Bad Idea (Stonewall Investigations Miami Book 1) Read online

  “What the hell is going on here?” It was the bouncer, Ray.

  “This guy was bothering those two.” I pointed at the two boys, their jaws dropped. “They were just kissing and he decided to be a homophobic asshole about it.”

  Ray turned on the lumpy bag of steroids. “Oh hell no. You better get off this street before I get the cops out here.”

  That got the man’s attention. I could see he was battling his irrational anger with the logical desire to stay out of jail. I wanted to take a step back just in case he ended up self-destructing; that was how intensely red his face had gotten.

  Those eyes of his… I wasn’t sure if it was the steroids or if it was actual burning hatred, but they pierced right through me. It felt like the guy had reached through the air with a blade and stabbed it in my chest.

  The fuck…

  And then he shook his head, punched a light pole, and yelped like a little puppy when Karma decided to have her way with him and break a few bones in his knuckles. He grabbed his hand, visibly worked to hold back the tears, turned, and crossed the street, cursing up a storm as he left.

  “The hospital’s the other way, dumbass!” I called after him. He tried sticking up a middle finger, but the pain must have been too intense. I heard another yelp, making the smile on my face even bigger.

  “All right, everyone okay here? I’ve got to get back to the door.”

  I looked to the two guys. They nodded, and Ray left, taking his post again.

  “Thank you, really. That was crazy. You totally didn’t need to.”

  “Yeah, for real. Thank you.”

  “It’s no problem.” I stood a few feet from them, but I could feel their gratitude as though it were a solid force coming off them. They were young, handsome, and both had full futures ahead of them. From the way they held each other, I could tell this wasn’t a passionate one-night stand for them. These two were a unit, taking on life with the other’s hand in theirs. It was a nice refresher that relationships like theirs existed. I had been so closed off to the idea for so long, I had almost forgotten what it looked like.

  “Do you, like, want a drink or something?” the one with the thick-rimmed glasses asked. “We were headed home but if you—”

  “Don’t worry about it. You two get home. Relax for the rest of the night. Hold each other and kiss all the fuck you want.”

  The one with the curly strawberry-blond hair broke into an almost birdlike laugh. “That sounds like a good plan to me,” he said, his partner smiling alongside him, their fingers locked together. It tugged at something inside me and sent dust flying up all around my chest cavity. My heart hadn’t been moved by much lately, but these two were doing it.

  “Do you need me to walk you guys home, or are you getting a car?”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” strawberry curls said. “We’re at the hotel right down the street. Thanks though. Really. My name’s Scott and this is Shamir, by the way. We’re visiting from Utah.”

  They weren’t even from here. These poor guys were most likely escaping whatever shitty nine-to-five they had with a hot and sexy vacation to South Beach, one of the most popular gay destinations in the world. They probably never even imagined something like this happening to them, especially not here. “Nice to meet you two. My name’s Gabriel, but all my friends call me Fox. And listen, try not to let this ruin your trip, all right? Miami’s a beautiful city, and you’ll have an incredible time. I’m sorry this happened tonight.”

  “We fly back tomorrow, but we did have a really amazing time. We won’t let this ruin it.” Shamir looked into his boyfriend’s eyes. Their love radiated out from a quick kiss that followed. “Good night, Fox.”

  “Night, boys.”

  And with that, the two were crossing the street, heading toward the nearby hotel. I could see the valet from where we stood, and the pumped-up dickhead was nowhere in sight.

  I stood on the corner and made sure they reached the hotel safely. They held hands the entire way, with Shamir leaning his head on Scott a couple of times as they walked, passing underneath streetlights that painted long shadows behind them.

  Sleep didn’t come easy that night. Not because of the case, or the adrenaline, or the bathroom stall blowjob.

  None of those things kept me awake as much as the image of those two guys walking away from me, love radiating from them even after their harrowing ordeal. A love that was strong and undeniable and palpable to anyone around.

  A love I’d yet to know, and one I was sure I’d never meet.

