Chapter 10
Sinjun, I swear to God we’re almost done.
D, why the hell am I doing this again?
For the chicks, man.
I don’t like chicks.
I do. Okay I like both dick and chick
but do it for me so I can get laid.
Give me one good reason I should worry about you getting laid?
Fuck, I don’t know. Finish this up and I’ll buy you a car. A nice one. Old Detroit steel.
I don’t drive, D. I can’t drive.
I’ll teach you. Just finish the damned song.
—Negotiations at four thirty in the morning
HE POURED Miki into bed.
It was more of a bare mattress with a fitted sheet stretched over it and a nest of pillows and linens, but to Kane, it looked like a shelter against Miki’s storms. They’d stayed on the couch until Kane’s back creaked in discomfort, and when he tried to get comfortable, Miki let go of his sorrow, choking out sobs hard enough to rip Kane’s soul from its roots. He let the singer cry himself out, gently rocking Miki in his arms until there was nothing left inside of Miki to give.
Miki grumbled a bit but let himself be carried to bed. Boneless, he slid over the mattress, barely cognizant of anything around him. Kane worked Miki’s shirt off and then stared at the other man’s jeans. Resigned to the stiffness in his own dick, Kane undid the buttons on Miki’s waistband and tugged his pants off, working them off quickly. The dog jumped up on the mattress and curled into the curve of Miki’s back before Kane could spread the covers.
Kane knew it was wrong to look at the exhausted man, but he was too tired… too tempted… to ignore the sprawled out body in front of him. The long-limbed singer was a stretch of pale skin and sinew on the merlot-hued sheets. His knees were up, and he was twisted slightly so one of his shoulders lay against the bed. He shifted and murmured in his sleep, throwing one arm over his face to block out the light coming from the living room. Miki’s breathing was steady and slow, but tiny shuddering hiccups punched through his sleep, remains of his crying jag coming back to haunt him.
“God, baby. What the fuck did they do to you?” Kane sat on the edge of the bed and brushed Miki’s hair out of his face.
The knee was the worst of it. Angry red scars wrapped around Miki’s leg, looking like barbed wire rising up out of his skin. Even without touching the man’s leg, Kane could feel the heat coming off of it. Frowning, he wondered if he could wake Miki up long enough to take an anti-inflammatory, but the mumbled sighs of comfort from Miki’s parted lips threw that plan out the window.
Echoes of older pain lingered on Miki’s skin. Several light parallel stripes marked the curve of his ribs and across his back, ending in a curious curved T. The scars were faint, barely visible, but one in particular stood out. Slightly darker than the rest, the stripes ran down the line of Miki’s side, ending in a tiny puckered keloid. Unthinkingly, Kane skimmed his fingertips over the scar at the end of the lines, trying to reason out its cause. Too small for a bullet wound and too round for a knife tip, it took Kane a moment to realize he was looking at the remnants of a beating Miki took from a thick belt. The starry depression at the small of his back had been formed by the belt’s prong puncturing Miki’s tender skin.
“I’d kill them if I thought it would help,” Kane whispered, shocked by the well of emotions rising up in him. He meant it. There was no doubting his desire to rid the world of the men who took a lost little boy and made him into a broken young man. “Is that who killed Shing? Someone who knew what he did to you? But why now? After all these years?”
He covered them, dog and man both, figuring the terrier could worm his way out if he wanted.
Kane risked a kiss to the corner of Miki’s lips, then stepped back, forcing himself to walk out of the bedroom.
It was a long way to the living room, and the archway back to Miki’s bedroom loomed behind Kane, a haunting space beckoning him to the man’s bed. He was tired, worn down to the bone from the day, but his mind whirred, unsettled by the waves of anguish racking Miki’s body when Kane held him.
He popped the cap off a beer and took a deep pull from the dark, yeasty brew. Their dinner dishes sat on the counter, crusted with food. Kane left them to soak in soapy dishwater along with the utensils, hoping they’d scrape clean later. He returned to the living room, flopped onto the couch, and took another sip of his beer, finally letting the fatigue plaguing him seep down into his bones. His cell phone chirped out a cheery salsa, and Kane sighed, wondering what his partner was up to after the long night they all had.
“Hey,” Kane grunted into the phone. Surprisingly, the ancient couch was comfortable, and he squirmed into its cushions. “What’s up, Kel?”
“Where are you?” Sanchez barked back. “At St. John’s?”
“Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea since he found a bag of severed fingers and cow parts on his porch this afternoon,” Kane said, sitting up quickly. “What’s going on?”
