christine was muttering darkly about lifelong impulsivity.

  When Tupper primly, politely said that risking his job for a night out was just another example of Dec refusing to let himself have a good life, Dec snarled, “Fuck you, you left,” and got out of the car.

  He knew that wasn’t fair. But seriously, fuck Tupper.

  Dec parked and locked up and headed into the club. He ordered a real gin and tonic for a change and slammed it down, trying to take the edge off a little—he’d strictly avoided that all week, but one drink to loosen up on a night out wasn’t the same as sitting at home getting plastered alone, right?

  He leaned back on the bar and looked over the crowd, which usually worked—somebody would come up and talk to him. (He’d been told he leaned attractively.) But tonight there were some glances his way, but then every guy just looked away again—nobody was biting, what the hell?

  Dec eventually figured out that he might have the lean going on, but he wasn't working the relaxed “c’mon over” look that usually went with it—his jaw was starting to ache from clenching it, and he was pretty sure he had a pissed-off glare going. Great.

  He ordered and tossed back another drink, took some deep breaths, and told himself he was undercover as a relaxed, happy, horny guy, nothing on his mind but having a good time. And just like when he was really doing undercover, after that introduction he stopped thinking of it as undercover at all—that always worked better. He was an assistant manager of a hardware store, scoping out the crowd, looking for some fun. And yeah, there was the relaxed part of the lean, there was the little smile, there was the head tilt. Nailed it.

  He shifted his hips a bit to the beat of the throbby bass, and this was going to work, yeah. A tall, hot black guy with short dreads grinned at him and started heading his way, and Dec broadened his own smile a little and then glanced around the crowd again so it didn’t look like he was an immediate pushover, and oh fuck.

  Oh fuck, he’d just spotted Tupper.

  Dec blinked a couple of times and even scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, because obviously he was hallucinating, he’d lost his fucking mind so hard over that stupid Mountie that he was conjuring Tupper up in a place where he was clearly, clearly not, because he was up north with the damn moose by now.

  Except that he was still there on the dance floor, and now he was looking at Dec.

  Somebody murmured, “Hey, buddy, whatcha drinking?” in Dec’s ear and he almost jumped out of his skin, because he’d completely forgotten that a prospect was heading over. He managed not to spill his drink, and looked up at the guy, who was smiling broadly at him, and some little part of Dec’s head was still functioning well enough to notice that it was a great smile and the guy was actually pretty damn hot, and it just so, so didn’t matter at all.

  “It’s…I’m…” Dec stammered, and the guy’s smile dimmed, and Dec waved helplessly at the dance floor, and managed, “I just saw…my ex.”

  He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. His what?

  But the guy just nodded and said, “Bummer. That’ll ruin a night,” like Dec hadn’t just announced that he had—or used to have—a boyfriend. Like Dec hadn’t just declared that “Dec who’s absolutely going back to the straight world if he ever for-real dates again,” was gone, was dead.

  Dec took deep shuddering breaths and wondered who the fuck he’d just turned into, and the hot-but-it-didn’t-matter guy clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Best of luck, man,” and headed back to the crowd.

  The crowd which Tupper had completely disappeared into.

  Dec turned around and ordered another gin and tonic and slammed it. Dec, who was...this new bi-for-life person with an ex-boyfriend, was now a little drunk.

  He ate the inside of his lime—he’d never been able to figure out why anyone would waste a gin-soaked lime slice—and, because he had now reached the exact level of tipsy where bad decisions kicked in good and hard, he headed into the crowd to find Tupper.

  He caught a couple more glimpses that could have been Tupp—Tupper was on the tall side, but having an all-guy crowd made him stand out less than he would have on the sidewalk. Plus everyone was in wild motion and there were flickering spotlights raking the crowd, so the maybe-sightings hiccupped and stuttered and disappeared.

  Dec kept trying, pushing against and past dozens of men. Some of them were pissed and told him to fuck off in various creative ways, some of them mistook him pushing past for someth
ing else and ground up against him, and he restrained himself to a “Nope, sorry.”

  He didn’t find Tupper and didn’t find him, and he was starting to try to tell himself that really had been a hallucination, and the worst thing was that he’d rather be hallucinating that what probably really was happening, which was that Tupper saw Dec and fucking bailed.

  And then suddenly he wasn't surrounded by sweaty bodies thumping past him, and he almost fell over from the lack of pushback—he’d popped out into a clear space right in front of the back hall to the men’s room.

