Infected: Lesser Evils (47 page)

Mohawk snarled, genuinely snarled, and the woman pushed Grey from behind and told him to back off, but he easily ignored her. Meanwhile, Tank came up behind Mohawk, and as he was getting up, Tank put a foot in his back and kicked him, sending him falling face forward onto the floor. He was drunk or surprised enough that he never got his hands up in time, and faceplanted directly onto the wooden floor. Even above the noise of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, you could hear the crunch of his nose shattering as it impacted the ground.

By this time security had shown up, and Tank and Grey backed off, used to refs putting an end to the fights, but Mohawk was furious, and screamed as he struggled to his feet, blood pouring down his face from his misshapen lump of a nose. He tried to go for Grey, but the bouncers were bearish men who looked like former Marines (and very well could have been), and they each took an arm as they started dragging him toward the door. He started screaming, “You’re dead! You’re fucking dead!” but it wasn’t clear if it was directed at Grey, the bouncers, or both. No one looked too alarmed by the threats at any rate.

The woman, surprisingly, wouldn’t back off. She got right up in Grey’s face, telling him he had no right to hurt her boyfriend, using all sorts of choice curse words, but he wasn’t reacting whatsoever. Grey wasn’t going to fight a woman, which was smart, because even if she was Dropkick-level tough, he could hurt her way more than ever intended. Dallas was telling her to get out, but she wasn’t listening, so Roan went to intervene before she could do something really stupid. (Tank and Fiona were on their way over, and Fi was going to kick her ass down one side of the bar and back up another.)

She just about did it. The woman pulled her hand back to slap Grey, but Roan grabbed her wrist. She spun, other hand raised to hit him, and he growled. Not a small one, a big one, a loud “I’m a hungry lion and you smell like dinner” sort of noise, like gravel was being pulverized in his throat as someone started up the cement mixer. His hand wanted to tighten, the muscles in his hand twitched and flexed of their own accord, and he knew it wouldn’t be anything at all to crush her bones like a baby bird. Her eyes, watery blue with a black ring, widened, and he could smell fear as she realized, through her haze of vodka and Dexedrine, that there was Something Not Right about him. People didn’t make that noise; people didn’t have bones in their face shift, like something beneath was getting ready to shed the mask of its humanity.

One of the bouncers returned and grabbed her, saying, “Come on, sister.” Only then did Roan realize he had a slight lisp, but it didn’t take away from the fact that he could beat up most of this bar. He dragged her out, but she went fairly willingly as Roan let go of her wrist (so close to just crushing it; his fingers hurt from his own refusal to close them completely), and she said, “What the fuck is he? Did you see that?”

The bouncer didn’t answer, but he wouldn’t; he hadn’t seen anything. Grey had, Scott had, Tank and Fiona had, but it wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before in some respect. Zack hadn’t, though, but he shook his head, and announced, “I’m fucking wasted.” Roan was relieved he’d just decided to chalk it up to drunkenness, as it spared him any explanations.

Dallas didn’t blame them for any of this, but indicated it would make his life a lot less complex if they skedaddled, so they decided to call it a night. On their way out the door, Scott looked around, and when Roan asked what he was looking for, he shrugged nonchalantly and said, “I thought Holden was coming with us.”

Okay, yeah, something was up there. Man, that didn’t sound promising at all.

Dylan didn’t drink much or often, so he was a little tipsy from his two margaritas, and as such he was giggly and unusually chatty. He told him he’d invited Ethan over to dinner next week, as he’d been lamenting the lack of home-cooked meals, and Dylan really wanted to try his madras curry on a fellow vegetarian. Roan had no problem with this, although he had no idea if he’d be joining them—it depended on what happened that day. Roan teased him, saying that if Ethan wasn’t straight he’d so do him, and Dylan laughed, blushed slightly, and finally said yeah, if he wasn’t with him.

Since Roan was driving, Dylan snuggled against him all the way home, putting Roan’s arm around his shoulders and resting against his chest. Roan couldn’t imagine it was very comfortable for him, but Dylan didn’t seem to mind at all. Being half-drunk probably helped.

Dylan did many random things, including singing along with the radio and telling him, totally out of the blue, that sometimes he wasn’t sure he could live with him, but he also knew he couldn’t live without him either. Which made Roan realize that they probably were just like any other married couple, which was actually kind of disappointing. Did this mean they’d soon be cheating on each other and secretly loathing one another?