“Some asshole somehow got ahold of one of the photos from the crime scene… one with your boyfriend in it. This same asshole posted a piece about St. John being a prostitute before hooking up with his band.” Sanchez swore, a blistering Spanish curse on the reporter’s mother. “It hit the rag’s website about an hour ago. The chief’s fucking pissed off, and Internal’s looking to cut off someone’s head.”
Kane’s stomach sank down. A sickening feeling spread through him, and he glanced toward the bedroom where Miki slept. “Any picture they got would be when he was a kid. What the fuck?”
“There’s a cease and desist out. The District Attorney’s got a flamethrower going and looking to make some s’mores. Casey’s right behind her. Someone’s going to get his nuts cut off.” Sanchez was running hot, and Kane couldn’t blame him. “Problem is, shit’s already out there. It was out there before we could do anything. God knows what sick fuck’s already downloaded it.”
“Damn it, Kel.” Kane ground his teeth. “Who the hell did this?”
“I don’t know, man. Kane, this shit’s from our files… our evidence room. I can’t fucking believe this crap. I’m going to beat the shit out of the guy who let this out. I swear to fucking God, just give me one minute in a room with him.”
“Shit.” Kane rubbed at his face. “This is crap, Sanchez.”
“Some lawyer called….” Sanchez’s words were lost when Miki’s cell phone sang, vibrating across the table.
“Hold on, let me call you back. Someone’s on Miki’s cell,” Kane said, reaching for Miki’s phone. “If it’s a reporter, I want to chew them a new one.”
“Nah, don’t bother. I’m going to go crash,” Sanchez grumbled. “I’ll talk to you in the morning. Maybe I’ll be able to see straight by then. Have fun chewing.”
“Deal.” Kane hung up on his partner, then debated waking the singer, but, remembering the dark circles under Miki’s eyes, he gritted his teeth and unlocked the phone with a slide of his thumb. “Hello?”
“Who is this?” The woman on the line was angry. Her voice reverberated with it, a tingling, molten fury ready to be unleashed on the unfamiliar voice she found on the other end of the singer’s phone. “Where’s Miki?”
“He’s asleep,” Kane said softly. “I’m a friend of his, Kane.”
“The detective? That friend?” The woman’s tone softened. “This is Edie. Has he told you about me?”
“Said you were a manager or something? I had you down as a cross of Godzilla and Mary Poppins. And that’s a compliment.” Kane tried to recall what Miki said as he poured himself out into Kane’s heart. “He likes you.”
“I like him too,” Edie replied. “You’re a detective. Do you know what’s going on there?”
Kane closed his eyes and tried to rub away the sleep creeping over him. He listened as she repeated Kel pretty much word for word with the exception of the swearing. “How much more is there to know, Edie? I haven’t checked the news or anything.”
“We’ve gotten the site to pull the photos and the story, but other places have picked it up.” A small dog barked in the distance on the line, and Edie shushed it with a tsk. “Of course, we’re going to sue. What does he think?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” Kane said. “My partner just told me. I’ll tell him when he gets up.”
“I can try to be up there in the morning,” Edie promised. “They’re going to be after him… those damned vultures. He’ll need to find some place else to stay.”
“You’ve met him, right?” He quirked his mouth, laughing at what he imagined Miki’s response would be to Edie’s high-handed order. “I found a murdered child molester in his garage, then probably the same asshole threw a dead dog through his window. And let’s not forget the bag of fingers and cow parts on his front porch, but that didn’t convince him not to come back here. Believe me, he’s not going to go anywhere, ma’am.”
“In the words of another woman, ‘ma’am’ is just another way to say ‘bitch’.” Edie let loose a smoky chuckle. “I don’t want to leave him alone….”
“He’s not alone,” Kane said softly. “He has me.”
The silence on the other end of the phone would have been deafening if not for Dude’s snores coming from the other room. Kane glanced over his shoulder, taking another look at the man sprawled out on the mattress. Miki’s foot was exposed, and from what Kane could see of it, his pinky toe seemed to curl under his other toe. A black nose poked out of the sheets, the linens ruffling as the dog breathed heavily outward.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Detective Morgan, but I don’t know you. How can I trust you with him?”
“Yeah, I don’t know you either,” Kane shot back. “But of the two of us, who the hell’s sitting in his living room at fucking three o’clock in the morning?”
Another length of silence passed, shorter than the last. Then Edie said, “Point taken, but to be fair, Detective Morgan, he’s not let me into his living room… at any time of the morning.”
