Lie With Me (Stonewall Investigations Miami 2)

“It doesn’t.” Beckham smiled. The light above his head let off a soft orange glow. “We have to work on expanding your repertoire, then.”

“I wouldn’t mind adding some new exotic locales to my sexusme.”

“Did you… is that a real word, or did you just make that up?”

“I think I just made it up.” I laughed, grabbing Beckham’s foot and giving it a squeeze. “Deadass.”

“Deadass,” Beckham parroted, his accent making the words funnier to me. I started to laugh, Beckham joining in, the night unfolding as though nothing had happened prior. As if I hadn’t heard the voice of my boyfriend’s killer, as if he hadn’t chased Beckham down and landed right at my doorstep.

A cold shiver sliced through me.

Being with Beckham always created some kind of impossible time capsule. Every moment stretched into infinity, blurring out all the bullshit.

And then those bubbles, those little time capsules, would pop, and the outside world would come rushing in, almost knocking down my front door, saying things like “you’ll regret this.”

I let go of Beckham’s foot and stood, stretching as I did.

Beckham’s yard was a large one, fenced in with a large mango tree starting to bear fruit over in one corner, a small rocking gazebo set up in the other corner. We were currently under the tiled terrace, where he had an outdoor couch and some seating that surrounded a clean white table. Next to the couch was a rack holding various plastic containers that all appeared to have come from a move, one that Beckham never fully unpacked from. The boxes were still labeled with thick black marker: Bathroom, Christmas Things, Kitchen.

One of the boxes was open. There was a thick, navy blue book sticking out from the top. I realized as I got closer that it wasn’t a book but a photo album. Beckham watched me with a curious expression, not catching on to what I was looking at.

I grabbed the book and pulled it out, unsettling a spider web in the process. The rest of the box’s contents shifted and clattered.

“Oh, I haven’t looked through that in years,” Beckham said, sounding surprised. “I forgot I even had that thing.”

I sat down next to him on the couch and placed the album on my lap. “Mind if we flip through it? I love looking through old photos.”

Beckham didn’t take long to consider it. “Go for it.”

I checked out the cover first. There was a photo tucked into the center, underneath a clear sheet of plastic. It was a photo of Beckham and his parents. He must have been something like four, standing between them and wearing the cutest little pair of overalls I’d ever seen, his hair a mess and his smile pure, matching the smiles on both his mom and dad.

I opened it, the first page holding a collage of Beckham’s baby photos, from him smiling peacefully as a newborn in his mom’s arms, still in a hospital bed, to the ones of little Beckham having his first bath, his dad pouring a splash of water onto Beck’s chubby little belly.

“You were a big baby,” I teased, nudging Beckham.

“I did have some rolls on me, eh?”

“Look at you there. You’re like a mini sumo wrestler.” It was a Polaroid of Beckham in diapers, squatting with a face that looked like he could be either furious or pooping, his pudgy cheeks looking like they were made out of dough.

“You were so cute, oh my dear baby Jesus.” I couldn’t help but say “aww” through most of the pages. I noticed that Beckham’s dad barely showed up in any of the photos, but that may have been just because he was always behind the camera. His mom, on the other hand, showed up in almost every photo. She had a big head of light brown hair that was always curled and cut perfectly, framing her bright face every time she gave it to the camera.

“Look at you two,” I said, stopping on a photo of Beckham and his mom roller-skating in a park. They were wearing the coolest of eighties fashion, with neon wristbands and high-waisted jeans. I turned the page and there was another photo of the same day, but this one showed Beckham going headfirst into a bush and his mom laughing in the most photogenic way possible.

I flipped to the next page and the mood suddenly shifted. There, on the center of the page, was a Polaroid. Beckham looked like a kid, but his hair was already growing those silver strands that I loved so much now. He must have just been entering his teens, but he was tall, almost as tall as his father, who stood next to him, an arm around his son’s shoulder, a smile on both their faces.

They looked happy. I could see the resemblance between them. They had the same eyes and the same lips. Beckham had his mom’s nose, but he definitely had his dad’s chin.