“What the hell are you doing?” my sweets asks.
“He’s hiding from you,” Jerard says, and I decide that he really should spend at least the night in a drawer. With a personality like that, no one would miss him, would they?
My one true love seems to be confused by that statement to the point that it makes his beautiful face scrunch up in bewilderment. He really shouldn’t be confused. He should just look the other way while I prepare for the new medical examiner position that’ll be opening up shortly.
“Liam, I got concerned when you said you had to drop something off down here and then younevercame back. We have dinner with my parents in like thirty minutes.”
“Jerard needed help doing his job since he was incapable of doing it without me holding his hand,” I explain.
“I really didn’t,” he says. “I literally just went to the bathroom.”
“Isn’t… isn’t your name Jesse?” Gabriel asks.
“It sure is, but he called me Jerard with such confidence that even I started to think it was Jerard. Like maybe my parents messed up and spelled it wrong on the birth certificate or something? I feel like Liam would know.”
“You don’t look like a Jesse,” I comment as I examine him. “To me, Jesse fits someone who is confident, intuitive, and intelligent.”
“I take it that means you believe I have none of those qualities,” he replies as he undoes the brakes to the table I’m on and starts to roll it toward the drawers where he keeps the bodies.
“Liam, come on. I don’t want to be late and I’m also having a hard time not feeling like this is a bit… macabre,” Gabriel says.
“I love you, Gabriel. I will see you on the morrow.” I fold my arms over my chest like a mummy as I prepare to enter the drawer.
Gabriel just stares at me, not responding that he loves me back. How dare he withhold his love because I would simply rather spend the night in a drawer made for housing dead bodies than meet his parents?
“Gabriel? I told you I love you.”
“You would honestly rather play dead than meet my parents?”
“There are a lot of things I’d rather do than meet your parents, including sitting on Sergeant Michaels’ lap and staring into his eyes as we whisper sweet nothings back and forth.”
Gabriel does not look amused or thrilled by this declaration at all. Dare I say he looks a bit… sad?
Fucking hell, how could I make him sad? I would rather someone pluck my nails off than make Gabriel sad.
Quickly, I jump off the table before Jesse can transfer me to the drawer.
“I’m coming, my love. I was just so excited to meet your parents that it knocked my breath away and Jesse here thought I was deceased. He’s rather poor at his job.”
“Please don’t ever come back,” Jesse says.
I rush up to my one true love and give him my biggest smile. “I’ve never been more excited to do something in my life.”
“You think lying will help?” he asks. “You were prepared to play dead to get out of this.”
“I’m nervous, Gabriel. I have butterflies in my tummy.”
“You’ve never been nervous in your life,” my delightful man says as he stares at me with his dark brown eyes. He’s very good at inflicting that stare on me, and it makes me want to kiss him.
Our department is big enough that we have a medical examiner’s office in the same building, which makes it nice when I want to be especially lazy. Homicide is up on the third floor, so we ride the elevator up and head to the office we share with another detective named Robinson. Originally, this was an officeonly Gabriel and I shared. Then Gabriel forced me to quit after he caught me in the act of dealing with a body, and Robinson moved in and took over my former desk. Iwouldhave kicked Robinson out and forced him to work elsewhere, but he’s proven quite useful.
Robinson owes me his life after I found out that he had been coerced into abducting Gabriel and handing him over to a serial killer. He’s quite lucky I didn’t end him where he stood and have, instead, allowed him to become my personal servant.
“Liam, I put the gifts for Gabriel’s parents on your desk,” Robinson says when I enter.
“Thank you.”
“Why did Robinson get my parents gifts?” Gabriel asks, suspiciously suspicious.