“Do you need to be down there?” he asked. “To deal with the shit that’s going to hit? Or can you come to hover over him and do what you have to do up here?”
“It would be better for me to stay down here. It’s harder to break heads long distance,” she admitted slowly. “But I don’t want to leave him alone.”
“I’ve already told you.” His reply was gentle but firm. “He’s not alone, and if there are any heads to be broken up here, I’ll deal with them.”
“Does he know that?” Edie asked. “About you… willing to break heads open for him?”
“Yeah, pretty sure he does.” He cut her off. “And if he doesn’t, he will soon. Look, he feels safe here. From what I can see, there aren’t too many places he feels safe at. I’m not going to let some asshole take this one from him.”
“Let me give you my number. I’ll take yours.” She rattled off her information and made Kane repeat his twice. “If anything happens… anything at all, I want you to call me.”
“You think he’s going to like me running to you every time he stubs his toe?” Kane laughed. “I’ll let you know if something hardcore is up.”
“Will you make sure he eats, at least?” It wasn’t hard to hear the worry in her voice, and Kane smiled, almost hearing his mother in Edie’s words. “And something other than ramen.”
“I promise. He had steak tonight. And vegetables.”
“Now I know the world’s going to end,” she muttered. “I’ll call you both when I know more. Thanks for taking care of him, Detective. I owe you one.”
“I’m not doing this for you, ma’am,” Kane replied. “I’m doing this for him.”
HIS beer went warm before Kane could finish it. After dumping the rest in the sink, he prowled through the lower level of the warehouse looking for linens to put on the couch. Not surprisingly, he came up empty. Glancing up at the staircase winding up to the second floor, Kane was debating searching there when he heard Miki murmur his name.
He shed his sneakers an hour or so ago, so Kane’s bare feet made little noise as he padded over the wood floors to Miki’s bedroom. The light from the lamp he left on in the living room barely reached the bedroom’s interior, but it was bright enough to catch the gold specks in Miki’s hooded eyes. Kane spotted Dude, snoring and buried in a stolen pillow on the floor. The singer lay on his side, facing the archway, and he watched Kane intently.
“Didn’t mean to wake you up.” Kane sat on the edge of the bed. “I was looking for sheets I could use on the couch.”
Miki blinked, sleep dragging down his eyelids. Nestling his chin into the pillow he clutched to his chest, he mumbled. “Bed’s big enough. Just sleep here.”
“Mick, even as dead tired as I am right now, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Kane eyed the enormous bed. “I was thinking of crashing on the couch.”
“It’s just to sleep. Get in bed. You’re making too much noise stomping around for me to crash.” Miki grumbled. “And the couch isn’t long enough for your ginormous body.”
Compared to the too-short couch, the comfort of the feather-topped bed was tempting, but not half as tempting as the young man already lying in it.
“Turn off the goddamned light,” Miki grumbled. “And go to sleep.”
“God, this is a bad idea,” he muttered. “Big fucking bad idea.”
After a quick trip to the living room to flick off the lamp, Kane stripped off his jeans and climbed onto the bed. Pulling at the edge of a sheet, he covered himself and reached for one of the stray pillows. Miki slid back to give him room, edging nearly to the wall he’d placed the bed against. Kane let his eyes adjust to the darkness and was surprised to find Miki still awake and staring at him.
“What?” Kane growled.
The singer yawned and squeaked a little kittenish noise. “Thanks for… everything. For being here. Shit, for making me dinner. It was a good dinner.”
Neither one of them mentioned their interrupted kiss, but the memory of Miki’s tongue lapping at his mouth simmered in Kane’s brain.
“You’re welcome.” He reached up to tangle his fingers into Miki’s thick hair, drawing the strands away from the man’s sharp cheekbones. “You’re supposed to be asleep, remember?”
“It’s kind of weird. You being in bed. I’ve never slept with anyone,” Miki rasped. “Well, Damie when we were first touring, but that doesn’t count. We didn’t have money for separate rooms, so we’d rent one with two queen beds. Johnny kicks in his sleep. Dave lost the rock-paper-scissors, so he got stuck with him.”
Kane sighed and edged forward, wishing he could somehow take away the bruises in Miki’s heart. The man sighed and laid his hand over Kane’s, shuffling his body away from the wall and closer to Kane’s heat. It wasn’t the time to tell Miki about the fallout from the leaked photos, not when he was wrapped up and sleepy. Kane stroked Miki’s face with his thumb and the singer practically purred under his touch. The kitten noises coming from Miki’s parted lips made Kane’s cock stand up and take notice and when Miki’s knee edged against Kane’s thigh, he had to close his eyes briefly and take a deep breath to calm his dick down.
