The Witness Wore a Puppy Tail, chapter 24 (Patreon)

By the time Ken got home, excitement and exhaustion both had him in their jaws. He wasn’t sure if he was tired enough to sleep for a week or too wired to sleep at all. He unlocked his front door and then stood just inside trying to figure out what he should do. What he could do.

The bathroom door opened, and Robert appeared followed by a cloud of steam that spread like a fog through the squat upstairs hall. “Hey, you’re home. I was going to go out for some groceries, but the cop you have following me looks a little cranky. I didn’t want to get in an argument with him over whether I should be buying peanut butter by myself.”

“What?” Ken’s brain failed to engage for a critical second.

Robert started down the stairs. “The cop. That is a cop that’s been dogging my steps, right?” Robert stopped and poked his finger at Ken. “And that is not an invitation to make dog jokes. But seriously. Tell me that’s a cop. It wasn’t a stalker, is it?” He sounded much less confident now.

“It’s not a stalker,” Ken said. He knew if he left it there, Robert would pick up on his misdirection, so he threw out the best distraction he had in his arsenal. “We think we have your three attackers identified.”

“Seriously? They’re in jail?” Robert actually bounced on his toes, and he sounded so excited that Ken hated to break the bad news.

“Slow down. We’re still investigating, and the DA won’t let us arrest anyone until we have the evidence in place.”

“What?” Robert’s voice grew shrill. “You have the witness statements. Man, put them in a line up, and I will point those little shits out, no problem.”

Ken sank down onto the couch. “And this is where we’ve just been hoisted with our own petard. Gary won’t let us use any evidence from you to make our prima facie case. We have officers on each of the three and we’re working on pinning down their movements and friends, but until we have enough evidence to compel them to offer up DNA or fingerprints, we are playing it slow and safe. Very slow.” 

Ken only hoped that it would also be very safe. Now that the three idiots knew the police were near, Ken wasn’t sure what they would do. A few serial killers had messy and dramatic shootouts with police, but that was the exception, not the rule. These kids had been raised on Columbine and mass shootings. If they had access to guns, this could get even uglier. He’s shared his fears with Carol, but Ken understood that the DA wanted to convict these three—not simply arrest them.

Robert came the rest of the way down the stairs. “Fuck,” he said softly.

“Exactly.” Ken stared at the silent television. “I need a beer.”

“I’ll get it,” Robert said before Ken could lever himself up off the couch. In seconds, he was back with two beers and he offered Ken one. “I should look up that saying. I have no idea what a petard is, although in this case, I get the feeling it’s the stupid way I pushed into this case and stomped all over your evidence.”

“Eh.” Ken shrugged. Both of them had contaminated Robert’s value as a witness. “The captain is spreading that blame around. And a petard is a bomb.”

“Really?” Robert sat on the far end of the couch.

“Yep.” One of Ken’s Army instructors had a whole course on commanders who got hoisted with their own petards, and half way through it, he had given a pop quiz on the definition of a petard. Ken and most of the rest of the class had then been subjected to a lecture about the shortcomings of people who only assumed they understood a concept and never bothered to look it up.

“So we were lifted by our own bomb?” Robert didn’t sound convinced.

“Petards were used to blast through an enemy’s walls. If you didn’t set it right or if your equipment was malfunctioning, you were going to get blown straight up into the air in many bloody little pieces.” Ken used his free hand to mimic body parts raining down from the sky.

Robert grimaced. “Okay, that’s a disturbing image.”

“It probably matches how the captain is feeling about us. But now that we have names, they won’t get away with it. All three are in their teens—two seventeen and one eighteen. And trust me, none of them are geniuses.” Ken never would have identified Carl as one of the three if it weren’t for the fact that he ran.

“So, can I go back to my apartment?” Robert’s voice had a strange catch.

Ken’s gut knotted. “I would prefer if you didn’t. All three have patrol officers sitting outside their house, but I would not want you alone in a place where they know how to find you.”

Robert nodded and leaned back against the couch before taking a long drink. “But we’re in the end game now, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good.” Robert blew out a long breath. “Oh, I should get details for the story I’m writing. Can you tell me the suspects’ names?”

Ken rolled his head to the side and gave Robert a disbelieving look.

