Page 22 of The Ghost of You

“Well if any of your cop friends know of musicians, pass the info out.”

“What if I know of a musician?” I ask as I look toward Anna’s walk-up.

Mason chuckles into the phone. “You have friends besides Brutus?”

“Fuck off. I do.”

“Who?” he asks and I can hear him laughing in the background with his friends.

“Uhh, my neighbor. I actually told her about your studio the other day.”

“Dude, I don’t want your eighty-year-old neighbor coming to our party.”

“I wasn’t talking about Mrs. Wilson, dick. My other neighbor.”

“Is she hot?”

I shake my head. Mason might be twenty-six but he acts sixteen when it comes to anything besides music and business. “You’ve seen Mrs. Wilson. She does look your type,” I joke.

“I’ve always been into floral tapestries. Maybe she could help decorate this place.”

“And after she can take her dentures out and blow you. You can finally feel what a blow job is like.”

“Gross, dude.”

“I know you are scared of them.”

When Mason was in high school, his girlfriend gave him head and accidentally bit his dick. My brothers and I swear to this day he hasn’t let a girl give him head since.

“I’ve had my dick sucked enough to know what it feels like,” he says before changing the subject. “Saturday. Seven p.m. Maybe I’ll see you before then.”

“I’ll try to stop by this week. Talk later.”

We hang up and I can’t help but laugh thinking about my old neighbor, Mrs. Wilson, getting on her knees for my brother. His dick would probably give her a heart attack.

I shake the thought of Mason’s dick from my head and finish moving my tools into my detached garage. I have just enough time to take Brutus on a quick walk before heading into work.

* * *

I leanover and set Brutus down. I try to catch my breath as I rest my elbows on my knees. I’m exhausted. It was a long night. But I needed to get my run in. Brutus was all for it too. Until he wasn’t. We went two miles and I turned around to head back, but Brutus tried to keep going forward through the rest of the park. So like an idiot, I kept running. Until he decided at the farthest end of the park, he was done. I tried to get him off the ground. Tried to get him to budge an inch. But he just laid down and rolled over.

Dick.

I sat and waited for ten minutes to see if he needed a rest and we would walk back but that didn’t work either. So I found myself carrying his fat ass back home. Damn bulldog in him. It was all going fine until it started raining which quickly turned into a thunderstorm. And even though this dog looks like he is a tough guy, he is a baby when it comes to thunder. So not only was I carrying an eighty-pound dog, three and a half miles home, I now had a dog shaking with anxiety over the thunder. I had no choice but to start running.

I made it a mile.

One mile.

One mile until I was ready to crash on the ground. I am happy there is no military-style endurance test in my detective exam.

And that’s where I am now. Two miles from home, hunched over out of breath, and Brutus cowering under a tree.

Not to mention that warm weather we were having the last two weeks has disappeared. It was a nice brisk fifty degrees when I left for my run but with the rain, the temperature is dropping. Or maybe it just feels that way because I am soaking wet.

I pull on Brutus’ leash ready to attempt another mile when I hear a car pull up next to us.

“Do you usually go for a run in the rain?”

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