Crossing Borders (2 page)

“Sparky!” Tristan heard him hide his ruthlessness behind laughter. “You read?” He raised his eyebrows, and Tristan slammed his head down on the table with a thud. He brought his coffee and about fifteen packets of sugar and some creamers the short distance to plop himself down in the very last, the quintessentially worst place he could possibly be. Tristan could tell he was having fun today. He had a look that screamed “gotcha” as he relaxed his long legs and prepared to lay siege.

“Officer Helmet,” said Tristan through clenched teeth. “Imagine seeing you in a bookstore.” Tristan looked at him and sighed. He looked
good
. This could not be Officer Helmet. Maybe he had a twin?

“So. Sparky.” Tristan saw him scan the book collection on the tiny table. His eyes returned to Tristan's face, and he was silent for an interminable moment. “Taking a gay lit class?”

“Yep,” said Tristan. “On the money. When are they going to make you Detective Helmet?”

“It's not going to happen anytime soon, so you've still got to watch yourself at the skate park. I see you have your skateboard.” He grinned. “Did you leave your helmet in the gay literature section?”

“No,” lied Tristan agilely. “I gave it to my girlfriend Viper to hold. She's getting her hair done. Officer Helmet.”

“I know Viper… Listen, Sparky, I'm off duty, so why don't you call me Michael?”

“Why don't you quit calling me Sparky? The whole red hair freckles thing has been done to death, man. Sparky, Rusty, Red, Rory—I'm over it.” For Tristan, it was a rare outburst of honesty with “the Man.”

“That's not why I call you Sparky,” said Michael, starting to pour sugar after sugar into his coffee and adding what seemed like an avalanche of cream.

“What?” asked Tristan. “Then why?”

“Not telling you,” said Michael. “Do you go to Cal State Fullerton?” He indicated the stack of books on the table.

Tristan snorted. “I went to Troy Tech, so no. I go to UCI.”

“Well, excuse me.
I
went to CSUF, so it didn't seem like an insult.” Michael still looked fairly complacent, so Tristan didn't think he'd been stung.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “What was your major, and why'd you become a cop?” Was he curious? Really? He'd have to reflect on that.

“Communications, and I wanted to be a cop, so I became one. It's not like it's the last resort of the educationally impaired. Besides, it appeals to my rabid, power-starved nature to exercise authority over the weak and helpless.”

There was that grin again.
Damn
. Pretty teeth. Lopsided grin. Tristan didn't want to laugh, didn't want Officer Helmet to be funny. But before he could stop himself he laughed through his nose and almost snorted out his coffee. “That, I believe,” he said. He wondered if he could just go back to
the plan
now. Or ever. The Man—Michael looked like he was comfortable, which was the exact opposite of how Tristan felt.

“Do you know that yours was the first ticket I ever wrote?” Michael said suddenly, and Tristan stared at him. “Of course, I'm still looking to give you the second, but you're fast and have an uncanny sense of when I'm around. Tell me the truth. You guys post lookouts, don't you? Every time I cruise by the skate park, the only people there are dads and little kids with all kinds of pads and helmets. The magic is gone.”

Tristan gave a light laugh. “Surely you don't expect me to reveal trade secrets.” He leaned over as if inviting Michael into his confidence. “Dude, the helmet? It gives me hat hair.”

An indefinable look passed over Michael's face as he said, “Sparky, sometime I'm going to take you to the morgue and let you see what an un-helmeted head looks like. Did you know the human head cracks open just like a watermelon with very little pressure, and then gray stuff starts coming out?” He played with the empty sugar packets. “I hate that shit.”

Tristan said nothing; what could he say? He hadn't thought Officer Helmet had a reason for ticketing him besides the obvious one: that he could. Not for anything did he want to see this person as a man with his best interests at heart. That would be just…not good. He pressed his lips together and remained silent for a while.

“Sorry,” murmured Michael. “Okay, so what's your major? What happens in Sparky's head at school?”

“Physics,” said Tristan.

“Yeah,” said Michael. “Figures. That's you, all about energy, always in motion. I only ever see you running away. Makes perfect sense.”

“Hm,” said Tristan, thinking that Officer Helmet ought to know that firsthand; he'd chased him enough. “If you didn't have to wear that bulky cop suit and those oxfords, you could probably catch me.” He figured the man was faster dressed as he was now, and freer to move.

“Could I?” asked Michael, considering. “Think so?”

“Look,” said Tristan, taking his phone out and checking his messages pointedly. “I'd love to stay and chat with a guy who gave me a really expensive ticket for not wearing a damn helmet, but I'm waiting for someone, and if they come and see me chatting amiably with the Man, well…there goes my credibility, you know?”

