Shattered Glass(8)

He let out an annoyed breath, blinked and grabbed another set of silverware from the tub to his left. “Go away, little boy,” he said as he rolled the utensils up into a paper napkin.

Teenager calling me little boy. Ouch again. I pulled a napkin from the stack and fiddled with it. “I might need to kiss you.”

He grabbed the napkin from my hand. “Because you assume I’m gay.” Once again, this conversation was not going where I thought it should, or where I needed it to go. I had just assumed he was gay. Or, well, I hadn’t actually thought about his side of things at all. I just wanted these new feelings and thoughts to coalesce into something that made sense.

“I don’t think anything is wrong with being gay. I even have friends who are gay.” Now I did, anyway. Yesterday I had a friend who was gay, until I talked to Dave.

“Why are you here then? You expecting me to fix it? Something you don't even think is wrong in the first place?”

“Not fix it.” Yes, fix it. “Just, people don’t discover they’re gay at twenty-six.”

“People have found out at fifty they were gay,” he pointed out, concentrating on his work. I wanted to take that tub of silverware and toss it through the plate-glass window, so he could give this crisis the attention it deserved.

“Yeah, but those are repress—” Oh. I rubbed the bridge of my nose and then gave him what I thought was my most sincere smile. “I have no reason to repress it. I really, really don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay. In fact, if I were gay, I’d probably take out an ad. It would piss my dad off. I live to do that. There’s even a motto to that effect tattooed on my ass.” Wanna see?

“Listen, Alex—”

“Austin.”

“Austin, Alex, Idiot. Whatever. I don’t care. Not about your name, not about your gayness or not gayness, not about your parents or your friends. I don’t care about you perio—” I leaned across the table and parked my lips a hair’s breadth from his. Bunny Slippers took a shuddering breath mid-sentence as his eyes blinked to my mouth, and then his lips parted. I wanted to take advantage of that, but the fucking table was busy cock-blocking me.

By the time I maneuvered close enough for our mouths to meet, he was glaring at me and pulling away.

Then he flicked my nose hard enough to make my eyes water.

“Ow! Shit.” I sat back down, rubbing the stinging skin and watched him slide out of the booth. He disappeared behind the kitchen doors without so much as a ‘fuck off.’ Not that I would have done anything even if he had stuck around. The fact that I had tried to kiss him at all had stunned me into a motionless blob. I had wanted that kiss. I had wanted to kiss a guy. Badly. Then another thought leapt into my head before I had the opportunity to weasel my way back into denial.

Why had I gone directly to gay? Not bisexual. Not a passing interest in someone of the same sex. Straight—so to speak—to gay. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Gay.

I wandered out into the parking lot in a daze, sat in my Jag, staring ahead. Cars zoomed past. I began counting them in order to avoid thinking. It didn’t work. I drove home thinking about it, thought about it while eating dinner, through another ESPN marathon, when ordering a truckload of baby stuff for Marta online. And when I climbed into bed, it was still the only thing I was thinking about.

What Monday would be like at the station with this new found information? Would I suddenly start checking out guys? Would someone see something different about me?

I still had no answers when I fell asleep, just one more question. What about Angelica?





Booyah!

My tie flapped behind me. My dress shirt soaked with sweat under my suit jacket. “Suspect heading north on Josephine, crossing 19th. Over,” I huffed into the radio. Blood pounded in my ears while I panted each breath. My shoes lifted off the sidewalk as I twisted, dodging pedestrians and hopping over parked cars.

I was gaining ground, pushing myself to go faster when Prisc Alvarado stumbled into the intersection ahead of me. The toes of my shoes nearly collided with his sneakered heels before I leaped onto his back, both of us falling in a heap.

Alvarado’s elbow smashed into my ribcage as he threw his head back. I jerked away just in time to stop him from smashing my nose into my brain. “Fucking,” I panted, “stay,” huff, “still, asshole.”

Digging my knee into his ass, I scooted it up to the small of his back, fingers wedged into his neck. I pushed his face into the cement while reaching for my cuffs, trying to see what I was doing while sweat blurred my vision. My hundred and seventy pounds of muscle fought every inch of his two hundred plus pounds. Adrenalin at an all-time high, I laughed euphorically while slipping the steel over Alvarado’s wrists. Two patrolmen pulled up and rushed over to assist. I jumped off my suspect once he was cuffed and did a small victory dance, still panting merrily.