But it’s like—

  It’s like how Mr. Somerset is always asking me, What do you think, Sam? And What’s your opinion? And How do you feel about that? Because I’m supposed to think for myself, even if Mr. Hazard usually knows the right answer, and all I have to do is ask him and he’ll tell me and explain why, and I don’t know why that’s any different from using Google.

  That’s how this feels. Like this is…me. Like I’m more me, somehow. Happier. More relaxed. Something fits, and I don’t know why it took me so long. Or maybe I do, because I spent a lot of my life being a horse’s ass. I smile, and I have to fight the urge to press my face into Gray’s shoulder. Tripping over my own dick. I guess now I’ll be tripping over other people’s dicks. Mr. Somerset is always asking me you, you, you. And I lie here, running my fingers over Gray’s stomach, and I think, me, me, me.

  Only a little light from the street filters into the room, but as my eyes adjust, I can make out more details. Gray’s neatly trimmed hair. His neck. The knobs of his spine. It’s too dark to make out the freckles, but his skin is almost glowing. My arm looks dark draped over him, and in part that’s a tan from running and being out on patrol, and in part it’s because of our complexions. I want to touch his arms again, and I think of that goofy smile when he flexed for me. He’s hot, I think. He’s so sexy. And I’ve never thought that before, but it’s like I’m moving through a house, opening doors, and I’ve always lived here, but it’s new, too, so every time I open another door, it’s like I’ve been there before. All the times I’ve looked at guys and not quite thought what I was thinking. All the dreams. I’m glad it’s dark because I’m blushing because, well, Mr. Somerset. I figure the best thing to do would be spend a weekend naked with Gray and memorize every part of him. Let myself look and touch and do all the things I’ve never done before. We could go away for a weekend. We’d never even have to leave the hotel.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, the sound of the front door opening reaches us, and Gran’s singing, “To Dream the Impossible Dream” in a falsetto as she comes into the house. Before I even open my eyes, I can tell there’s daylight in the room, which means it’s morning.

  Oh shit.

  I scramble upright. Gray rocks on the mattress next to me. He’s still snoring. Somehow, I manage to get over him. On my way across the room, I stumble because my legs haven’t gotten the message that we’re awake and we’ve got shit to do. The door is already closed, but I press the little thumb lock. It only makes a tiny sound, and Gran is still singing like she’s the Man from La Mancha, but I’m waiting for her to cut off and call, “Sammy?”

  But she doesn’t. Because Gran is in love. Again.

  When I turn around, Gray’s propped on one elbow, blinking sleep-dark eyes. He says, “Your grandma’s home.”

  I nod.

  He rubs his face. Yawns. Stretches. I’ve never noticed how broad his chest is before, and then I think, Samuel Yarmark, knock it off, because now is not the time.

  “What time is it?” Gray asks, twisting to look at the clock. “Fuck me. I can’t believe I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to crash here.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. I’m trying not to whisper, but I can’t help talking quietly.

  Gray’s reaching for his shirt. He glances up at me. And then he says, “Shit.”

  “What?”

  In a different tone, he says, “Your grandma’s home.”

  I nod, but mostly, I’m listening. She’s moved back to her bedroom now.

  “Got it,” Gray says. He gets to his feet, gives a little shake of his head, and starts pulling on his clothes. “Hey, are you, uh, okay?”

  She likes to take a shower before she goes to bed, especially after she’s been out all night, and I’m waiting for the water to start, so I don’t really hear him. “Huh?”

  “Are we good?” Gray’s dragging on his socks now. “I mean, we don’t have to talk about last night, but if there’s a problem—”

  “What problem?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking.”

  I feel like I missed some part of the conversation. “I thought we had fun.”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “Okay.” But it still doesn’t feel okay, so I say, “I told you I like you, remember?”

  For some reason, that makes him grin. “Now that you mention it.”

