Page 8 of The Beautiful Mess

“So, who do you need me to investigate?”

“Keith Bozeman,” Kerry replied. “He’s suing me for a botched rescue.”

Dom’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed. “What happened?”

“Do you remember me talking about Chuck Dahl?” Kerry asked.

Dom’s fingers stilled, and he looked up. “Not that fuck again.”

“Afraid so. Bozeman had lost control of his car and driven over the side of a ravine. I’d already answered a call and was in the field, so Chuck responded to Bozeman’s accident. He’d radioed me with an update of the situation, and I’d instructed him to get the driver to safety first and then retrieve the vehicle.”

Dom resumed typing. “That sounded like the sensible thing to do, but I take it Chuck disobeyed orders?”

“The idiot thought it would be working smarter to pull the car up the side of the hill with the crash victim inside it.”

“Yikes,” Dom said with a grimace.

“Yeah,” Kerry agreed. “Dozens of things could go wrong in that scenario, but you only need one to cause a major clusterfuck. The crew shimmied down the hill and hooked the cables to the car. Chuck fired up the winch and started hauling it up the hillside. About halfway up, the rigging failed, and the car plummeted back down the ravine.”

Dom flinched and sucked air through his teeth. “Oh damn.”

“Uh-huh.” Kerry tipped his bottle back but noticed it was empty. Dom hadn’t even touched his beer yet. “You going to drink that?”

Dom stopped typing long enough to scoot the bottle toward Kerry. “You drink it. I’m on a case.” He resumed typing for a few more minutes, then turned his laptop around to show Kerry a picture of a middle-aged man with dull blue eyes and thin dark hair with a receding hairline. His expression was pure annoyance as he stared at the camera. Must’ve been a long wait to get his driver’s license renewed that day. “This Keith Bozeman?”

“Yep.”

Dom pushed back his chair and stood up. “Let me see what I can find out.”

Kerry stood too. “Right now?”

“Mr. Bozeman probably isn’t aware you got served tonight. I want to see how he lives before and after he knows. I’d bet money he’s desperate to live it up one last time.”

“You sound as cynical as Steven.”

Dom stowed his laptop in his messenger bag and zipped it before meeting Kerry’s gaze. “You know firsthand how deceiving and manipulative people can be.”

Kerry thought of Cynthia’s betrayal and how scared his sister must’ve been in the last moments of her life. He fought back the rising bile in his throat. Thoughts of losing Natalie naturally led to the tragedy that followed. Kerry recalled the way his dad disappeared into himself, dying a little more each day until his broken heart gave out. He didn’t want to go down that road either, so he pushed the pain away and latched onto the memory of Keegan’s gorgeous face bathed in the moonlight. His silver lining. His horny little lamb.

“Whoa,” Dom said, snapping Kerry back to reality. “Who are you thinking about right now?”

Kerry shook his head vigorously. “It’s nothing. Just thinking about those Cinnabon Delights.”

Dom chuckled. “Well, I’ll leave you alone with them. Dim the lights and enjoy.” He hooked an arm around Kerry’s neck and hugged him again. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Thanks for dinner, Dom.”

His friend waved as he headed to the door. He paused at the sofa to give Betty some love before heading out into the night. As tempting as the donut holes were, Kerry put them in the microwave for later. He needed to let off some steam, unwind before bed, and he really wanted to let his imagination and what-ifs run wild, preferably with his hand wrapped around his dick.

Was the music supposed to calm the art class or put them into a trance? Or maybe Keegan owed his fugue-like state to a night of very little sleep and not to the combination of rain patter and melodic instruments. He’d gotten back to Redemption Ridge at a decent hour, thanks to the court processor, but he hadn’t fallen asleep until a few hours before his alarm went off. Even then, his fitful slumber produced arousing dreams that stirred emotional and physical reactions best not remembered in a room full of people. He shouldn’t recall his damp skin, the tangled sheets, or his hard-on pinned between his stomach and the mattress. But Keegan’s mind went there, so the natural next memory was the way he’d eased that ache and the name he whispered as a rush of pleasure flooded his body.

“Yo, Kee,” Rueben whispered into his right ear. “Are those blue balls symbolic of something?”

“Let me see,” Sven said, muscling in from the left.

Keegan blinked to focus his eyes and nearly groaned when he saw the big, blue orbs he’d painted in the center of the canvas. He could barely recall picking up his brush, let alone choosing the three different shades of blue he’d turned into nearly perfect spheres.

Sven snorted. “It’s definitely symbolic of his unrequited pining.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Whose balls are this symmetrical? One of mine is slightly larger than the other.”

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