Page 22 of Thicker Than Water
Wyatt dips his head and shakes it, as if chastising himself for sharing so much. “I can’t tell you that. And it doesn’t matter anyway. He has an alibi for the night of the murder.”
My shoulders sag. “What kind of alibi?”
“I’ve already said too much. I want to be here for you, you know I do. But you can’t…Ican’t…” He lifts a hand into the air, a gesture of helplessness, and I pinch the space between my brows.
I know he’s conflicted—between loyalty to me and loyalty to his department—but it’s times like this when Wyatt’s job gets under my skin. I went into our first date already holding it against him. He’d sent me a message on a dating app, and when I saw his occupation in his profile, I was about to delete his words unread. All I could think about was the cop who’d been called by the prosecution to testify at Clive Clayton’s sentencing only to behave like a minion for the defense, describing the “agonizing wail” Clive emitted, “a sound of true despair like I’ve never heard before,” as Clive “realized the results of the crash.”
The results.
But something about Wyatt had hooked me anyway. In his profile picture, he had the gently scruffy face of an L.L.Bean model, but he was wearing an Eeyore T-shirt, which was so dorky and adorableI couldn’t help but look twice. Under the prompt “I Can’t Live Without…” he didn’t try to be clever like some men, who made me gag with answers likeOxygen, baby!OrYou, I hope. Instead, his response made me laugh:I can’t live without ranch dressing because, at this point, my blood is like sixty percent Hidden Valley. I liked that he used punctuation correctly, that his message asked what my favorite board games were, that he explained, in a later response, his career was something he’d never expected. He’d been coasting through business school when a police officer saved his father’s life. After that, he wanted to pay it forward, protect someone else’s parent if he could.
Our first date was at a restaurant we deemed “hipster Italian.” When Wyatt’s prosciutto appetizer arrived with two pale, skinny breadsticks crisscrossed over the top, he eyed the dish like he was apprehensive about it.Okay, he said,I’m not really sure how to do this. Then he picked up the breadsticks, wielded them like chopsticks—which, I suddenly realized, he thought they were—and flinched in surprise when they snapped between his fingers.
For our first anniversary, I bought him actual chopsticks,NOT BREADSTICKSscrawled in a tiny font across the wood, and even though we broke up a year ago, he still has them here, in his room, propped on top of his bookshelf.
Now I glance at them, feeling a twinge in my chest.
“Who else is a suspect?” I ask. “Besides the drunk and disorderly guy.”
Wyatt drags his hand over his face. “Si,” he says, weary of my questions, disappointed in my persistence. He doesn’t continue, but his eyes bolt from mine, making the answer clear.
“No,” I say. “It’sjustJason? How is that possible?”
Wyatt sighs. “When that evidence turned up in your brother’s car, they had no choice but to narrow the scope onto him.”
“So they’re just assuming he did it, blood results be damned?”
“No, they’re still waiting on the blood. And in the meantime, they’re trying to get a handle on Jason’s relationship with Gavin.”
“I told you, he didn’t have one! Not outside of work, anyway.”
Wyatt reaches for his boxers on the floor, then slides them on under the blankets, face pointed firmly away from me.
“What?” I ask, touching his arm, his skin so soft beneath my palm. He looks at my hand, and the tenderness of his gaze feels as intimate as a kiss.
“Nothing, just—” He reaches for his shirt at the foot of the bed. “They re-interviewed Jason’s colleagues this afternoon. And the consensus was that Jason seemed really stressed over the last few months. A little anxious around Gavin in particular.”
My heart drops. If the police asked people at Integrity Plus about Jason, then it’s not just Maeve anymore who knows he’s a suspect. And I can’t stand that, the image of them gossiping about him, shifting glances toward his empty desk, recalibrating their idea of him from colleague to killer.
“Of course he’s been stressed and anxious,” I say. “He’s been working his ass off for some big promotion.”
Wyatt shrugs. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I pluck up my underwear and tug it on, careful to keep myself covered. “Wyatt,youdon’t think any of this means anything, right? I mean, I assumed you’d be on Jason’s side, but if you—”
“Hey,” Wyatt murmurs. As he reaches toward me to squeeze my shoulder, I brace myself. “I’m onyourside, always.”
I bristle at that. If he was truly on my side, always, there’d have been nothing to confess after that bachelor party. He wouldn’t have had to explain how he kept downing shots, how the time between the third bar and someone else’s bed was a black hole in his mind.
“My side is Jason’s,” I say.
“I know.” He lets go of my shoulder, but the heat from his palmlingers. He stretches his arms out, yawns, then gets up to head toward the bathroom. “I need to get some sleep, my shift starts early tomorrow.” He pauses with his hand on the doorframe. “But you should stay.”
“No.” I tear back the blankets and spring from the bed like it’s scalded me. Wyatt knows I don’tstay.
He moves closer as I step into my jeans. I button them up, and Wyatt leans in. He arches, nearer and nearer, stopping only once his mouth is inches from mine.
“Can I kiss you goodbye?” he asks.
