Rick pulled back enough to look at him, eyes hooded but intent, his breath rough against Ash’s cheek. Broad palms cradled Ash’s face, bracketing his jaw as if he couldn’t quite bear to let go. “Stakeouts weren’t supposed to come with distractions like you.”
Ash gave him a crooked smile, more armor than mirth, his arms looped loosely around Rick’s neck. “Guess you should’ve read the fine print when you took me on instead of Frank.”
The silence stretched, taut but unbroken. Rick’s gaze didn’t wander, didn’t falter the way so many men’s did, dazzled and ensnared by the surface. It lingered instead with that unblinking detective’s focus, as though he meant to slip past the sheen Ash had honed, to press at the edges and glimpse what lay guardedbeneath, certain it was there, waiting, if only he was patient enough to reach it.
It unsettled him. It thrilled him.
“You keep me on my toes more than this whole damn city,” Rick muttered, low, as though the words had slipped free before he could catch them.
Ash felt something flutter in his chest. He smoothed Rick’s collar with lazy fingers, feigning indifference, then reclined in his seat, masking the sharp pull inside him. He fished out a crumpled Camel pack from his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette, letting the smoke veil him when the moment threatened to cut too close. “Big city, detective. Six million souls trying to find their way through the night. Must be slipping.”
Rick’s chuckle was brief, more breath than sound, and he reached over the seat, rough fingers catching Ash’s and holding fast. A subtle claiming, quiet but inescapable. His thumb traced circles over Ash’s knuckles, absent yet tender. That unreadable expression returned to his face as he studied Ash, before murmuring, “You ever think about tomorrow?”
Ash lifted one shoulder, trying for nonchalance. He dragged hard on his cigarette, exhaled a ribbon of smoke, and pulled his grin back into place, practiced and bright, even as his throat tightened. “Tomorrow’s overrated. I’d rather live in the now.”
“Yeah, well, I was never one to dream about the future.” Rick’s gaze strayed into the dark, his voice flat as asphalt. “Never thought I’d have any.”
The words struck deeper than Ash expected, sharp as glass under the skin. He looked away quickly, to the rain-slick street beyond the windshield, tapping ash out the cracked window as though the sting in his chest was just the smoke biting back. If he spoke, if he let it show, the moment would tilt into something he wasn’t ready for. So he held his smile, flimsy as paper, while Rick’s thumb kept stroking his hand in quiet reassurance.
The silence thickened, heavy with the truth Ash didn’t dare utter: that for all his bravado and masks, deep down he wanted something that might stretch past the night, past this case, past the shadows he called home.
Rick’s expression softened, unguarded for a flash, then he let his head fall against the headrest, his thumb still worrying gentle circles over Ash’s knuckles. “How about, when this is all over, you and I go on a proper date?”
Ash grimaced instinctively, covering the rush of heat beneath his ribs. “What, you mean like a dinner and a movie?”
“Whatever you want it to be,” Rick said, his words roughened at the edges. “Could be martinis by moonlight, could be burgers and bowling, could be nothing more than a walk by the ocean in Beaconstone. Doesn’t matter where, kid. Just that it’s you and me.”
Ash’s breath snagged. He stared at their hands—Rick’s big, sturdy one covering his—and slowly turned his palm up until their fingers laced together, each interlock a small surrender. Smoke coiled between them as his cigarette burned down to the filter, forgotten. He crushed it into the tray and stared at Rick. When he spoke again, his words came out quieter than he’d intended. “I’ve never been on a date. With anyone.”
Rick’s grip tightened. “Maybe it’s time you see what all the fuss is about.”
Ash’s throat worked as he nodded, the guard slipping for a second. “Okay,” he said slowly.
Rick smiled and leaned toward him again, the kiss hovering inevitable in the scant inches between them, when a shift in the streetlight’s glare caught Ash’s eye.
He turned his head to the club just as two figures slipped out of the Inferno’s brass-framed doors: Griffin, his bleached hair pale under the lamps, an arm draped around a boy in his early twenties. They lingered in the glow, unhurried, heads bentclose in conspiratorial rhythm. The boy laughed at something Griffin whispered, shoulders shaking, and pressed a clumsy kiss on his mouth. Griffin spoke again, pleased with himself, one arm sliding low around the boy’s waist as though he owned him already.
Ash nodded toward him. “That’s our guy.”
Rick didn’t shift; he was already watching, the set of his shoulders gone rigid, that wolfish stillness radiating from him.
They stayed like that, tailing him from the safety of the car, watching the tableau unfold beneath the streetlamp, both thinking the same thing: was this the Sculptor grooming his next victim? Griffin leaned against the wall, murmured into the boy’s ear, coaxed another smile. The kid’s fingers fumbled clumsily near Griffin’s belt, and Griffin reached into his back pocket. Ash felt the prickle before the glint even showed.
Then he saw it—the unmistakable flare of metal in Griffin’s palm.
“He’s got a knife!” Rick barked and jumped.
Before Ash could blink, Rick was out of the car, leaping the gutter like it wasn’t there, his body a blur across the street, the gun already drawn.
“Drop it!” Rick’s shout cracked through the night. “Hands where I can see them!”
Both men froze, eyes going wide at the sight of the gun. Griffin’s hands shot to the air, wrists trembling. The boy beside him turned and bolted, shoes hammering frantic echoes down the alley’s dark throat.
Ash sat stunned by how quickly it happened, by the inhuman precision of muscle and intent, before he flung open the passenger door and rushed outside.
Rick had Griffin pinned against the wall in the next instant, the Colt leveled at his temple. “Down! On the ground, now!”
“Take it easy, big man,” Griffin said, voice thin with forced calm. “I’ll do what you say. No need to get trigger-happy.” His knees bent, shoulders dipping in reluctant surrender, until Rick wrenched him sideways with a brutal efficiency that knocked the air out of him. “What the fuck? I said I’d do it!” He bucked against the pavement, cheek grinding into filthy water, panic flaring where compliance had just been.