  And he stopped short, because there was Tupper, shoved up against the hallway wall and making out with some other guy.

  Okay, that was a pretty fucking clear-cut indication that Dec was way too late for...whatever he was gonna say. Dec nodded briskly to no one in particular, since sure as hell neither Tupper nor the other tall dark handsome guy was bothering to look at Dec, why the hell would they?

  Dec started to turn on his heel and fight his way back through the crowd, but thank god, thank god, he still had his police brain running in there somewhere, that bit of his brain that took a little recording of whatever he saw and heard and ran it back and went, “Wait, there was that one weird thing that didn’t fit.”

  The weird thing that didn’t fit was, Dec remembered pretty fucking vividly that every time he pushed Tupper up against a wall, Tupper went completely nuts—hands all over Dec, grabbing at his ass but unable to settle because they seemed to want to be everywhere at once. Tupper would hook a leg around Dec’s thigh, even, keeping him close. Like Dec’d even been thinking of being anywhere else.

  But the picture Dec had in his head of Tupper with this new guy—okay, it was a fucking horrible picture to make himself look at again, but it didn’t look like Tupper had looked with Dec. Tupper wasn’t like—shoving the dude away or anything, but he was just kind of...flat. Just up against the wall and letting himself be kissed.

  Dec almost kept walking anyway, because Tupper was a grown man who had made it pretty clear he was done with Dec, and if he wanted to hook up with some guy he was maybe not all that into, it was his goddamn right and pretty much exactly what Dec had originally planned to do with his own evening, and fair was fair.

  So Dec really needed to just head home and wish Tupper the best with...with that guy who was white. And tall. And dark-haired. And good-looking, and Dec was a fucking idiot.

  Dec spun back around and oh fuck, they were gone. He barreled into the men’s room but it was empty—he even opened every stall door to check.

  He threw open the door to the women’s room, which was full floor to ceiling with crates of cheap beer.

  He sprinted back to the front entrance and flashed his badge at the door guy, who paled. “No, fuck, I’m not here to bust the bar,” Dec said. “Please, just, did you see two six-foot, dark-haired guys leave just now?”

  The bouncer nodded, still looking like he was sure he was about to get arrested for aiding and abetting gayness or something, and Dec had to struggle not to shake him. Because Tupper could be in real trouble here, and Dec might have just let him get in worse trouble because Dec was a fucking idiot, but he managed to just snarl, “Which. Way. Did. They. GO?!?” and the bouncer recoiled and jerked a thumb.

  Dec sprinted out the door and surveyed the sidewalk; nobody. Did the guy have time to stuff Tupper into a car already? There was fuck-all Dec could do about it if that’s what had happened, so he made a quick decision that it hadn’t, and ran down the alley to his right. At first he didn’t think there was anyone there either but oh yeah, that was the alley with the dumpster, and there was moaning coming from behind it.

  Dec wasn't armed because he was coming out for a hookup, not for work, so he just got his fists up and then tore around the dumpster, and whoa, there was the guy with the short dreads getting a blowjob from a dude with a shaved head, and Dec just yelled, “Sorry!” and kept running, ignoring the “What the FUCK, man,” behind him.

  He tore out the other end of the alley, and thank fuck, there was Tupper and the other guy. The guy was opening a car door and Dec felt like his head was going to explode because Tupper was swaying, and Tupper was almost yelling, “No, wait, I’m sure I saw my friend in there! We should go back, you would like him,” but he was slurring his words like he’d had way, way too much to drink.

  Dec hadn’t known Tupper all that long, but in that time he’d seen Tupper drink the occasional beer. Like, one beer. Occasionally.

  Any lingering doubts that he was just crashing a hook-up burned up in a flare of rage, because Tupper had been fucking roofied.

  Dec started screaming and sprinting at the same time. He was trying to yell something official about being a police officer and put your hands up, but he was so terrified and angry that it just came out as a wordless raging howl like he was a damn werewolf or something. And the dude looked up at Dec and then just shoved Tupper into the car, bashing his head on the door frame, and then he was bolting around to the driver’s side, keys in his hand glinting under the streetlights.

