Page 40 of A Matter of Time

“Why aren’t you talking?”

I shrugged.

“If you’re worried about the case, I can⁠—”

“No,” I said, getting up. “I just gotta go to the bathroom.”

“So go. No one’s stopping you.”

“Where is it?”

He pointed over his shoulder.

I decided on my way back to the table that I would thank him for dinner and get out of there. He didn’t need to drive me home; I could get there myself. And it looked like it would be even easier to slip away when I noticed the other four men crowded into the booth. I didn’t want to walk over there, so instead I went right out the front door. I called him from the street.

“Where are you?”

“I left.”

“You left?”

“I saw your friends. I didn’t wanna put a cramp in your night, so I bailed.”

“Wait, you⁠—”

“Thanks for dinner. It’ll be my treat next time.”

“Whatever.” He hung up.

There was no reason for me to be hurt or frustrated, since we had a professional relationship and nothing more. But I couldn’t help it. I thought seeing him was more than a coincidence, like he was purposely showing up where I was. It would be romantic that way. But romance and Detective Kage had never been introduced. I was living in my fantasy world alone.

My phone rang, and it was my friend Wade, calling to get me to join him and some others at a club downtown. It was still relatively early, not even midnight, so I told him I’d be there and caught a cab. It made little sense to leave a gay club to go to a straight one since I was, after all, gay, but I didn’t really care, and it didn’t really matter. I needed to put some space between Ben and me, and Detective Kage and me, and being across town from both of them sounded like the greatest idea ever.

I didn’t feel like dancing and I really wasn’t good company, but I sat with my friends Eddie and Parker, and the three of us watched Wade and Gretchen dance while we drank. And drank. My only interest was in getting as much alcohol into my system as was humanly possible, and my friends were in complete agreement with me.

An hour later I was past the point where I could walk or talk or do anything but lean my head on my hand and people-watch. I squinted really hard when I saw Detective Kage weaving through the crowd behind a line of people. I closed one eye, opened it, and then tried the other, just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. What the hell was he doing at another club I was at?

He saw me and turned to lean in close to the women beside him before crossing the room to my table. It looked like he yelled when he stopped to stand over me, but I couldn’t hear a word over the pounding remix of a song I knew but couldn’t name. I waved up at him, and the scowl was instant. That he could maintain his level of intensity was amazing, the energy it took more than I could fathom. I put my head down on my folded arms.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, his breath warm on my ear, his knee bumping mine before his thigh as he slid into the booth beside me.

I didn’t answer.

“Get your head up and look at me.”

I rolled it sideways but didn’t lift it.

“Tell me what you’re doing here.”

“You first.”

He growled, which sent a flush of heat over my skin. “My friends wanted to go dancing.”

This was by far the biggest revelation of the night. “Do you know how?”

And I thought the look couldn’t get any darker.

I chuckled. “Sorry. You better go.”