“Do you know what you want to do?” Connor poked at the bacon with a plastic spatula, checking if the strips were ready to be flipped. “I mean, life-wise. You happy with owning a coffee shop and a music studio?”
“Don’t own them yet. Probate. Lawyers need to see if anyone’s going to crawl out of the woodwork and want keys to my kingdom.” Forest snorted, waving the now half-empty bottle about. He stared at Connor for a long moment, long enough to make Connor wonder if he had something on his face. “You know what I want? I want someone like you. Someone like you to love me, but—hold up, you’ve got a squillion brothers. Any of them like you but gay?”
“Two, but the one that’s like me is—married. Very married, even if he doesn’t realize it yet, and to a musician, actually.” Connor didn’t want to mention Miki, or Damien for that matter. It would bring the conversation out of the tight intimate something they’d started, and he wasn’t ready to fall out of its odd warmth. “The other gay one is—well, so not much like me. I don’t think he’d be what you were looking for.”
“So, shit. I’m out of luck, then.” Forest rested his chin on the bottle, looking forlornly at Connor through his bangs. “Too bad I just can’t have you. Make things a hell of a lot easier, but Gay Rule number one, don’t fall in love with a straight boy. Only shitty things can come of it.”
“Yeah—no, you can’t have me.” The bacon popped, and a speck of hot oil seared the back of Connor’s hand, pulling his attention away from Forest’s whiskey-dappled lips. “Tell you what. You shouldn’t be drinking alone. Pass me the bottle there, Forest, and damn wherever I might end up sleeping tonight.”
IT WAS torture. Torture plain and simple. Forest couldn’t think of any other word for it. He’d been hungry before, so hungry his stomach felt like it was wrapped around his spine and twisting into a knot. He’d been beaten so badly he couldn’t breathe or see any more, his eyes swollen so shut he couldn’t even cry out of them, and every shuddering inhale he took was another stab of pain down his entire body.
None of that compared to the insane anguish of having Connor Morgan sitting next to him eating pancakes and bacon while asking about how Forest got into drumming.
If there was a God, He’d have struck Forest down dead in between a mouthful of buttery eggs and the piece of sourdough bread they’d had to crisp in the oven because Forest’s toaster somehow grew legs and walked away.
“God, the toaster.” He froze, a forkful of eggs poised at his open mouth. “It wasn’t my toaster, was it? The RV—”
“It wasn’t your toaster,” Connor reassured him. “There was a candle lit. A couple of them, I think. That’s what took the propane buildup out.”
He should have felt relieved, but a sliver of panic lodged itself into his brain, leeching its poison into Forest’s thoughts. “Then why the fuck did someone call you guys in to raid the place? They could have gotten you all killed.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of been something we’ve all been wondering.” The cop took a sip from his glass, its whiskey-soaked ice cubes clinking against one another as he set it back down. His startling blue eyes pinned Forest in place. “You sure you wanna be talking about this?”
If the man’s mouth, face, and hands weren’t enough to drive him crazy, the Irish in his voice was going to do Forest in. His dick seemed primed to the man’s rolling accent, so Forest took another long swig from his glass and sucked in an ice cube to chew on. His cock ignored the cool rush of crunchy ice on Forest’s teeth and proceeded to do its own happy jig when Connor continued to speak after Forest nodded.
“Your da was already gone when we went in. There’s that. So either someone wanted us to find his body, or they wanted to take us out with him.” Connor studied his plate for a moment, picking through a mound of fried potatoes until he found a caramelized onion chunk. With the stabbed onion on his fork, he bit into it, chewing as he spoke. “You already talked to the inspector—the first one—not my sister, right? She told you all of this.”
“Kind of,” he said, shrugging. “Mostly she talked about how he was trafficking meth. Frank didn’t do that kind of shit. Sure, he got stoned off pot, but that’s about it. Shit, he hated taking aspirin because it was made of chemicals. He had to be convinced not to smuggle in raw milk for the coffee shop.”
“You miss him, huh?” The cop’s attention flicked back to Forest, and the tingle of attraction fired up again, trailing down Forest’s belly. “Was he a good da to you?”