“You mean the police?”
Jacob paused to consider that. “Yeah, okay, that could be some people’s first port of call,” he admitted. “Still, they thought they could talk him around. Why?”
Chapter Fourteen
THE CHILLfrom the bag of frozen peas soaked into Simon’s shoulder and dug down through inflamed muscle and into bone. He didn’t think it was actually doing anything to help with the pain. It was just making it cold. There were analgesics and anti-inflammatories in the bathroom cabinet, but fuck it. Since he’d fallen off the wagon, he might as well stick to what worked.
He’d grabbed the whiskey while Jacob was buying a new laptop, and he pinned the bottle against his ribs and twisted the cap off to pour himself a shot. He picked it up and paused when he felt the eyes on the back of his neck.
“What?” he asked and turned around.
Jacob hesitated and brushed the ripped cardboard and broken Styrofoam onto the floor. It was probably, Simon thought dryly, his version of being tidy. Half of it fell on the dog they’d still not managed to return to its owner and made it twitch awake at the contact.
“Since when do you drink?” he asked.
“Dulls the pain,” Simon said dryly.
Jacob narrowed his blue eyes into a squint at him. “Are you quoting country music lyrics at me?”
The snort of laughter jarred Simon’s shoulder and jagged pain and a trickle of ice water ran down his spine. He grimaced, tossed the whiskey back, and ignored Jacob’s frown. “No,” he said. “Not deliberately, anyhow. It’s medicinal.”
“Yeah, medicinal is a shot of brandy in your coffee when your kid comes out as gay,” Jacob said. “You’re an alcoholic.”
The bottle was still open, and a second shot would blur the ache in his shoulder just that bit more. Just to make a point, Simon didn’t pour it.
“I’m not alcoholic,” he said. “I’m a problem drinker. It’s different.”
It sounded like bullshit, even to him. Jacob looked like he was going to call him on it, but then visibly tightened his lips to keep the words in. His chin dropped, and he went back to staring at the computer instead of Simon.
“Guess it’s not my business,” Jacob said.
Even through the whiskey, Simon could still taste Jacob on his tongue—the nervy quiver of a body full of too much adrenaline pressed against his own and the heady heat that jerked his cock even through the dull ache of his shoulder. He should have kissed him back. But if he did that, he might as well have said he’d go to Bali. It wouldn’t change anything, just drag it out. And he couldn’t afford to explain. It would let Jacob know that Simon’s self-control hung by a thin thread. So he offered up the booze as a consolation prize.
“Drink is a socially acceptable coping strategy in the circles I moved in,” he said, mouthing the words of the VA therapist he’d been stuck with when he first got back. “More than talking or popping pills. It’s self-medication, not addiction.”
Jacobhuh’d without looking up as he pecked his way through the computer’s boot-up process. “So how come you stuck to soft drinks and painkillers when you threw it out at the company softball game?”
“Less stress in my life back then.” The words sounded more bitter than he’d meant them to and exposed a raw underbelly he didn’t quite trust Jacob with.
“Fuck you,” Jacob said flatly. He didn’t look up from the computer, but his jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscle twitched under the skin. “You cracking open the bottle isn’t on me. Asshole.”
The hit of anger surprised Simon. “You lied to me. Youusedme.”
Jacob smacked his hand on the table and looked up, his face tight with anger. It was one of the few times that Simon had seen the charm slip enough to leave Jacob looking bony and sharp. His voice was hard too. Something along the lines of a Kansas accent scraped out from under the practiced vowels.
“So I lied. Big fucking whoop. I lie toeveryone.Even if I hadn’t been working the job, I still would have lied to you about every damn thing I lied about. I’m a thief. I’m a liar. But I didn’t make you any promises, Simon. It would have made my life easier, but I didn’t, and I didn’t pour a drink for you either. So yeah, fuck you.”
“Fuck you too,” Simon said.
Jacob threw up his hands in frustrated drama. “You had your chance,” he said. “But someone didn’t wanna go to Bali.”
For a second Simon wanted to laugh again, but Jacob was still glaring at him. After a fraught second, Jacob growled in frustration and dropped his attention back to the computer. He gnawed absently on his knuckle as he tapped the memory card impatiently on the table.
Simon took a breath. A second shot would make the fight easier—lubricate all the vicious words that wanted to get out and dim the undermining flashes of humor. He could ignore the fact that—just once—Jacob had a point. Neither of them had made any promises or commitments, and even if they had, Simon’s issues weren’t something he could afford to hand off to someone else.
He left the whiskey, walked over to Jacob, and dropped a hand on the nape of his neck. He ran his thumb up the line of Jacob’s neck to the dip under his ear before he could catch himself.
“Sorry.”
