Spencer yawned and stretched as she finished up the paperwork on a client. After pizza she and Larkin decided to try and figure out who the woman was that Alan had supposedly been involved with. After she ditched Joffrey, that is.
Freak. He sent chills of distaste up her spine and she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was about him that she didn’t like. Except his television commercial hair and cool, smug attitude. Gross, he was just gross and even if he was her life mate—she didn’t give a rat’s fuzzy ass—he wasn’t signing on for the lifetime plan in Spencer’s world. Not ever.
And then there was Larkin. Tough, hot-headed, brash and a consummate lover. He made her ache with just thought of him and she’d known him less than a week. She’d boinked him in less than a week. Did that make her a trampy vamp?
She giggled. Larkin was everything she shouldn’t become involved with and maybe that was part of his appeal. He was also human.
Human, human, human. That alone should have been her first big neon sign. But no, why not take your first dip into the lake known as sexual without so much as testing it.
Hell, she’d done a half gainer off the back wall right into the deep end, but she couldn’t summon up any good reason why she shouldn’t. So he was human…and a cop…a cop who had suspicions about her family’s involvement in Alan’s death.
Spencer hoped to assuage those assumptions on Larkin’s part. But what would happen when he was done investigating Alan’s death? Spencer figured he’d go home, wherever that was.
Note to self—ask Larkin about warm, fuzzy shit.
So probably this was just a fling. Okay. She was a big girl. She could deal with that—she would deal with that. She tapped the pen in her hand against her desk and ignored the butterflies in her stomach.
“Hey, gorgeous. How’s smellin’?”
Spencer’s head snapped up at the sound of her brother’s voice and she flew around her desk, throwing her arms around his neck. “Ethan! You smart-ass! Leave my damn nose alone, will you? How are you?”
Ethan hugged her tightly and swung her around. “I’m good.”
Spencer looked into his dark, handsome eyes. When he’d gone away a month ago, he wouldn’t talk about what was troubling him. He just said he needed time to figure some things out and left. Her parents had given him their full support, because they were nothing if not supportive, loving parents, but Ethan’s departure left Spencer unsettled and it was obvious he still wasn’t ready to talk about what was going on. “Really? I mean, you can talk to me, Ethan. You know that, right?”
Ethan gave her another squeeze, avoiding her eyes. “I do know that, Spencer, and we will, I promise you. Lemme get settled in and then we’ll talk. So what’s new with you? Anything exciting in the embalming business?”
Lost virginity, death, mayhem, mind reading, possibly murder…nah, nuthin’ new. “Well, we did have a sort of exciting moment or two with a recent customer.” Spencer figured it would be all right to tell Ethan. He wasn’t just her brother, he was her friend, yet another reason she’d felt so slighted when he’d left with hardly a word.
“No shit? What happened?”
Spencer patted him on the shoulder to put her down and they sat together in her office chairs. “Well, we had a guy in here and after I’d already embalmed him the freakin’ coroner’s office decided he was possibly murdered and they took him back. Which of course you know means they’ll hack him all up. It’s pissing me off too.”
Ethan’s mouth hung open before he snapped it shut. “The coroner couldn’t tell he was murdered? What the hell is that about?”
Spencer shook her head, her hair falling in her eyes. “They thought he committed suicide, but it turns out maybe not. I felt awful for poor Alan.”
Ethan’s face grew more pale than normal. “Alan,” he said through compressed lips.
“Yeah, Alan Perkins. His mom was a wreck and there’s this cop, Larkin McBride—he’s investigating this mess. He’s a long story, but he’s a friend of Alan’s and he couldn’t figure out why Alan would kill himself. Apparently Alan’s life was pretty peachy. Anyway rumor has it, and you have to keep your big mouth shut about this, there was a suicide note. Seems Alan was distraught over his girlfriend and he killed himself.”
Ethan’s face grew still, his eyes wide. “Girlfriend?”
Spencer noted the alarm in his voice and cocked her head. “Yeah, his girlfriend. What’s wrong, Ethan?” She gripped his hand, his fingers shaking in her grasp. “Ethan! You’re scaring the shit out of me. What’s wrong?”
His jaw tightened. “I thought I could wait until later to talk to you, because I do need to talk. But Alan…” he said Alan’s name on a sigh. “Alan Perkins, the Alan Perkins I know—knew, didn’t have a girlfriend.”
Spencer’s eyes were wide and her stomach was in knots. Her instincts told her something really bad was about to happen. Oh, God…”You knew Alan Perkins? Thirty-four, lived on Applegate Lane?” The disbelief and alarm in her voice was evident.
A silence fell between them as she watched Ethan struggle to answer. It was thick and heavy, thudding in Spencer’s ears.
When her brother finally answered, Spencer sat in stunned silence. “I knew him. We were lovers.”
* * * *
Spencer blinked. Well, holy fucking not a heterosexual.
