Dylan bent down and splashed water out of the sink onto his face. As it dripped back off, he ran both damp hands through his hair. His curls tangled around his fingers as he did so.
Christmas was fine. Sparkly lights. Tinsel. Good will to all men. Turkey and trimmings. What’s not to like? Even the consumerism was wrapped up in a nice bow.
It just… wasn’t for him.
He straightened up and gave his reflection one last look. It could have looked worse, but it didn’t look great. The one time Somerset actually looked at him, and this was what he had to look at. Dylan gingerly poked at the bruise under his eye, then snorted and headed into the other room.
And what the hell would he have done if Somersethadlooked at him?
His brain had apparently been waiting for that question to come up. A variety of scenarios came stickily to mind. Big hands, callused fingers, and a heavy, muscled thigh pressed up against Dylan’s cock…
“It was a rhetorical question!” Dylan said out loud.
He didn’t know when he’d started to talk to himself. It was probably a habit he should break, but as of now, the only person he was going to bother was the cat. And it never listened to him anyhow.
As if to prove his point, the scruffy tabby and white tomcat on the couch assiduously cleaned between his toes. It wasn’t his, but it was an old building. Apparently there was a cat-sized entrance somewhere.
Dylan’s uniform was hung on the back of the door, his jacket draped over the hanger. He flipped it open and dipped his fingers into the inside pocket. It was the same gesture he did after every shift, worn down to a habit.
Except this time, the pocket was empty.
Shit.
Shit.
Dylan pulled the jacket off the hanger and checked the pocket again. It was still empty. Worse, the lining was ripped in a ragged stripe. Dylan cursed under his breath as he ran his hands down the sides of the coat to feel for a stray lump of something hard along the hem.
He found a handful of change and a paper clip but no sign of his grandad’s watch. It was gone.
“Fuck,” Dylan muttered.
The cat flicked its fluffy club of a tail at him in response.
Dylan bounced the jacket from its collar as he tried to remember the last time he’d noticed the watch. It had been when he put the jacket on at the hospital. He did the same thing every day, taking the watch off, folding the strap around the face, and dropping it into his pocket.
Then, he didn’t think about it again until it was time to put it back on. He could have lost it…
Dylan paused mid-shame spiral as something occurred to him.
Hecouldhave lost it at the Just-as-High. There were a few other possibilities—it had been a quiet enough night, but it had still included two jumpers, one car accident, and assorted shaken-up crime calls—but that seemed the most likely location. He’d been flat on his back and out of it. The watch could have fallen out then.
It wouldn’t do any harm to check.
It turned out that it wouldn’t do anygoodto check, either. The Just-as-High had closed just as Somerset said, and apparently, no one was there to answer the phones. They didn’t have an answering machine set up either.
So here he was—Dylan pulled up outside the bar in his old primer-gray Chevy—ready to try breaking in to steal his own stuff back.
It was more like ‘entering’. He wasn’t going to break a window or anything. He just had to look for one that had been left open. The cold bit at his tender nose and hands as he got out of the car. Snow crunched underfoot as he crossed the pavement to check the front door.
Locked.
The windows too.
Dylan hunched down into his coat and scuffed around the side of the building. The dumpsters in the alley cut the wind. A bird made him jump as it flapped up out of the dumpster. It was big and greasy gray-brown, feathers unruly. It stared at him from the scuffed metal lip of the dumpster before it flew clumsily away into the dark. Dylan grimaced and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He thumbed the flashlight out with cold fingers and then played the beam ahead of his feet.
The fire door was locked too. On the off chance that someone was there overnight, Dylan slapped the palm of his hand on the door. “Hello?”
Nothing. The only response was the vaguely heavy silence of an empty building. Dylan stepped back and squinted up at the building. Sometimes people lived over their job. Somerset looked more like someone who had a rundown ranch house somewhere rather than a poky flat. Maybe that was an assumption! Maybe the guy liked to keep an eye on the business after hours.
