“What the fecking hell am I doing here?” Connor muttered and reached for the keys still dangling in the Hummer’s ignition.
He’d run Forest Ackerman’s record—as illegal as that was—but what he’d found didn’t surprise him. A sealed juvenile record he’d left alone, and other than a few disorderlies for participating at slam-fests in the parking lot behind the Sound, Forest appeared to live a clean and stable life. Franklin Marshall, on the other hand, had a long list of petty priors—mostly centered around protests and pot, with a curious addition of assault on a man who’d been arrested for trying to pull an unidentified juvenile male into his car.
It didn’t strain Connor’s brain to figure out who the kid in the guy’s car had been.
“Okay, enough time wasted, Morgan.” His fingers brushed the cold metal keys again, and then Connor froze, catching sight of a long-legged blond man coming down the set of stairs from the building’s second floor.
He’d wanted to drive away. It was his damned day off, for God’s sake. There were things that needed doing on the old house he’d bought—important things like laying down a floor everywhere or even painting, because the painting never ended. He was living in two rooms at the moment, the kitchen and a side bedroom, both of which were in midrenovation themselves, but Connor couldn’t force himself to start the Hummer’s engine.
Not with the flash of gold hair, pretty face, and lean body coming down the stairs.
Nothing made sense anymore. His world—his organized and orderly world—lay in bits and chunks around him, and Connor was left with the feeling he spent more time trying to gather up its scattered remains than trying to make sense of the life he’d been living. He’d been building a puzzle using all of the wrong pieces, because it was coming out so very different from the picture on its box.
Somehow, Forest Ackerman was a part of that puzzle, and for the life of him, Connor couldn’t figure out how or why.
Whatever was going on, it obviously dulled his senses, because Connor didn’t hear the black-and-white pull up next to him and nearly had a heart attack when the patrol cop inside of it honked his horn to get Connor’s attention.
“You okay there, Lieutenant?” The man had to crane his neck a bit to see up into the Hummer. “Spotted you on the drive-by, so I wanted to make sure, you know? Waiting for someone?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Connor responded with a tight smile, then held up his cell phone. “Pulled over to the side to talk to my da. Done now. Thanks.”
“Yeah, wish more people would pull over before getting on those things. See you later, sir.” The uniform smiled, waved, then drove off, leaving Connor holding his phone up like an idiot.
Sighing, he banged his forehead on the steering wheel, muttering darkly, “This is what it’s come to? Lying about talking to my father? Jesus H. Christ.
“Just turn the key, Con,” he urged himself. “Go home. Finish demoing the wall in the kitchen. Fucking do some laundry, if you have to. Just turn the bloody key.”
The Amp’s windows were shrouded from steam, condensation forming from the interior’s warmer air hitting the cold glass. While Connor spoke to the uniform, Forest’d disappeared, probably into the coffee shop to get something to drink before he started doing whatever the hell it was he did in the Sound besides drumming for stray bands.
“Aw, fuck it,” Connor muttered as he dumped his coffee out onto the street and tossed the travel mug into the back seat. “I’d rather have a latte anyway.”
“YOUR COP is back.”
Forest looked up toward the counter, nearly scalding himself on the espresso machine. Jules, the Amp’s coffee shop manager, smirked at him and winked, her curly brown hair bobbing about her face as she jerked her chin at the buff, tall man taking up most of the air in the shop’s dining area.
It was bad enough he was gay in an industry where gay wasn’t a bad thing, but dating other musicians was like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. The last thing Forest wanted to complicate his life was lusting after a thoroughly straight chunk of muscle with a badge. He didn’t need a massive cop whose thick black hair seemed to grow wildly out of control before he hacked it back with a ruthlessly short cut—an orderly cut lasting only three days. Sure, he was grateful for Morgan’s support following Frank’s murder, but Forest wanted nothing else to do with Lt. Connor Morgan. Or everything to do with him. Either way, it would lead to nothing but madness, and Forest had enough insanity in his life as it was.