“You look like shit, buddy. You’d better come in.” Trent held the door open and Mace slipped inside his partner’s house, grateful of the warmth. It’d been unseasonably cold for the past week, and Mace had been clocking up some long hours, working on his new case. He shrugged off his coat and went over to the fire Trent had blazing, warming his hands.
“Is it the new case that’s knocking you around? Is there anything I can help with?” Trent was still moving carefully, but he definitely seemed better than he had weeks before when he’d been knifed by a crazy bear shifter serial killer. Mace still had nightmares seeing Trent bleeding out on the ground. It’d only been the quick thinking of Gabriel, another bear shifter that had stopped his partner bleeding out before the paramedics arrived.
“I’m getting there,” Mace said, rubbing his hands together and moving to sit next to his friend. He thought about the case he’d gotten the day Dimitri had walked out on him. A woman, in her thirties, strangle marks around her throat, left in a park on the outside of town. “You know how it is. I’m fairly sure it was the husband that did it, but can’t get the evidence to prove it.”
“Another one of your hunches.” Trent was smiling as he punched Mace on the arm. “Follow the money trail. If it was the husband, it’ll either be for money or sex. You should have gotten Dimitri to do a sniff of the body. He’d probably be able to confirm it was the husband even if there’s no evidence pointing in that direction.”
Mace rubbed his hands on his thighs, suddenly uncomfortable. “Yeah. Dimitri hasn’t been around much, and let’s just say I’m not his favorite person right now.”
“What did you do?” Trent frowned at him. Oh fuck. Could he tell him? Mace and Trent had been friends since the Police Academy and they’d stuck by each other through good times and bad. Trent had seen him drunk, crying in his beer and had poured him into a cab more often than he could count. And the experience was mutual. On the streets Mace was bigger, but Trent was faster. Mace had no problems pulling a gun, while Trent was the negotiator. When it came right down to it, Trent was the closest thing to family Mace had, and they made a point of not keeping secrets from each other. Mace’d been the first person Trent turned to when he found out his fiancé was cheating on him, and the conversation they had about Trent’s fear of not being able to stay on the force after being stabbed stayed strictly between them. Mace needed to speak to someone human, and Trent was by far his best option.
After a halting start, Mace found the words pouring out. How he’d arrested Roan and felt bad about it. How Roan’d clung to him that same night in the cells. His talk with Dimitri and all that entailed; and finally how his dreams for the past week were filled with sex and despair, and that was not a winning combination for a good night’s rest.
“You’re a lucky bastard,” Trent said when Mace’d finished. “Can you even begin to imagine how freaking rare it would be to have a shifter as a mate? You’ve hit the jackpot my friend, you really have.”
“Er….” Mace was more than shocked by Trent’s reaction. He thought he knew his friend better than that. “Did you miss the part when I pointed out that Roan is male? He has a dick. No tits or squishy bits.”
“Yeah, I did, but so what?” Trent asked as he got up and went into the kitchen, coming back seconds later with two beers. “I’ve finished my medication,” he said as he saw Mace’s raised eyebrow. “I’m cleared for light duty and I stopped taking any pain medications four days ago.”
Mace nodded. He trusted his friend to know the limitations of his own body. “I can’t see myself tied down to a male for the rest of my life,” he said, choosing to answer Trent’s earlier question. “I’ve only ever been with women, you know that.”
“Apparently the same could be said for Dimitri, but he seems happy enough,” Trent said, taking a long swallow of his beer. Putting his half-filled bottle on the coffee table, Trent looked him straight in the eye. Mace swallowed. Trent could be a hard-ass when he wanted to be.
“What’s bothering you about this exactly? Is it the choice thing, because you’re human and you don’t feel the same pull? Is it because this guy is a shifter and you aren’t keen on mating with someone not quite human? Is it strictly because this individual has a dick, and you’ve never handled one apart from your own before? What are your objections specifically? Because I have to tell you, if it was me, I’d be over the moon and wouldn’t care if the guy had six tits, three dicks and was covered in purple spots.”
“Really?” Mace couldn’t see Trent being so accommodating. The man always dated small, slim brunettes. He wouldn’t even look at any other type. That’s generally what got him into trouble with the women he did date – they were all rich, spoiled and beautiful and after the lure of the badge wore off, they got pissed off because of the long hours and lousy pay.
“What’s not to be thrilled about?” Trent said, leaning over and grabbing his beer. “You’d have someone in your life who’ll love you forever. They won’t ever complain about the hours you work or the job you do because they’re focused on making you happy. You’ll never come home and find them screwing someone else in your bed because shifters mate for life.” Mace winced at that part, because that was exactly what’d happened to Trent. But it seemed his friend wasn’t finished. “You’ll always have company after a rough day and someone who’s on your side no matter what. You say this guy’s smaller than Shane and an omega, so he’ll want to look after you in every way – I can’t see the downside in this.” Trent was waving his beer around, like he did when he was on a roll, and Mace took a quick swig of his and heard his stomach rumbling. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate.
“I thought Dimitri and Shane were nuts, you know. When they first got together I mean,” Trent went on. “No one falls in love that fast, and yeah, okay, we found out they’d grown up in the same pack, but none of us knew that until afterwards. And you look at Ben and his two mates. He had Sin, who loved him madly even though he thought he was human too. Then Gabriel came along and within a week they were an established ménage or whatever you want to call it. Peter and Kalel were the same, according to Shane. Peter took one look at Kalel and he was like you, fond of the girls, never looked at a male like that. But bang, one look at Kalel and he was gone. A few web links from Shane to sort through the mechanics and they’re as happy as two peas in a pod.”
“Yeah, well I’m quite capable of finding my own gay porn links thank you very much. I don’t need Shane’s advice.” Mace shuddered at the thought of talking to Shane about his love life.
“Is he cute? You’re little guy. Is he good to look at?”
Mace thought about it. Roan had been covered in grime when he saw him, but Shane hadn’t been the only one to notice the innate beauty of the man. “Yeah, for a guy,” he said, when he could see Trent was waiting for an answer. “Small frame, thin build, could probably do with a few meals. He’s got long black hair, dark brown eyes, and a button nose. His lips are like a girl’s, full and rosy red. I don’t know what it is about those shifters, but none of them seem to be scarred, or have acne or things like that. His skin looks so smooth.”
“Did you feel anything around him at all? You know, start sporting wood, an ache in your gut, the urge to hold him?”
Mace nodded. He wouldn’t lie to Trent no matter how much he was getting embarrassed about the way the conversation was going.
“And if I told you that Sheryl from the accounting office asked if you and I wanted to double date with her and a girlfriend Friday night, what would you say?”
“I can’t.” The words were out of Mace’s mouth before he could even think about them. He wanted to take them back; going out on a date with a female was exactly what he should be doing. But as he watched Trent, who was watching him, he realized he couldn’t. The thought of flirting with a girl, no matter how nice she was, seemed like a betrayal somehow, which was totally weird. Somehow, now that Mace knew of Roan’s existence, and knew they were meant to be together, the thought of being with someone else just made him feel sick to his stomach. Or maybe he needed to eat something.
“I think I need pizza,” he said. “I haven’t eaten today, and yeah, how about I order us some pizza and we’ll watch a game or something. You up for it?”
Trent smiled and handed him his phone. “I’ll go get us a couple more beers.”