Chapter Text
[CARLOS]
Caucasian male. Early to mid-twenties. Stabbed an estimated 25 times. First responders arrived on site at 4:30am but were unable to revive. Victim pronounced dead at 4:45am. Case routed to the Homicide Department.
Carlos parked in a gap along the curb under the glow of a streetlight, taking a moment to confirm the address he’d been summoned to. In the process of clicking through his phone to find his case notes, he realized he had an unread text from Kameron, sent at 11:00pm: Just landed in Green Bay. Missing you, handsome
He swallowed, quickly exiting his messages. Once he’d wrapped up on site and the sun had risen, he would have to remember to answer and wish his boyfriend good luck in his game . . . tomorrow? No, today. It was early Sunday morning now, so Kam played tonight. Unless he had the Monday night game?
Figuring that out had to wait considering that Carlos was already late to arrive. He steeled himself as he climbed out of his car and locked the doors. This would likely be a gruesome scene, based on the description of the number of stab wounds.
A patrol officer let him into the building lobby, tilting her head in greeting. “Detective Reyes.”
“Officer Miles,” Carlos returned.
He took the elevator up to the third floor, turning twice down a hallway plastered in hideous 70s-era wallpaper before finding unit 3N. There, a second officer let him into the apartment. Several crime scene techs already bustled around the kitchen and living room, looking for trace evidence on every possible surface — fingerprints on glasses, loose hair, even flakes of skin.
After he checked in with them, Carlos made his way to the victim’s bedroom, located down a narrow corridor, across from an equally cramped bathroom. The very first thing he saw after stepping through the doorway was T.K. Strand, slumped in a chair in the corner of the room, drenched in blood.
Carlos’s knees gave out so abruptly that he had to grab for the frame to catch himself before he hit the ground. He went instantly, horribly cold, chilled through to his bones.
“No,” he heard himself say, in a voice that didn’t sound anything like him. “No, no, God. Please no.”
I’m not going to be able to work this case, he thought, feeling the first jagged edges of a panic attack setting in. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to do anything again, considering how certain he felt that someone had just reached into his chest and ripped out his heart.
Except, T.K.’s head snapped up at his words. In the blink of an eye, T.K. rose to his feet and made his way to Carlos’s side, placing careful fingers on his arm. His voice, listing off a battery of questions, quickly became one of the most beautiful sounds Carlos had ever heard.
“Carlos, what’s going on? Do you feel lightheaded? Dizzy? Nauseous?”
Yes, to all, but not for the reason T.K. expected.
“You . . .” Carlos managed. He forced himself through the motions. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. “You’re — why are you not in the hospital?”
T.K. glanced down at himself, realization dawning. Sadness clouded his expression. “Oh, no. Carlos, I’m fine. None of this is mine.”
“But—”
T.K. ran his knuckles up and down Carlos’s triceps, just once, in a gesture of comfort so familiar it made Carlos’s heart twinge.
“I was the responding paramedic,” he explained. “I did everything I could to stop the bleeding, but . . .” His voice shook. “T-here was a lot of it.”
Carlos forced himself to look away from those huge, damp, ocean-colored eyes and take in the rest of the room. He hated himself for the fact that it felt like a relief to see the mangled body on the bed. The sight helped him remember why he’d come here, at least. He let go of the doorway and rolled his shoulders, returning to his full height.
“The victim was alive when you got here?” he confirmed.
T.K. nodded, mouth curving even further down.
Carlos reached into the messenger bag at his side, pulling out a little black notebook. He wrote the date and time at the top of the next clean page.
“I know your name,” he said, as he scribbled the full legal version. “But,” he took a second look at T.K., remembering the address. “Is this your jurisdiction now? I thought this was outside the 126’s range.”
“I’m on call tonight with Austin FD. I pick up extra shifts all over town when paramedics unexpectedly call out.”
When do you sleep? Carlos thought, but didn’t ask.
A hint of that question must have shown on his face because T.K. shrugged, adding, “Pay is good.”
That made Carlos’s stomach flip for reasons he refused to acknowledge right now. “Can you walk me through everything you remember about the call?”
“9-1-1 got two different calls reporting screaming from this unit. When we arrived, Officer Miles went in ahead of me to case the apartment. She was first to see the victim. At first, we were certain he was dead, considering — ” T.K. waved in the direction of the bed. “When I got closer, though, I realized he was still breathing.”
He paused to take a breath, eyes shining in the light. “I did everything I could, but he’d already bled so much. I . . .” He shook his head, breaking off.
Carlos wanted badly to pull T.K. forward and wrap his arms around him. He clenched his fingers around the pen in his hand. “Did he ever speak?”
“No.”
“Did you see any sign of the intruder?”
“No.”
For that, Carlos felt grateful, even if it made his job harder. He found himself relieved to hear that T.K. had never been near the kind of person capable of turning someone else to ribbons.
“Can you think of anything else I should know?” Carlos asked.
T.K. hesitated. “He – the victim – has a tattoo, I think. It’s hard to see under all the blood but it looks to me like two interlocking triangles.”
He gave Carlos a meaningful look. If the victim identified as bisexual, that could be a possible motive.
“I’ll look into it,” Carlos said. “Thank you, T.K.”
Then came his turn to pause. He’d recited this part of his script a thousand times over and yet it felt remarkably different coming out of his mouth tonight, as he said it to T.K. Strand after their first conversation in almost a year and a half.
“I think that’s everything I need to know for now. Can I get the best number to reach you if anything else comes up?”
He dutifully wrote down the New York area code number T.K. rattled off to him — the one he’d never been able to bring himself to delete from his phone. The number with a voicemail still saved that he had memorized, he’d listened to it so many times in the months after their breakup, desperate to hear the sound of T.K.’s voice: “Hey, babe. We’re headed out on a last-minute call to a pile up on Mopac. It’s going to be a rough one so I’ll miss our dinner tonight. I promise to make it up to you. Love you so much.”
“Thank you, T.K.,” Carlos repeated. He fished in his pocket for his business card. “Here’s mine. Let me know if you think of anything else?”
Normally when he used that line, it wasn’t a question.
“Yeah,” T.K. said, tucking it into the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. Carlos had always thought this long-sleeved version particularly flattered him, showcasing his trim upper body.
So that was that — their first real conversation since the breakup, over as quickly as it had come, any potential awkwardness dwarfed by Carlos’s sheer relief at seeing him alive and unharmed. A moment he’d been dreading and hoping for in equal measure, overshadowed by the much higher stakes of the case before him. He didn’t let himself watch T.K. leave the room, instead focusing his attention on what really mattered.
