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“What’s, uh, what’s on the schedule today?” I asked when we had grabbed our iced coffees and left the little shop. I sipped on the icy cool life-gifting beverage.
“Well, since you’ve woke up early, I’m thinking we can block out the morning so we can comb over the Dragon case again; you can learn it upside down and inside out. Then, this afternoon I’ve got a meeting set up with that dealer moonlighting as Shakespeare. Was supposed to be for Saturday but guess he could bump me up on the schedule. I’m hoping he can point me in the right direction.”
“Our Dank69? Does he know I’m coming with you?”
“I told him I was meeting him with my business partner, yeah. The cover is we’re looking to expand the drug, but we need to talk to the supplier first.”
“Sounds good.”
“I was expecting to tell him my business partner got hit with food poisoning. I should have known you weren’t going to skip out on today. You’re one tough motherfucker.”
“Just wait until I finish this,” I said, raising my already half-empty cup of coffee, smiling even though my head felt like it was being pulled apart atom by atom.
Turns out, I found it pretty easy to smile when Fox happened to be the first person I saw in the morning.
16 Gabriel “Fox” Morrison
Jonah was beat. The hangover was wearing him like a dusty old coat. I could see it in the dark bags under his eyes and the winces he’d give at sudden loud noises or bright sunlight. It made me feel bad, but he was clearly determined to fight through it, so I was determined to make it better for him one way or another. Coffee was my first idea, but I also sacrificed my sunglasses and led us to Stonewall the long way so that we could avoid the huge crowds on South Beach. It was a warm morning, which probably didn’t help how Jonah felt. It certainly didn’t help me, but my headache was a distant thumping compared to Jonah’s, who rated it a “shitty six hundred and sixty-six out of ten” on the pain scale.
“You’re absolutely positive you don’t want to take a couple of hours?” I asked as we walked the shaded path leading to Stonewall Investigations.
“Positive,” he said, exhaling a big breath. He was resilient, that was for sure.
Inside Stonewall, three other people paused their conversation and all turned to greet us. I said hi to Andrew and Holly first, and then turned to Beckham Noble, another one of the detectives. He was in his early forties, hair thick and styled and highlighting the dusting of silver that was beginning to crop up against the jet black. He had on a warm smile that pushed up his gray eyes and crinkled them at the corners.
“Morning, Fox.”
“Hey, Beck, you haven’t met Jonah, have you? He’s the last detective to join us.”
Beck reached out a hand and shook Jonah’s. “Nice to meet you,” Jonah said. I noticed those gray eyes of Beck’s raked over Jonah’s form for the quickest of moments. A pang of orphaned jealousy cried out in my chest. I stepped an inch closer to Jonah. A move so small, I doubt anyone else noticed.
But it did make me feel a little better.
“Very nice to meet you, too,” Beck said, flashing his pearly whites more than I’d ever seen since I hired him a few weeks ago. He was a quiet guy for the most part, kind of like me. I liked that about him. He was from London, and he was a hardworking detective, already cracking seven cases in the four weeks we’d been open.
And he was also currently drooling up a puddle on the floor in front of Jonah.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Andrew said, perking up. He was wearing a boldly striped shirt, with thick vertical stripes of mustard yellow, white, and navy blue that matched his fresh pair of Adidas. “No office romances.” He crossed his arms, smiling between Jonah and Beck. “Until I get the cameras in for my reality show pitch. And then we can let the drama fly.”
That got us all laughing.
“You two would make a cute couple,” Holly said, and for a second my heart jumped up to my throat. Her dark green fingernail pointed between Jonah and Beck, her eyes lighting with a mischievous glow. “Jussst saying.” And my heart fell back down into my chest.
I was glad the attention had fallen on Jonah and Beck, because if anyone were looking at me, they’d notice a flare of red in my cheeks. I could feel the heat from all the blood pumping to my face.
“Oh no,” Jonah said, his cheeks also a violent red. “I’m straight…ish? I don’t know. Yeah, I’m… but if I weren’t I mean… you’re a good-looking guy… I, uh.”