She bit the inside of her cheek because any words she might have hoped to say were stuck in her throat like peanut butter. She didn’t give a flip that Ethan was gay. The statement didn’t sting at all. What she did give a flip about was that he’d never shared that with her and she’d never had a clue.
Now that stung.
Her brother sat before her sharing a personal, intimate detail of his life and she’d been so damn wrapped up in herself she’d never known. She’d never once even suspected it. “I—I—don’t…” Her words were thick and slow.
“You don’t what, Spencer? Know what to say because your brother is a fag?”
Spencer slapped him hard, with all of her might right across his cheek with uncontrolled fury—that he would ever even consider saying that to her made her insane with anger.
His head snapped back, but he looked her dead in the eye when Spencer exploded like a cherry bomb. “You fucking, selfish bastard! Don’t you ever say something like that to me! Not ever, do you hear me? I had no clue you were gay or otherwise and you didn’t think that I was important enough to share that with. Don’t you go throwing labels around at me like daggers! I didn’t know what was wrong when you left, Ethan, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have cared if it was because you were gay. How dare you come back here and say something like this to me without giving me a chance to even understand what was going on. We’ve always told each other everything and this—this very important facet of your life has been a secret that you didn’t think I’d be understanding about—sensitive to? Screw—you!” she roared at him.
God damn that hurt—like an open wound with a pinch of salt thrown in it. To think he didn’t tell her because he thought…What did he think? How dare he do her thinking for her.
She jumped up out of her chair and headed for the door, but Ethan grabbed her and held her tight. “I’m sorry, Spencer, that was crappy of me.”
Spencer’s body shook with rage as she struggled against his hold. “You’re Goddamn right it was. How dare you judge me!”
He gave her a light shake. “I’m sorry, Spencer. I’m sorry. It’s a knee jerk reaction.”
“To what, Ethan? To strangers, maybe. But not your damn sister.”
“Then listen to me, okay? Let me tell you about this. Let me tell you about Alan.”
Spencer took deep gulps of air to calm her. Alan. Oh, Jesus. Ethan had been involved with Alan. The knowledge sank like a bar of soap in water. “Okay, I’ll listen. Let me go.”
Ethan let her free of his arms and tugged her with him to the chairs. He ran a hand through his sandy, blond hair. “Alan and I were lovers.”
“Yeah, I heard that part. Get to the point.” She wasn’t ready to let her anger go just yet.
“We met a few months ago at a club.”
The Hole. She’d bet her fangs on it.
“At a place called the Hole,” Ethan continued. “We were pretty heavily involved, but Alan wasn’t cool with the gay thing. We were always sneaking around and I was sick of it. So I gave him an ultimatum and told him either we came clean or it was over. Alan chose over and I gotta tell ya, I didn’t think he was that much of a phobic. I really believed he loved me enough to come out of the closet.”
Spencer narrowed her eyes. “The way you loved us enough, Ethan?”
Cupping Spencer’s chin, he pierced her gaze with his. “I do love you all, Spencer, but I can’t think of a single one of us who’s gay. Not a single vamp in the clan. Mom and Dad are always talking about life mates and the girl of my dreams. How the hell was I supposed to tell them it was the ‘man’ of my dreams?”
Spencer’s anger vanished, dissipating into the pull of emotion that was their bond as brother and sister. She pushed the hair from his eyes. “Okay. I understand, but I think you know me better than to ever believe I would judge your choice of lifestyle.”
“It’s a freaky, alone thing, Spencer, and Alan didn’t make it any easier. He was always looking over his shoulder.”
“Which I’m sure perpetuated your feelings about telling us. So, you broke up?”
“Yeah and it was bad. Really bad. I felt like shit, Spencer.”
Her expression softened. “Because you were in love…”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t willing to hide from everyone and I left because I knew if I didn’t, Alan and I would fall back into the same old bullshit. It was a vicious circle, so I cut it off completely and now—he’s dead,” he croaked.
She heard the pain in Ethan’s voice. Saw the slight tremble of his bottom lip before he bit it. Most of his sorrow over losing Alan had been spent while he was away and now he’d come back home to more. “Did Alan know about you, Ethan—about us?”
Ethan nodded, his face a mask of sorrow. “Yeah, and what’s really messed up is Alan wasn’t as worried about the vampire shit as he was about the gay shit. He freaked out at first, but when I told him I had no desire to bring him to the dark side and gave him a couple of days to think about it—everything was cool. I just couldn’t live the way Alan wanted to live. I wasn’t going to sneak around for the rest of my life. Which we both know is long.”
Spencer shook her head, sharing his sorrow. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I don’t know what to say, but you have to tell someone Alan wasn’t involved with a woman.” She held back sharing the absolute and utter dread she felt because she knew she had to tell Larkin.
Ethan let his head hang low, but his voice held a tremor. “You don’t think he killed himself over me, do you?”
Spencer squeezed his hand. “Brother, I have a lot to tell you. Come feed with me and we’ll talk some more.”