"I like flirting. It's fun, and if I flirt with women, people think that's all I'm interested in."
"It's a way of hiding," I said.
"Yes," he said, and there was no smile now.
"It's exhausting hiding who you are, and who you really love," I said.
He looked down at his hands on the tabletop. "Yeah." There was absolutely no smile as he said that one short word.
I don't know what made me do it, but I reached across the table and put my hand over his; my hand looked small trying to cover his, but it made him look up at me with those sad brown eyes. "I know about having to hide who you love."
That made him smile, a gentle, more "real" smile. He turned his hand in mine, and we were holding hands when Detective Jessica Arnet and most of the rest of the women from work came through the door and saw us.
Never had I ever wished not to have a perfect line of sight between me and a door more than in that moment. Brice looked at my face and whispered, "It's Arnet, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said.
"If I'm dating you, that keeps me safe."
I said, keeping my mouth very still, "If you use me as a beard, I will hurt you."
He squeezed my hand and let go so he could turn his shoulders and smile at the women as they came toward our table. Their faces ranged from cold to outright angry. The angry wasn't from the policewomen, but from some of the office staff. Cops hid their emotions better by the time they got to be detectives. Arnet's face was hard to read, but it wasn't a good look. Her triangular face that looked delicate and pretty most of the time looked harsh, as if her emotions had honed her down to the bone structure underneath. Her eyes were the darkest color I'd ever seen them. Dark eyes get darker when they're angry; pale eyes get paler.
The other women came at her back like a Greek chorus of disapproval. "Are you dating Marshal Brice now, too?"
"No," I said.
Brice stood up, and I knew he was wasting that great smile on them. The other women stared up at him as if the sun had broken through the clouds, and it was a handsome, yummy, bright sun. Arnet kept looking at me.
Brice said, "I was just asking Marshal Blake here, and Detective Zerbrowski, which of you had boyfriends and such. I had a bit of trouble at one of my posts with a beautiful woman who failed to mention she had a fiance. I don't poach other men's girlfriends, or fiances."
"Why ask Anita?"
"Well, I wanted a woman's opinion, because they pay more attention to that sort of thing than men do, and it needed to be a woman that I wasn't interested in, so there'd be no conflict of interest."
Arnet looked at him then. "Did she warn you off some of us?"
"She said you were all available, and charming."
Arnet looked at me. "You didn't say I was charming, did you?"
"No, but it's not me that's standing in front of a handsome, eligible bachelor and getting all pissy at another woman in front of him. That's all on you, Arnet."
That seemed to get through to her, because she blinked and looked at Brice as he moved around her and started talking directly to some of the other women. They let him flatter them, and flattered right back. Arnet watched them for a moment as if she couldn't figure out how to join in, and then Brice turned and looked at her. He smiled and said, "Was wondering if you would do me the honor of being my first date here in St. Louis, Detective Arnet?"
"I'd be happy to," she said, but her voice didn't sound happy. I could no longer see her face, but I was betting she didn't look as gaga for him as the others.
"Let's get these bad guys and we'll talk about details."
She gave him her cell phone number. He took her hand and actually kissed it, and made it all seem charming. The only man who'd ever been able to do that without looking like a fool to me had been Jean-Claude, but he was over six hundred years old, and had come from a time when kissing the hand of a lady was a lot more popular. Most modern men couldn't pull it off.
"You ladies enjoy your food, and we'll see you back at the squad room."
Zerbrowski and I took that as our cue and got up to follow Brice. Arnet caught my arm as I went past her. I fought the urge to push her hand off me. She whispered, low and harsh, "Stay away from this one, Blake."
"Happy to," I said, and kept on walking. She had to either let go, or hold on tighter. She let go. Zerbrowski and Brice were looking back at us, waiting for me to join them. I caught up with Zerbrowski and we followed Brice through the tables to the parking lot.
"What did she say to you?" Zerbrowski asked.
"I've been warned off Brice." I moved toward the Jeep and the men followed me.
"Have I made your problem with Arnet worse?" Brice asked.
"I don't know," I said, as I beeped the keys. I took a deep breath of the fresh late-spring air, and let it out slow.
Brice spoke over the roof of the car. "I'm sorry, Blake, I didn't mean to make it worse."
I climbed behind the wheel. Zerbrowski was already in the passenger seat, buckled up and ready to go. Brice got in the back. "You have to go on a date with her; that's punishment enough," I said, as I started the car.
"How did I start the evening trying to avoid Arnet, and end up having a date with her?"
"Welcome to my life," I said, "though it's usually men for me."
"What do you mean?" Brice asked.
I backed up slowly, waiting for someone behind us to vacate their parking space and not hit us. "Most of the men I've dated have been ones I tried not to date. The ones I love the most, I fell in love with kicking and screaming."
"Really?" Brice said.
"Really," Zerbrowski and I said together. We looked at each other, and then he grinned. I smiled back. "Zerbrowski said it earlier: I used to hate being in love."
"Why?" Brice asked.
I finished easing us out past the idiot driver behind us. They couldn't seem to decide if they were parking or leaving. "Not sure, something about giving up too much control, fear of being hurt, pick something."
"I like being in love," Brice said.
"I like being in love with Katie," Zerbrowski said.
I smiled and eased out into the late-night traffic, which was pretty sporadic in St. Louis. "I like being in love with who I'm in love with now," I said.
"Too many men to list?" Brice asked.
"No, just can't honestly list all the men that are living with me on the I love you list, so I'd rather not say the names, in case I hurt someone's feelings."
"We won't tell," Zerbrowski said.
"Neither will I," I said.
"How did you end up living with men you aren't in love with?" Brice asked.
"I don't know you well enough to answer that question, Brice."
"Sorry; have you answered it for Zerbrowski?"
"He hasn't asked."
Zerbrowski held his fist out sideways to me. I touched it gently as I drove. In all the years I'd known Zerbrowski, he'd never asked as many questions as Brice had asked in one evening. I wasn't sure Brice was going to stay on my top-ten list of people I wanted to hang out with, not if he was always this nosy. My life worked, it made me happy, but I didn't owe anyone a diagram of how it worked. Especially not a brand-new U.S. Marshal who had just ridden into town days ago. I realized that it wasn't just Arnet I didn't know much about backgroundwise, but I could fix that. Was Brice just being friendly, or was he fishing? I realized that just by his saying he was g*y, I'd let down a lot of my defenses. Zerbrowski and I both had. What if he'd lied? Was I being overly suspicious? Maybe, or maybe until I saw Brice in bed with a man, I'd never really know if he was lying to me, or to Arnet. The only thing I knew for certain was he was lying to somebody.
Chapter Sixteen
ZERBROWSKI'S PHONE RANG. It was a twangy country song, the kind I didn't think they made anymore. He picked it up and cut the down-home song mercifully short. "Hey, Dolph," he said.
Brice and I listened to Zerbrowski say, "Hostage situation?" The rest of his end was mostly ums, and Shit, and SWAT is en route. "Okay, give me the address." He repeated it out loud to me, and I looked for a side street so I could turn us around without asking questions. If Dolph and Zerbrowski wanted us at a crime scene, there'd be a reason. Zerbrowski hung up and said, "They need us sooner than later."