  “Okay.” And I can’t help but ask, “Do you feel weird because you slept over? I guess that’s not what people normally do, is it?”

  He’s looking at me like he’s seeing me through something. Or like he’s finally noticing something. And then he says, “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “What?”

  “Are you seriously making it this easy?”

  “Making what easy?” But he doesn’t answer, and finally I decide I better make sure he knows, so I say, “If it’s about sleeping over, you don’t have to feel weird, because I liked it.”

  “You liked it, huh?”

  I nod.

  “Did you like it more than choking me on that hog you keep in your trunks?”

  It takes me half a second to—to catch my balance, I guess. And then I say, “About the same.”

  He bursts out laughing.

  “Gray—” I throw a look at the door, and then I cross the room and put a hand over his mouth.

  He’s smiling against my palm. And then he ducks away from my hand and kisses me.

  I kiss him back. And something happens in my head because I can’t hear anything for a while. When I finally can—and Gray’s pulling back—Gran’s got her shower running.

  Gray touches the corner of my mouth with his thumb, and that’s when I realize I’m smiling. He’s smiling too, but mostly with his eyes. And then he says, “Morning, beautiful.”

  It feels silly, sure. But it’s also pins and needles, my face getting hot.

  Gray acts like he doesn’t notice. But he’s a detective, so I’m sure he does. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to put away the king cobra, and then you’re going to give me the all-clear, and I’m going to leave without your grandma seeing me.” I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, Gray adds, “I’ll catch an Uber. How’s that?”

  “It’s not that I’m embarrassed,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “Gran’s already obsessed with you.”

  “Sam, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain. This just kind of…happened.”

  “I’m glad it happened.” I can’t help lowering my voice again, feeling that flush prickle in the hollow of my throat, when I add, “I really liked doing that with you.”

  He smirks. “I know.”

  And that’s Gray, too. I figure I might as well get the rest of it out too, while he’s feeling so proud of himself. “And you were real sweet about—about everything.”

  The smirk shifts into something else. Still a smile, but somehow…more. He says, “Anybody worth being with would have done that for you. You’re a catch, Sam Yarmark. Thanks for sharing that moment with me.”

  But, I almost say, not anybody. Because it was you. And that was what mattered.

  I don’t, though.

  “So,” he says, “do you have to wrestle a load out of that garden hose before you can wind it up, or—”

  He’s still laughing when I shove him into the dresser.

  The sound of the water changes when Gran finally gets into the shower, but just to be safe, I leave the bedroom first. There’s no disguising the click of the thumb lock, and there’s no way Gray could miss that either, but he doesn’t say anything. The kitchen is clear. The living room too.

  When I turn around, Gray’s already in the hallway.

  “I thought I was going to be the lookout,” I say.

  He loops his arms around my waist and kisses my neck.

  I laugh, but my eyes go to the end of the hall.

  “Maybe I’m not going to leave,” Gray says between kisses. He’s working his way down to that spot on my collarbone that’s sore, but in a good way. “Maybe I came out here to drag you back to bed.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  I guess I could try to get free from him, but instead, I shuffle backward, and Gray comes with me. He’s leaning on me, which means we stumble every time I move, which means I crash into the sofa, and then into the side table, and I knock over that stupid picture of me at the academy, sending it skittering across the tabletop.

  He’s having an effect on me too.

  When he tries to get his hands down my pants, I grab his wrists. He looks up at me with that look—the one everybody knows he’s capable of. It’s the one that says he’s innocent as a lamb and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and all that horseshit, and there must be some misunderstanding about how my hand got to your dick. I can’t help it; I start laughing.

  “Get out of here, you maniac,” I say, but I kiss him.

  The kiss goes on for a while, and I only know it’s over when I can hear Gran singing in the shower; it sounds like she’s gargling her way through one of those songs from Gypsy I don’t know.

