“It helps that Fowler is letting his son rot in jail until the trial.” Ian ran his hand through his hair. “He called me up, just after it happened. Apologized and said he’d make sure ‘his boy’ got what was coming to him, but . . .”
“You don’t believe him?”
Ian snorted. “He’s a known homophobe. But I gotta give him the benefit of the doubt and do my job.”
What was there to say? Dalton just nodded.
Ian sighed. “I’m outta here.”
“Have a goo—” Seriously? No one was going to have a good day after this morning.
Ian gave him a tight grin, a shared moment of gallows humor. Pushing out the door, he waved over his shoulder.
After Ian left, Dalton didn’t even try to work. If he were the boss, he’d go home too.
He came back to reality a while later when a giant basket full of fruit walked into the office, spikes of crowning pineapple glory barely clearing the door. As far as distractions went, Carmen Miranda’s headdress on legs was an excellent one.
A voice reached him from behind the arrangement. “I’m looking for Dalton Leonard.”
“Well, you’ve found Dalton Lehnart.” People were always mispronouncing his last name.
The basket jogged up and down in a shrug. “Close enough for me, dude.” The legs zigzagged toward Dalton’s desk and set the basket down with a soft grunt. Then a dark-haired, bearded man straightened up from behind it. “Delivery,” he added.
Smiling as much as he could manage, Dalton tried to come up with something polite to say. “I’d sort of figured that out.”
The delivery man grinned at him. “Yeah, my wife says I have a real knack for stating the obvious.”
Whatever. He’d already depleted his casual chitchat reserves. “Do I need to sign for this?”
But the man had already turned and headed for the door. “Nah,” he called. He was hidden from sight by the giant arrangement before he’d left the entryway.
Dalton stared at it. For me? Who’d send him fruit? Or anything? He hadn’t had a love interest in ages.
Tier—
Oh, please. If nothing else, could the man have moved this fast? And didn’t he have more important things to think about?
But still . . .
He stood, his chair flying back on its wheels, and snatched the card out of the center. Dalton Lehnart—spelled correctly—was scrawled on the front, but he didn’t recognize the handwriting. Even so, his heart floated upward a little while his fingers opened the card to reveal two words: I’m sorry.
No signature.
Tierney. Could it really be? It just seemed so unlike him, and so soon.
But who else had done him wrong recently? And as for his more distant past . . . His next breath tangled in his throat, but he forced his body to behave. Function properly. Never. His parents simply wouldn’t apologize, and for his own sanity, Dalton had to remember that. He’d spent years in therapy learning to accept it.
His heart settled back into reality. So, he knew as much as he had before he opened the card.
Which left him with one option. He called the fruit basket company—the number was printed on the back of the envelope. “I received an arrangement today, but the card wasn’t signed. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a mistake.” Although how many Dalton Lehnarts could there be in the city?
“Can you give me your name?” asked the woman who’d answered. After telling it to her, the sound of a clacking keyboard drifted over the line, then she continued, “At the Interagency Disaster Relief Coordination Department?”
“That’s me.” He tapped the card against his lip. “Um, can you tell me who it’s from?”
“Just a moment, please.” She put him on hold, but only for a few seconds. “No, I’m sorry, the purchaser specified he wished to remain anonymous.”
He. So it could have been Tierney?
“Can I help you with anything else, sir?”
“Oh, no. Thank you,” Dalton assured her, but immediately contradicted himself. “Wait, can you tell me what time the order was placed?”
“Just around 9 a.m.,” she responded.
Probably not Tierney then. He’d been in the meeting, and Dalton was nearly certain they hadn’t taken a recess that early. They’d all come back from a break just after he had, a little after ten.
He thanked her again and hung up. Preoccupied with trying to puzzle things out, he nearly dropped onto the floor when his chair wasn’t quite where his butt expected it to be. He got it all sorted, though—arranged himself at his workstation, staring at his computer, hands gripped tightly on his desk.
For a second he thought about calling Peter or Luke and asking them to investigate, but that couldn’t be ethical. Or necessary. He’d have to figure it out on his own.
What if it was Tierney apologizing for the blowjob and not for today? Dalton dismissed that idea, more because he didn’t like it than for any other reason. As a matter of fact, as he studied the fruit basket, he didn’t like it much, either. It looked somehow wrong. Ostentatious. Insincere.
He tossed the card back into the pile of fruit, where it landed on top of an orange before sliding down the peel to rest precariously between a kiwi and a banana. It’s just a basket of fruit. That he didn’t want to eat. Or even look at anymore. Who knew who it could be from? Maybe one of his exes was currently between boys and hoping Dalton would be his stopgap. Forget this. He’d put it in the break room. The others would eat it, but he wouldn’t touch it again. Wouldn’t sully his hands.
It was much heavier than he’d expected, and huge, so as he carried it in, he didn’t take the time to make sure the room was vacant. “What’s that?” Andy’s voice asked from the direction of the table.
Lovely. Dalton heaved the monstrosity onto the counter and turned to her. She sat there with yogurt in one hand and a spoon in the other, perky and wide-eyed. “It’s a fruit basket.” He might have sounded a bit too much like her little brother.
She tilted her head. “I can see that, but where did it come from?”
He tried to lift a single brow. “If you wanted to know where it came from, why didn’t you ask me that first?”
“I will never be too old to sit on you and pull your hair.” She licked her spoon clean, pretending to ignore him.
“Someone sent it to me.” And I don’t want to talk about it.
“Who?”