“Hey! This is a big story. I could get my story into actual newspapers that people actually read. It’s a vicious job market out there for reporters.”

“And before you get a job, I’ll lose mine!” Ken slammed his beer down on the coffee table hard enough that some sloshed out the narrow neck. He wanted to hit someone… preferably himself. He’d fucked up by giving Robert the information and he couldn’t control the man any more than he could single handedly stop a tornado.

“What?” For a second, Robert started at him, but then slowly the confusion was replaced with shock. “Did you break confidentiality rules to tell me this?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I think that’s my line.” A band tightened around Ken’s chest—the same sort he got every time he fucked up and couldn’t see how to fix his mistake before someone found it.

“Oh no. No way. You are not assuming I would screw you over.” Robert had the nerve to puff up as if he were the injured party.

Now Ken was confused. “You said you wanted the scoop.”

“Yeah, but only if other people had access to it and were too stupid to put the pieces together. I mean, if you filed public paperwork, I would be very happy to take advantage of public records to swoop in and make myself look like an investigative genius for keeping an eye on the precinct records. But I would never screw you over for a job. Never.” Robert had a fierceness to his voice that surprised Ken.

Robert leaned back into the couch. “You put me before your job and your stupid rules, and yes I know the rules aren’t technically stupid, but they do get in the way of common sense way more than they should. But the fact that you, a cop, cared more about me freaking out and feeling scared than your rules. Okay, I’m floored.”

Ken picked his beer up and studied Robert for a minute. He had a dazed expression that Ken truly couldn’t understand. “I might be insulted that you have such a low opinion of me that you’re shocked when I act like a human being.”

Using his beer bottle, Robert circled the air in Ken’s general direction. “This whole thing? This is not acting like a human being. A human being would have told me that the case was under control and I shouldn’t worry.”

“Would that have worked?”

“Hell no,” Robert blurted. Again, a look of wonder crossed Robert’s face. Ken knew a dozen people who had put their jobs or their asses on the line for him, and it broke him that Robert seemed to have so few expectations. He wasn’t the idealistic optimist everyone seemed to assume. “But that’s what humans do. They fill the air with empty talk. Hot air. And cops? I thought all of you were anal-retentive types with a terminal case of stick-up-your-butt-itis. But you put your job on the line for me.” 

“Look who’s talking,” Ken teased. “I'm not the one who puts stuff up his butt,” Ken said with a perfectly straight face. For a second, he only got silence.

Robert then broke out into the world’s biggest smile. “I happen to love having my ass stuffed, but at least I don't have a stick that's filed for permanent citizenship up there.”

“But you'd like to.” Ken smiled as he turned the corner.

“And here I thought you had something more interesting than a stick to offer,” Robert said in exaggerated disappointment. “But maybe you just think I'd be happier with a stick.”

Ken made a production out of thinking about that. “All good little puppies need a stick to be happy. If I have to share you with a stick, I can live with that.”

Robert blushed. He ducked his head, but with the overhead light on, he couldn’t hide the vivid shade of red. His whole neck was changing color. “Any time,” he said, but his voice cracked. Ken thought back to all the times Robert had insisted he never had sex with clients, and that claim looked a lot more plausible now. Robert looked almost shy.

Ken cleared his throat. “We have three suspects to get through their trials, so you may have to make due with a stick for a while.”

“No biggie.” Robert’s shrug airily dismissed the whole issue.

Up until this moment, Ken had assumed that Robert was an experienced man who would set his own limits in a relationship. He had also assumed that Robert was much more about talk than follow through. Now, he wasn’t sure they were on the same page. “Hey, maybe we should talk.”

“Oh, that is never a good opening line.” Robert set his open beer to one side.

“I just think we’ve been teasing each other, and maybe it’s time to talk instead.”

Robert nodded slowly. “You mean I’ve been teasing you, and now you want to let me down easy. No problem. I’ve been let down by way better than you. Way worse, too.” He laughed, but the sound had a brittle edge.

“That’s not what I said.”

Robert stood and retreated to the foot of the stairs. “You don’t have to explain. Look, I’m tired, and I have a lot of school work to catch up on. Ton. Shit tons. I have not been reading my textbooks, so I should go spend some quality time with them. Do you want the bedroom or the couch?”

