Peter lived in one of those picture perfect houses in a picture perfect neighborhood.

His wife Katie and their two kids weren’t perfect but they loved him and he adored them. They argued and loved and supported and kept each other accountable. Their house was a refuge, a place where they could find peace and acceptance and they’d opened their home to me more times than I could count. When my marriage had blown apart, they’d taken my drunken ass in and let me sleep it off in their basement. Katie had organized the packing up of my stuff out of my house and Peter had helped me move it into my new apartment.

I’d kept them in the divorce and I knew how lucky I was.

So, the last thing I really wanted to do was tell Peter just how royally I’d fucked up. But here I was sitting in my car in front of their house trying to put my balls back on and go inside. My phone rang and I jumped, looking down to see Peter’s face on the screen. It was a shot from one of the many times I’d sat on his back deck, drinking beers and making him laugh. At me . . . not with me.

“Yeah?” I asked when I answered the call and his voice filled the space of my car.

“Katie says you have to get your ass in here before the neighbors call the police. She says that you are the quintessential definition of ‘suspicious’”.

“I . . . I fucked up Pete.” It was all I could think of to say and the silence that followed didn’t bode well for this conversation.

“I’ll be out there in a second,” he said and the call disconnected. I stared out the front windshield, nodding at the man walking his teacup fluffy dog and looking like he was going to dial “9-1-1” any minute. He hurried away as Peter opened the door to my car, tossing out a “say hi to Evelyn for me” before he lowered his huge bulk into the passenger seat of my car. He smelled like grilled hamburgers and he was wearing an apron which read, “You can’t scare me. I have two daughters.”

“I’m glad to see you like my gift,” I said, gesturing towards him. “Told you you’d wear it.”

“Katie says I have five minutes or she’s going to make me eat a veggie burger. I’m not eating that shit for anybody so tell me what you did.”

“I went over to Dr. Androghetti’s house.”

“I figured.”

“It didn’t go as planned.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Peter hit the dashboard with his hand and I jumped. He was already pissed and he didn’t even know what I’d done. “Did you fuck her?”

Okay, maybe he did.

“Yeah. I mean I didn’t fuck her . . .”

“Did any part of your dick enter any part of Dr. Androghetti’s body?” Peter was staring me down across the center console, his anger rolling off him in waves of disappointment. “Did it?” He didn’t stop long enough for me to answer. “Of course it did because you were eye-fucking her the every time you got near her.”

“I know I fucked up,” I rubbed my hand across my jaw and looked outside the window at the suburban perfection laid out in half-acre lots and split-level dream homes. “I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t make a complaint to the Captain.”

“Aiden, you’ve got to apologize. Make it right. I don’t want to break in another partner.”

I turned my head, glaring at him across the car. “Nice to make it about you, asshole.”

“I’m not the one who fucked a witness or whatever she is at this point.” He reached for the door and then paused. “Did you at least find out what she was lying to us about? Please tell me you did your goddam job before you got your dick wet?”

The way he said it just raked across my nerves and I couldn’t hide my irritation. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

Shit. I sounded like a middle schooler and Peter was giving me the side eye from his seat.

“Don’t tell me you’re into this woman.” He gave me a hard look, dead in the eye. “She sleeps with all kinds people. Couples. Threesomes. Whatever else they get up to at Club D.” He shoved at my chest, his large paw of a hand pushing my back against my door. “She was screwing the murder victim in our case and his wife. You do remember that, don’t you?”

“I remember.” I sighed and leaned my head back on my seat, staring up at the ceiling. “Marsden asked her to have an affair with him. Just him. Outside of the third arrangement they had with his wife.”

“And the Good Doctor said?”

“No.” I looked over at him. “She said no and stopped seeing them.”

A few moments passed before he answered. “Yeah. She would.” He laughed to himself as he reached for the door, opening it a fraction of an inch, the cool breeze of the evening rushing into the car and bringing with it the scent of grilling meat. I glanced at the clock and noted that ten minutes had passed. So, it was likely grilled veggie something. Poor Pete. “You know she’s completely out of your league.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“She’s going to eat you alive. You’re going to crash and burn with this woman.”

“Uh huh. I know.”

“Good” He thunked me on the chest again before fully opening the door. “Technically she’s not a person of interest or a suspect in our case anymore so you should be okay unless she makes a complaint to the Captain that you handcuffed her and threatened to arrest her.”

I just stared at him. How was I supposed to answer that?

He rolled his eyes and heaved out of my car. “Just fucking fix it Aiden. Apologize and make it right.”