So he felt a sort of rejection when he came around the corner and found himself staring at a slender young woman dressed in jeans and a Finnegan’s pub T-shirt. Startled, her scarlet-painted lips formed an O, an obscene mimicry of the blow-up doll Parker’d had his first sexual experience with. The Taser went off, nearly instantly, and it took a second for Parker to realize he’d pulled the trigger.
Her bright blue hair fanned out into the air as she fell backward, and, much like a spider dancing on a third rail, the young woman’s limbs jerked and pounded the floor as her nerves were overloaded with electricity.
“Well shit,” Parker said, standing over the woman’s twitching body. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
Chapter 19
Fingers on my skin
Sin in my bones
Blood in my veins
Telling me there’s no home
Finding solace above
From iron in the sky
Love’s what you make it
Never let it walk by
—Dead of Night
THE building was quiet, a slumbering stack of bricks amid Chinatown’s midday buzz. Sionn stood in front of the lobby doors, working the key into the lock, when someone tapped his shoulder. Glancing to the right, the space was empty. Then a familiar husky laugh echoed in his left ear and his lobe stung from a quick flick of Damien’s long fingers.
“Thought you were going to wait in the Jeep.” Sionn scowled at his lover.
“After sitting in that traffic, I wanted to stretch my legs out.” Holding his hands up in mock surrender, Damien opened his fingers to show the other man a kretek he’d had hidden. “And I didn’t think you wanted your car to smell like cloves.”
“No, not really.”
“See? Stretching legs and cloving out.” Damien gave a short, sweeping dip, as if bowing to the throngs gathered to cross the nearby corner. “I even brought the phone with me so I can talk to Miki while you’re upstairs.”
“Fine, call Sinjun but—”
“Staying down here,” Damie cut him off, shadows winging across his face. “Really, Irish, I… can’t go up. I’m a chickenshit, but at least I know it. I’ll wait for you here.”
“You’re not shite, Damie boy.” Sionn gathered the man in, twining his arms around Damien’s shoulders. “Chicken or anything else. What happened up there…. I don’t want to go up. Only reason I am is because it’s for you… for your mum.”
“Think you can get my guitar?” He sniffed, turning his head away, but Sionn’d already seen the stubborn set of his mouth as Damie fought back his emotions. “It’s crap, but… it’s the one I took to Finnegan’s a lot. Kinda of reminds me of… us.”
“Ah, you’re a big softie, a rún.” The heel of Damien’s hand found a space between his ribs, and Sionn’s breath left him in a whoosh. He let the man go and rubbed at his side, staring at Damien accusingly. “And here I was being all sweet.”
“Just get the guitar.” Damie leaned against the building’s outer wall and tucked the kretek between his lips. He dug a lighter out of his jeans pocket as Sionn continued to rub at his side. Cupping his hands to protect the end from the wind, Damie lit the clove cigarette, pulling the end to a cherry red, then reached over to jingle the keys Sionn had left in the lock. Exhaling, he jerked his head toward the door. “Going up?”
“You’re just all smooth and calm, then?” Sionn covered Damie’s lean body, pressing him against the brick wall.
“No,” Damien replied softly. “But, babe, if I start really thinking about it, I’m going to break.”
“I’ll always be here to pick up the pieces.” Sionn stole a quick kiss.
“Even with my brain firing shit off like Beaker and lima beans, I don’t remember her, Irish,” Damie admitted softly. He pulled away from Sionn’s hand, holding his lover back with a bit of distance. “I don’t remember what either of them really look like. I know what they did… to me… to my body. Shit, the fucking crap they did to my mind! But I don’t see them when I think of my parents. I only feel the pain inside of me… on me. I can feel where his hands broke me. I can even tell you what it’s like to have my skin tear apart from his beatings, but what he looks like? Really looks like? I don’t know.
“Maybe I’m afraid of going upstairs and seeing where that asshole dumped her…,” he continued softly, looking off into the street. “And feeling nothing. I don’t know if I can handle feeling nothing for her, Sionn. I don’t know what kind of person that makes me. Maybe I’m really afraid that it makes me like them… and I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“You are nothing like them, a rún. You know how to love, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting your memory of her to be untainted by what is up there. Even if you find you can’t love her, you’re at least trying to respect her. So wait here, Damie boy, and I’ll be down soon enough.” Their kiss was longer this time, flavored with a hint of Damie’s tears and the sweet aftermath of clove smoke. Sionn hugged him briefly, then turned the key, unlocking the lobby door. “And I’ll be bringing your guitar with me too. Can’t leave a piece of us up there, Damie love, can I?”