  “Thanks,” Gray says. His arms are still around my waist, and they tighten now, drawing me to him. “I was in a bad place last night.” Then the corner of his mouth ticks up, and he’s all trouble again.

  “Yeah, well, thank you, too. For, you know.”

  “What if I pretend to leave?” he asks. “I’ll go around the block and come back and ring the doorbell and be a total gentleman. I’ll tell your grandma I need you to adjust my back, and that’ll explain any weird noises.”

  “Goodbye, Gray,” I say, but I kiss him one last time as I shove him out the door.

  He’s laughing as he stumbles down the steps, and then he turns and jogs up the block.

  He’s got a great ass.

  That’s something else I never let myself think before.

  I shut the door, and when I turn around, Gran’s standing in the hall. She’s wearing her kimono, and her hair is wrapped in a towel, and she’s looking right at me. Past me. At the door.

  “Hey,” I finally say. “How was your date?”

  “Wonderful. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why were you opening the door?”

  “A kid threw a rock at it.”

  Gran pulls her kimono tighter. She looks around the room as though she might have missed something, and her gaze lands on the overturned picture. “I thought I heard something.”

  “Oh,” I say, and I flip the picture upright again and put it back the way she had it. “I must have bumped the table on my way to the door.”

  The pause is longer this time. “No, I thought I heard someone. In the house.”

  “Just me, Gran.” And for some reason, as I head into the kitchen, I feel like I have to keep talking. “Just you and me.”

  17

  Sam

  After that, it’s like everything in my life clicks and starts playing in fast-forward. Part of that’s how busy I am. Work, but also planning the Greek Life outreach event, which is getting closer and closer. And when I’m not trying to find a band or contacting people who have used WISP over the last few months or trying to coordinate—for the tenth time—with the pothead Sigma Sigma bro who’s supposed to be helping me organize everything, I’m coming up with the most ridiculous excuses to spend time with Gray. Even I know they’re excuses. Not that it stops me.

  WISP makes it easy; there’s always a reason. I drop by the offices to ask him a question about the event, and then I stay the rest of the night, and we eat takeout at his desk. Or we get lunch when we both have a day off, and I show him some of the ideas I have for a flyer. But as the days trickle past, the reasons become less and less important, and one night, when he’s leaving, I realize I never even talked to him about the opening remarks for the outreach, even though that was the whole reason he came over.

  It might have been the fact that he got his hands up under my shirt as soon as we closed the bedroom door.

  And once the reasons stop mattering, it’s even easier. He takes me to look at clothes, and when I’m not paying attention, he buys me a shirt and gives it to me in the car. He says it looks good with my eyes. Neither of us has anyone to go to the gym with, so that becomes part of the routine too. One morning, I’m knocking on his door at a quarter to six, and Gray groans the whole way down the elevator as we go for a run. Hell, we even go grocery shopping together. He thinks it’s real funny when I tell him which kind of yogurt is best.

  It’s weird how you can be with someone, and one day, you don’t even remember what it was like when you weren’t with them. When you weren’t texting them in the morning to remind them to take a snack to work, or sending them a picture of a dog that got a haircut, all the way up until you finally tell him you’re going to bed, and then five minutes later, he sends you a meme, and you start talking all over again.

  And for the first time since I stopped being such a jackass, work is something I’m trying to get through so I can go back to the rest of my life.

  Work’s where we’ve got to be careful. Not because it’s a secret—it can’t be a secret if we’re going around telling donors. Wahredua’s a small town, after all. But we’ve got to be careful at work because we’re both walking a fine line. Gray had a real bad time the year before, and even though he’s still Gray—nothing’s going to change that—he’s trying to stay on Chief Peterson’s good side. And even though I have a hard time thinking about work now, I know I’ve got to be a professional; Chief Peterson’s not going to make me a detective if he thinks I’m screwing around, especially when I’m on duty.

