I dumped him into my bed with the new mattress I’d bought with some of my massage money. I’d splurged on some nice sheets and pillows and a comforter with enough down to leave a flock of geese naked. Tripp grabbed me and said, “Fuck you.” Then he pulled me close and began to cry. A few minutes later, he was asleep.
I slept on the couch that night. I could have slipped in beside Tripp, but he smelled rank. I should have run him under a shower before I put him to bed. Praying he’d be better in the morning, I fell asleep.
Tripp was up before I was. He’d showered and dug through my dresser for a T-shirt to borrow. He’d squeezed into a pair of my workout shorts, but they were way too small on him. They clung pretty tightly, and as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I tried not to stare. I was still on the couch when he leaned over and examined my arm.
“Hurt?” he asked.
“Not anymore.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I appreciate your saving my life.” Then I asked, “Are you gonna be okay?”
He shrugged like it wasn’t all that important. Then he said, “Yeah. Eventually.”
“Do you need to go to a meeting?” I asked.
“Later.” He sat down on the sofa next to me. He smelled deliciously of soap and toothpaste.
“I never got to ask, when did you start to think it wasn’t me?” I asked. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t bring the whole thing up, but here I was doing it, and the poor guy was barely out of bed.
“It started with Adventure Scouts,” Aaron explained. “Carlos mentioned Eddie’s being involved with them to the press, but when I talked to Javier’s mother, she didn’t remember him being with the group. I confirmed that Javier had never been a member. It seemed a weird thing for Carlos to lie about. That’s when I started to wonder if he’d been a client. The Adventure Scouts was a way to establish a connection to Javier, an acceptable connection. Sure enough, when I talked to Carlos he said they’d kept in touch. That they talked on the phone. I asked him to give me Eddie’s number.”
“And he gave you the number Eddie used for clients.”
“Exactly.”
“Why Adventure Scouts?” I asked.
“LAPD is always under-funded. The scouts volunteer to come in to answer the phone. It was a good cover for Carlos. He had been involved with Adventure Scouts when he was with the department. A lot of kids come through the program. No one would think much about it if he said he knew Javier from the Scouts.”
“What made him think he could get away with it? He was a cop. He should have known he’d get caught.”
Tripp smiled. “Cops see all the mistakes that get made. Cops know there are always loose ends that don’t make sense. He figured Lucy would be able to make the right story out of it for him.”
“I guess she was in love with him,” I said.
He shrugged. The look on his face reminded me what it must have cost him to kill his partner.
“I never expected you to show up. How did you find me?” I asked.
“I didn’t find you. I found Lucy. After they let me out of jail, I knew if I wanted to keep you safe I had to follow her. She’d made a couple call-ins during the night. I was pretty much one step behind her all night. When she reported suspicious behavior in that neighborhood, I knew something was up.”
Then I said something that really needed to be said, “Thank you. For everything you’ve done for me.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Could we stop talking about this?”
“Sure,” I said.
Of course, if we weren’t going to talk, there was only one other thing I could think of to do. I stepped forward and slipped my arms around him. I kissed him.
His lips were warm and incredibly soft. His tongue slipped into my mouth. I teased it with my own. I ran my hands up his arms to his shoulders. His thick biceps, his ropey shoulders. I ran my hand over the back of his head. His tightly shorn hair bristled against my fingers in sharp contrast to the soft skin at the back of his neck.
He pushed me up against the back of the sofa. I pulled my T-shirt off him. Slipped off the ill-fitting workout shorts. Somehow, he’d managed to squeeze a pair of boxers under the shorts. Tripp pulled me close and kissed me again. It was wonderful. It felt like I was falling into him. He slipped my T-shirt over my head. We pressed our naked chests together. He slipped a hand down the back of my jeans. A finger slipped between my buttocks. He unzipped my jeans, and his hand made its way further down the crack of my ass, until it got to my butt hole. Using his whole hand, he made a slow circle. With the other hand, he eased my cock out of my jeans.
Unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees and began to suck me off. His mouth was hot and wet. He spun his tongue around the head of my dick, and my entire body arched. I groaned and involuntarily grabbed the back of his head, forcing him down further onto me.
He pulled back and wet his fingers. While he took my balls in his mouth, he slipped a long, thin finger into me. I spread my legs wider and looked down at him. My cock bounced against his face as he rolled one of my nuts in his mouth. His eyes opened, and I looked deep into them.
Stopping what he was doing, he sat back and just looked at me. Then he smiled. I smiled back. I felt like I was seeing him. Seeing him in a way I’d never seen another person.
With a chuckle, I got down onto the floor and pushed him
