“The estate,” I replied.
She nodded. “He had no will, left Duncan nothing. Calvin mentioned he talked to you on the phone and that you were having lunch with that guy. When the prints came back and we realized it was the same Duncan, he tried calling to warn you to stay away, but you never answered.”
“I went to the library and left my phone on vibrate. Sometimes I don’t… notice it.”
“Yeah, well, he called the Emporium, your dad, and then he tried Good Books. Ms. Harrison said you were there for an event. Calvin went off fucking half-cocked without me.”
I remembered, when I had caught sight of Beth the night before, she had been hanging up the phone. Talking to Calvin moments before unveilingTamerlane, and the entire event went to hell, courtesy of me.
“How’d he get into my shop and apartment?”
“Stole your keys and made copies, it looks like,” Quinn replied.
“Will I be arrested?” I asked next, sort of surprised by my question. “I had to shoot him—Duncan.” I had already gone through this with the responding officers, but if I couldn’t get confirmation from Calvin himself, his partner’s word was just as comforting.
“No.Hell no. Duncan Andrews brutally killed two people and assaulted you and his own uncle. He shot a detective. He’s definitely unstable and will probably plead insanity, but no, Sebastian. You aren’t going to jail,” Quinn answered.
There was that, at least.
I DIDN’Thear from Calvin the rest of the week.
So I guess whatever could have happened between us was over.
I know I had said I’d be okay with that so long as he was alive and well, but in all honesty, I wasn’t okay. I had never felt like this. Never felt so fucking helpless and broken and devastated. I’d only known Calvin for two weeks, but it felt as if everything in life had led up to us meeting. We were supposed to meet. I was supposed to love him.
I tried to placate the bitterness inside me with the knowledge that our relationship would have surely soured like mine had with Neil. If you’ve dated one closeted cop, you’ve dated them all. But that only made me have to lock myself in the bathroom of the Emporium for a bit so I could sob my fucking eyes out. I couldn’t win.
And so the days went until Christmas. It was snowing as I was getting ready to go to my dad’s place. He had offered to come to me, but I needed to get out. Needed to walk and breathe in that cold, festive air, and once and for all come to terms with what the universe had laid out for me. I wouldn’t start the new year with such blackness in my life.
There was a quick knock at my door, and I cursed at the thought that Pop felt he needed to come over and make sure I got to his apartment okay. “Coming,” I called, leaving the bathroom and drying my hands on my pants. “Pop,” I grumbled as I tugged open the door.
Calvin looked up.
My breath caught, and my stomach felt full of butterflies. “Cal,” I whispered.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked.
“N-No, no. I just—” I looked him over. Standing, breathing, arm in a sling with his jacket resting over his shoulder. “You’re really here.”
He held up a few folded pieces of paper. “I needed to return your letters.”
“Letters?”
He handed them over. “Smart. About Duncan. You figured all of that out without any of the information I had available.”
I felt my face heat up when I opened the notes I had all but forgotten about. My evidence against Duncan, should I have been hurt. My good-bye letters to Pop and to Calvin. “I didn’t—I’m sorry I left these. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Seb,” he said. “Can I tell you something?”
I swallowed painfully and nodded. His expression was raw and naked, so exposed from the usual guarded appearance Calvin wore.
“I know you couldn’t be with Neil because he denied his relationship with you. Look… baby… I’m no better.”
I gritted my teeth hard but nodded. How much of a hypocrite would I be to deny Neil but go through the same issue with Calvin? This was for the best.
“So I told my family.”
I immediately looked up. “What?”
