"I'm not saying some of the men in my life aren't bi, but not as many as I thought. Let's just say that it's been brought to my attention that my issues of not wanting women in the bed made them not suggest it."
"So they'd have more women if you'd be okay with it?" he asked.
I said, "Yes..." and then I stopped myself and said, "You know, this is way over your pay grade for my personal life."
"I'm loving it," Zerbrowski said, "more than you usually tell me."
I frowned at him.
He held his hands up, as if to say Don't shoot. "Hey, just saying."
"Put a girl in the middle, and it's not g*y, right?" Brice said, but he sounded more bitter than some theoretical discussion should be.
"You fall afoul of some couple thing?" I asked.
He glanced back down at his big hands. "You could say that."
Zerbrowski made a small noise.
I glared at him. "Say it, before you hurt yourself."
He grinned. "Just picturing you all heteroflexible."
If he only knew about Jade, the teasing would be merciless, but I shook my head. "You don't mean it. You haven't thought about me that way in years, if ever. You're one of the most happily married men I've ever met."
"Don't ruin my image, Anita. I'm the office lech."
Brice laughed. It made us both look at him. "I figured that if you were okay with Anita's home life, maybe you'd be okay with mine, and I figured Anita wouldn't give a damn."
"What's your home life like?" Zerbrowski said. "You got a harem of cuties waiting at home for you, too?"
Brice hung his head. "I wish."
"It's harder to date this many people than you think," I said.
"Trouble in paradise?" Zerbrowski asked.
I frowned, and then sighed. "Let's just say that I'm beginning to wonder if there really can be too much of a good thing."
I waited for Zerbrowski to make another smart remark, but he didn't. I glanced at him and his face was serious, not like him.
"What?" I asked, and even to me it sounded suspicious.
"I've never seen you as happy as you've been the last couple of years, Anita. Whatever you're doing, it works for you. It makes you happy."
"And?" I asked.
"And I don't like hearing you poke at it."
"I'm not poking at it, Zerbrowski, I just had one of the newest boys get all panicked about seeing the bodies on TV. It's like he didn't realize how dangerous my job was until now."
"I hadn't thought about that; you have to explain the job to every new boyfriend. That makes me tired just thinking about it. It's hard enough with just Katie." He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. There were fine lines that I hadn't noticed with the glasses on.
"Just dreading having the talk again with the new one," I said.
"Understandable," Brice said.
We both looked at him, as if we'd sort of forgotten he was still in the car with us. It wasn't like us. "Why are we getting all warm and fuzzy in front of you, Brice?"
"I don't know," he said, "but thank you."
"For what?"
"For letting me in, I guess."
"What do you want?" Zerbrowski asked, putting his glasses back in place. Push a cop, and you get cynical back, eventually.
Brice smiled. "I'm g*y, and I'm not out."
Zerbrowski made a snorting sound, and then finally laughed. We both looked at him, and they weren't friendly looks.
"Oh, come on, it's funny. Arnet has done everything but slip her panties in Brice's hand, and Millie down in tech services has found a dozen reasons to be anywhere he is; every woman in the place is after him, and he's g*y. Come on, that's funny."
"Not every woman," he said, and he looked at me.
"Nothing personal, Brice, but my dance card is way beyond full."
He smiled. "If half the news reports are true, you've got your own harem, hisem, whatever. But it's more than that, you aren't attracted to me."
I shrugged. "Sorry."
"No, it's not bad, it's good."
"Wait," Zerbrowski said, "you wanted to go to dinner with the one woman in the entire department who isn't attracted to you?"
Brice nodded.
Zerbrowski frowned, and then grinned. "Sorry, Brice, you're a doll and all, but I don't think you're attractive either."
Brice grinned, then chuckled. "Good to know."
"Your sexual orientation doesn't have a damn thing to do with the job," I said.
"No, it doesn't, but if it comes out I'm g*y, it will."
"Maybe," I said.
"I'd just like to come out in my own way, not be outed, that's all."
Would I have been less sympathetic if I didn't have Jade in my life? Maybe, but I did, and I hadn't been out in public with her yet; part of that was that I didn't enjoy shopping, or most of the girl stuff she wanted to do. "That's your choice," I said.
"Since you're not attracted to either of us, doesn't really matter," Zerbrowski said.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"But now what?" I asked. "You didn't just want to come to dinner to tell us your big secret."
"I'm looking for some advice on how to handle the women at work without getting them pissed at me. Detective Arnet is being particularly persistent."
I sighed. "I'll need food if we're going to talk about girls."
Brice smiled. "What does that mean?"
"It means I had some problems with Arnet wanting to date one of my boyfriends, and I need food before we get into it."
"Fine with me," Brice said.
Zerbrowski just reached for the door handle.
We all got out and just headed for the lighted windows of the restaurant. Straight, or g*y, or being a girl, it didn't matter; we were all just cops eating food and passing time while we waited. I'd tell Brice a short version of Arnet's crush on Nathaniel, and then we'd pass time talking about Brice's personal life. Fine by me, it beat the hell out of talking about mine.
Chapter Fifteen
ZERBROWSKI SURPRISED ME by getting a salad with grilled chicken on it. "You're not getting a burger?" I asked.
"Had my cholesterol checked. No burgers for a while." He looked glum as he said it.
"So, no more fast-food burgers?" I asked.
He shook his head.
I patted his back. "Dude, I'm sorry."
Brice said, "Am I missing something? You're acting like he's lost a relative."
"When you ride in Zerbrowski's car, you'll understand. He lives on fast-food burgers, and throws the wrappers into the backseat."
"Will there be room in the backseat for me to sit with all the fast-food wrappers?" Brice asked, laughing.
I looked at Zerbrowski. He shrugged. "I can clean out the back."
"I was joking," Brice said, looking from one to the other of us. "Are you serious that the backseat is so full of fast-food debris that no one can sit in it?"
"We're serious," I said.
"I'll clean it out. The smell of the wrappers will just make me hungry." Zerbrowski picked up his tray with its healthy salad on it; he looked sad.
There were plenty of tables to choose from, because we were late for dinner and hours too early for breakfast. We needed plenty of seating choices, because we were all cops and that meant that none of us wanted our backs to a door, or to the restaurant in general, and especially not a busy area where people would be walking back and forth behind us. We didn't really like windows where people on the outside could just walk up to where we were sitting, especially not if we had to put our backs to the windows. Yeah, the chances of someone walking up and just starting to shoot at us was small, but small wasn't the same as not ever happening. Police aren't paranoid because of some psychological disorder, they're paranoid because real bad things have happened to them, and in our job paranoia was just another word for staying alive.
So, where to sit?
There was a booth that sat back in a corner with a wall that backed the kitchen so there were no windows, and as many as four could sit comfortably with enough room to get to weapons without crowding each other. We also had a clear line of sight to the door. It was perfect. We slid into the booth, with me in the middle, which would have trapped Brice or Zerbrowski, but I was small enough that if I had to, I could go under the table and be shooting at people's legs and be shooting them in the chest and face as they dropped to their knees, because that's what happens to most people if bullets shatter their leg bones. Yes, that is how cops think, that's how anyone who lives by the gun thinks. We don't talk about it, but we are totally into preplanning our survival.