I gaped at him.
“Not being with you like that,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face “Jesus, why can’t I think straight around you?”
“We’re both tired. It’s fine. Let’s just talk about something else. Besides dead relatives, terminal illnesses—"
“Well, if we’re not talking about those things, then what topics are left for conversation?”
“The frozen food section at the new dollar store, of course,” I said. “What’s good?”
“Not the fish,” he said.
“Okay, there’s gotta be a story there.”
“Just take my word for it. Not the fish. They have good store brand iced coffee, if you’re, you know, a basic bitch who likes that kind of thing.”
I rolled my eyes at his pointed comment, “What else?”
“Good deals on frozen chicken breasts and vegetables.”
“Okay. That’s exciting. Mrs. Rook was telling me about the wonders of her slow cooker. We should all get together and trade recipes.”
“What’s your specialty?”
“Scrambled eggs,” I said. “A little dill, some sour cream and it’s like the fanciest breakfast in the world.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“What do you eat for breakfast? Wheaties?”
“Green smoothie with flaxseed. It’s healthy and good for muscle recovery. I usually go to the gym before work.”
“I never joined a gym. I work out at home. All I need are resistance bands and some hand weights.”
“You should come to the gym sometime. It’ll change how you train. There’s a lot of specialized equipment to isolate muscle groups.”
“Dude, I know what a gym is. I just haven’t joined one.”
“I was just offering to show you the ropes.”
“I don’t pretend I don’t know how to use a pool cue or a baseball bat to let a man teach me, remember?”
“So you’re saying you know all about how to use all the equipment in the place?”
“Probably.”
“Ten bucks says I can teach you something you didn’t know,” he said.
“What, now?”
“Yes, now.”
“We just ate. You’re supposed to wait an hour.”
“That’s if you go swimming. And it’s total bullshit,” he said. “Are you afraid you don’t know it all?”
“No. I know that I know it all.”
“You got workout stuff in your locker?”
“In my car,” I said.
“Meet me out front in ten minutes, Vance. I’m going to teach you a lesson.”
I threw out my trash and went to get my workout clothes. I was trembling, shaking with anticipation. I kept getting flashes of him sweaty, shirtless, demonstrating how to use a weight machine while I tried desperately not to straddle him and ride him right there. This was a shitty idea. We were both competitive. This would lead to—fireworks. I knew better. I had to back out of it. Even if it meant looking like a chicken shit. I turned around and went back in the station and walked into his office.
“Listen, chief, I was thinking and I—”
I stopped talking.
I might never talk again. Until I went to confession. And I wasn’t not even Catholic. But I definitely needed to go to confession for my impure thoughts.
Because Brody Peters was standing beside his desk, naked to the waist and packing a hard-on as long as my forearm in his black boxer briefs. He finished turning a tee right side out and pulled it over his head, covering up the stacks of muscles cut into his torso by hours and hours of workouts. He was strong and cut but not in the beefy idiot way that guys were who had thick necks and no brain. He looked like he’d honed his body into a weapon, like he ate clean and exercised until he was in peak physical condition. Just as a law enforcement officer should. And the fact that I had the sudden, mouth-watering urge to sink my teeth into his big bicep had nothing to do with anything. It was a stupid fleeting thought, much like the fleeting thought that I’d seen the outline of what he was packing and it made me want to faint. I needed to lie down. Except I couldn’t stay there for another minute. My integrity depended on it.
“Sorry I barged in like that,” I said faintly. “Here.” I held out ten dollars, “I need to get home and check on my dad. Thanks for dinner. You win the bet by default.”
“No. I’ll take a rain check,” he said. “I won’t even give you hell about being too chicken to face off in the gym.”
“I appreciate that. Even if it’s totally insincere,” I said. My heart pounded. My pulse seemed to shoot through me, making my whole body shake. “Thanks for dinner,” I said.
“Not a problem. See you tomorrow.”
I could not stop my eyes from flicking down to his hard-on again. I did an awkward wave and left.
12
Brody
I flipped my pillow and punched it, trying to get comfortable. I had the air conditioning cranked up so high the window unit rattled with the force of the fan. But even that annoying sound didn’t distract me. I couldn’t sleep. Not because it was hot even at night, which it was. Not because I was obsessing about the missing persons case, which I was. Because of Laura.