Fuck it. He’d been a detective too long.

Once they got home, Dylan broke down into sloppy mode, crying as he told him he didn’t want him to die. Roan comforted him, told him he wasn’t going to die, he would be fine, it wasn’t in the virus’s best interest to kill him, and Dylan said he wanted to die. Whether he would or wouldn’t wasn’t the point; he didn’t want him to feel that way. Roan said he didn’t, but even as he said it, he wondered if it was a lie.

He didn’t even know anymore. How sad was that?

A
S
SOON
as Holden came home, he peeled off his too-tight tank top and threw it on the couch before heading to the kitchen, kicking off his boots along the way. He was glad he’d decided not to wear his clip-on nipple ring, because that shirt alone had started to feel like a corset after a while. It probably would have shoved the end through his nipple and made him bleed.

He poured himself a couple of fingers of gin, added a healthy splash of cranberry juice, and collapsed on the sofa to put up his feet and decompress. He had just been arm candy tonight, playing a rough-trade kind of role, but sometimes it was hard to pretend to be an idiot. It was counterintuitive, it should have been a breeze, but after a while it was a chore to pretend you didn’t have a thought in your head beyond when you next highlighted your hair and went for your spray tan. He really didn’t know how some people did it.

Holden gulped down his drink, aware he could have just had his client furnish him with drinks, but alcohol might have let his guard down, and he didn’t do that while working. A job was a job, and it was never a good time to coast.

Because he’d gulped the drink and hadn’t eaten since earlier in the evening, the booze hit harder than usual, and an ember of warmth opened up in his stomach and slowly bled out into the rest of his body. He was seriously thinking about a new line of work, but what could he do?

Ooh, write a male version of
The Happy Hooker
. That idea amused him for a couple of minutes. Maybe he could just write a tell-all biography, changing the names of his clients. His dad would just die, and wasn’t that a point in its favor? But how much of a writer was he? Had he ever written anything? He didn’t even blog.

Holden was at the fridge, trying to determine if a piece of cold pizza was still good, when there was a knock at his door. He shoved the remaining piece of pizza in his mouth and wiped his hands on his pants before realizing they were leather and they didn’t work well as a substitute napkin. He figured it was Roan, probably with more questions about Franco. He didn’t even ask for money, but that only meant he’d demand twice as much when he set up the meeting with the cat pelt guy. Franco was one of those guys who liked to think of himself as a genius, even though he was lucky to remember to put his pants on before going outside. The world was way too full of people like that.

He opened the door, ready to ask Roan if he had his hockey team with him this time, except he stopped, because he was looking at a member of the team. It wasn’t Roan, it was Scott.

“You again,” Holden said, and there was no playfulness in his voice. He was tired. “Didn’t I ask you not to come back?”

Scott looked briefly baffled. “Umm, no, I don’t think so.”

“Fuck. Oversight on my part.” He sighed heavily and turned away. “If you want to make an appointment, I prefer over the phone.”

“I didn’t… um, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh. Why are you here?” He didn’t care much, but it seemed polite to ask.

Scott closed the door, and he stayed by the door, still looking confused. His eyes had the bright, blown-pupil clarity of someone who’d been hitting the absinthe. Holden had had it once, but he didn’t see what the big deal about it was. It tasted weird, and it made you feel slightly intoxicated but slightly sober at the same time, and there were no hallucinations, which he had been looking forward to. Scott probably didn’t know what to do with his weird feeling, which was fair enough, as Holden hadn’t at the time. If he remembered correctly, he’d ended up talking shit on a message board, which seemed like a waste of a good buzz. “I’m not sure. I keep trying to figure you out.”

“Well stop. You won’t.”

Scott looked at him with his weird eyes, still husky-dog blue, but now looking larger thanks to his comical pupils. “I’ve tried. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I don’t know why.”

“Oh my god,” he snapped, and he probably shouldn’t have been pissed off, but he kind of was. He just didn’t have the patience tonight. “You’re not a total virgin, are you? You’re horny.”

“I’m not. I mean, kinda, but that’s not it. You know what I mean?”

