He’s been avoiding me, my Muse—turning his back when I most need him. I decided to wing it, going it alone. I can do this thing, I said.

He cocked a hip, perky buns and stilettos daring me. Go ahead beeyotch, see how far you get, he said. You’re nothing without me.

Bennie beckons, I chortled.

(WTH is that sound anyway? Is it a grunt, a guffaw, a giggle, a snort? All of that, something else? Mr. Buff does that to me, distracts with taut definition and veins popping to the tune of lust and longing.)

He’s not the only one…

I knew this truth. There were others, so many I swam daily with sharks peeling flesh, a sliver at a time. It’s Matt, isn’t it? You love them wounded, he’s wounded, so pony up, big boy, gimme words, lotsa words I said. To empty space.

I wrote three chapters, nearly 10000 prayers to strain and pain, and he tipped his hat at the effort, and I said, See, I can do this thing…

He sat down, peeled the boots, the soft pleather in satin ebon, shiny and boldly going where I yearned, up thighs thick and slick and smooth and so manly it near derailed me every time. The chair looked hard, you know the kind. Slatted back, seat dipped to cup pert cheeks, but he slides forward, leans back…

Good try, girlfriend, good try.

I huffed. It’s not the only game in town. He sprawled, legs thrust, careless, inviting. I might have licked my lips, they were wet, I was wet…

The keys clicked in rapturous, sonorous despair. He touched. I touched.

There was no snide sneer nor smirk nor sneaking hint at told you so, it’s so not now with the sweetheart implied, he always implies, but this… this time, oh fucking hell, this time he preened and plucked and posed and pretense plummeted…

Taking me, hurling me into the truth, his truth, what he’d known all along and all the baiting and the whimpers and the clenching, clutching thighs did naught but reveal the one name and sad ache of wrongness.

I didn’t… I thought… 

He sipped and toasted to the slow dawn of awareness, nodding his approval.

Det. Aaron Masters. He’s newly minted, having just graduated college and passed the tests, earning his shield and a desk in the 10th precinct servicing the Chelsea area. While earning his degree, he spent nearly 10 years teamed with Joe Mahoney, a 28 year veteran with a head for numbers and an ear to the ground in major crimes.

The trouble with having access to too much information… sometimes it comes back to bite you in the ass. Joe, a typical Irishman, suddenly goes quiet, hitting the bottle and then his wife. It doesn’t take long for Joe’s life to end up in the crapper. The brass don’t want to lose an asset so he’s shuffled to a desk job, out of sight, out of mind.

Masters looks out for Joe as best he can. While he’s settling in to his new post, it’s natural to lose track of people you used to be close to. Days become weeks and then comes the call no one ever wants, taking Aaron to the docks and a shocking scene. It’s his best friend, his father figure, his mentor. They’re calling it a suicide.

Aaron knows better.

Aaron is tasked with breaking the news to his second family—to Marge, the woman wronged by Joe, and to the son Joe had thrown out of the house for being gay.

Shane Mahoney survived and prospered in spite of his family turning their collective backs on him. He worked his way through college and at age 26 manages to combine a day job slinging hash to the breakfast crowd and his evening avocation, performing in the largely gay bars as singer and dancer.

Aaron hasn’t seen Shane in years. The last time was watching the 17 year old pimple-faced, scrawny boy haul ass toward the subway, carrying everything he owned in a single duffel bag. This Shane is no longer that boy—he’s a man with a dancer’s body, a lazy smile and a come hither look that could sink ships.

When they shake hands, Aaron feels the closet door he’s been hiding behind all his life spring open. It’s too bad Shane doesn’t share that sensation. After all, Aaron was there when the old man pitched him out onto the streets. He sees Joe Mahoney and Aaron Masters as two peas in a homophobic pod. Not worth his time or a second glance…

Except for one thing, both men share the feeling that Joe’s death wasn’t a suicide. Shane might have despised his father for being a close-minded bigot, but he was still his father, and the man he once adored and looked up to wasn’t a man who gave up. Ever.

When Aaron Masters starts asking questions, Shane Mahoney pays attention. What they discover will turn everything they think they know about Joe and about themselves on its ear.

As I slip, slither, slide into the sucking maw of cop cars burping impatience, the cement cracking and buckling beneath my feet, the stench and aroma and bouquet of unwashed and primped peacocks, the hush of insanity, the roar of expectation, the good, the bad, and the uncommitted…

I whisper thank you but he’s disapparated, he’s inside now, snugged tight.

I grin, wanting the last word hashtag am writing you bastard, but he already has it, he owns it, he always has…