“Did you kill him?” Grade asked.
“You want to talk now?” Clay asked. He leaned over Grade and opened the glove box to get his gun out. The heavy, cool weight of it in his hand settled him. He popped the magazine in to check the load and then smacked it home with the heel of his hand. “I’d no reason to kill Buchanan, and I would have done a better job of it. TJ’s just finally put three brain cells together to try and cover his ass.”
In the back, TJ threw himself forward against the seat belt. It dug into his collarbone. “You’re a liar! You told me to go in there, that you wanted to talk to me.”
“Why? To ask you out?” Clay mocked. “You aren’t my type.”
“Dirty bastard,” TJ said. “Buchanan was dead when I went in there. You set me up to take the fall for it. That’s why I had to run.”
Clay rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for this.” He leaned forward to tuck the gun into the back of his jeans and then flicked the hem of his T-shirt over it. “Gotta go get shot.”
Grade grabbed his arm. “Wait.” He chewed on his lower lip absently as he thought. “Maybe you’re both telling the truth. Who told you to go to the bathroom, TJ?”
TJ threw himself back and forth against the seat. “I told ya!” he raged. “Clay!”
“Directly?” Grade pushed. “You heard it from his own mouth, face-to-face?”
TJ stopped, his chest heaving as he panted for breath. He spat on the floor. “Of course not,” he said, his voice thick with contempt and dumbass. “He was killing Buchanan.”
The Lexus doors opened, and a squat man in a nice suit got out. He straightened his jacket and opened the rear passenger door. It wasn’t Fisher who got out, but Clay remembered the guy from one of the meets. He was Fisher’s errand boy.
So the day had not gotten any better.
Two other men got out of the car. Three from the vehicle behind.
Clay was pretty good, but this was not his preferred working environment.
“So we have a traitor,” Clay said. “That explains why they’re helicopter-momming Buchanan after a night out of contact. Stay in the car.”
Grade smiled thinly. “That’s the plan.”
He hesitated for a second, his fingers tight on Clay’s forearm, and then he leaned in for a hard, unexpected kiss. The tip of his tongue grazed along the seam of Clay’s mouth, but he leaned back before Clay could chase that opportunity. It probably wasn’t the time anyhow.
“What was that for?” Clay asked.
Grade ran his thumb along his lower lip and shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed appropriate.”
“What the fuck?” TJ blurted. “Are you gay?”
There were times, Clay admitted, that he sympathized with Grade’s “fucking Sweeny” sentiments. He didn’t want to deal with TJ right now, but…
He cupped the back of Grade’s neck and pulled him over for a much more thorough kiss. The taste of long nights and spent adrenaline was thickly familiar as Clay slipped his tongue into Grade’s mouth. He caught the low whimper that tickled between their lips and then pulled away.
“You’re right.” Clay stroked his thumb over Grade’s cheekbone and watched awareness flicker through those hazy green eyes. “That felt like the thing to do.”
He winked at Grade and got out of the car and let his brain slide into neutral. It ground—briefly—on the memory of Grade’s mouth and that littlenoisehe made, but then the calm rolled over him.
“Hey,” Clay said as he nodded at the Lexus. “Car trouble?”
Fisher’s man folded his mouth into an empty smile. He took his jacket off and hung it over his arm. The shirt he had on underneath looked very white and crisp. Clay let the urge to break the beak-like bridge of the man’s nose to add an accent of red to grime up all that nice cotton idle away.
“Traynor, right? Clay Traynor,” the man said. “Took you long enough to join us. What was it? Last kiss for a condemned man?”
“We aren’t into labels,” Clay said with a smirk. He wagged his finger back and forth between them. “I didn’t get your name. That’s on me. I wasn’t paying attention because I didn’t give a shit.”
The smile tightened over the man’s probably perfect teeth. “I don’t think you’re going to be using it much,” he said. “So don’t worry about it. Where’s Buchanan?”
Clay glanced at the heavies and then back to Fisher’s mouthpiece. He shrugged.
