Shattered Glass(22)

“Superficial. You’re a superficial guy.” He focused on the window to his right. I studied him, checking for any sign of hope he wasn’t going to report me.

“Everyone is superficial at first.”

“You’re vain.”

“Confident.”

“Arrogant.”

“Self-assured.”

“Aggressive and full of yourself.”

“Cocky,” I settled on. My smile returned.

“Where you come from that’s a good thing?”

“I’m a little cute?”

He sighed and observed me, his eyes hard. “I thought you might be. I thought you were just shy, sitting out there in your car, watching the restaurant. Watching me. Then I thought you were just scared. And that’s what made you be an asshole. Coming here and accusing me of making you gay.”

“I was. Scared. Am. I am scared. All those freckles and your perfect face—”

“Stop fucking talking about my looks. Quit staring at me like that’s all there is to me.”

“It’s not. That’s not—”

“What do you know about me? All you see is this.” He waved a hand in front of himself. “This weirdness of coming here all the time. You don’t ask me my name or out on a date. I sat in your car for ten minutes and all you did was stare at me.”

Oh. I laughed self-consciously. No one made me feel self-conscious, except my father. Leave it to Peter to have brought out that unattractive trait. I kept letting him be the catalyst of my worst behavior. “I was embarrassed.” I ran a hand through my hair, felt the spikes pop out as it passed over the strands. “I didn’t know— I don’t know how to deal with this. That I’m physically attracted to a guy. I couldn’t think of a way out. Or how to ask you out. I was going to say coffee. It sounded lame. Or to buy you loafers or sneakers or anything that kept me from thinking about those slippers. And then you started listing prices for other things that suddenly sounded a lot better than coffee.”

There it was. The twitch of Peter’s lips that told me he was hiding a smile. I waited it out, hoping I was thawing some of the ice. “Cai buys the slippers,” he said tersely.

I tried to pinpoint what it was that had me so fascinated. I wasn’t sure it could be defined.

“You’re staring again, Detective Glass.”

I didn’t turn away from the accusation, but my fingers sought out my badge on the table, spinning it gently on the Formica. “I was curious about what a date would have been like with a guy. With you.”

“Why don’t you ask me and find out?” His answer surprised me, and maybe himself, if the way his lips pressed together and his eyes widened in shock was any indication.

“See, now there’s a problem. You’re a witness in a case.” I ignored the stab of disappointment in my chest, even when it grew sharper as Peter’s shoulders dropped in relief.

“Iss, you mean? You can’t ask me on a date because I know Iss?”

“Iss?”

“Prisc. He doesn’t go by that. Reminds him of when kids at school called him Prick. We call him Iss,” he said, flipping my business card over on its edge. One hand still crossed his chest almost protectively. His t-shirt read ‘FCUK’. Yeah. I’d agree with that exclamation. “Anyhow, I’m not in that life anymore. I haven’t been in four years.”

His use of ‘anyhow’ reminded me of his accent. “Where are you from, Peter Rabbit?” I asked softly.

It took a few seconds but then he smiled, the same one that took my breath earlier. And I was no less affected. “Mamma used to call me that.”

Part of my intuition was knowing when not to talk. So far I’d proven unreliable in that arena when it came to Peter, but I knew that if I asked about his mother, his walls would shoot back up. So I sat there in silence, watching his long fingers tumble the card end over end, tap it a few times and then stop.

Instead of answering that question, he went for the original one. “We used to hook up. Nothing serious. He was the first guy that didn’t pay me. I was sixteen, Iss was twenty-nine and Joe threatened him with jail time if we kept fucking. So we stopped. It wasn’t a big deal for either of us. I mean he wasn’t taking advantage of me. It just…was what it was.” He pursed his lips and shrugged.

“And today?”

Another shrug as he met my eyes. “He was searching for a friend of ours. I didn’t know where he was so I told him that.”

“That made him kiss you?” That was not jealousy in my voice. It wasn’t. I did need to release the death grip on my badge, though. Peter noticed and cocked his head, but didn’t say anything about it.