Carlos walked the scene, losing himself in trying to get a sense for whether anything about the body or the room surrounding it might have been staged. Something about the way the figure was positioned on the bed nagged at him, although perhaps the killer’s original intent had been altered by T.K.’s efforts to resuscitate the victim. The body lay flat on its back, legs slightly apart, arms to the side.
He felt as confident as he could be, considering all the blood, that the victim was nude. The few pieces of scattered clothing on the floor seemed to confirm that. He donned latex gloves as he walked over to pick them up. The fabric, the fit . . . these were going out clothes. Had their killer picked up his victim at a nightclub? There were two or three popular clubs within a short drive from here. Carlos would have to double-check a map, but he thought there might even be one in walking distance.
After he completed his initial survey of the bedroom, Carlos ventured back out to the living room area. He was startled to see T.K. sitting sideways in one of the dining room chairs on the outskirts of the bustle — presumably, hopefully, one that had already been processed by the technicians. T.K. looked exhausted: his hair mussed, eyes half closed, head propped up by an arm braced against the back edge of the chair.
Carlos went to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” he said, dropping his voice. “You’re free to go. I’m sorry I didn’t make that more clear.”
T.K. straightened, pressing briefly into Carlos’s touch. He scrubbed at his eyes with the hand he’d been leaning against.
“No,” he said, in a voice hoarser than it had been an hour ago. “That’s not — I was hoping to catch you for a minute when you’re done.”
“I won’t be done for a long time,” Carlos said, surprising himself with how gentle it sounded. “You should get some sleep.”
“Okay,” T.K. said, a little reluctantly, as he placed both palms flat on the chair's seat to push fully upright. He kept blinking, looking bleary-eyed in a way that tugged at Carlos’s chest, reminding him of so many morning alarms when their shifts didn’t align — kissing T.K.’s forehead before heading out the door for the day. A red mark marred his cheek where his hand had been.
Before Carlos could turn back to the scene — or worse, give in to the rising urge to insist on escorting T.K. to his ride, considering both the late hour and the killer on the loose – T.K. added, “It was good to see you, Carlos.”
“You too,” Carlos admitted. “Despite the circumstances.”
T.K. looked directly at him, catching Carlos’s eyes before he next spoke. “Do you think we could meet for coffee some time? Catch up properly?”
Carlos must have reacted outwardly in some way, although he didn’t think T.K. read it correctly, because T.K., who now looked noticeably more awake, hastened to add, “I’m not trying to . . . I know you have a boyfriend. I just owe you a long-overdue apology. And I would be grateful for the chance to give it to you.”
Right. The ‘perks’ of dating a public figure. When someone with 2 million followers on Instagram regularly put up photos of you, a lot of people made it their business to learn about your personal life. One day, maybe a long time from now, Carlos would get used to the fact that seemingly everyone in Austin knew he dated Kameron Tagger, star quarterback for the Houston Texans. These days, it only ever made him uncomfortable. The last thing he wanted in an interrogation with a suspect was speculation about who topped in his relationship.
It felt strange to get the answer to a question he’d wondered for months but never dared voice aloud: did T.K. know about his relationship? He’d always figured T.K. had to know. Unless T.K. had moved back to New York, completely stopped following football, and cut off contact with everyone back in Austin, he would’ve had to have found out at some point. But still, there it was, confirmation that T.K. was, in fact, aware – and completely unfazed by the news.
“I’d like that,” Carlos said. He pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolling through his contacts until he got to the S’s. He clicked to open the contact for T.K. Strand and bluffed, “I’ll add the number you gave me earlier and I can reach out when – ”
He faltered mid-thought, blindsided by the realization that he’d never changed the contact photo for T.K. The circle in the upper part of his screen still showed the two of them leaning together: Carlos pressing his lips to T.K.’s cheek while T.K. smiled hugely, his left arm slung over Carlos’s shoulder. A second passed as Carlos stared at it, incapable of looking anywhere else. Then, he pressed the button to lock his phone, turning the image black.
“When I get a break, I’ll let you know,” he finished, sounding nowhere near as aloof as he’d intended.
T.K. raised an eyebrow. He tilted his head to consider Carlos, but only said, “Sounds good.”
“I’ll text you,” Carlos told him. He felt hot all over, a little nauseous, lightheaded – all the same symptoms T.K. had been so worried about earlier. For months he’d managed to barely think about their relationship, and now tonight he couldn’t escape being reminded of it.
“See you soon,” T.K. said, giving him a flash of a smile.
##
The rest of Carlos’s day passed in a blur of activity. At 9:00am, the building manager finally came through with a victim ID and her notes: Jeremy Bryant. 22 years old. Renter for 18 months. Good payment record. His parents were a second signatory on his account. No lease violations. She also provided security footage for the exterior cameras.
Unfortunately, there were no hallway cameras — a huge miss, as the outside camera proved to be grainy and dimly lit. At the main entrance view, between the hours of midnight and 5:30am, Carlos noticed four couples, a mix of hetero- and homosexual, entering and exiting the building. He also flagged three single men in case Jeremy might have been followed at a distance. Considering the poor quality, Carlos had to send the tapes to their Digital Imaging Specialist for further analysis in order to have any hopes of making IDs from the footage.
Around mid-day, Officer Miles shared her reports from canvassing Jeremy's neighbors. Carlos spent a couple of hours reading through those, seeing if any details stood out. Then he poured over crime scene photos for new details, trying to look beyond the blood. For the first time, he caught the tattoo T.K. mentioned. As Carlos had guessed, their victim had been naked. Would the autopsy find signs of sexual intercourse? Because that was one scenario where they’d be able to determine with near-certainty that the killer was a man.
Carlos arrived home late that night. He shoveled down leftovers, showered, then face planted into bed, falling asleep nearly the moment his head hit the pillow.
Monday passed much the same, a steady grind from sunrise to well past sunset. He spoke with Jeremy's parents, in addition to his direct supervisor in his job as a Sales Associate at a local startup. Gradually he learned more about Jeremy as a person: his job, his education, his hobbies.
Early evening, the results of the autopsy came through, verifying his suspicion: traces of lube and stretching in the rectum show the victim was sexually active shortly before his death. Put bluntly, unless the killer brought a dildo with them and carried it out after, along with the still missing murder weapon – a scenario Carlos found extremely hard to believe – Jeremy had been fucked by someone with a penis. That meant they could at least rule out fifty percent of the population as suspects.
Carlos didn’t remember seeing a condom on the inventory of trash found at the apartment, but he sent a note to the technicians on scene asking them to check again. If it was still in the unit, they could capture a sample of their presumed killer’s DNA. He feared it had been flushed down the toilet, though; the evidence literally washed down the drain.
By Tuesday morning he’d already begun to feel the effects of too many nights with too little sleep and an excess of hours spent squinting at a screen. He caved and texted T.K., What’s your schedule tomorrow?