  2 Jonah Brightly

  The clock on the nightstand said it was seven o’clock in the morning.

  The face on my girlfriend said it was disappointment o’clock.

  “Is it in?” she asked.

  Great, what every single man loved to hear when they had round-trip tickets to pound town. I looked down between her legs, my limp dick flopping like a white flag in combat.

  “No, gimme a minute.”

  “A minute? Ugh, come here.” Wendy pushed me off her and rolled me onto my back so that she was on top now. I looked up, the morning sunlight barely breaking through the thin slit between the heavy red curtains. She proceeded to jerk me off as if she was contractually bound; her head was tilted, and her eyes were aimed up at the ceiling like she was planning her next yoga retreat.

  Clearly, I wasn’t going to get hard like that. Especially not with the corkscrewing death grip Wendy was currently performing on my limp dick.

  “I’m sorry, babe, I’m just not a morning person, you know that.”

  She looked at me as if I told her that her puppy died. It made me feel bad, my confidence only burying itself deeper under the dirt. I was a man—I should get hard at a moment’s notice. At least that was the pressure I felt with having a dick between my legs, and feeling that pressure only made me softer.

  Wendy sighed. “What if I give it a little kissy kiss?”

  Kissy kiss……

  Something else that wasn’t exactly on my list of turn-on phrases. She moved back on the bed, the springs sounding off as if they wanted to be a part of the “fun.” I opened my legs wider and started to stroke myself, closing my eyes and letting my thoughts drift while Wendy’s kissy kisses started on my thighs. Her lips were soft, her breath warm. It kind of tickled.

  But I was getting hard, and the kissy kisses moved to my bally balls. I started stroking a little faster, feeling myself get stiff in my grip. Her hands were on my legs, and her tongue started to trace around my fist. I let go and she took me in her mouth.

  She wasn’t asking if it was in anymore.

  I let my head sink some more into the thick pillow, eyes still shut, dick no longer limp. Wendy took about a quarter of me in before coming up for air, trying again for more but still only getting the first inch or two in between her lips.

  I looked down, mostly just seeing her long brown hair falling over her like a curtain. Her hands were no longer on my thighs. She was rubbing herself with one, and the other was massaging my balls, tugging on them as she tried fitting more of me in her mouth.

  My head fell back on the soft pillow, my eyes shutting, my body finally going along with the plans.

  And then I felt it. Something I’d never felt before in my life, and something I instantly reacted to by bucking up my legs and almost knocking Wendy out cold.

  “Whoa,” she yelped, getting up from the bed and glaring down at me, her loose-fitting gray Decepticons T-shirt making her all the more ominous. “Seriously, Jonah? A kick to the head?”

  “I’m sorry, Wendy, I just… you gotta warn a guy when you put a finger there.” I was still clenched from Wendy’s attempt to surprise finger blast me.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, head tilting. “Really? It’s not that serious. I’m sure you’ll like it, watch.”

  “No, no… that’s okay.” I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. Not right then. Either way, I didn’t want to test it out, and the way my dick was deflating like a popped
balloon only emphasized that fact.

  “Really?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not entirely sure why I was being made to feel like I needed to apologize for not wanting a finger up my ass. But with the look Wendy was giving me, I felt like I needed to buy her a damn bouquet of flowers and a bucket of chocolate after this. I started to wonder if there were little heart balloons that read “Sorry for not letting you finger me” across them.

  “Whatever.” It appeared as if her finger expedition was shelved for the time being as she climbed back onto the bed, her lips still bent into a frown.

  Maybe if it were another time, or if she had talked about it beforehand, maybe I would have gone through with it. I’d played with myself before back there, even used two fingers once, but I don’t want to brag.

  It was fun, thrilling, electric. It had me coming buckets when I did it, but it was also something I could only do when I was fully comfortable. As sad as it sounded, I didn’t feel fully comfortable with my girlfriend of four years, who was currently typing something on her phone with one hand and trying to get me hard again with the other.

