Jesse nodded as if he knew exactly where Park Avenue was.
“Just straight back up this way.” The officer pointed behind him as if he knew what Jesse was thinking. “Then make a left… can’t miss it.”
“Thanks, Officer—”
“Mason,” the sweet man added as he reached in his top breast pocket and removed a business card. He handed it to Jesse, and he took it like it was a Willy Wonka golden ticket. “There’s a lot that happens out here at night. If you get into any trouble or you see anything suspicious, will you call and let me know?”
“Sure.” Jesse smiled for the first time in hours, thinking maybe he would call Officer Mason… but not when he was in trouble. But for a date when he got his situation together. He started to awkwardly walk away in the direction of the hotel that he couldn’t afford as the cops continued to observe.
Too bad he’s not watching me walk away for a different reason.
Mason
Mason got back in the passenger seat and did everything in his power to avoid his sergeant’s disbelieving glare. Instead he updated their status in the system, tapping the keys slower than usual, trying to stall.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“What?” Mason asked innocently. He was keeping his mouth shut and not admitting anything. Like how he was so enamored by the tall, blond drink of water Clark decided to stop and question, that he’d ignorantly convinced himself it was impossible for him to be a criminal. Not with those big, scared brown eyes and proper manners. Though he’d refused to answer Clark’s questions, he wasn’t a prick to them either. And the guy was right—he hadn’t been doing anything. “You ready to grab a snack or something?”
Clark chuckled, then quickly straightened. “Look. I know you’re all hot-shit-gelled-hair-I’m-too-sexy-for-this-uniform top cop. But just because we stop an attractive drug dealer, he’s still a dealer and needs to be questioned. You just let him go.”
Mason ground his teeth together. That was not why he’d been cordial. “You asked to search his bag and for identification without probable cause. And he told you no. I didn’t let him go… he rightfully left.”
“He’s been stalking around the neighborhood all night and day; now here he is on a bench in the middle of the night. That’s not suspicious? If he was really looking for a hotel, you’d think he couldn’t’ve found one by now?” Clark scoffed. “And that’s an awfully big bag he’s protecting so carefully. Only guilty people bring up ‘their legal rights.’”
“I’ll bet you fucking box seats tickets to a Braves game that that guy is not a dealer.” Mason pointed to where the tall guy had rounded the block. He turned fully to face Clark, and the shadows on his face from the streetlights made his pissed expression appear creepy.
“You’re on.”
Mason didn’t know what it was about that guy, but he knew in his gut he was right. The young man was into something—possibly trouble—but not the drug-dealing kind.
Mason got home a little after three, still thinking about the young man with the defeated posture and devastated eyes. A look that said he was terrified and in over his head. He’d been wandering aimlessly for hours on end according to the officers that worked the area during the day. Not doing anything overtly obvious, such as transactions, just walking and looking. As if he was a tourist. But there weren’t too many of those in Atlanta anymore. Not with them being the fourth leading city in drug-related crime. Three years ago they were number one until God and his team showed up.
Mason usually showered at the station, rarely coming home in his uniform, but today he did. He was still flustered from his non-meeting with God this afternoon, and now being wired with his equipment… it was a lot to process. Like he felt a certain pressure to perform for this dynamic task force when there was no way he was ever acting that recklessly again. He wondered if the ones that were couples—Ruxs and Green, God and Day, Steele and Tech—were home in bed right now, wrapped around each other and receiving a kind of masculine comfort that Mason also craved after a stressful day on the streets.
It must be nice, he thought. Someone who understood his job was sometimes dangerous, yes, but he loved it, he was good at it, and he’d always do his best to return home safely. But no one wanted to stick around long enough for him to prove it.
His living room was dark and warm, only the screensaver from the cable box giving him enough light to get to his refrigerator. Working the hours he did and coming home so late to absolutely nothing—no dinner waiting for him in the microwave, no snores from a kid’s room, and no warmth waiting for him in his bed—sometimes made his quaint home feel even smaller.