Their full history still sat above the new bubble, which was kind of incredible considering how much time had passed. At the end, it was a wall of blue on Carlo’s side – all his unanswered texts from the months immediately following their fight over the loft, before he’d given up entirely. But further back, he found little snapshots of their previous relationship: the drive safes and what do you want for dinners and I love yous.
Ten minutes later, T.K. responded, I get off a shift at 7am, start another at 3pm
Carlos frowned. That didn’t seem like enough time off after an overnight. How often did T.K. pick up extra shifts?
We can find another day. You need to sleep, he sent.
It’s a slow zone, I’ll get plenty, T.K. sent. He followed up quickly with two more texts: I can meet you by your station. Give me a time
Only after Carlos finalized the details with him did he realize that he’d never answered Kam’s Saturday night text. He swore under his breath. It was definitely too late to comment on the game, right? God, he didn’t even know if the Texans had won. He could apologize for disappearing, let Kam know he’d started a new case. But the last thing he wanted was another Los, you’re killing yourself. You know you don’t need to keep doing this
Should he ask if Kam had made it back to Houston? But then Kam might try to meet up and Carlos didn’t have time to drive 2.5 hours each way, let alone stay the night. Feeling a roiling sensation in his gut – a mix of guilt and irritation with himself – he sent, Hey sexy, how’s your day going?
Kam had to be at practice or video review because he didn’t answer right away. Carlos put his phone face down and returned his attention to the job, ignoring the tight knot between his shoulder blades.
##
T.K. — who knew well that Carlos couldn’t be paid money to enter a Starbucks — had chosen a local place, one that must have been built in the last fifteen months since they broke up, or else they likely would’ve gone together before. When he stepped inside, Carlos breathed in the rich aroma of the brewing coffee at the same time as he admired the swirling colors of the modern art hung on the walls. Despite the time of day, a majority of the tables were taken.
Even though T.K. sat near the back, in the midst of several other crowded tables, Carlos still spotted him immediately, attention drawn as if a spotlight showed the way. T.K. hadn’t changed into his uniform yet. He looked like some sleazy European soccer star in slim black joggers, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket with a chunky gray stripe across the right chest. His silver chain with its ever-present NYFD medallion dangled over the shirt. The look should’ve been stupid. On him, it was anything but.
As Carlos approached, T.K. glanced up, noticing him. His face broke into a smile and he lifted a hand to wave. The familiar routine made Carlos’s breath catch. They’d done this at least once a week when they were together — squeezed in time to see each other whenever they could between often conflicting shifts. He’d missed those times more than he realized. The thirty minute breaks never failed to send him back to patrol feeling a little lighter, happier. He needed to find an outlet like this again, especially now that so much of his time involved being immersed in murder.
“Hey,” Carlos said, shrugging out of his own jacket so he could hang it off the back of his chair.
T.K. stood to match him. “Hi! What can I get for you? An Americano?”
“Yeah,” Carlos said, still distracted getting settled. “Splash of two percent milk. But—” he twisted, reaching to find his wallet. “I can get it.”
“I asked you to meet,” T.K. insisted, catching him by the elbow.
“No, I was going to get food,” Carlos told him. He hadn’t eaten in . . . eight hours, at least. Not since a Clif bar on his early morning drive in. No wonder that in the absence of being forced to focus on work, he’d started to notice the pounding in his head.
“I’ve got it,” T.K. said, leaving no room for argument. “Come tell me what you want.”
Once they were seated again, drinks in front of them and Carlos’s panini sizzling on the grill, T.K. asked, “How’s the case going? You look tired.”
Carlos chuckled ruefully, rubbing at the corner of his eye. “It’s been . . . slow going. I’d hoped to have made more progress. I keep thinking that Jeremy deserved better.”
“Jeremy,” T.K. repeated. His eyes went dark and distant. His expression flipped from easy pleasure to something desolate. “Was that his name?”
“Yeah, Jeremy Bryant.” Carlos wished he had some comfort to offer T.K. Now that he’d spent more time with the crime scene photos, not to mention reading the autopsy report, he truly understood how futile T.K.’s efforts to save the victim had been. But he also knew that T.K. fundamentally believed everyone was savable — that he’d always give his all to bring a patient back from the cusp of death. The patients T.K. lost stuck with him, left their scars long after they passed. This was the guy who’d almost killed himself trying to pull a woman out of a fiery bus only weeks after being shot; who’d once given CPR to a child until his arms physically gave out.
“He was gone before you ever walked in that room, T.K.,” Carlos told him, lowering his voice.
T.K. blinked several times, dissipating the moisture that threatened to pool, but he never broke their shared gaze. “I feel better knowing you’re assigned to the case,” he told Carlos in a soft voice. “There’s no one in Texas who’d work harder to find his killer.”
“Thank you,” Carlos said, touched.
“Did someone order a Southwest Turkey panini?” A woman asked from just behind him, startling him.
“For him,” T.K. said, before Carlos could answer.
She slid the plate in front of Carlos, hitting him with a whiff of grilled meat and jack cheese in the process. His stomach growled loudly, and he heard T.K. huff a laugh in response.
“Sorry,” Carlos said. “Busy day.”
“I understand,” T.K. told him. He gestured at the plate. “Go ahead.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you anyway. Talk at you, really. It might be easier.”
Carlos’s mouth watered. He took a bite, enjoying the warmth of it and the immediate burst of flavor on his tongue. As much as he wanted to keep going, he still felt rude eating while T.K. slid an already-empty coffee mug back and forth from hand to hand.
“Do you want to go get another drink?” Carlos asked, freezing with the sandwich halfway to his mouth.
“Eat, Carlos,” T.K. told him looking equally amused and exasperated.
T.K. waited for him to take several more bites. Only once he seemed satisfied that Carlos would actually consume it did he start to speak. “Carlos, I’m really grateful I ran into you the other night. Not only because it was a really . . . rough night for me, but because I’ve wanted to reach out to you for a long time and I think I needed the push.”
While he chewed, Carlos made sure to look at him, raising a hand to cover the lower part of his face. The food in his mouth fortunately kept him from agreeing with that; from admitting to how many times since they’d broken up he’d thought of reaching out to T.K. Only sheer stubborn pride had stopped him. He’d told himself over and over that T.K. was the one who’d walked out, who’d iced him out for so long, so it had to be him who re-engaged. Sitting across from him now he wished he had tried again, maybe after a few months, when the pain and anger weren’t quite so fresh.
“I’ve owed you an apology for a long time,” T.K. continued. He looked determined, leaning forward to talk to Carlos. The slant of his head showed off every bit of stubble on his jawline. “I wasn’t fair to you when we broke up. I shouldn’t have walked out on you. And I really shouldn’t have cut you off after.”
