“Like how it was killed.”
“Yeah. The energy of that.”
He tipped his head at me. “I gotta tell you, she sounds a bit nutty.”
I felt myself squint, and there was a prickling on the back of my neck. I could tease her, I could say things about her, but only me because my love ran so deep. I was a mama’s boy, and while some people used that as an insult, I never understood why. Anyone who loved their mother, didn’t that mean they could love you too?
“Oh, man, I didn’t mean it,” he said, squeezing my knee. “I think it’s amazing she made those for you. I have a friend who’s having trouble sleeping, so I made it for him.”
Placated enough, I nodded. “That’s nice of you.”
“I figured since they’re described in the Sagas as a charm used to put someone to sleep, it’ll help him when I’m not around.”
“So, more than a friend, then?”
“What makes you say that?”
“When you’re not around?” I said, paraphrasing what he’d said.
He shrugged and rubbed the small piece of bone in his hand.
“How come you can’t be around?”
He cleared his throat. “He’s…he’s married.”
I never knew what to say to that. Saying you were sorry wasn’t appropriate, it felt like an endorsement of cheating, and casting aspersions on a marriage you knew nothing about seemed unfair. Conversely, there could be mitigating factors that kept two people in a loveless marriage. But since Dez was clearly hurting, I clamped a hand down on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry you’re unhappy,” I stated, because that, at least, was all his, and I did feel bad that he was miserable.
His gaze was back on mine. “I had no idea he was married until I was already in too deep to get out.”
“Sure,” I said lamely, wondering how it was that some people just knew things, were so perceptive, like my boss, my mother, my old partner when I was a detective, Chelle Amos, who used to shake her head and tell me who was full of shit and cheating on their better half. Some people just didn’t ask the right questions, and I always wondered why.
Dropping my hand, I sighed deeply. “I didn’t mean to––”
“No, you didn’t,” he rasped, pressing sideways against me before he slipped his arm around my shoulders. “You’ve been—I haven’t talked, really talked, to someone in a long time.”
“I know how that is,” I told him as he turned his head, and I felt his warm breath on the side of my neck before his lips grazed my skin. “So, we should get some water,” I suggested because suddenly I understood that, yes, he was in some semblance of a relationship with a man who he didn’t sleep well without, a man who was married, but he was ready to make me a diversion.
It was the beer that had slowed my reflexes and had my mind drifting while I should have been altogether present. The good thing was that when the sheriff had arrived with his deputies, I’d stowed my gun in my room, in the locked gun case.
“Hey, Dez!”
We both turned, and there was Nick, smiling at us.
“Oh my God, the great one knows my name,” Dez said, chuckling, pointing to himself.
Nick nodded, and Dez slipped his arm free from where it was wrapped around my shoulders, straightened up so he was no longer leaning on me, and hopped off the porch to go to the man with three platinum albums to his name.
I watched them, and when Dez was close enough, Nick took hold of his shoulder and drew him in to talk. As he spoke, Dez turned to look back at me, and I saw his face split into a huge grin before he started laughing. Easy enough to figure out what Nick had said.
I understood that Dez was interested in me, and clearly Nick had taken note of that too, and was letting Dez know the score. He was probably telling him that looks were deceiving, and I was not the guy who was going to throw him up against a wall and fuck him. He was confiding to Dez that I preferred to be held down, not do the holding. For his part, Dez apparently found that hysterical.
Getting up, I charged into the house and went up the stairs, hurled open the door to the bedroom I was supposed to be sharing with Nick, slammed it shut behind me, and then bumped back against it, locking it in the process. Standing alone in the dark, breathing in and out so I didn’t put my hand through a wall, I realized that if I hadn’t been drinking, I would have grabbed someone’s keys and gotten the hell out of there. Since I’d had many more than a couple, I had no choice but to try and soak up the cool air in the room.