“I’m not sure I won anything. D talked in his sleep.” Miki grimaced. “He mumbled some nasty things I didn’t think anyone could do in bed.”
“It was always you and Damien then?” Losing Damien probably drove Miki to the edge of his sanity, and Kane still wasn’t sure the singer hadn’t fallen off that particular cliff.
“Yeah, always me and D.” Miki laughed. “Dave called us the Prince and the Pauper. I didn’t know it was a book until he said something. I always thought it was a Mickey Mouse cartoon.”
“Mark Twain wrote it.” Kane chuckled. “You guys didn’t look anything alike.”
“Never said we were the sharpest spoons in the drawer. It’s ’cause he was rich and, well, I was shit Chinatown ghetto,” he replied. “Damie was the smart one between the four of us. I never graduated high school. He went to college when he was like fourteen and got some degree in music.”
“But you wrote a lot of Sinner’s Gin’s songs.”
“He liked what I had to say.” Miki’s shrug was barely discernible in the faint light. “D used to say I wrote good music because I didn’t know what the rules were when I started. What’s the saying? Put a thousand monkeys in front of typewriters and eventually one of them writes Shakespeare? That’s what I told him.”
“Did he tell you to shut up?”
“Yeah. Kind of. Mostly it was, ‘suck my dick, Sinjun, and fucking take the compliment.’” A grumbling, soft woof came from the floor near the foot of the bed. “He let me get stoned out on music. I’d want to listen to things and pick them apart. Damie was good like that. He’d let me talk everything out until I was too tired to go anymore.”
Kane didn’t need Miki to say he missed his best friend. The heartbreaking loss in the man’s voice was evident.
“Johnny and Dave, they were my friends, but Damie, he was my brother. Tonight, when you and Connor were together, I thought ‘that’s what me and D were like.’” Miki smiled. “Except Damie was more of a smartass than Connor. Johnny used to say God gave Damien a big dick to balance out how big of an asshole he was.”
“Well, that theory explains Connor’s dick.” Kane chuckled. “Horses are jealous of him.”
They lay there, simply breathing, and for a moment, Kane thought Miki had fallen back asleep. Then the man looked up and sighed. “I miss D. You’d miss your brothers, wouldn’t you?”
“Hell yeah.” He nodded. “Quinn for sure. He’s younger than me. We’re close. Connor’s always been the big badass in the family, but I’d miss him. He used to kick the shit out of me when I stepped out of line when we were kids. I think Braeden and Ian are scared to death of him.”
“He’s a cop too, right? Connor?”
“Yeah, he’s SWAT, ’cause being a regular cop wasn’t hardcore enough for him.” Kane’s fingers stilled, resting on the curve of Miki’s face. “The twins just made junior inspector now, and Ian’s in the academy. He’ll graduate probably next year. Braeden’s the freak. He’s a fireman. Ryan’s the baby. Mom’s hoping she goes out and gets a real job like Quinn.”
“Way too many kids.” Miki wrinkled his nose.
“Sometimes.” Kane laughed heartily. “Usually when I needed to pee and the bathrooms were all taken. But now, it’s all good. I like most of them. Ian’s an ass, but I think it’s because he’s pissed off Ryan came along and he wasn’t the baby anymore.”
Miki yawned and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. Kane moved his hand when Miki brushed against his wrist, but the singer shook his head and shifted forward until they touched again.
“You should get some sleep,” Kane whispered. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled under his breath. “I heard you talking to Kel and Edie. I’m guessing she’s pissed off.”
Kane’s face burned a bit under Miki’s scrutiny. “I was going to tell you about that crap when you woke up.”
“It’s okay. I’m kind of used to it. I’m kind of mad about the photos, but those guys have said all kinds of shit about me over the years. At least this time, it’s sort of true.”
“You were never a whore. You were a kid. There’s a big difference there.”
“I was never a kid, Kane,” Miki whispered, his breath hot on Kane’s palm. “He wouldn’t let me go. Neither would Shing. I stayed with Carl because I had no where else to go, and at least he fed me. If that doesn’t make me a whore, then I don’t know what does.”
“You did what you had to in order to survive.” Kane stroked Miki’s mouth once with his fingertips, then leaned in to steal a brief kiss. “That doesn’t make you a whore. It made you a survivor.”
“A kid shouldn’t have to survive his childhood.” Miki lightly bit Kane’s lower lip, then nuzzled in closer. “I don’t mind being called a whore. At least it makes it sound like I had a choice.”