  And Dec was memorizing car make and model and color and license plate as he sprinted—Dodge Charger, metallic blue, KLD 964, but no way was he going to have to use that because no way was this fucker getting away, but the guy was yanking his door open now, shit, shit, and with some sort of crazy adrenaline spike Dec covered the last few yards and without even a fucking plan found himself leaping, one foot landing on the bumper and the next on the trunk and then he was airborne and then he was flying and still screaming and the guy looked up at him, whites of his eyes all around in complete terror, good, and then they were both hitting the pavement with the guy flattened underneath Dec and there was a crunching noise.

  The guy bellowed and Dec lifted off him enough to roll him over and discover that the crunching sound was the guy’s nose—there was blood pouring out. “Stop screaming or I’ll break it again,” Dec said, and the guy toned it down to a bubbling whimper.

  And then to Dec’s startlement there was a hand petting his hair. He looked up and Tupper was swaying next to him, beaming.

  “Dec!” Tupper said delightedly. “You flew over the back of the car! How did you do that?”

  Then Tupper looked down and didn’t look so delighted anymore. “What happened to Trip?” he said, because of course the fucking asshole had a stupid preppy name.

  “Did you trip, Trip?” Tupper said, and then blinked as he heard himself and let out that little high-pitched giggle that was way too small for him and slid down the side of the car and just leaned over on Dec. “I missed you,” he said earnestly.

  Dec’s brain short-circuited because he was sitting on a bleeding whimpering shitheel and the guy he was...the guy he was fucking in love with was leaning on him and saying in-love type things in public and there was really just way too much going on.

  So he just sat there for a minute with all those things happening and then Trip started to thrash a little under him like he was thinking about trying to get loose, and Dec growled, “I don’t think so, asshole,” and Trip stilled but then Dec looked up and noticed that a small crowd had gathered, seven or eight people just standing around on the sidewalk across the street and staring.

  Right—Dec needed to do something official, here. He lifted up off Trip enough to pull out his badge and waved it at the little crowd. Several of them abruptly disappeared, fading back into alleys on the other side of the street. It wasn't a part of town where people necessarily wanted to talk to cops.

  “Anybody got a cell phone?” Dec said to the remaining bystanders, and a lady hauled a Nokia out of her purse and handed it over. He called for backup—he didn’t have cuffs, plus he was sure as hell not putting this fucker in his own car.

  Dec had barely gotten through the Miranda warning before Ace and Rollie showed up, siren yowling, and he finally got to climb up off Trip and got the satisfaction of watching him get cuffed. Tupper stood up when Dec did, leaning again and putting his head on Dec’s shoulder.
Dec just gave Ace and Rollie a “Say something about it, I fuckin’ dare y’all,” look and then launched into his story of undercover work. He didn’t mention that he wasn’t assigned to work undercover tonight, and he was pretty sure he could count on Carter not to bring it up either.

  While Dec was talking, Ace gloved up and frisked Trip. No weapons, but Ace triumphantly pulled a little baggie of white pills out of one pocket. “Those are aspirin,” Trip said.

  Ace snorted and said, “I’ve seen roofies before, buddy, and I’m not stupid.”

  Tupper started humming softly into Dec’s ear. It tickled.

  “What the hell,” Rollie said, and Ace and Dec said, “Shut up, Rollie,” in unison.

  Rollie huffed and he and Ace stuffed the perp into the squad car.

  “They’re taking him away!” Tupper said.

  “Yeah,” Dec said. “Don’t worry about it,” and he petted Tupper’s hair a little and glared at the few stragglers still watching. “What you doing here, anyway?”

  “I was dancing,” Tupper said.

  “Well, yeah, but I mean still in the states.”

  “Maneuvers got extensive. Extension. Extended. Wha’ happen Trip?”

  “Trip was a bad, bad guy, Tupper.”

  “Oh,” Tupper said, and then made a mournful noise deep in his throat and turned around and threw up briskly in the gutter.

  Dec patted him on the back a little and said, “You got drugged, Tupper,” and goddamnit, the weirdness of this whole situation had fucked up Dec’s procedures. He needed to get Tupper to the hospital for a drug test.

  For which he needed Tupper’s consent, and he couldn’t wait for Tupper to get his brain back to make that decision because the drug still being in his system was the whole damn point. This was always a shitty thing to have to make a call on, but it was not usually complicated even more by the fact that Tupper’s name would get written down in case files as a law enforcement officer who got roofied in a gay club. And by the fact that Dec wasn't usually in love with the vic, goddamnit.