Indirection, p.30
Indirection, page 30
part #1 of Borealis: Without a Compass Series
“It’s been a long day. Take it down a little.”
“I shouldn’t have to take it down a little. I shouldn’t have to be quiet or calm down or whatever you want me to do. You’re wrong about this, and I can’t believe you’re going to take their side when I’m sitting here explaining why it couldn’t have been Yasmin.”
North was taking deep breaths, nostrils flaring with each exhalation. “I am always on your side. Do you get that? Always. And you know what? I see what you’re saying. I agree that there are some irregularities. If you want to keep working this case on the side, that’s fine. You know I’ll help you. But we’ve also got a business to run, Shaw. We’ve got real work to do. We’ve got bills and employees and we’ve got other clients depending on us. And you know what? I am actually really pissed off right now because I don’t like that you’re biting my head off because you had a spat with your ex-boyfriend and you’re mad he wouldn’t roll over and play nice just because you two used to bang one out.”
Shaw grabbed the door handle. Then he stopped. “That’s what you think this is about?”
“Part of it, yeah.”
Shaking his head, Shaw opened the door. He got out, the cold stinging, and his eyes welled. As he blinked them clear, he bent to meet North’s gaze and gestured at the still-running car. “Well?”
“I think we should both get a good night’s sleep.”
Shaw huffed a breath. “Fine.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Slamming the door was childish. Shaw knew that. But as he crossed the street, listening to North swearing inside the GTO, he also knew that it had felt very, very good.
Chapter 35
SHAW TOSSED AND TURNED and woke with his jaw aching from grinding his teeth all night. For a while, he lay in bed. His room looked pretty much like it always did: on the wall, he’d hung sixteen pashmina scarves silkscreened with Dolly Parton at sixteen different points in her career; on the floor, a mound of Chucks—rights only—formed a multicolored pyramid topped by a single, metallic rainbow high-top lined with fleece; on his dresser waited his current project, a small keepsake box being decoupaged with historical condom advertisements. All of it reminded him of North, and he went back under the covers for a while.
But he was awake, and the gears were turning, and he couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday. It was one thing for Jadon to be wrong about Yasmin; now that Shaw had some distance from the argument, he could recognize Jadon’s reasons, even if he didn’t agree with them. The fight with North, though, was another thing entirely. Shaw’s brain kept rewinding to the cold, compacted anger in North’s face, how the yellow light from the GTO’s dash raked across his cheekbones. Then it got worse: his brain kept playing back all the nights North was too tired, all the nights one of them wasn’t in the mood, all the nights Shaw got caught up in a project and didn’t even realize until too late that North had already gone home.
Throwing back the bedding, Shaw sat up. He listened for a moment. The house was old; below him, voices mingled, including the smoldering rumble that belonged to North. Shaw got out of bed. He stumbled into the bathroom, showered, brushed his teeth, and drank water. He found a pair of jeggings and a Cuban collar shirt in leopard print. He shoved one foot into the metallic rainbow Chuck; he couldn’t unearth its mate, so he settled for a Sorel snow boot. Then he grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and got to work.
First, he made a list of everyone who might have wanted to hurt Scotty. The list was long—it included almost everyone he’d met at the convention over the last few days. The only people he excluded were Rodney and Jerry, the married couple in Western gear. Then he rewrote the list in order of what he considered the strongest motives. He drew a line under the top five, separating the names into the two groups. In the first set, he had Josue (money and possibly revenge), Mary Angela (to cover up her blackmail scheme), Karen (simply because she was involved in a relationship with Scotty), Brendon (money), and Yasmin (to save the con, plus the very irritating fact that they’d caught her contaminating water).
In the second group, he wrote JD (she had followed him into the bathroom to fight about something, and in spite of her version of events, the possibility of plagiarism still hovered over her), Serenity (her ongoing feud with Scotty, and his public humiliation of her), Clarence (public fights and humiliation), Leslie (revenge for being banned from the con), and Heidi (her negative reviews were the only thing Shaw could think of, but he kept her on the list anyway).
