Larkin toed off his derbies and left them in the middle of the living room.He yanked the CSU T-shirt over his head, dropped it while walking to the bathroom, and shut the door behind himself.Inside, Larkin finished undressing, turned on the shower, and stepped under the spray.
It was a little too hot.
It made his head swim.
But he didn’t care.
He needed to get the day out of his mind and off his body.He needed to feel squeaky clean and not like a lint roller that’d collected every little disgusting bit of humanity from the backseat of a taxi.He needed five minutes to himself, five minutes he didn’t have to obsess about murders and stalking and the police asking himwhy, why can’t you remember what your attacker looked like?Don’t you want to help us find your buddy’s killer?
Larkin needed more than his evening dose of Prozac.
He needed a hard factory reset.
He needed—
Larkin pressed his palms against the tile wall and tucked his chin to his chest, allowing the spray to pound the back of his skull.The rhythmic pulse kept good time, but Larkin didn’t count the beats.He just stood still and let the shower strip away every negative emotion that burdened him, toyed with him, haunted him, like decades of landlord-white paint peeled away to reveal an original color that hadn’t been seen in so long, even Larkin couldn’t remember what it’d once been.
—yellow like a crown of dandelions—
—orange like campfire flames—
—red like blood—
The bathroom door clicked shut.
Larkin raised his head, wiped his face, pulled the curtain back.
His discarded clothes were gone from the floor.Placed on the counter beside the sink was his folded gray T-shirt and a pair of black trunks.
Gold.
Gold like Ira Oisín Doyle.
What he needed… was Doyle.
Larkin spit water from his mouth and snapped the curtain shut.He washed his hair and scrubbed his body, then turned off the shower and toweled down.Larkin dressed in the clean shirt and underwear before opening the bathroom door, steam wafting out like a cheap movie effect.The apartment had cooled down in his absence, and the circulating air raised gooseflesh on his bare legs.
His mint-green derbies weren’t where he’d carelessly discarded them.Larkin glanced at the coffee table.His wallet and phone were gone, and the SIG wasn’t on the couch.Larkin noticed his keys on the hook by the front door.His gaze moved right, following the brick wall, passing over the television, refrigerator, stove, and stopping on Doyle hovering over the kitchen sink.Forgoing the use of a plate, his partner was stuffing the last bite of what looked to be a sandwich in his mouth.Doyle looked over his shoulder, met Larkin’s stare, and promptly coughed out a laugh around the food.
It’d been a long day of turbulent emotion and unfulfilled investigating and an actual fight for his life, but it had ended with Doyle still alive.
Still alive and silly and beautiful and noble andperfect.
And Larkin needed Doyle.
Around a mouthful, Doyle said, “’M sorry.Hungry.”He pointed to the plate on the kitchen table.“I made you one too.”
“Oh.”
“I’m gonna wash up.”
Larkin nodded.He watched until Doyle had closed the bathroom door behind himself, then went to the table.The sandwich was a grilled cheese, cut diagonally—the only acceptable cut for a sandwich, Doyle had claimed on more than one occasion—with a healthy slice of tomato added to it.
Doyle didn’t like tomato in his grilled cheese.
But Larkin did.
Larkin wiped a rogue tear from his cheek with the heel of his hand, picked up the sandwich, and took several big bites.He finished the midnight meal and was standing before his shelf of plants in the far corner of the room by the time Doyle stepped out of the bathroom.Larkin’s evening inspection of his carefully curated houseplant collection was a habit Doyle always left him to without interruption, so he wasn’t surprised when his partner’s bare feet didn’t stop but padded all the way into the bedroom.
