“And?”
“Our eyes are protected with baseline tears,” Larkin explained. “As they clean and lubricate, they move into our tears ducts before draining into the nasolacrimal ducts, which go down either side of the nose. The reason our noses run when we cry is because there’s an overflow of tears in the nasolacrimal ducts, which then mixes with present mucus in excess and it all needs to go somewhere.”
“You’re so hot when you talk about snot.”
Larkin rolled his eyes. “This tissue is dry. No tears, no mucus, and for a woman wearing a face full of makeup, there’s no traces of foundation or mascara either.”
The humorous lilt in Doyle’s tone vanished as he said, “You’re saying she faked wiping her tears? She seemed upset, though… in that sort of aloof manner she had, anyway.”
Larkin folded the tissue and asked, “Did you experience religious zeal akin to that growing up.”
The question made Doyle laugh. “Grandma did a lot of praying for my soul, but no.”
“You knew when she was disappointed,” Larkin continued.
“Oh yeah.”
“She didn’t hide her disillusionment behind rhetoric, or make excuses for unwanted behavior by citing the Word.”
Doyle shook his head. “She’d swear like an Italian from Brooklyn while simultaneously counting her rosary. Why do you ask?”
“Matilde Wagner is pharisaic. And I wonder what she knows about Earl that is being hidden behind a holier-than-thou attitude.”
Chapter Eleven
They returned to Precinct 9 to retrieve the Audi, and with Doyle driving, made a quick stop at the pharmacy to pick up Larkin’s prescription before heading home to the fire-engine red walk-up on West Thirteenth between Seventh and Eighth Avenue. Larkin listened to a voicemail from Graham Byrd as he entered the too-warm apartment behind Doyle at 7:48 p.m.: Candace Ward-Flynn would meet them at eleven the next morning at her home on the Upper East Side. Sal Costa had still not returned Larkin’s call, and when Larkin dialed his number again, voicemail answered. Costa’s phone wasn’t off—he was just purposefully ignoring Larkin, it seemed.
Larkin updated his calendar for tomorrow with one hand, pushing the french doors to the bedroom open with the other. He listened with one ear as Doyle turned on the fairy lights in the living room and cranked the window unit in the kitchen. Larkin flipped the bedroom light switch on, set his phone and pharmacy bag on the nightstand, added his cuff links to the clutter of a charging cable, touch lamp, Doyle’s latest read,Victorian Women:Sex, Power, and Forgotten Art, and the framed photograph of Abigail blowing bubbles. He’d removed his shoulder holster, returned the paisley pocket square to the top drawer of the dresser, and was stuffing his suit coat into a dry-cleaning garment bag when Doyle came into the room and took a seat at the foot of the bed.
Larkin glanced at Doyle while crouching to untie his shoes.
“I’m really sorry about what I said in the car earlier today,” Doyle began, his voice so smooth that Larkin understood how it’d tempt anyone to knock it back all night and deal with the fallout tomorrow.
He toed off his derbies and approached the bed.
Doyle continued, “I realize there was a suggestion in my words—”
Larkin put a knee on the mattress and straddled Doyle’s lap.
And Doyle met Larkin’s steady gaze, affectionately settling his hands on Larkin’s hips. “I didn’t mean—”
But Larkin ended the discussion by putting a hand around Doyle’s neck, tilting his head back, and kissing his mouth. He got fingers into the knot of Doyle’s tie and yanked it free in a single motion before wrenching the first two buttons of his shirt open and pressing a palm to heated skin and groomed chest hair.
Doyle loved to be touched, to be caressed, but as Larkin had learned from their few heavy petting sessions of the past, he also liked to be manhandled. So as Doyle’s hands dropped from Larkin’s hips, squeezed his thighs, groped his ass, tried to haul Larkin flush against his chest where he’d immediately realize this was all smoke and mirrors, Larkin gave Doyle a shove backward onto the mattress.
Doyle bounced once, and his voice was low, heavy with bedroom heat, as he said, “Evie….”
“Unbutton your shirt,” Larkin ordered.
Larkin had said on Thursday, May 21, that he knew Doyle didn’t use hookup apps, and that he hadn’t slept with another man sinceat leastApril 1, when Larkin had stayed that first night and then never left.
And Doyle might’ve been saintly, but he needed sustenance and sleep and sex too.
He was only human, after all.
Pity that.
He deserved better a fate than the trappings of mortality.