Carlos was struck abruptly by the most bizarre feeling — one so strong it momentarily paralyzed him. He’d waited to hear this for so long, and yet now that he was, he felt terrified by it. His heart pounded. He heard a ferocious rushing in his ears as his palms started to sweat. Part of him wanted to tell T.K. to stop.
“I want you to know that I started seeing a therapist again after that and I’ve spent a lot of time working through why I reacted the way I did. You did something incredibly generous and I know you did it with nothing but love, but it made me feel small. Like I’d failed us by not being able to play an equal part. I hated that feeling, which is why I walked out. And then I was embarrassed, which is why I didn’t reach out. I’m so sorry Carlos.”
Carlos had long ago finished his sandwich during this speech. He had to take a sip of his coffee to buy himself time to think. The liquid sloshed in the cup when his hand trembled.
It made me feel small. That hit Carlos like a punch to the gut. He could relate to it in a way that he never could’ve imagined 15 months ago, and that shared understanding knocked him speechless.
“I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” he said, after a long moment. “That was never my intention.”
With love. God, how he’d loved T.K. He’d been so certain they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. He’d bought the loft so that they’d have a place to build a home together, where every single memory could be shared.
“I should have talked to you about it,” Carlos said. He felt like sand coated his throat, the way everyone had felt for weeks after the dust storm back in 2021. “Explained what I was thinking. I should have known you wouldn’t like being surprised. Not after everything that happened to us that year.”
T.K. cracked a weak smile at that. “I wish we’d both talked more.”
“Me too.”
T.K. glanced down, then back up again in quick succession, lashes fluttering. He looked briefly uncertain, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth. “I want you to know that no matter what happened, meeting you was one of the best things that ever happened to me. You will always be important to me. So please know you have a friend in me if you ever need it.”
This was a subtly different T.K. Strand than the one he’d dated: steadier, quietly confident without an edge of bravado. But Carlos recognized the man he’d known in him, could clearly see where the shifts had happened. The sweetness underlying those earnest words lay at the core of what had drawn Carlos to him in the first place.
“I appreciate that,” Carlos said, aware of the growing lump in his throat. He felt dangerously close to tearing up, right here in the middle of this crowded space, and he had to look away from those sincere grey-green eyes to get himself under control again.
“That was all I wanted to tell you. I know how busy you are with the case.” T.K. nodded, a jerky motion. He made as if to stand, almost knocking his mug over in the process.
“Wait, hold on,” Carlos said, realizing that T.K. meant to say goodbye. He finally gave in to the persistent urge to touch and reached to grab T.K. by the wrist, catching him in an awkward position halfway out of his chair. “T.K., sit down. How are you? Besides all that?”
Funny how things changed. He used to know every detail of T.K.’s days, from his calls to what he had for lunch. Now he didn’t even know where T.K. lived.
T.K. shot him a look of such blatant surprise, it would have been amusing under other circumstances. “Oh,” he said, dropping back into his seat. “I’ve . . . been good. Focusing on work. I’ve learned so much from Tommy.”
“You still work with Tommy and Nancy?”
“Yeah, mostly.” A genuine smile flickered across his face at that. “The dream team.”
“Mostly? You mean other than your extra shifts?”
“Yeah,” T.K. repeated. He sighed, although he didn’t seem to realize he had done it. “That’s something else I’ve been working on — I’m still living at Dad’s and I decided it was a good time to seriously work on paying off my debt and building up my credit.”
He looked everywhere but at Carlos as he said the last sentence. The elephant in the coffee shop this time, unspoken but heavy between them, was the clear connection between everything he’d said earlier and this: Carlos had made him feel useless, so T.K. had decided to make sure that couldn’t happen again.
I’m sorry. I’m proud of you. I never cared how much money you had.
Anything Carlos could think of to say seemed patronizing. After considering and discarding several options, he returned to the question that had been bothering him since they first reconnected: “When do you sleep?”
T.K. snorted. “Could say the same for you, Mr. four am call out. Congratulations on making detective, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Carlos said. “It’s been a big change.”
“It suits you.”
“Does it?” Carlos couldn’t help but ask.
“You’re thorough,” T.K. said. “You’re detail-oriented. You’re persistent. Like – remember when you had to call the insurance company about 20 different times after the fire? Plus, it always bothered you when you had to turn over cases unfinished. Now you get to see them through.”
Carlos felt himself flush with the praise. No one had ever spoken with about him why he made the change to detective. Most people he knew either already worked in law enforcement and considered it the inevitable next step on the ladder if you wanted growth in your career, or he’d met after he’d already made the switch. Kameron, for instance, didn’t have any understanding of how completely different his average day was today than when he served as a patrol officer. If Carlos had ever been asked, though, he would’ve given an explanation very similar to what T.K. had just said.
“Yes,” Carlos agreed. “And I like . . . how every case is like a puzzle that I can — ”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence, although he thought T.K. would’ve appreciated the sentiment, considering how many nights they’d spent together working through various prints of art pieces or nature scenes.
“Excuse me,” a woman said, stepping up beside the table — not their server, but a new voice. “Are you Kameron Tagger’s boyfriend?”
This happened to Carlos every other week or so, if not more, but he still felt himself go rigid, fighting to keep his body loose and relaxed instead of giving into his rising tension. He should’ve been grateful this was happening in front of T.K. For a while he’d fantasized about it – getting the chance to flaunt: Hey, you know how you dumped me and then wouldn’t speak to me after? Well now I’m dating an insanely jacked professional athlete. Because in the end he’d ‘won’ the breakup, right? No matter how he felt about it, anyone looking at them from the outside would think so.
Instead, the thought of T.K. hearing anything like that right now, even implied, after he’d spoken to Carlos so openly, made Carlos feel sick. One-on-one with T.K. for the first time in over a year, the last thing he wanted to talk about was his relationship. He remembered T.K. the night of the murder, eyes red from fought-off tears and exhaustion, staying on site long after he could leave for the chance to talk to Carlos. He resented this interruption, the loss of the chance to talk to the one person who he thought might truly understand his career and how much this case meant to him.
And wasn’t that sad? His only point of pride in the wake of their breakup, shattered, just like that.
Carlos dug deep and found the closed-mouthed smile he used on the job whenever he struggled to remain professional. “Yes.”
“He was amazing on Sunday,” she told him. “Carried the team on his back.”
Well, at least Carlos finally had an answer to whether or not the Texans won their game.
“Kam is very talented,” he agreed.
“Lucky you!” she said.
Then, fortunately, she continued on to her table. No photo request. No inappropriate comments about their sex life. No cursing him out over some bad throw, like Carlos might’ve done something to distract Kam. All things considered, the best kind of fan interaction. He still felt a wave of discomfort leave his body the moment he saw her take her seat, making his shoulders slump with relief.
