The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,20
they parked on Hannah’s street again. The sky behind the Wasatch Mountains was dark blue, smoky with clouds. When the breeze died down, the smell of grass and gasoline faded, and Jem could smell what had been driving him crazy all day: the slight fragrance of sagebrush and range grass and pine that clung to Teancum Leon. The doc was frowning again, and Jem traced the lines around his mouth with a mental fingertip. What would it be like, Jem wondered again, to wear everything on the surface like that?
“This was a mistake.”
For a shattering moment, Jem thought Tean meant this, the two of them. Then Jem cleared his throat and said, “What?”
“We shouldn’t have brought my truck—it’s got the DWR logo on it, and it’s way too obvious. And we shouldn’t have parked on her block and drawn attention from the neighbors. If Hannah does have a stalker, they probably saw the whole thing and decided to try again another day. We never had a chance.”
“Ok,” Jem said. “In hindsight, I’m realizing I don’t make a very good stalker. That’s normally a good thing, right?”
Tean’s phone buzzed, and he accepted the call. He spoke quietly for a few moments and then disconnected. “That was Hannah. She says she’s not leaving the house again tonight, not even for a walk.”
“Maybe she and Caleb are going to have sexy times.”
“It didn’t sound like it. It sounded like they were in the middle of another awful fight. He was still shouting in the background.”
The doc’s eyes were shadowed, and he looked so upset that Jem squeezed his shoulder. After about ten seconds, Tean squirmed out from under the touch. Progress.
“If you’re right,” Jem said, “and we spooked Hannah’s stalker, do you think he’ll come back tonight?”
Tean hesitated and then shook his head.
“Then let’s do this,” Jem said. “Let’s try again tomorrow, but we’ll do a better job. Can you borrow a car from someone?”
“Yes. I guess.”
“Ok. That’s the plan.”
They drove back to Tean’s apartment, when they got out of the truck, Jem headed for his bike.
“Hey,” Tean called after him, “what about your duffel bag?”
Jem pretended not to hear as he kick-started the bike, and then he drove into the city, heading to the Apollonia. He was friends with one of the bartenders, and the hotel was about halfway between Temple Square and the Salt Palace Convention Center. Jem always had good luck picking up closeted businessmen there, and he could leverage sex into a bed for the night. He thought, briefly, about the Latus’ offer of the sofa. He thought even more briefly about asking Tean if he could crash. But ten years of taking care of himself won out. It wouldn’t be the first time he traded sex for a place to sleep. It wouldn’t be the last.
8
The businessman, who sold HR training packages for a company based in Boise, complained about vertigo and cried a lot after sex. Jem slept poorly, and he woke before dawn, showered, and went through Roy Allen Kitchell’s wallet, examining the Idaho driver’s license, the Red Cross donor card, the deck of Visas and MasterCards, and then the cash. Jem counted it—eighty-six bucks—and folded it twice. When he shoved it in his pocket, he suddenly had a vision of Tean’s face, the disappointment. It was confusing as fuck, and it only made Jem grumpier.
He knocked on Tean’s door just before seven.
“Hi,” Tean said, wrestling Scipio as the Lab desperately tried to reach Jem, “come on in.”
Five minutes later, when Scipio finally seemed to think he had successfully communicated his boundless love to Jem, Jem wiped an arm across his face and said, “Oh no. Not again.”
“What?” Tean said.
“This,” Jem said, pinching the sleeve of Tean’s blue polo. “And this.” He swatted the blue jeans. “You wore this yesterday.”
“These are clean,” Tean said, blushing.
“I’m sure they are. How many of these polos did you buy?”
Tean bit his lip. “They were two dollars each, so—”
“How many?”
“Seven because you said blue is a good color—”
“Come on,” Jem said, pushing Tean into the bedroom. He threw open the closet door and started sorting. He pushed all the khaki-colored stuff to one side—that was most of it, and it constituted Tean’s work outfits. A very small section at the back contained clothes that Jem had either given to Tean or forced the doc to buy—under duress, as Tean was quick to point out. Jem raked through the clothes quickly and said. “You want a polo today?”