“Blowing me off, Sparky?” asked Michael, reaching out and taking Tristan's phone. “Oh, hey, cool—a new one.”

“Yeah,” said Tristan, trying and failing to retrieve it. “Well, about the blowing off thing? In a word, yes.”

“No, let me play with your phone for a second,” said Michael, holding it out of his reach. “It's cool.” The little electronic gizmo bleeped happily in his large, square hands.

“Yeah, okay,” said Tristan looking around. He hadn't forgotten
the plan
; Officer Helmet had just postponed it. “Um, not to be rude or anything.”

“Oh, all right,” said Michael, picking up his coffee and his trash and muttering about how some people just don't seem to understand the word civility anymore. “Hey, Sparky?” he asked before he walked away.

“Yeah,” said Tristan, finding something pretty compelling in the eyes he'd never noticed were Ty-D-Bowl blue. “What?”

“What are you doing here?” asked Officer Helmet. “Really?”

Well, shit
. “I'm here, Michael, to get laid, not that it's any of your damn business, because I checked. Unless I'm selling it, which I'm not. I'm of age, and I'm free, white, and single, so
butt out
,” Tristan said in a rush.

Michael looked at Tristan and then at the stack of books he had on the table, his blue eyes burning a big, gaping hole in his confidence. “You sure that's what you want?” he said, concern on his face. “The way you want it?”

“Yeah,” said Tristan, now sure he was as red as his hair. “I want that. It's what I wanted all along.”

Michael sighed. “In that case, Officer Michael Truax says, 'safety first,' Sparky. Try to remember that, okay?”

Tristan thought he could breathe again when Michael walked away, but as if to say “no such luck,” the man plopped his hairy policeman's ass right down at an adjacent table and grinned. Tristan's head smacked his stack of books again, hard. He did his best to ignore Michael, who for his part, got up and retrieved
Gay Las Vegas Nightlife
from Tristan's table and returned to his with an unrepentant, shitty smile on his face. He placed the book flat, Tristan noticed, so the cover wasn't visible. Obviously he wasn't there to pursue his own version of the plan.

A few minutes passed, and Tristan noticed a dark-haired man in old-guy trousers and a button-down shirt looking at his stack of books. Really looking, kind of staring and straining his neck to see the titles that were scattered by now on the table. Tristan pushed his long red hair behind his ear in a nervous gesture. He worried his tongue piercing. The man eventually stopped right next to his table.

“Say, those are some interesting titles,” he said mildly, smiling. Tristan looked up, it seemed, a long way. The man was tall and not bad looking, but older than Tristan would have hoped for.

“Um, yeah.” He smiled back. Not above a little trolling. Not above trying to leave with someone before it was like last call and true desperation set in.

“Can I sit down?” asked the guy.

“Sure,” said Tristan. He wondered if there was some kind of code, or slang, or secret message he wouldn't know if someone used it on him. Tristan thought he might need a Captain Queer decoder ring or a spirit guide. His cell phone beeped with a text message, and he jumped. Picking it up, he held it to read the screen.

Married, probably with kids, wedding band tan line. Just thought you should know. Officer Helmet
. Oh, shit!

He took the time to text back,
LOL
and prepared to talk to the man, regardless of Officer damn Helmet's sour observation. But he checked, and damned if the man didn't have a tan line, right there where his ring would have gone had he been wearing it. Maybe the man was a literature buff and just wanted to talk about prose.

“So, uh,” said the man. “My name's Terry. What do you like about that stuff?” He nodded toward the stack of books on the table.

“You planning on lecturing me about the evils of my lifestyle?” asked Tristan a little defensively because, face it,
Michael
made him feel defensive.

“No, I'm planning on asking you if you have your own place.” Terry smiled. “For various reasons, I don't use mine for tricking.” He gave Tristan a look.
Okay, no decoder rings necessary
.

“Sorry,” said Tristan. “No can do, I've used up all my infidelity tolerance minutes this month.”

“Oh,” said Terry, taking it better than he ought to have. “Guess I picked the wrong month.” He laughed as he moved on, as though he hadn't just propositioned a boy and gotten shot down.

“What are you now—my wing man?” said Tristan, barely loud enough for Michael to hear him.

“Serve and protect, little man,” said Michael with a laugh. “It's my job.”

“Don't you have a relationship of your own you can go screw up?” Tristan said, rubbing his freckly forehead with the palm of one hand.

“Nope,” said Michael. “I'm off duty on relationships too, for the moment. Don't look now, but here comes another one.”

Tristan gave him an exasperated stare, but the man was right—someone was definitely checking him out. Tristan got up to retrieve another coffee, and when he came back, he spun his chair and straddled it, his head resting on his hands, now folded on the back of the chair.