  But even trying to be careful, we almost slip up. There’s the obvious stuff, like the time Gray slaps my ass when we pass each other in the hall. We get lucky; Foley makes some crack about my sweet ass, and Ehlers yells at Gray to keep his hands to himself, but I don’t think anybody really thinks anything of it. Or the time we happen to be in the parking lot one morning, right when I’m about to head out on patrol, and instead, I end up talking to Gray for almost ten minutes at my cruiser. Just shooting the breeze. And when I finally realize I’m late, I grab his arm and pull him in like I’m going to kiss him goodbye. I catch myself, but only barely, and it’s a good thing we’re the only ones in the lot right now.

  The other stuff, the stuff that starts giving me away, I don’t even think about until it’s too late.

  We’re in the locker room. Norman is running a towel back and forth between his legs, and Foley’s asking him why he’s flossing his asshole, and Gross tells Foley it’s because Norman’s got a date with Foley’s mom, and I’m trying to get changed because Gray didn’t work today, so I can go straight over to his place.

  That’s when McGown leans against the lockers and says, “What the fuck is going on with you?”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you dying or something?”

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you, McGown?” Foley asks, but mostly because he thinks McGown is annoying.

  “You know how many tickets he’s written in the last two weeks?” McGown asks.

  Nobody answers. Norman’s still flossing away, and Gross is trying to look at a mole on his shoulder.

  “Two,” McGown says. “What the fuck is up with that?”

  “It’s been a slow couple of weeks,” I say.

  But it hasn’t. It’s been a normal couple of weeks. Except I keep letting people off with warnings.

  “We’re way below quota,” McGown says. “You’re not pulling your fucking weight.”

  “The Wahredua Police Department doesn’t have a quota of traffic tickets,” I remind him.

  Although it kind of does, just not officially.

  “You’re fucking us over,” McGown says.

  “You want more tickets,” Foley says, “go write more fucking tickets.”

  “And go fuck yourself,” Norman says cheerily.

  “What the fuck?” McGown asks. “It’s not my fault Yarmark’s turned into a fucking gooner. I saw him at Riverside Burgers the other day—” McGown seems to remember I’m there and starts talking to me again. “I saw you there the other day, and you were talking to those kids.”

  He means Colt and Ashley. There’s this weird tightness in my chest, like I somehow made a mistake by talking to them, but all I say is “They’re nice kids.”

  “They were playing hooky, dumbfuck. It was a fucking Tuesday. Where the fuck are your brains?”

  “Jesus Christ, McGown, fuck the fuck off,” Foley snaps.

  “Yeah,” Gross says. He’s still trying to get a look at that mole. “Fuck off.”

  “Fuck this.” McGown is looking around like he can’t believe this. “Are you fucking kidding me? Nobody else sees this?”

  No one says anything. Water plinks on the tile in the showers.

  “He hasn’t even complained about the fucking door to the smoke pad being propped open,” McGown says. “Not once in the last two weeks.”

  And it’s not until he says it that I realize he’s right. People are always leaving the door propped open, and I report it, because that’s a security issue.

  Foley is looking at me now. And Norman. And Gross.

  They’ve been police for a long time. And they’re not stupid.

  I yank my tee over my head, push a hand through my hair, and say, “It’s not a big deal. That’s what everybody keeps telling me. So, why am I going to waste my time reporting it, even if it does compromise the station’s perimeter?”

  “Holy shit,” Norman says.

  Gross whistles.

  “Well, fuck me,” Foley says. “Little Sammy’s getting his cork popped.”

  I slam my locker, grab my bag, and head for the door.

  “What’s her name, sweetheart?” Gross calls after me.

  “She’s never going to make you happy,” Foley shouts. “She can’t give you what I give you.”

  They’re all cracking up.

  And then I’m thinking about it. About how I have been acting different. But that’s okay, isn’t it? That’s not a big deal. Let them think I’m relaxed because I’m finally hooking up with someone. Let them think I’m distracted because I met someone I like. That’s all right.