He directed his attention to the top five, sketching out what he knew of their scheduled appearances (relying on the online convention program for this) and details that had emerged in their conversations. The problem, of course, was that no one had a solid alibi for the entire night that the storeroom had been unlocked. Although Karen had admitted to sneaking around the hotel that night, any of the others could have left their rooms too. Without reviewing hours of footage from multiple security cameras—which they didn’t even have access to—Shaw didn’t have any way of guessing who else might have been wandering the Royal Excalibur. Worse, even if he did get access to that footage and did spot someone roving the halls, there were no cameras in Tintagel that could prove someone had entered the storeroom.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, Shaw ripped the pages free from the pad and set them aside. Then he turned the pad and began sketching the layout of the important rooms: Tintagel, the storeroom, and the service corridor. He spent as much time as he could on the storeroom: the doors opposite each other, the racks of shelves, the location of the water, the cart that Yasmin and Clarence had used to move supplies around the Royal Excalibur.
At some point, the sketching turned into what North called doodling. One corner of the floorplan now featured a man in profile whose jaw and nose and short, messy hair suggested a certain pain-in-the-ass boyfriend. Another corner featured a stick figure with a straight-backed chair, which he was using to fend off a lion who—if lions could be said to resemble people—might have had the exact same eyes as a certain someone Shaw knew. He tore the sheet loose, flipped it over, and began sketching North the way he remembered him from two nights before: barefoot, leaning against the wall, shirtless, the curl of his arm, biceps flexing.
A knock at the door galvanized Shaw. Heat rushed into his face, and he grabbed the papers, trying to cover the drawing. “I’m—it’s not—don’t come in. I’m—I’m wanking.”
The sigh on the other side of the door definitely belonged to North. “Since you’re using British slang for spanking your monkey, I’m guessing you’re about sixteen hours into that baking show you like. Can I come in?”
“No. And I’m not watching anything. Wait. Yes, I am. I’m watching porn. Really, really messed-up porn.”
“Huh.” The boards creaked as North shifted his weight. “That sounds an awful lot like shaming someone for their sexual preferences.”
“No.” Shaw could hear, as the word echoed, the unfortunate note of adolescence.
“I would like to apologize for last night. I was tired, and I was frustrated, and I didn’t treat you the way I should have.”
“Ok. Fine.”
“Shaw, come on.”
“It’s fine. I’m not mad.”
The handle rattled. Shaw jumped, but the lock was set, and North didn’t do anything…Northish, like kick the door in.
“I want to look you in the eyes when you tell me you’re not mad.”
“I can’t.” Genius struck. “I’m covered in lube. And condoms.”
The only sound was Pari’s laughter from downstairs.
“Well, Pari and Truck brought in sandwiches from The Daily Bread, and I brought Donut Drive In, and somebody brought an insulated mug of thistle tea with a four-mushroom immune defense mix-in that cost him forty fucking dollars at Whole Foods, so—” North took what sounded like a deep breath. “We’ll be downstairs when you’re ready to forgive me. Or tell me what I need to do to make it up to you. Or whatever, Shaw. I’m really sorry.”
Heavy steps moved down the stairs, and then more of Pari’s laughter floated up. Shaw tried to go back to doodling, but the spell had been broken. He could smell the sandwiches: bacon, eggs, a fresh bagel, a thick slice of gouda. He imagined he could smell the donuts, yeasty with the lingering fragrance of hot oil. And he’d been telling North for weeks about the immune-system benefits of the four-mushroom blend he’d found online, and it was, after all, cold and flu season.
He stopped himself with his hand on the door.
So close.
He went back to bed, grabbed his phone, and texted North: Nice try.
The composition bubbles appeared, disappeared, appeared, disappeared. What finally came through was a single emoji of a perplexed face.
You know exactly what I mean, Shaw wrote back, and it’s not going to work.
This time, the answer came back faster: an emoji of a man shrugging.