Something about being in T.K.’s presence caused him to lower his guard, he realized. Carlos thought he might be grimacing, and he had to work to school his face again.
If he’d still been hoping to see any hint of jealousy on T.K.’s face, he would’ve been disappointed. T.K. considered him carefully, eyes searching. “Does that happen to you often?” he asked.
Carlos crossed his arms over his chest. “A few times a month.”
“I’m sorry. That seems like it would be . . . awkward.”
“It’s okay,” Carlos said, trying to remember himself. “It’s much worse in Houston than here.”
“Right.” T.K toyed with his empty mug, spinning it around in one edge. “I heard about that scholarship program he set up for children of first responders. That was nice.”
“Yes, he’s very generous.”
After a few months he’d had to put his foot down. He liked his car. He liked cooking dinner. He could buy his own wine; he didn’t need special deliveries from Napa every other week. Being wined and dined had admittedly been exhilarating in the early days. They’d done things together that he’d never have the chance to do on his own: flown in a private plane just to spend a day on the beach in Mexico; been the sole table at Houston’s finest restaurant for a night; stayed in a luxury villa in Aspen for New Years, drinking $300 a bottle champagne. After a point, though, it had started to chafe. Nowadays he fantasized about going to the grocery store together without being stopped by a fan. Or spending more than one night in a row together during the season.
T.K.’s brow furrowed. His eyes bored into Carlos’s as the lines on his forehead deepened. Carlos had to stop thinking about this in front of T.K., who could always tell when he tried to hide his feelings.
“How did you meet?” T.K. asked.
Carlos huffed a laugh. Now he was the one who sounded bitter. “You haven’t read it in an interview?”
He hadn’t realized how much he valued his privacy until a lifestyle magazine sold at the check-out line at every H-E-B in Texas ran a four page article about his relationship.
T.K. broke their shared gaze, glancing down at the table. “No,” he said softly. “I never thought that would be healthy.”
That hurt to hear, for reasons Carlos couldn’t unpack while sitting here, so he jumped to answer T.K.’s earlier question. “His parents live in Austin, up the street from mine. I stopped to help Kam’s dad one evening when his car wouldn’t start. They invited us over for a barbecue to thank us. Kam was there.”
He’d followed Carlos out to his car and asked him to dinner, just the two of them that time. In that interview of theirs for the magazine, Kam had said, From the moment I saw him, I knew he was meant to be mine. That had been so appealing — Houston’s most eligible bachelor had wanted him, had put him first, above literally millions of people, men and women alike, at a time when Carlos still felt raw and achingly alone.
He realized, to his surprise, that T.K. had a smile on his face, faint but unmistakable.
“What?” Carlos asked.
“Of course you stopped to help a stranded motorist. Were you even still a patrol officer?”
“No,” Carlos said, amused. “And would you walk right past a fire, Paramedic Strand?”
“Of course not,” T.K. said, smiling wider. His eyes looked especially pretty in this gentle coffee shop lighting, the color of Barton Springs on a sunny summer day.
Carlos opened his mouth, wanting to say — he didn’t even know what; anything to keep the conversation going. Before he could settle on a question, a loud chime sounded, ringing from somewhere near their feet.
“Shoot, sorry,” T.K. said, fumbling for his bag under the table. He fished his phone out and tapped at the screen until the noise stopped. “That’s my alarm. I gotta get to my shift.”
“I should get back to work too,” Carlos agreed. He couldn’t make his limbs move. This meeting seemed final — something fixed, a chapter closed — and instead of feeling like a weight had been lifted, he felt worse, like something he’d carefully glued back together had been smashed into even more pieces.
“It was really good to see you, Carlos.” T.K. scooped up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder.
“You too, T.K.”
T.K. hesitated. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah,” Carlos said. He shifted in his chair. “Or, you have my number. If you ever need a friend.”
“Thanks,” T.K. said. He looked happier, at least. This conversation appeared to have been comforting for him.
So that was something Carlos could be thankful for. Maybe over time they truly could be friends. If he could see T.K. periodically, talk to him, coax a smile out of him, maybe that would help ease his lingering sense of loss.
##
Fueled by the food and coffee, Carlos rode a new wave of energy back at the station as he redoubled his efforts to find Jeremy's killer. He exhausted the last of the footage taken within seven hours of Jeremy’s murder from street-level cameras in a half-mile radius of his apartment. He poured over credit card statements; spent so long looking at single-spaced, black and white lists of numbers that his eyes blurred. Then finally, late into Wednesday night Carlos caught what he thought might be his first real break: while there weren’t any charges on Jeremy’s credit or debit cards for that night that might help pinpoint an exact address, Carlos noticed a pattern of spending in the preceding weeks. Once or twice a week, between Thursday and Saturday night, Jeremy spent $20 to $30 at Reverberations, a queer-friendly club just off San Jacinto.
It all fit together. Cell phone records placed Jeremy within a quarter mile of San Jacinto Boulevard for a sustained period of time late Saturday night. Jeremy’s tattoo. The clothes on the floor. Carlos knew deep in his gut that Jeremy had been to Reverberations the night of his death.
The next afternoon, Carlos stopped by the club before it opened to the public. The manager on duty granted him access to a back office with a monitor where he could pull up any footage he liked. Less than thirty minutes later, he’d proved himself right a second time: multiple cameras showed Jeremy Bryant in the club four hours before the 9-1-1 calls started rolling in, spending the evening alternating between ordering drinks at the bar and dancing with abandon out on the floor. The glimpses Carlos caught in the videos struck him, although he usually tried not to get personally invested in his cases. Seeing Jeremy singing along to the songs the DJ played made clear the vibrancy of the life that had been snuffed out.
During his limited analysis, Carlos didn’t see any sign of who Jeremy might have brought home. He made arrangements to have the footage sent to him for closer analysis. He also requested personnel files for the staff who were on shift that evening and indicated his intent to schedule interviews with all of them.
Much later, after he dropped by the station to check in, grabbed a quick bite to eat at one of his favorite food trucks, and swung home to shower and change, Carlos returned to Reverberations. He found a very different scene from that of afternoon set-up – pulsing music instead of the steady hum of conversation as staff restocked liquor bottles behind the bar; strobe lights in place of the afternoon sun streaming in through open doors; and most noticeable of all, a crush of people on the previously empty dance floor, clad in neon colors.
Carlos found the quietest spot at the long bar, tended by the only bartender wearing a normal black t-shirt shirt instead of a skimpy tank top meant to show off bulging muscles, and ordered a beer to have something to hold in his hand. Then he found an unoccupied table against the rear wall where he could view most of the floor. No one at the station knew he’d come back here after hours. For tonight, he considered himself off-duty, getting the lay of the land so he could better plan for future surveillance. He took a few sips as he scanned the edges of the space for the security cameras, orienting himself to the angles he remembered from the footage.
