“Did you tell your brother about the other thing?” Tierney spoke loud enough for Luke to overhear.
“Um.” Dalton squeezed his eyes shut a second. “Not yet.” He really had intended to tell him, but Luke had started acting overbearing right away.
“What other thing?” Luke jerked his head toward them.
“Why not?” Tierney asked at the same moment.
Sigh. He turned his brother. “Someone anonymously sent me a fruit basket with a note that said, ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Huh.” Luke scrunched his nose up. “Did you tell anyone?”
“I told Tierney.” Weak.
Luke tilted his head and raised his brows, eyeing first Dalton, then Tierney, then their intertwined fingers. “This is him?”
“Hi, you must be Luke,” Tierney said, holding out his right hand, but still hanging onto Dalton’s with his left.
Luke rolled his eyes but stepped forward to shake. “I meant,” he said afterward, “did you tell Detective Johnson about it?”
“Would you have?”
He shrugged his eyebrows, but admitted, “No.”
In the end, Luke was far more serious than he had been earlier, calling in to dispatch, “for the record.” Then he did more poking around, and even found a baggie to put the envelope in.
As soon as Luke was on the other side of the car, out of earshot, Tierney asked, “Why doesn’t anyone believe we’re just friends?”
“Um, I guess we don’t act like just friends?”
Tierney glanced down to where he held Dalton’s hand. “Yeah. I guess they aren’t used to friends being as, uh, close as we are.”
“Guess not,” Dalton said, biting his lip in an effort not to smile.
Tierney’s cheeks darkened. “I can’t take you to the opera—”
“Thank God, I hate opera.”
“—but they’re having Star Trek night at the X Theater. Wanna go?” Change jingled as Tierney’s other hand fidgeted in his pants pocket.
“X Theater?” Wasn’t that one of those movie house pubs?
“I’m not going to drink,” Tierney said immediately.
How sad that that was his first thought. “Of course you won’t.” Dalton gave him a reassuring squeeze of the fingers. “I’d like to go.”
“Cool. Um, Wrath of Khan starts at seven. I know the schedule ’cause I was gonna call and ask if you wanted to see it.”
He was? Dalton’s heart fluttered, distracting him before he could object to that stupid movie.
“Or we could watch the newest one, Into Darkness.”
“Oh, I haven’t seen that yet. Wasn’t it released a while ago?”
“Yeah, year or two. It starts at 9:40. We’d be out kinda late.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Um, cool.” Tierney nodded. “It’s a good movie; there’re all kinds of sexual undertones between Spock and Kirk.”
Yeah, that seemed to be going around.
Joining them again, Luke said, “If any other weird things happen, you call 911.” He pointed at Dalton, but also glanced Tierney’s way. After they’d both nodded, he said to Dalton, “Walk over to my car with me.”
Of course. As protective as his family was, the typical thing now would be for Luke to see him home, instruct him to lock everything, test said locks, and give him a lecture on taking another self-defense class.
Trailing behind his brother, Dalton began to formulate his plan for making Luke leave. He didn’t get the opportunity, though. After locking the evidence baggie in his trunk, Luke turned to him and said, “Okay, I’m taking this to the station. See you on Thanksgiving.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah.” Luke smirked. “I think you’ll be fine all alone here with your friend.”
Dalton narrowed his eyes at his stupid brother. “You just made me come over here with you because you wanted to see me squirm, didn’t you?”
“Yup.” He was all-out grinning now. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had a friend. I have a lot of teasing to catch up on.”
“Lovely.” Well, at least Tierney was worth it.
Tierney had been trying to think of ways to contact Dalton without putting himself in the position of needy, whiny loser, but before he could work it out, Dalton solved the problem by calling him instead.
The dude was even in need at the time.
Amazing how such a little thing could make three days of twisted guts and angsty, teenaged pacing around the condo vanish like fingerprints after quality glass cleaner. Standing in the parking garage, watching Dalton say good-bye to his brother, he tried to figure out if he should confess to all that anxiety. Did the authentic Tierney always have to put it all out there?
Before he’d made any decisions, Dalton came back toward him, boot heels clicking on the concrete rhythmically, confident gait bringing him closer. Blue eyes smiling at Tierney, their expression infusing his whole face, brightening his skin and making him nearly glow.
Stunning.
Fingers twitching, Tierney nearly reached for him again, almost taking Dalton’s hand as if it was the most obvious, natural thing in the world for them to be skin to skin whenever near enough.
“I’ve been avoiding you,” he blurted. Good to know he was as smooth now as he’d been before rehab. You’re the man.
Dalton stopped cold, right in front of him, happiness leaking from his face, bleeding out of his eyes to make room for hurt feelings to move in. “Why? Should we not have—”
“No. No, it was my own shit, not that.” Swallowing, he pushed the rest out. “I thought I was, like, your charity case.”
It took a few seconds of staring before Dalton responded. “Because you needed my help. And because of the sex.”
Tierney nodded. He didn’t have words.
“I’ve told you I don’t see you that way. I like being with you.” Dalton shook his head, reaching to stroke his palm down Tierney’s arm. “What do I have to do to make sure you don’t feel like that again?” God, that earnest, concerned expression was adorable. Like it actually hurt him to hurt Tierney.
“Well, you kinda already took care of it by calling me when you needed help.” Scratching his temple with his fingernail gave him an excuse to avoid Dalton’s gaze a few seconds. “But, I was tied up in knots after we did that. Had sex. I had to, um, rely on my support network to keep from drinking one night.”