  She was a great multitasker, I’d give her that.

  “Forget it, Wendy.” I moved my hips so my dick fell free from her hand. “It’s not happening right now.”

  She huffed some air and flopped onto bed, focusing fully on her phone.

  It sucked. It really fucking sucked. I knew I was disappointing her, and I hated that shit. I hated not being able to perform, but it just wasn’t happening for some reason. This wasn’t every time we had sex, but it had been something that was happening more and more lately.

  I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, as if copying Wendy was the only thing left to do. Might as well mindlessly scroll through the morning news for a few minutes before I got up to shower— ”Holy shit!”

  “Huh? What?” Wendy was looking at me as if I’d just caught fire.

  And it felt like I had. “My interview! It’s today. Fuck, I totally forgot. How the fuck could I forget?” I was an idiot. I felt like hitting the back of my head against our dark oak headboard until I gave myself a concussion. Maybe that would stop the worsening throb that was beginning to spread, made stronger by the nerves that were now rushing through me. My hands shook for a moment, my phone falling to the floor and bouncing across the room, sliding underneath the dresser.

  “Shit.” I felt defeated, the morning starting off on every single wrong foot possible. But it was still early. My interview wasn’t until eight, although the detective agency was across the city, with traffic… “Fuck.”

  I got up from the bed, went over to the nightstand. Wendy was typing away on her phone. I could hear the clicking sounds that came with every letter. I had silenced those sounds on my phone the second I got it, but she loved to hear that sound.

  To me, the tapping currently sounded like a jackhammer. Every single letter drilled further into my brain. My girlfriend was lying down on the bed, not caring in the slightest about what was going on with me. Not even asking if I needed help getting my phone, which was just outside of my reach underneath the dresser. My shoulder hit against the wood frame of the dresser, shaking it and making the TV above me wobble precariously.

  “Watch out.” Her tone was similar to a DMV worker calling out for the next in line.

  With someone helping me out, maybe I wouldn’t have needed to watch out. I sighed and got back up, leaving my phone for now. I opened my drawer and grabbed a pair of briefs and some crisp black jeans. I tugged them on, glad that the attire for the interview was business casual and nothing more intense. The last thing I needed right now was to realize I didn’t have any clean formal clothes to wear.

  In the bathroom, I locked the door and let the water run, finally finding some peace from the rising anxiety I was feeling outside. From the moment I had woken up, I felt nervous, which most likely compounded my boner performance issues. I realized now it was because of the job interview, although I had a feeling Wendy contributed to some of it.

  I put my hands under the cold water, the temperature working to wake me up all the way. I cupped my hands, pooled some of the cool water, leaned down, and I splashed. The impact took my breath away in a good way. I did it again, and then one more time.

  In the mirror, I watched as water dripped down my nose, over my lips, falling down off my chin and onto the white countertops stained with light blue toothpaste marks. Two icy blue eyes stared back at me. If I had seen them a few months ago, I would have felt like they belonged to a stranger, not that they were actually my own eyes.

  Walking up to the doorstep of death and pulling back at the last minute usually did that to you.

  The entire thing was so bizarre. It felt like nothing on this body was mine. I remember for the couple of weeks after I woke up from the coma, it all felt as though I were watching someone else go through painful physical therapy and bouts of invasive tests. It wasn’t me in the mirror, or the photos, or even in the memories.

  Thankfully, the dissociation didn’t last. Although I couldn’t say that about some of the other complications that came with my injury.

  I turned the water off and put a slightly shaking hand up to the back of my head. Right at the spot where the bullet had drilled in. I knew the spot like… well, like the back of my hand. It had become as much a part of me as the heart that pumped blood in my chest. There was a slight pain when I touched the spot, but nothing overwhelming.

  Only a spark of a reminder of how fragile life really was.

  “Jonah!”

  My eyes shut and I took in a deep breath.

  “Jonnnah,” she rang out again. “I need to use the bathroom. Are you done in there?”

  I opened the door and was almost pushed into the sink from how fast Wendy burst in.

