Larkin rolled his eyes.
“Seriously. You should write someone a ticket and let me watch.”
“Jesus Christ.” Larkin started walking to the corner.
“Hey!” Doyle called after him. “Are we not going in?”
Larkin stopped at the crosswalk and inclined his head. He said, when Doyle joined him a second time, “We’ve a few minutes to burn.” Larkin led the way across the street and onto the sidewalk. Parked underneath the Museum Mile street sign was a hot dog vendor and an ice cream van. He bypassed the street meat and came to stand before the open service window of the truck. A tip jar was duct taped to the counter and the pictures plastered on the side of the vehicle—all the various soft serve ice creams and topping options—were faded from years of summer sunshine.
Luckily, this van had opted out of playing “Pop Goes the Weasel” at maximum volume.
Doyle jerked his thumb at the van. “You want to have ice cream?”
“I thought you might,” Larkin corrected. “You had a very reminiscent look on your face yesterday when we drove by a Mister Softee.”
I just want to make you smile.
“Ice cream before lunch?”
“We’re adults.”
Doyle laughed. “Are you going to have some too?”
Larkin nodded.
Doyle studied the pictures for a moment, but he spoke like he’d already known his order, like it’d existed since childhood, to the older man leaning his head out the window. “Chocolate on a cone, with chocolate sprinkles.”
“And you, sir?” the man asked Larkin.
“Same.” Larkin removed a few bills from his wallet, setting them on the counter before catching Doyle’s raised eyebrow over the lens of his sunglasses. “What.”
“I figured you more a vanilla guy.”
“Is this a euphemism for sex.”
Doyle snorted. “Or maybe peanuts for a topping.”
“Now I know you’re making a sex joke.”
“A comparison,” Doyle said. “A little sweet, a little salty—like you.”
Larkin grunted, much to Doyle’s amusement.
They accepted their cones with a word of thanks, walked through the entrance of Central Park, and took a seat at a bench a few dozen feet in. And while the road was still visible, the canopy of green overhead and the songs of birds all around them made Larkin feel as if he’d momentarily stepped out of the city and onto another planet.
A calmness settled over them while they ate.
“Just two cops sitting in the park, enjoying an ice cream cone,” Doyle remarked.
“Two boyfriends, who happen to be cops, sitting in the park, enjoying an ice cream cone,” Larkin corrected.
Doyle patted Larkin’s thigh a few times, but when he made to pull away, Larkin put his hand over Doyle’s. The wordless confirmation that this touch was okay, not overwhelming but instead welcoming, made Doyle slip his hand a little lower to rest on Larkin’s inner thigh.
“Noah called Wednesday night,” Larkin stated. “Before you got in.”
“What’d he want?”
“My retirement.” Larkin met Doyle’s inquisitive expression. “He wants to split what we have down the middle. Problem is, we don’t have much—no property or valuables.” Larkin licked the side of his cone before the melting ice cream could reach his hand. “I think he’s scared and overwhelmed. Public school teachers don’t make a lot. He’ll probably have to find a roommate or move to a new neighborhood, maybe even change schools to make for an easier commute. I was paying his student loans for most of our marriage.”