“I like you,” Ken blurted before he could lose his nerve. Robert froze, his eyes large with shock. Ken continued. “I admire your ethics and your willingness to say what you think, even when it makes people question your character. That sort of confidence is sexy.”

Putting his hand on the hand rail, Robert took a cautious step closer. “This is a strange break up speech, not that I’m complaining because I always like compliments.”

Ken stood, but he stayed by the couch so they had some distance between them. “I don’t expect anything from you. It could be months or years before this legal mess is sorted, and I can’t endanger the case.”

Robert’s nodding had an almost musical rhythm as if he was listening to a rap beat. “I know. We already talked about this. So we don’t do anything until all these assholes are put behind bars. I’m more than okay with that, especially since I’m emotionally invested in making them pay for what they did to my community.”

The man had to be intentionally misunderstanding Ken. He had to. “I don’t expect you to…” Ken stopped. Maybe he had hoped Robert might wait for him, but that was a ridiculous expectation. The bigger issue was that Ken was a possessive bastard who didn’t want to share. He focused on being more honest. “I’m not good with casual sex, and I don’t want to make this awkward.”

“I’m missing something.”

Ken sighed. “For a bisexual man, I’m old fashioned, and I don’t handle the idea of casual hook ups very well.”

Robert frowned. “Are you asking me to go steady?”

“What? No.” Ken collapsed back onto the arm of the couch. Conversations with Robert were impossibly exhausting. “Not really. I’m intentionally not asking you because that would put you in an impossible position.”

“Why?”

Ken stared at Robert, not even sure where to start. 

Robert rolled his eyes as if Ken were the one being difficult. “I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t have sex with clients. So how much sex do you think I have?”

“More than I do,” Ken said with confidence.

Robert snorted. “Doubt it. I mean, sure, I had my whole questioning phase where I landed in a bunch of beds, but that was when I was sixteen and stupid.”

“Everyone is stupid at sixteen.”

Robert threw his hands up. “Thank you. I keep telling my father that, and he’s… okay, we’re not going to talk about my father. But anyway, I have school and the school newspaper and the website and my job and the tutoring and my various on-campus jobs, and I’m tired. My right hand is regularly pissed at me because I fall asleep on it in the middle of sex. If you and I can’t have sex until all these trials are over, I’m pretty sure that means I go back to normal. No biggie.”

For a time, Ken could only start at Robert as he tried to find the words to explain the obvious truth. “We’re talking about having to wait a year. I’m not asking you to do that.”

“Nope. I’m offering.” Robert smiled. “Besides, I happen to think you’re worth waiting for.”

This time Ken gave the disbelieving grunt. “Don’t bet on it. I’m withdrawn and I get in moods where I refuse to talk because I don’t deal with my feelings. My last relationship ended because I was fed up with being told I had to actually engage another person before I could call it a relationship.”

“I’m easy. Tie me up and give me a bone, and I don’t require much conversation.” Robert wrinkled his nose. “Hell, I’m not good at humaning. I would rather be a dog. It’s easier. So if you’re shitty at sharing your deep inner feelings, I’m kinda okay with that.”

Ken wasn’t sure how they had gone from the need cut this off to sharing their dysfunctions. “Maybe you don’t need the sex, but I’m also not going to engage in any bondage until these trials are over.”

“No problem. I have any number of clients who are more than willing to tie me up.”

Ken flinched at the idea of someone else tying Robert up, but he had no right to tell the man what to do. Even if they were in a relationship, he wouldn’t do that. He would, however, quietly hate the idea of someone else having such intimate access to a lover. 

A lover.

No matter what Ken did to fortify his heart, Robert kept blasting right through the walls. Hope was a dangerous emotion, and it fluttered in Ken’s chest promising so much. The trials could take a year or longer, and realistically, Robert would find someone to move on with before then. Ken spent his days with people who were older and married, but Robert had a college campus full of sexually charged young people looking for a caring and passionate man to share their bed.

But maybe for a while, Ken could pretend that when all this was over, Robert would still be in his life. 

“I hope you left some hot water,” Ken said as he headed for the stairs. At this point, the only safe strategy was to change the topic.

“Cold showers are good for you. Consider it practice for the next year,” Robert said without much sympathy.