  “Ow, shit!” I instantly felt the quick and intense burn that came from the bottom of a door almost skinning your entire toe.

  “Sorry, Jonah, but you were in the way.”

  Part of me wanted to snap back. Part of me wanted to say something smart and witty and sharp. Something that would tell her how hurt I was, not just by the fucking toe scalping she had given me, but by the fact that I had felt zero goddamn support from my girlfriend during one of the hardest times of my life.

  Instead, I hobbled out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me with a barely audible sigh. I was surprised to see the door hadn’t been thrown off its hinges from Wendy’s intrusion.

  No, I wasn’t going to say anything. No need to start something right before an important interview. My headspace was already all kinds of fucked up. Seriously, it was worse than the final episode of Lost up there, and that shit was a huge mess.

  So you can imagine.

  On the bed, I saw a flash of blue. For a split second I thought Wendy had gone out of her way to find my phone under the dresser and had set it on the bed, screen down.

  On closer inspection, it was just the Apple TV remote. My phone was still under the dresser and was it… yup, it was currently blaring out with the alarm I had set to wake me up.

  I sighed again, this one more audible. Instead of dropping to my knees, I grabbed the two sides of the dresser and shoved. The dresser slid on the cheap faux-wood floors. My phone was vibrating up against the wall. I reached down and grabbed it, turning off the alarm, then setting it down on the dresser.

  The toilet flushed and a few moments later the door opened. Wendy stood there, eyes darting up from her phone for a second before dropping back down.

  “You got your phone,” she noted, walking around me and getting back into bed.

  “I did.” There was a dark red bottle of Polo cologne. I spritzed a few sprays around my vital areas.

  “Kiki’s planning a girls’ trip for the end of this month, Jonah. She wants to make it a two-week Cabo thing. So…”

  “So you’re going to be gone for two weeks?”

  “It’s a girls’ trip, Jonah. I can’t miss it.”

  I walked
over to my bedside and grabbed my watch off the nightstand. Part of me wanted to laugh, the other part wanted to shout. She had totally forgotten about my mother’s birthday dinner, one I’d been planning for weeks and one that my mom was excited to have her at.

  “I’m sure you can’t miss it, Wendy. I’m sure there’s absolutely zero reason why you should even miss it.”

  “See, I knew you’d get it. This is why I’m with you.”

  She was as oblivious to my sarcasm as she was to the growing chasm between us.

  “I’m heading out,” I said. There was still some time before I had to be at Stonewall for the interview, but I really didn’t want to be inside with Wendy much longer. I figured I’d go and grab a Cuban coffee and some fresh air, along with some much-needed space away from my girlfriend. If only she could go to Cabo now, maybe that would fix us. Maybe her being gone for two weeks was the kind of reset our relationship needed.

  Because there was one thing that was a certainty: our relationship needed something. Whether it was a reset or an entire reconstruction, something had to happen, because this wasn’t working. It just wasn’t, and it hadn’t been for a long time now.

  “Okay, remember you have to be home today at like four. We have Sandra’s dinner party tonight, and you know everyone’s going to judge us if we get there late.”

  “Right.”

  A dinner party. Exactly what I wanted to do. Sit around with some other stuffy assholes chatting about the weather or the most recent trending topic on Twitter. Conversation bound to be so vapid and void I would rather talk to Chibby, my pet iguana, than to the group of people Wendy was forcing me to sit down with.

  “Don’t be late!” she emphasized as I left the bedroom. In the living room was the stand holding the glass tank that Chibby called home. He was currently sitting on a big gray rock, his head held high toward the light, his eyes trailing me as I crossed the living room and went into the kitchen. There, I quickly chopped him up a bowl of fresh greens and vegetables and went back to his terrarium. His eyes locked on even harder when he realized what I was carrying, and he quickly climbed off the rock and went toward the bowl I had placed down next to the hollow rock holding his water. With a head scratch, I left the little guy to chomp away on his breakfast.