“I noticed you haven’t been wearing a wedding band the last few months.”
“Your investigative skills are wasted on the FDNY.”
The young guy smirked, tugged down the retro wraparound shades he probably thought made him look like hot shit, and said, “We’ve got bunks upstairs. I’ll give you the best fuck of your life.”
Larkin’s mouth twitched. He looked up at Doyle and said, “Did you hear that.”
Doyle, trying and failing to maintain a straight face, said, “Oh, I did.”
“The best fuck of my life.”
“He seems very confident.”
Larkin said to the firefighter, “I’d rather have a root canal.”
“Give me one good reason,” Boy Toy countered.
“I’ll give you five.” Larkin raised his free hand and began ticking points off on his fingers. “One, I prefer older men and you’re a fetus. Two, the last time I hooked up in a bunk bed was my freshman year in the college dorms, and I don’t plan to fuck in the same bed you fall asleep eating Fritos in. Three, my tastes are expensive and you can’t afford to iron the wrinkles in my suit coat afterward. Four, you don’t know my name—”
“I have to know your name for a hookup?”
“It’d be better than you screaming ‘Spooky.’ Which, by the way, you would because Ialwaystop. Five, and most importantly, I’m in a relationship.”
In an overt attempt to regain his footing after being shot down five different ways, the firefighter countered, “What’s he got that I don’t?”
“Manners.” Larkin opened the door, before adding as a parting blow, “And an ass.”
“Tough break, man,” Doyle concluded before following Larkin inside. The door shut and he said, “I think you might have given him a complex.”
“Good. Unsubstantiated male egotism is a plague on our society.”
“You have an ego, Larkin.”
“Yes, but it’s not unfounded.”
Doyle smiled, bright like the face of a sunflower turning toward the afternoon rays. “So… older men?”
“Don’t start,” Larkin warned. “I only meant, men who graduated the same decade as me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Larkin was spared any additional teasing when the voice of Neil Millett called across the front lobby, “Just who I wanted to see.”
Turning, Larkin watched as Millett descended the stairs from the second-floor bullpen. He wore another slim-cut suit, this one a beige suitable for the season, with a baby blue button-down and knitted brown tie. Larkin still thought the CSU detective played it too safe with his color palette. He walked toward the stairs, saying, “Pairing light blue with beige is predictable, Millett. You have the aesthetic to pull off much bolder color and pattern choices.”
Millett faltered a step upon reaching the ground floor, then shook his head and said, “I’ll wear the pink next time.”
“Equally overused,” Larkin answered. “Consider a checkered shirt—mint green. And a navy floral tie.”
“Thanks, but I’ll leave the more whimsical wardrobes to you,” Millett said, eyeing Larkin’s goldenrod tie and magenta derbies to emphasize his point. He turned to Doyle and thrust out a clear plastic evidence bag. “The man of the hour.”
“You wanted to see me?” Doyle asked in surprise, accepting the bag.
Millett nodded and said, “I called 1PP. Bailey said you were lurking uptown for the day.”
“You weren’t waiting long, I hope?” Doyle asked, his small talk so natural and normal and utterly foreign to Larkin.
Millett shrugged before saying to Larkin, “This is the fabric we found wrapped around Anck-su-namun’s neck.”