Now Truck was laughing, then saying something, and then Pari was giggling. They’d been dating for almost as long as North and Shaw, and from what Shaw could tell, Pari and Truck hadn’t had a single fight. The same Pari who threw plates and screamed and had once stood on her desk and placed a sobbing call to the Missouri Department of Social Services, asking that someone do a welfare check on her because Shaw had helped himself to a tiny, tiny piece of her danish—that same Pari took every single thing that Truck did in stride, without so much as blinking. Even the time Truck had made her a hair pin out of a raccoon paw.
This time, Shaw caught himself too late; he was already on the stairs, drawn by the perfume of breakfast food like a cartoon character floating toward a cooling pie. He made it as far as the kitchen and then stopped. Pari was standing at the sink, Truck pressing kisses to her face, hir big hands on Pari’s waist: possessive and, Shaw could tell just from looking, also surprisingly gentle.
“Oh,” Pari said, pushing Truck back with one hand. “Shaw. Um. Excuse you. We were—I mean if you have to have a sandwich, you can, just, you know, hurry. So Truck and I can—I mean, are you just going to stand there?”
“I don’t want a sandwich,” Shaw said. Or rather, shouted. He was increasingly aware that he was losing control of the volume of his voice. “And I don’t want donuts. And I don’t want a four-mushroom mix-in. And I don’t want anybody to bother me ever again. And you two make a wonderful couple, and I hope you’re really, really happy together.”
By the end, he was crying, and he stumbled back upstairs and threw himself on the bed.
A murmured conference was taking place below him. Shaw gritted his teeth, waiting for the familiar tread of the Redwings on the stairs. Instead, though, two sets of footsteps moved toward his room. He pulled a pillow over his head.
“Please go away,” he said when the door opened. “I’m fine, I’m just—” Both sets of footsteps crossed the room. “I said go away, please. I don’t want—”
A massive weight settled onto Shaw, forcing the breath from his lungs. Someone pulled the pillow away. Shaw blinked up at Pari, trying to catch his breath, which was difficult because Truck was sitting on him.
“Uh,” Shaw gargled. “Uh, uh.”
“You’re fine,” Pari said. Perching on the mattress next to Shaw’s head, she added, “You’re making North very sad. I don’t like it when North is sad. When North is sad, he puts on that awful playlist with Poison and Bonnie Tyler and Bon Jovi and all that old-people music, and I have to listen to it for hours. And he’s not nice to Truck, and everybody should be nice to Truck.”
“He’s still pretty nice to me,” Truck said. “But North-level nice. Not Shaw-level nice. That’s a compliment, by the way.”
Shaw managed a gurgled thanks.
“What’s going on?” Pari said.
Shaw wheezed.
“If Truck gets off you, you’re not going to do anything dramatic, are you? Sometimes you’re really too much for me to handle, Shaw.”
Shaw had a lot of thoughts about that statement, but all he could manage was a frantic nod. Truck eased off of him, and Shaw took in a gasping breath.
“You broke my ribs,” he said. “I don’t even think I have ribs anymore. I think you turned them into dust. They’re going to have to build me a new ribcage, and I’ll probably end up like Iron Man.”
“You won’t,” Pari said. “You don’t have the It factor, Shaw. You’re a B-lister at best.”
“I think he’s cute,” Truck said. “The kind of cute that goth girls would be really into.”
“That’s not a comp—”
“What’s wrong?” Pari said.
“Nothing. I told you: I’m fine. Just go back downstairs and be perfectly in love and happy and have a million babies together.”
“Kingsley Shaw Wilder Aldrich, I am not up here getting older and grayer by the second just so you can tell me you’re fine. I ought to be downstairs making out with Truck, but instead I’m here because I’m the best, most loyal friend you’ve ever had.”
“Technically, you’re supposed to be working because you’re on the clock, not making out with Truck. In fact, I’m not even sure why Truck is here except—”
“Ze’s here because ze loves me and it’s day twenty-four of our month-long Valentine’s. You get one more chance, or I’ll ask where North keeps the paddle, and I’ll let Truck turn your ass cherry-red.”
