Page 14 of Jace's Secret
“Did you get the background check back on that chef in the arson case?” Sandra asks, utterly unfazed by his revelation.
“Yeah, I’ll forward it to you. Nothing obvious popped up,” Garrett replies.
“Well, congratulations, as the kids might say,” Ralph says. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“He isn’t my boyfriend. And I don’t want to associate with anyone who says ‘as the kids might say’ because now you just sound fucking old. And if you’re fucking old, then so am I.”
Ralph gets distracted by a platter of donuts that gets put down on the table.
“Near a crime scene, huh? Who hasn’t felt a fervent need to get off after some of the shit we’ve seen?” Sandra murmurs behind her coffee cup.
“So fucking stupid,” he mumbles. “I was just… I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“I’m not even gonna say anything,” she jokes. “But we’ve all been there. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
Ralph has gone oddly quiet. There’s powdered sugar on his lip. “Look, I just wanted to give you a hard time, but I’ll get her to drop it. It isn’t a big deal.”
Garrett sighs. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever come to work disappointed there wasn’t a crime to solve.” He finishes his coffee and they start the meeting.
There are always more cases.
7
He runs Jack’s address later that afternoon. He might be acting on a hunch. Or not. But if other people are looking into Jack, then Garrett wants to make sure there aren’t any surprises. Maybe he should have checked him out right after they slept together.
Anyway, it turns out the surprises are vast and important.
First of all—and most important—his name isn’t Jack. It’s Jace.
Jace Matthews.
Which isn’t a name Garrett has forgotten. When he met Jace, it was during a police raid. The boy’s parents had been killed, he’d been abducted, and they’d managed to find him after only a few hours and before anything sexual could occur, but the boy had still been through an incredibly traumatizing experience and lost his entire family.
He’d had no one. Jace had gone to an orphanage, and it had broken Garrett’s fucking heart. And so he’d sent Jace a stuffed animal every Christmas, as some pathetic attempt to do something from a distance when he couldn’t do anything personally.
And to think he’d seen all those stuffed animals on Jace’s bed. In fact, he’d been fucking Jace’s sweet hole with the goddamned elephant he’d sent the boy only a few inches away. Garrett had found it so unsettling to be having sex with someone so much younger than himself that having a goddamned stuffie beside him was over the limit of what he could stand, and he’d elbowed it off the couch.
Now it turns out he’s the one who gave him said stuffie. This is a fucking disaster.
Does Jace know Garrett is the one who saved him? Doesn’t he have to? Does Jace remember being carried out in Garrett’s arms, wrapped in a blanket? Does he remember being examined by the EMTs and then taken to the hospital? He’d clung to Garrett, so shocked that he didn’t even cry.
Jace has to know. Is that why he gave Garrett the wrong name?
Maybe Garrett should drop it, but he can’t. He has to talk to Jace and figure this out.
He heads to the hospital Jace works at on his lunch break. He finds Jace leaning against the reception desk on the fifth floor. ICU. He’s staring down at some papers, pen cap tapping gently against his bottom lip as he reads. Garrett will not let the gesture give him any ideas about what other things might be tapped against that sweetly full lower lip.
Scrubs aren’t all that flattering, and there’s no good reason to examine the young man too closely since this will be the last time he sees him, but there’s something about him that Garrett finds irresistible. And even though the scrubs aren’t tight, the boy’s firm, round butt is visible.
This. Is. A. Fucking. Nightmare.
Someone calls Jace’s name and gestures toward Garrett. Jace looks up, a frown on his face. Then he blinks in shock, expression utterly blank as they make eye contact. Jace opens his mouth to say something, snaps it shut, and gestures to go down the hall. They go into a small room with three unconscious patients and a low hum of machinery.
“Comas. Been here for ages,” Jace says before Garrett can complain. “What do you want?”
“Uh, well, there are a few things. There’s a reporter who might contact you—”
“She did. I told her to fuck off.” Jace grimaces. “Okay, I told her I wasn’t interested, but the result is the same.”
