Page 39 of Eternally Devoted

“You guys going together, or?” I smile, trying to infuse the space with humor after so much murder chat. Sterling’s cheeks flush and Dash’s head rears back.

“What? No. You have two bathrooms, don’t you? If you don’t, I’ll wait. I’ll just wait,” Dash says, his words smashed together, eyes wide. Sterling moves past us down the hall, and a moment later the bathroom door shuts.

It is quiet between us. Dash’s eyes linger where Sterling just stood. Quietly, I broach the topic. “Do you admit it to yourself, or do you never admit it?” I ask Dash, the soft sound of the exhaust fan trickling down the hall.

“Admit what?” he asks, blinking up at me with tired but beautiful gray eyes.

“That you’re attracted to Sterling.”

My heart races as the words float, hanging with zero ambiguity between us. If he isn’t ready to face this, who am I to push him? Then again, I’m massively outside my comfort zone right now, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to pay off.

“I didn’t want to tell the truth about all the terrible things I’ve done,” I whisper. “But now that I am, I feel a lot better.”

“But if we’d have stormed out of here in shock and disgust, you wouldn’t feel better. You’d be miserable. And you’d say to yourself,why did I do that? Why didn’t I just keep it inside?” he says, insecurity wavering in his voice. I fall to a crouch, draping my hands on his knees, locking onto his timid gaze.

“He will not feel disgusted if you share how you feel,” I tell him.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he finally says after his eyes search mine for a baited, quiet moment. I don’t want to push, I really don’t. But I see things that Dash doesn’t.

The bathroom door clicks open. I get to my feet, joining Dash, his chest grazing Sterling’s as they pass in the hall.

“You’re brave, doing all the things you’ve done,” Sterling says, standing with one arm poised above the sliding door as he stares out into the early hours of a new day.

Coming up behind him, I have the strongest urge to loop my arms around his waist, to press my shoulder to the center of his strong back, and feel his hands come down over mine. I need him in that way, I always have. But it wouldn’t be complete without Dash, and as he returns from the bathroom, it’s not the right time.

“He ate the jam, and then what?” Dash asks, settling into his spot on the couch, his cheeks still flush from our private conversation a moment ago.

“So I showed up, planning on convincing him to taste the jam, you know,” I admit, a shiver rolling down my spine. I didn’t want to seduce him to kill him, but I would have if it came down to it. “Good thing is, Howard Cox’s impulse control didn’t stop with Judy. When he didn’t answer the door, I went around the back and slipped in through his mud room window and found him passed out on the living room floor.” I look between them, remembering the jar of jam open on the counter, the preserves I worked so hard to formulate spread over an assortment of male sex toys. “He ate it, but he was also using it with a few male toys…” I trail off, disgusted by just the flashback.

“Male toys,” Sterling repeats. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Bless him, I believe that. And it does nothing for the pressure brewing in my ovaries. “I didn’t either.” I look at Dash, whoseneck and cheeks go cherry. “I’m only thinking you may know because you’re younger,” I tell him, fighting back a smile.

Amidst many sleepless nights, I’ve thought about this. How they touch themselves. What face they make at the beginning and how it evolves when they orgasm, the sounds they may make, what they watch, the way they twist their wrists or don’t. Do they stroke fast? Hard? Slow and long? I. Have. Thought. About. This.

“I don’t—” He sinks into the couch, sifting a hand through his hair before reaching behind him to yank off his hoodie with one hand. As he does, his t-shirt rises up, and I watch Sterling’s eyes flash on the strip of bare skin before coming back to mine. “I don’t use toys—I don’t really want to talk about this,” he says decidedly, his knee bouncing as he looks between us.

“I masturbate,” I say, pulling my hair off my face, quickly twisting it into a loose braid. “Sterling masturbates, too.”

Sterling’s jaw falls open and Dash’s eyes go dark.

“Everyone masturbates. Not everyone uses toys, but toys are not something to be embarrassed about.” Dash still says nothing, so I don’t press. “Well, it was this sleeve thing. Like a silicone or rubber thing, he was clearly having intercourse with. And he was using my jam as lube.”

“That sounds… sticky,” Sterling comments, a grimace twisting his features.

Dash shakes his head. “Jam as lube?”

“Probably fantasizing about you,” Sterl adds.

Dash nods. “Fucking prick.”

“He also had a lot of alcohol in his house. There were empty bottles everywhere. I took some of the drugs and planted them in his house. Then I planted more drugs. Nightstand drawer. Some in the kitchen. Put some in his car. Then I put some in his pocket, for good measure, held a couch pillow over his face for two minutes and thirteen seconds, and left. I banked on himhaving enough assault arrests and charges pressed against him from Judy that finding him overdosed in a sea of booze and drugs wouldn’t warrant any real investigation.”

Dash tips his chin. “You were right. We only have a few open cases in Bluebell, and none of them are linked to the Missing Misters, somehow.” He pauses, almost impressed. “I’ve never heard the name Howard Cox until tonight.”

“Damn, that… worked out well,” Sterling says. “I feel like I need a cigarette after all this.”

“You don’t smoke,” I tell him as I get to my feet and shove another log onto the fire.

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