“I’m pretty good at it,” Truck said. “It’s all about spreading out the blows and being consistent. You want every inch of ass to get the same—”
“Everything’s awful and North hates me and he’s already tired of me and I’ve loved him my entire life and it’s over.”
In the silence that followed the rapid-fire declaration, Shaw felt blood flood into his cheeks.
“Truck,” Pari said, “why don’t you go keep an eye on the sandwiches and make sure North doesn’t eat another one without paying us for it.”
“Ok,” Truck said. “Bye, Shaw. Sorry North hates you.”
“Thanks, Truck,” Shaw said as he pulled the pillow back over his head.
When Truck’s steps had faded, Pari said, “North doesn’t hate you. He loves you. It’s kind of gross, actually, and I honestly don’t get it because you have no ass and sometimes when you don’t wash your hair there’s a definite smell and—”
“Ok, ok. Thanks, Pari. I feel so much better. Bye.”
“Why in the world would you think North hates you?”
“I don’t know.” Inching the pillow down, Shaw squinted at her. “I guess I don’t think he hates me. But…but I do think he might be realizing he can do better. I mean, I don’t know. I’ve been in love with him my whole life—”
“No, you’ve been in love with him since college.”
“Fine. But you know what I mean. And I thought if we ever got together, it would be magical and perfect, and instead, he doesn’t even want to have sex with me anymore, and when I make an issue of it, the sex is bad because I mess it up, and—” A rush of inspiration hit Shaw. “At this con, the case we’ve been working, there was this guy. And he liked to throw it in everyone’s face that reading romance novels is this escapist fantasy, and people are so desperate to get away from the boring, ordinary shittiness of their real lives that they’ll run after these fantasies. And he was kind of right. I mean, he was playacting this fantasy with a fake husband, and everybody bought into it. Even me. And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’ve read too many romance novels, and maybe my expectations are too high, and maybe I want something that doesn’t even exist in the real world, and I’m going to end up just like he said Clarence did, lonely and desperate and wanting this fantasy of romance that only takes place in storybooks.”
The heating kicked on, a draft of warm air from the register stirring Pari’s long, dark hair. She combed the strands away from her face, lips pursed in thought. Then she said, “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Pari!”
“Well, it is. I mean, you’re not a rocket scientist.”
Shaw groaned.
“Sometimes I even think you’re a little dim.”
“Ok, enough helping.”
“Like the time I caught you trying to chew through that lamp cord while it was still plugged in.”
“I wasn’t trying to—Pari, ok, I’m fixed now. Thank you. Go back downstairs.”
“But even knowing that you’re a little touched up here,” she tapped her temple, “I honestly did not expect this level of totally willful stupidity.”
“Please tell me when this is over,” Shaw said as he pulled the pillow back over his head.
Pari snatched the pillow away. “Sit up.”
After a moment, Shaw sat up.
“What’s going on here,” Pari said, “has nothing to do with romance novels. They’re books, Shaw. Unless you are a truly special category of stupid, you’re not going to mix them up with reality. Nobody does.”
“But I—”
“You already said it yourself: you’ve been building up this relationship with North for a long time in your head, and now it’s reality. And the reality is that North sometimes wears the same socks two days in a row, and they stink. And sometimes he gets the bean burrito at Taco Bell, and that really stinks. And when he eats that one kind of cheddar he likes and then talks to me too close—”
“I get it, I get it.”
“I’m not sure you do. He’s a guy. He’s not perfect. He’s not magical. One time I saw hair on his toes.”
“Sweet transcendent Padumuttara Buddha, please change me into a grasshopper or a wingnut or an ozone molecule.”
“I’m trying to tell you that if you want something with North, you have to build it with the real guy. The one who’s here, not the one who’s in your head. And you definitely have to talk to him about the socks.”
Wiping his eyes, Shaw nodded. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. But North doesn’t want me anymore. I can tell. The sex is—”
“Oh my God. Did you ask him?”
