Neil stood in the doorway.
I was taken aback by his presence. “Second time in two days?”
“Guess so.” Neil bent to set his forensic kit down.
I looked over his shoulder, but everyone in the shop was too far away to make out. Neil was staring at me when I turned my attention to him again. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“I’m not sure what you’re expecting to fingerprint for. My landlord already admitted to sneaking in, and he put this lovely specimen in my office—”
“So you’re dating Winter.”
“Uh, yes, it would appear that way.”
“Why?”
“I… like him,” I awkwardly replied.
“You said when we broke up that you weren’t going after him.”
Was Neil…jealous?
Calvin really had been serious about Neil not being over me. Not that I had believed his whole alpha attitude of “I’m fucking you, you belong to me” had been unprovoked, but still. This didn’t strike me as a behavior Neil would ever exhibit, but maybe in all the years we’d been dating, he’d hid a lot more of himself in the closet than just his sexuality.
Perhaps I had never really known him as intimately as I believed.
“I wasn’t, but shit happened,” I answered.
Like gunfights in the streets, as if New York City were the Wild West.
“And now you are,” he finished.
“Now I am, yeah.”
“Do you love him?”
“Neil, what the—”
“Do you?”
“I’m not talking to you about my relationship with Calvin,” I said, holding up a hand.
“You cheated on me, Seb.”
“You. Walked. Out. It was over.”
“Over because I told you to watch your ass and you didn’t.”
“Oh, fuck you, Neil.”
“But I see your new boyfriend lets you play detective with him,” Neil continued. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Do you get a good pounding every time you find a clue?” he asked, pointing at the mermaid on my desk.
“Stop it!”
This wasn’t the same man I used to be in a relationship with. This man was angry and bitter and….
“I know you, Sebastian,” Neil said quietly. “I know you’re curious to a fault. You’re willing to risk life and limb to fit togetherpuzzle pieces.”