Once he was sure he’d found a majority of them, he mentally mapped what he’d seen of Jeremy’s movements. That helped him pinpoint some of the blind spots where their perp could’ve waited, hunting for a victim: the back hallway leading to the bathrooms, possibly a brief stretch of seating at the bar, and the corner behind the staircase that led to the upper catwalks. He scanned those areas, absently hoping he might luck out and see someone suspicious tucked away in some shadowy corner.
Instead, the sight of someone he recognized stopped him in his tracks. Not just anyone, either, but Tyler Kennedy Strand, drink in hand, standing on his toes to say something into the ear of a very attractive man.
Carlos instantly saw red. He didn’t think he’d ever been so abruptly, overwhelmingly angry before. The sight of the drink in T.K.’s grip did it, along with the slant of his smile and the off-focus quality of his gaze. He was drunk. After he’d talked such a big game at coffee about getting his life on track, too. Was it just drinking? Most addicts didn’t stop with alcohol. Had T.K. also started using again?
Carlos’s fury had everything to do with being lied to — T.K. giving him that bullshit spiel about working to rebuild his finances while secretly doing this — and nothing at all to do with seeing that man’s hand come to rest possessively in the small of T.K.’s back.
Maybe if he told himself that a few dozen more times, he could convince himself.
Carlos lived two and a half hours from his boyfriend, who had movie-star good looks and a nearly insatiable sex drive. He’d known from day one they wouldn’t be monogamous so long as they lived apart. It’d never particularly bothered him. The up-front expectation helped. Plus, the fact that thanks to NDAs, he rarely had to see it outside of grainy photos from clubs sent to him in DMs. Watching this; however, he increasingly felt the urge to throw this loser — who’d dropped his hand to T.K.’s ass now — up against a wall.
It was insane. He knew it was insane with every fiber of his being and he still had to take deep breaths as T.K. looked up at the man through his lashes, biting his lower lip, looking exceedingly fuckable.
Since he had no freaking right to be jealous, Carlos continued to focus his ire on the drinking, which he thought would concern any of T.K.’s friends. He felt the urge to step outside and give Captain Strand a call, make this someone else’s problem as well.
By some miracle after a minute or two, T.K. shook his head at the guy and gave him a friendly but apologetic smile. He threw back his glass, downing the remainder, then made his way back towards the bar on unsteady legs, almost falling once along the way. He was only spared from landing flat on his face because he managed to catch himself on the edge of a cocktail table.
Carlos intercepted him just after he was handed another full glass. He grabbed T.K. by the elbow and began pulling him towards the exit. “No, you’re done here.”
T.K. fought against the hold with surprising strength. “What the hell?”
“Come with me,” Carlos ordered, tugging harder.
“The fuck I — Carlos?” T.K. glanced up, seeming to recognize him for the first time. He stopped trying to walk deeper into the club, and instead fell in step with Carlos. His arm flexed under Carlos’s hand. “Ouch, babe, a little tight.”
“The fuck is right,” Carlos said, clamping his jaw at his instinctive reaction to the pet name. He pushed hard at the iron bar of the exit door to fling it open, then planted his hand in the center of T.K.’s back to shove him out after.
T.K. stumbled again, needing to take several steps into the alley to right himself. Once he had his footing again, he turned towards Carlos and raised one hand, palm out in conciliation. “Okay, okay, I get it. I shouldn’t have come. Can you dial down the rage a notch?”
“Shouldn’t have come?” Carlos repeated incredulously. “You lied to my face yesterday. How long have you been drinking again, T.K.?”
“Drinking?” T.K. echoed, frowning in confusion. Apparently they were going to parrot everything they said back to each other. Incredibly, T.K. went on to try to deny it. “I haven’t been drinking.”
“T.K., you’re literally holding a drink in your hand!”
Although half of it had sloshed out onto his shoes when he tripped into the alley, staining them a ruddy brown. Carlos couldn’t feel bad about that.
“This is just Coke,” T.K. told him. He gave an incredulous laugh. “Is that what you’re so mad about? Here, try it.” He offered his cup to Carlos.
“I’m not an idiot,” Carlos said, holding onto his anger even in the force of T.K.’s growing smile. “I know what someone looks like when they’re drunk. You can barely stand. Your eyes are — ”
He broke off. Because he was looking into T.K.’s eyes, had been since the minute T.K. righted himself and caught Carlo’s gaze, and those pools of green were completely focused on him; clear as a piece of sea glass held to the sun. He frowned, losing part of the thread of what had propelled him out here in the first place.
T.K. laughed again, sounding delighted. “You believed that?”
Carlos snatched his drink and took a sip. Although he braced himself, it turned out he didn’t need to, as it was, in fact, pure Coca-Cola, syrupy sweet on his tongue. “What the?”
T.K. smirked at him then, looking particularly proud of himself. “Wow, did I even have Austin’s best detective fooled?”
Carlos felt stupid and flustered and still all too aware of how jealous he’d been earlier. That combination made him snap back. “What are you playing at, T.K.?”
“The same thing you are, I think,” T.K. said. “I’m trying to catch Jeremy Bryant’s killer.”
Even the revelation that he’d actually returned to using substances wouldn’t have shocked Carlos as much. “You’re what?”
“I found videos from this club on Jeremy’s TikTok,” T.K. explained. “I thought I’d check it out.”
Carlos was mortified to realize he hadn’t thought of looking for Jeremy on social media because he’d been so focused on ignoring his own accounts, with their never-ending stream of messages from strangers, that he’d forgotten other people actually enjoyed talking about their lives online. “And what – you decided to flirt with anyone who looked at you in case you found the killer?”
“I wanted to see if anyone gave me a bad vibe,” T.K. said. He shrugged, a casual motion, as if this explanation made complete sense. “I figured I’d describe them to you later.”
T.K. clearly didn’t understand the magnitude of the danger he’d placed himself in. The thought of what might have happened to him tonight clawed at Carlos’s chest, making him even more tense.
“Are you insane?” Carlos demanded.
“I wasn’t going to leave with anyone,” T.K. argued, like that fixed everything; kept him out of harm’s way.
“You could’ve gotten yourself killed too!” Carlos shouted, falling in his frustration into his cop voice. Although T.K. had heard it on the job before, he’d never once raised his voice directly at T.K. like this. It had the immediate effect of shocking T.K. still.
Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose, making a conscious effort to pause and force several breaths. The dueling urges to shake T.K. and kiss him fortunately cancelled each other out.
