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Bailey unscrewed the lid and shook his head. “No. Just processing. So, you and my brother. What’d he get you on?”
If Henri thought the question odd, he didn’t say so, but his eyes dropped to the knife in Bailey’s hand. “You promise not to use that on me, right?”
Bailey glanced at the flatware he was holding, and then back to Henri, who had a smirk on his lips. “I promise nothing,” Bailey said. “What’d Sean get you on, Henri?”
Henri shifted in his seat, but instead of disconnecting their legs, he hooked his foot tighter around one of Bailey’s ankles. “Solicitation.”
Okaaay. Of all the things Bailey had expected Henri to say, that was not one. Not because it was so unusual but because Bailey couldn’t imagine a world in which someone like Henri would actually have to pay for sex. “He caught you picking up a hooker? For sex?”
Henri slicked his tongue over his lower lip, and Bailey had to stifle a groan. “I didn’t say that.” Henri’s eyes fell to the knife Bailey had now tightened his fingers around. “Are you going to spread that jam?”
Bailey arched an eyebrow. “Why? Is me holding a knife making you nervous?”
Henri snorted. “A little bit.”
“Good.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
“It might be, if you don’t hurry up and explain,” Bailey said as he spread the jam. He couldn’t help but note that despite talking to Henri about something that was as far removed from a post-date convo as you could get, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. “I believe you were trying to explain how you were picked up for solicitation, but not really.”
“Okay, okay.” Henri chuckled. “I was new in town and was doing a few odd jobs here and there—”
“Odd jobs?” Bailey interrupted, picking up his toast. “What’s that mean?”
“Uh, I’m in the PI business and sometimes for your brother I work as a CI.” Bailey knew that was definitely the short answer to that question, and Henri added, “Back then, most of it was done under the table. Now it’s more…above board.”
“But not entirely?”
“Not entirely, no. And sometimes I work with or for your brother. It keeps that bogus charge off my file and him off my ass—for the most part.”
Bailey bit down into his toast, letting that information sink in. “About that bogus charge. I can’t believe you were actually paying someone for sex.”
Henri rubbed his foot up the back of Bailey’s calf. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
Bailey grinned. “And I’m going to need you to explain.”
Henri let out a sigh and ran a hand over the shadow lining his chin. “Fair enough. I was out looking for information that night, not sex. I’d dealt with this one particular guy—Scooter—a few times, and we had an understanding. Money in exchange for information. Your brother, however, saw things differently, and being the dick—sorry—the hard-ass that he is, he wouldn’t listen to shit and saw an opportunity.”
Bailey grimaced. That sounded like Sean. Obstinate, frustrating, and so damn self-righteous that it made Bailey’s teeth ache. The world was either black or white to Sean, and he followed his police procedural handbook as though it were a Bible. Good versus bad, and Henri fell into the bad category for Sean, the one place he could never quite see past.
It was one of the things their father had been most proud of with his eldest boy. It was also the thing that had caused Sean to work himself to the bone and drink far too much after their parents had passed. The summer black and white had mixed into an ugly shade of grey. The summer the Bailey boys had learned that just because someone is revered as a hero, that didn’t mean they weren’t flawed.
“Look,” Henri said. “I know this is the last thing you expected to have to deal with today, so if you’d rather I leave so you can call your brother back, just say the word and I’ll get out of your hair.”
But Bailey didn’t need Sean to confirm anything. He believed everything that had just come out of Henri’s mouth more than he would from his biased brother’s.
“I don’t want that. I told you, I wanted to talk to you first. I’ll deal with Sean later.”
“Yeah.” Henri picked up his coffee and took a sip. “I have a feeling I will be too.”
“Right. So, the two of you are working on something together right now?”
“Yes.” Bailey knew Henri wasn’t able to give specifics. But then he added, “I’d just left a meeting with him that day you pulled me over.”
Bailey thought back to that morning. The rain, the shock, the confusion over his… “Ahh, okay. That’s why you were acting so strange when I told you my name.”
Henri scoffed. “You could say that. One minute I was trying to wrap my brain around the fact that the guy I’d been dreamin’ about had pulled me over for speeding, and the next minute you were telling me your name and it was the same as Detective Dick’s. I felt like I’d fallen down a fucking rabbit hole.”
