Page 28 of Artifacts

Aldric laughed. “That’s a trick painting too, but on a tabletop? Huh, it looks so real, like we could touch the things. I nearly did, that bottle of wine hanging in the straw basket just there. I didn’t get at first that it was painted onto the wall.”

Darrell checked it out. Yeah, it did look like it was jutting out of the shopping bag and spilling out down the wall. A woman leaped forward, a Kleenex in her hand to wipe up the ‘spill’, and blushed at having been fooled.

“I guess I should get moving,” he said at last. “Not long until my shift.”

They reached the door they’d entered when Aldric exclaimed. “I need my keys back. I had to hand them in. Nearly forgot. Won’t be a second.”

“Sure…” Darrell’s attention was taken by a figure out in the garden. Well, two figures. One he knew personally.Mateo. What is he doing here?Enjoying the fountain or the abstract sculptures on the lawn, maybe? Darrell didn’t know him that well, as it turned out. But the guy with him was someone who Darrell recognized from photos he’d seen recently when looking into the Buckman family. Nick Buckman, Buck’s son by his first wife. His estranged son.Disownedwas one description he’d come across. This was a weird coincidence, and Darrell didn’t like coincidences.

“Mateo!” he called, knocking on the glass window then moving to the door. “Over here. It’s Darrell.” He thought Mateo glanced at him, then turned back to the dark-haired, intense-looking guy with him. Darrell was about to head out to the pair when a cough sounded behind him, and Aldric was there, his gaze directed where Darrell was staring.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“What? Yeah.” Mateo and Nick had moved, and Darrell couldn’t see them through the fountain’s spray or the group of people around it. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

That word again.He’d told Aldric that everything was okay, but he wasn’t sure it was.

Chapter Twelve

Aldric had never liked Sundays and hated this one especially, having spent yesterday with Darrell. He’d never liked this crappy studio apartment either, and his time in Darrell’s place yesterday had made him dislike this one more. The space and light of that apartment complex filled his mind. Darrell had everything near at hand—open around the clock, probably—whereas Aldric trudged to use the old washing machine in the laundry room of the house the garage apartment belonged to, careful to keep to the times stipulated in his rental agreement.

His next stop was the supermarket. Chores usually filled up a Sunday, but today he wanted time to himself to think about Darrell and sleeping with Darrell. He was sad when the throb in his ass, the reminder of having given himself to Darrell, ceased. His lack of sexual knowledge worried him. Not just the physical stuff, but the etiquette—if there was such a thing. Should he have left after they’d fucked? He had a small feeling Darrell might have preferred that.Didprefer that, as a rule. Aldric wished he had the confidence to thinkhadpreferred that in the past, that things were different now, with him in Darrell’s life, but he couldn’t. No matter how much he might want to.

Back home again, he lay on the couch and thought some more. He couldn’tthinkhis way into a relationship with Darrell, but he could try his best to make it happen. Look at how far he’d come. He’d asked Darrell out on a date, and Darrell had accepted. They’d spent the evening together, then the morning together the day after. And between the shared evening and the morning had been…thenight.

Aldric groaned at his renewed erection. His cock had filled at the most inconvenient times that morning—it seemed so many things reminded him of Darrell. The fresh detergent and fabric softener smell in the laundry room sparked memories of Darrell’s bedroom, with its rack of long-sleeved tees and jeans, the polo shirts and pants. The dough and sugar of the pastry counter in the store had brought back the scent and taste of the breakfast Danish Darrell had bought him. The museum program lying on his floor conjured up Darrell in all his crew-cut, broad-shouldered, freckled-nosed glory, his olive-green eyes alight with curiosity as they’d toured the rooms.

Aldric sighed and raised the borrowed Henley to his nose again, inhaling deep.I’mindeep. I got it bad.His mind raced and plotted, and he didn’t dwell on that sexy Latino guy Darrell had called out to in the museum garden, seemingly eager to speak with.Nope, not going there.He focused instead on what Darrell would be doing now if they were together…and walked his fingers down his body to his dick as he imagined.

* * * *

Darrell was wondering why his father had asked for his help when he was perfectly capable of laying garden decking all by himself. At least being given the busy work to do meant that Darrell could let his mind chew over the case. It was a serious case now, deserving of more priority than it had gotten—at least,hethought so.

Chief had already laid concrete pads on the site he’d squared off prior to Darrell’s arrival, so all Darrell had to do was cover the area in a layer of weed-control fabric. Seeing priceless works of art yesterday had made him wonder if some of the artifacts, particularly the puzzle boxes, could be valuable too. The owner and the other guy at the antique store had said those trinkets weren’t worth anything to most people, just collectors, and Randa had thought so too, happy to sell them off as a bulk lot. But what if her late husband had mixed one or more valuable ones in with the crap, maybe even on purpose, as a prank, and Randa had realized too late? Were there such things as expensive puzzles or keepsakes? Like ones made of precious gems or gold? Was that what Buck’s cast-off son had been doing at the museum, trying to find information about something along those lines?

Darrell’s lack of culture or arts knowledge had never bothered him before, but it had since meeting Aldric. He wondered what Aldric was doing today.Visiting family? Sitting alone in his place, wondering what I’m doing? Touching himself as—

“Son?”

Darrell startled, then blushed. He ducked his head, hoping to avoid his father’s focus. “Yeah. Doing it.” He tipped the gravel onto the surface he’d covered and let his thoughts drift back to the case. It was far-reaching, he suspected—or maybe his feelings were. Were his feelings for Aldric, the victim of the initial assault that had started all this, mixing themselves into whateverthiswas? He should keep a closer eye on him.Pass by the store more often. Ask other cops to.“Done,” he told his father, setting the remaining gravel down. “So, cutting the deck boards, right?” Again, his father could do that.

“Without laying squares of damp-proof course?” Chief raised an incredulous eyebrow.

Excuse me for never having laid a deck in my life.“Planning on entertaining more?” he asked his father, curious as to why he was doing this now. While he couldn’t really see his father holding drinks parties in the garden, he could see him relaxing on a lounger there even less.

“The feel of having a bigger usable living space adds to the value of the house. And the garden’s not needed now that there are no boys at home,” Chief said.

Darrell didn’t remember the swing set around the side of the house, although there were photographs of Ryan in it. Chief had replaced it with a jungle gym slash mini assault course as soon as his boys could handle it. “Oh?”

“Thinking of making that kitchen wall into a window wall, too. But the next project’s turning your room back into the extra bathroom.”

“Turning…back?” He hadn’t known his small bedroom had been a bathroom. Travis and Ryan had shared the bigger bedroom, for all Darrell was closer in age to Travis and Ryan was the baby of the family. “Are you selling the place or something?” That could make sense, with Travis now Basic Mission Qualified, and Ryan probably moving away once he’d finished training.

His father shrugged. “So, son, been busy lately since we had dinner?”

His father didn’t do idle chit chat, so his inquiry had Darrell on the alert. “A little, I guess. Why?”

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