“Sorry. It’s late,” he said, after those beats, managing a more normal tone. “I can’t do this right now. We should both go home.”
“But–” T.K. tried to protest.
“Are you free tomorrow at lunch?” He waited until T.K. nodded and then continued, “Come by the condo. We’ll talk then.”
##
Thirty minutes before T.K. was due to arrive, Carlos started to pace. Increasingly, he felt the urge to call T.K. and ask that they meet somewhere, anywhere else. What had he been thinking, inviting T.K. here — to the home Carlos had designed with the two of them in mind? Yeah, sure he’d wanted somewhere more private than the station but there were a dozen other options he could’ve picked.
Last night, looking down into T.K.’s face, glowing with pride in his misguided idea of a plan under the neon lights of the club, all Carlos had been able to think about was getting T.K. away from that dance floor filled with men with too-possessive hands and away from a murderer with a penchant for knives.
By light of day, the stupidity of inviting him over became blindingly apparent. He was going to have to look at T.K. in what he’d meant to be their living room, watch him sit on a sofa sized for two, see him stand against decorative beams that exactly matched the shade of his hair, and then at the end of all that, he’d have to watch T.K. leave. Again.
By the time the buzzer sounded, Carlos had worked himself into a minor frenzy. He paced back and forth while he mentally counted the steps from the building entrance to his door.
The knock came at almost the exact moment he expected, yet he still started, feeling the noise yank him from his swirling thoughts. Carlos pasted a smile on his face as he went to undo the latch. The door rumbled along on its track, gradually revealing T.K. in a soft looking cashmere sweater.
“Hey, T.K.,” Carlos said, feeling a little like he’d been knocked upside the head.
“Hey,” T.K. said.
A second passed. When Carlos didn’t say or do anything else, T.K. waved towards the inside of the condo. “Mind if I?”
“Yes! Come in,” Carlos said, stepping out of the way.
Even as Carlos locked up behind them, he couldn’t help but study T.K in his periphery; to catalog his every reaction. At his first good look at the loft, T.K.’s eyes went wide. His lips parted in surprise and he took two steps further inside, head turning in a slow sweep while he examined the rest of the space.
“Wow,” T.K. said. “Carlos, this is — beautiful. You’ve done so much to the place.”
“Thank you,” Carlos said. The words tasted sour. He watched T.K. do a lap, moving from the small workspace by the door, through the kitchen, and into the sitting area by the TV. Along the way, T.K. paused to study the pieces Carlos had on display. T.K. loved art, although he’d be the first to admit he didn’t know much about it. Carlos felt a rush of pleasure each time T.K. lingered, studying the colors on a vase or pattern of a mask.
They’d picked out the two pieces bookending the dining room table together about a month after the fire, killing time at a gallery before a late dinner reservation. Carlos had sipped on a glass of champagne while they walked through the exhibit rooms, comparing notes on what they did and didn’t like. It had unexpectedly turned into one of his favorite dates they’d ever been on. Was T.K. remembering that night, too?
The enormous framed jersey beside the TV looked out of place with the rest of the decor, but Kam had given it to Carlos for Christmas, so Carlos had found a spot to hang it. A note, scrawled in Sharpie below the numbers, said: To my #1 fan. Love always, Kam
Carlos saw T.K. stop, read the message, then keep going. Nothing about T.K.’s expression or body language changed. One day Carlos would get used to the fact that T.K. truly didn’t care that Carlos was seeing someone new. T.K. did react when he reached the framed photo of Carlos and his parents standing on the sideline at NRG Stadium, smiling at the sight of all three of them decked out in navy and red.
Eventually T.K. completed his loop, coming to stand a few feet away from Carlos. “You have such a good eye,” he said earnestly. “Everything here is gorgeous.”
The magnitude of everything Carlos wanted to say stuck in his throat, crushing his windpipe. He rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing down to the floor. At T.K.’s praise, all he could think was you were supposed to live here too.
Since he wasn’t crazy enough to say that, even if he increasingly felt like he was about to snap, he waved at the dining table, where he’d set out his case files and a legal pad in preparation for this meeting. “Have a seat. Can I get you a glass of water?”
“Yeah, thanks.” T.K. released a heavy sigh. He sat at the closest chair to the door, putting both his elbows on the table. Then he started kicking his feet back and forth, looking like a little kid on a swing.
For the first time, Carlos felt the urge to smile. He poured two glasses using the filter inside the fridge and carried them over to the table. He slid one to T.K., then took the seat across from him.
“Look,” T.K. burst out, before Carlos could get into the business of why they were here. “I know you’re going to tell me to stay out of this, but Carlos — I can’t. You weren’t there. He was looking right into my eyes when he died. I promised him I would help him and I couldn’t save him but I can do this — I can help bring his killer to justice.”
“I didn’t ask you over to tell you to stop.” Carlos told him.
T.K.’s head snapped up, lashes fanning as he gave Carlos a stunned look. “You didn’t?”
“I know you better than that,” Carlos said. He reached for the top folder on the stack at the center of the table and slid it over to T.K. “Why don’t you read this and tell me what you think.”
He watched T.K.’s expression grow progressively more shocked as he read the offer letter inside. Read it twice, judging by the way his eyes returned to the top of the page shortly after he’d reached the bottom.
“Are you serious?” T.K. finally asked.
“Very,” Carlos said. “I got approval from the Deputy Chief of Police this morning.”
“But I would help you for free,” T.K. protested.
“Well I can’t work with you without hiring you. APD policy.”
Carlos had a limited budget to bring in outside help on his cases — usually reserved for particular subject matter experts. However outlandish this request, it was far from the weirdest Deputy Chief Broadman would have seen in his tenure and it was the first time Carlos had ever asked for the help, so Broadman had taken it seriously.
“A night life consultant,” T.K. read, starting to laugh. “That was the best you could come up with?”
“Shut up,” Carlos told him. He lost the battle against grinning back at T.K.
“Seriously? What does that mean?”
“You’ll be our eyes and ears on the ground at the club. Literally. We’ll have you wired. You’ll make the rounds. Look approachable. Flag anyone who gives you bad vibes. Everything I think you were trying to do on your own last night.”
“APD agreed to this?” T.K. asked. He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty. The way the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled in his excitement made it hard to keep looking closely at him.
“We need someone who can’t be recognized as a cop. Plus, it helps that you’re not a civilian and genuinely a member of the community.”
“And you’ll be there?”
“The whole time.” Carlos promised. “Close by but trying not to attract much attention to myself.”
T.K. closed the folder, squaring his shoulders. “I’m in.”
“You sure? It could be dangerous.”
“Yes, I’ll do anything.”