Holden glared at him a moment, aware it would do no good at all, not in the state Scott was in. “No, and I really don’t care.” He walked back to Scott and grabbed his arm, reaching for the door behind him at the same time. “Call me when you’re totally sober.”

Scott surprised him by grabbing him by the back of the head and kissing him almost violently, He shoved him back against the door, pinning Holden against it with his body, reminding him that while Scott looked like a string bean, he was almost all muscle. Still, Holden shoved him away, sending him stumbling back until he hit the sofa and sat down violently on the arm. “Don’t,” Holden warned.

“You’re strong.”

“What, didn’t expect that from a cheap whore?”

He stood, chuckling faintly. “You’re not a cheap whore.”

“Okay, I’ll grant you I’m not cheap.”

“You’re not a whore either.”

“How much absinthe did you have? Do you know who you’re talking to?”

Scott approached him, looking a bit more lucid than he would have expected. “I’m not sure what you are, but you aren’t a whore. Sure, you sell yourself for money, but whore’s a state of mind, and you’re not there. You know it too, why else do you not know what you are?”

Holden stared at him a moment. “How wasted are you?” But what Scott had said was deeply strange, mainly because Holden didn’t expect it. Where the fuck did that come from? Scott couldn’t know him that well.

He gave him a lazy smirk. “Not nearly wasted enough.”

“You don’t know me.”

“No, but I know me, and I’m all kinds of fucked-up. So are you.”

“Fuck you.” He really didn’t like be psychoanalyzed, even in a half-assed way, by a bi jock closet case, and certainly not tonight. Holden wasn’t sure if he was more angry or exhausted, it all got tangled up, and he realized, for the first time in a long time, he wanted to get falling-down drunk. He wanted to go numb and not think about anything, which he didn’t allow himself the luxury of doing that often, because it was oh so tempting to just go into that state and stay there. Life was lived a lot easier numb.

When Scott got close, heading for the door, Holden grabbed him and threw him against the wall, kissing him and pinning him with his body, just to see how he liked it. From the way he responded, he liked it a lot. He smelled like beer and soap, which wasn’t as unpleasant as Holden would have assumed, and he had faint stubble he could feel more than see. As kissers went, Scott wasn’t too bad, and of course he was as hot as hell, a continual mark in his favor.

Scott’s hands felt lightly callused on his back, which Holden found a little surprising. Scott tangled a hand in his hair and pulled, just hard enough to be mildly painful, but not hard enough to really hurt. Holden did it to him, and Scott groaned in pleasure. So he liked it a little rough, huh?

There were other ways to get numb. And this was probably cheaper.

R
OAN
wondered what he should blame when he woke up feeling nauseous. He wasn’t the one who’d had alcohol, and yet he was the one relatively sure he was two steps away from losing his dinner. Where was the justice in that?

When he was sure he could stand up, he went to the bathroom and took a promethazine, which Rosenberg had prescribed him for the nausea. Promethazine made him tired, but what the hell, he was kind of tired all the time anyways.

Roan went downstairs, checking the time on the stove and figuring he should be up anyways. He got a Natural Brew ginger ale from the fridge and enjoyed a gulp, both sweet and spicy at the same time, and desperately wanted a piece of toast. But here was the thing—in this lavishly appointed kitchen, with a slaughterhouse’s worth of knives, stainless steel sinks, and granite countertops, with a massive fridge and an air convection oven, there was no toaster. These guys were power gays, and apparently didn’t do carbs. Fuck them, they had no idea what they were missing; Roan loved carbs. But the fact that there was no toaster meant no toast. He just heated the bread in the microwave, which made it warm and soft, but depressingly lacking in crunch. Still, throw some melted butter on it, and it was all good. (But it wasn’t toast, damn it.)

Once the meds, the ginger, and the bread had settled his stomach, Roan focused on his Jephson case notes, and wondered if he could shred them like a drama queen. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he’d been sent on a wild goose chase. But why? Who’d spend the money just to annoy and irritate him? You could do that for free, and many people did.

Well, Oliver was probably pretty close to being kicked out by the hospital, so he’d be up to more of a grilling today. Maybe Roan would find out exactly why he was lying about the assault, or at least find out a little more about his Aunt Abby. Something was going on here, and he wasn’t sure finding Adam was at the heart of it all.