Page 19 of Artifacts

Darrell straightened, eyeing the customers. “And no need to let strangers know there’s a safe on the premises.”

“Yes.” Aldric remembered he was mad at this man.Damn my attraction.“Well, I’d better get—”

“Lunch.”

A carriage clock struck the time as Darrell spoke. Aldric held a finger up to shush him when he went to say more—the grandfather clock was about to bong too.

“Can I get you lunch?” Darrell said as soon as the echoes died. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“To apologize?”

Darrell had turned up at the hospital to do just that, after his rudeness when they’d first met. And now this? Aldric was getting used to seeing patterns in his work here, and thought he detected another in his relationship with this man.

“To explain.”

“Oh. I…doubt I can get free.”

“Free? Yes, of course.” Elliot, returning with empty arms, took out his pocket watch and compared it to the grandfather clock. “You need to take lunch.”

“With Officer Williams,” Aldric said.Not sitting in the cramped kitchen here, eating a snack I bought from home, but out on a lunch date.Because that was what it sounded like was happening.

“Fine. If that’s fine with you?” Elliot raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes it is.” Aldric ducked a little to avoid anything with a reflective surface—he didn’t want to see how big his grin was.

He didn’t know any of the customers, not the older couple taking the sheet music that they’d chosen to the counter or the two younger women exclaiming over the amberina glass bowls, but Aldric felt they, along with Elliot and Jonas, watched him walk out with Darrell. It put a sway in his step. Or maybe that was all him.

There was no need to ask where they were going. The store was around the corner from the Pearl, that imposing gray building that formed one side of a huge plaza, the space attracting crowds for outdoor eating or just sitting around.

“Hey, look, isn’t that the Big Red Taco Truck? I know it follows a route around the city, but it’s here at this time? That’s good to know.” Darrell quickened his pace. “Come on!”

Aldric followed him through the animated lunchtime crowds and blinked in surprise to see that the short line of people waiting at the red truck’s counter allowed Darrell to go ahead of them. He hung back, not knowing what to do—he wasn’t a uniformed patrol officer, and it was highly unlikely anyone would mistake him for a plainclothes detective.

“Aldric?” Darrell beckoned. “I’m getting the puffy taco trio. You want the same?”

He’d never tried those, but the picture on the laminated menu displayed on the truck looked complicated. There were lots of things to drop and fall. Aldric was squeamish about eating in public, although getting a lot better with eating in front of Elliot, Jonas and even Meredith from the restaurant—she sometimes ate her lunchtime sandwich with him, saying their place was quieter and the company nicer.

“Er, could I get two fried cheese tacos, please? No garnish.” He pointed to the photo, as if anyone needed to see the folded-over cheese-filled corn tortillas. The only risk there was thequeso blancoandqueso panelafilling oozing out if he bit too hard.

“Better look for a bench,” Darrell suggested when they had been served, juggling their paper taco trays and sodas. He was carrying Aldric’s along with his own.

They found a vacant bench near the bike shop. “Thanks,” Aldric said, taking and unwrapping his food carefully. He took a tentative nibble, the paper tray on his lap and his napkin at the ready near his chin. Darrell wasn’t so reticent, taking huge bites and finishing half his Coke in one long swallow that Aldric tried not to track, even though the way the muscles of Darrell’s strong throat worked was… He tried to think of the right adjective.

“Isn’t it okay? Or not your usual choice?” Darrell pointed at Aldric’s still mostly uneaten food. “You like to eat healthy? I do if I can. If not, I work out more.” He sucked in shredded lettuce before it escaped. It should have looked icky, but the sweep of his tongue tip over his lips had Aldric fighting not to stare. “And I got no excuse, when there’s a good gym in my apartment complex, and two pools, one on the roof.”

“Not in mine,” Aldric muttered. “As you might have noticed, when fleeing into the night. What was it that did it? How trigger-happy I was?”

Darrell put what remained of his food back into its container and placed that down between them. “It’s not you.”

“It’s me.” Aldric wasn’t attempting a joke. He was one. Needy and nervous and no doubt more things beginning withn.Nerd, for instance.

“You can’t doubt I find you sexy.” Darrell lowered his voice although they were alone, and Aldric thought he began to understand Darrell’s deal. “I can’t take my eyes off that pert ass of yours.”

“You mean you want to see me again?”

“I mean I’d like to fuck you, yeah.” Darrell held the last remnants of his taco out for Aldric to taste. “You’ve never tried chili beef taco meat? It’s good.”

“Darrell?”

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