“Okay,” Carlos said, nodding. He felt pleased by this outcome but tried not to show how much. He'd gotten his way perfectly — diverting T.K.’s attention in a direction where he’d not only be safer but making money while doing it. “Sign that letter then, please.”
While he watched T.K. take one of the pens already out on the table to do so; however, he felt the first stirrings of panic. He had hours ahead of watching T.K. flirt with other men and this time he had no one to blame but himself.
“When’s your next shift?” Carlos asked.
“Tomorrow at 7:00am.”
“I’d take a nap if you can. Then come by the station at 8:00 tonight and we’ll get you outfitted.”
“I’ll wear something hot,” T.K. said, shooting him a mischievous smile.
Carlos gave him a look, although he feared something fond showed through.
“We’re going to catch this guy,” T.K. told him, reaching over the open folder to lay a palm flat in the center of the table. “Together.”
“Yeah,” Carlos agreed. “I think so.”
He liked the sound of that. Together.
We make a good team, he remembered, flashing back to a night years ago under a blue and green sky, when he’d felt uncomplicatedly happy in a way he feared he might never get back again.
The sound of his phone ringing by his elbow, set at the loudest possible volume to make sure he didn’t miss any updates from his case team, shattered the moment. T.K. jerked his arm back as Carlos looked immediately to the screen. Every bit of the budding excitement Carlos felt disappeared at the sight of Kam’s photo filling the lock screen. He suddenly felt frozen in place, paralyzed by the most bizarre sense of dread.
“We’re done, right?” T.K. asked, misreading Carlos’s hesitation. “I’ll head out.”
“No, you don’t have to,” Carlos said, hearing his own voice from far away.
T.K. stood anyway, grabbing his water cup and moving in the direction of the sink. “I’ll be out of your hair in just a minute.”
The phone kept ringing, taunting Carlos, matching the rising beat of his pulse, until it abruptly cut off. Just when Carlos thought he’d escaped its chokehold, it chimed again with a text. I’m free until dinner. Call me when you get a break? <3
Carlos read it at the same time as he tracked the thuds of T.K.’s footsteps behind him, followed by the clink of a glass being set in the sink. He felt uncomfortably aware of the silence that followed, particularly the lack of footsteps traveling to the condo door.
“Hey, Carlos?” T.K. asked, in a quiet, hesitant voice.
Taking advantage of the fact that his back was to T.K., Carlos pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, trying to get it together. He pasted on another smile — the exact same one he’d make sure to be wearing later when he called his boyfriend. Because he had to. If he kept this up much longer, no matter how much he professed to just be busy with work, Kam was going to figure out something was wrong. Similarly, whatever T.K. thought he’d noticed, Carlos needed to stamp it out right away.
“Mhmm?” Carlos asked, twisting part way in his seat.
Looking at T.K. was a mistake, he realized immediately. What he should have done was fake answer the call to get T.K. out of the condo. One look into those huge green eyes reminded him forcefully that he’d never been able to hide anything from T.K. The stupid fake smile slid off his face the moment their eyes met.
T.K. stood midway between the kitchen island and the dining room table, his back to the sink. His brow furrowed with concern.
“As your . . . friend,” T.K. began slowly, noticeably faltering. It hurt in a different way to hear him sound so uncertain. “I can’t help but be concerned that you looked ten seconds away from a panic attack just now.”
Carlos swallowed, feeling seen in that horrible, wonderful way he only ever did around T.K.
T.K. took several steps forward, looking increasingly more determined. “Did Tagger do something to scare you?”
“No,” Carlos said, horrified.
“Has he ever—”
“No!” Carlos interrupted forcefully. His voice kept rising. “He would never hurt me.” Wow, he’d screwed this up. Not only could he not even pick up the phone, but now T.K. thought Kam was abusive. “T.K. this has nothing to do with him.”
“Okay,” T.K. said. He held out both hands in a placating gesture. “Well, I’m here. If you need someone to talk to. About anything.”
Once again, the irony struck Carlos — he’d missed what could’ve been a golden opportunity to show off his relationship, rub it in to T.K. that he’d moved on. All he would’ve had to do was pick up the phone and say “Hey, babe.”
Instead he was — as T.K. had correctly observed — on the verge of having some kind of breakdown. All he wanted to do was talk to the person who always listened to him without judgment and understood exactly what he needed to hear after. The longer T.K. stood there, patiently waiting him out, the harder that urge became to resist.
“I’m a horrible boyfriend,” Carlos burst out.
“I know for a fact that isn’t true.” T.K. returned to his seat. His foot nudged Carlos’s under the table.
“It is,” Carlos insisted. “All the other players’ wives and girlfriends live in Houston. They come to practices and games. I barely have time to pick up the phone.”
“You’re solving a murder,” T.K. said. “I’m sure he understands that.”
“I don’t have anything to give him.”
“Yes, you do.”
Now that Carlos had started, he didn’t think he could stop. “He wants to get married. Have kids. Live together in his beautiful mansion.”
T.K. made a faint sound that Carlos couldn’t entirely read, but it let him know T.K. was listening. At least T.K. didn’t say “sounds perfect” or “how romantic” or anything else that Carlos would be terrified another person would say.
“I’d never have to work a day in my life and I’d be a millionaire. Even if I insisted on keeping a job, there’s still plenty of need for detectives in Houston, right? Or wherever else he might get traded?”
“Sure,” T.K. said, gaze steady.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Carlos asked, stomach churning. He talked faster now, getting out of breath. “We lead completely different lives during the season. I drive over maybe once a month if I can. It’s not sustainable. I would have to move to Houston. And I hate the idea so much it makes me sick.”
“Oh, Carlos. You have to talk to him about this.”
Carlos’s eyes stung but he kept looking at T.K. anyway, feeling desperate for an anchor. “If I tell him, he’s going to break up with me and then the entire world will know I couldn’t make things work with the literal perfect man.”
“First of all, that doesn’t sound like something he would do. And second, it’s no one else’s fucking business.”
Carlos shook his head. “It would be on ESPN. All over Twitter. Everyone would know. I’d get asked about it at the grocery store. Or when I’m trying to have a cup of coffee with a friend.”
“Look,” T.K. said. He rose to his feet and came around the table to squeeze Carlos’s shoulder. “You should talk to him. Knowing you, I think he’d be surprised to hear that you’re feeling this way. You love each other. You can figure something out.”
“Okay,” Carlos said around a lump in his throat. He didn’t feel better, although he knew deep down that T.K. was right – he’d known that for days; weeks, months, even. He needed to call Kam and talk to him honestly.
“I’m going to head out,” T.K. told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “Call him back. It’ll make you feel better. I’ll see you tonight.”
This time, Carlos heard his footsteps move all the way to the barn door, then out into the hall. He waited several minutes to get up and lock behind T.K., leaving his face buried in his hands.