riptide_asylum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riptide_asylum) wrote2012-09-08 09:17 pm
riptide_asylum) wrote2012-09-08 09:17 pm
Entry tags:
"All That Glitters (Sometimes Turns Out to Be Gold)" (Other, 1984)
Title: All That Glitters (Sometimes Turns Out to Be Gold)
Rating: R
Summary: How Nick and Cody found each other in among all those bikinis is unto a miracle.
They’d won the game five sets to three, but as Nick watched Cody talking to some blonde, bikinied beach bunny, he couldn’t help feeling lost.
He waited, stubbing a toe in the sand, volleyball at his hip.
“Man, you guys were boss! You really were! With the-- and the-- over the top!” Murray jumped and swung in imitation of Cody’s killer serve and nearly fell over. Nick caught him before he hit the sand. “So boss! How did you guys learn to do that? Can you teach me?”
Nick nodded, distracted, his eyes still on Cody. This one looked like a Lisa, or maybe a Katrina. Nick hated Katrinas. He hated Lisas too, but they generally weren’t as bad as the K-girls: Katrina, Kristin, Kara, Karen. They were the ones where Nick woke up and the boat was on fire or Cody was calling collect from downtown somewhere, shoes and the keys to the Jimmy left behind when he crawled out the window to safety.
“Hey you know, Nick, maybe I could program the Roboz to teach me! If you and Cody let me videotape you-- I’ve got this killer new program can map a hundred different points on the human body, record them all over a time span, in motion, then theoretically I can map those points onto another body-- like the Roboz, and he can recreate the motion! Neat, huh, Nick?”
“Yeah Boz, real neat,” Nick answered. He watched Cody dig his toe in the sand, hands in pockets. His hair fell long over his face because Nick hadn’t made an appointment to get it cut. Even so, Nick knew the signs: she was giving him her number, maybe suggesting they go out sometime, maybe he could show her how to serve, she’d always wanted to know how to spike. She knew this great little cove down near Long Beach where--
Cody cast a glance over his shoulder at Nick, eyes flashing, widening.
Nick grinned, feeling like a champion after all. He knew that look. He’d seen it first in a dive bar in Patpong, on a day-pass in Thailand a whole lifetime ago, when Cody didn’t realize his own strength, the draw of a sweet guy with eyes like the ocean and a soul you could drown in. The girls in Patpong were professionals and Nick bore them no ill-will; hell, he tipped ‘em more American greenbacks than they’d see in a week just to peel off the best friend a guy ever had. They disappeared into the smoke and Nick guided Cody out into the night, into the thick wet neon air and laughed their way home.
Smirking, Nick raised an eyebrow.
Cody inclined his head at Kristen/Katrina/Karen.
“That’d be so boss!”
“It sure would, Boz. Hey listen, maybe you could tell Cody n’ me more about it over lunch, huh? Wiener schnitzel? My treat?”
Murray made happy bouncing shrieking noises and Nick started across the sand to Cody.
After all, Murray’s program could map a hundred different places on the human body, but Nick was willing to bet the one he liked best wasn’t on any map in the world.
***
Her name had turned out to be Mona but neither Nick nor Cody had stuck around to find out much more than that. Instead, at Nick’s approach, Cody had slapped him heartily on the shoulder and apologized for his bo-hunk friend here but he’d already promised to help Nick fix his helicopter, so how about a rain-check?
Mona brightened at the word “helicopter” -- that was a first, most girls thought the two of them were full of shit -- but Nick had eased his way gracefully out of that one by talking about pistons and rotors, clogged fluid lines and calibrating altimeters until Mona’s eyes glazed over and she backed away slowly. Cody apologized for them both and promised some other time, just as soon as they had the Mimi up and running, okay?
But from the way Mona stalked off across the sand Nick figured it wasn’t okay, not at all, not even a little bit, which was fine with him.
The only thing was, as far as Nick knew, the Mimi was running fine. She’d passed her annual inspection with flying colors, ha ha -- by which Nick meant that the FAA inspector sighed a little more than usual but found a little less to bitch about -- and what he had found Nick had taken care of the same day. Sure the detective business brought more money in than harbor tours but somehow, Nick found the thought of being grounded worse than almost anything he could name.
Then, a couple days later, Cody met Luisa, and Nick found a name for that worse thing.
Luisa was a bubbly brunette with cold eyes, and Cody took her out to Lahaina Palace, then out for a drive along the coast. Nick waited in the salon til dawn, listening to Murray chirp about high frequency sub-aquatic canyons that needed mapping, but when the sky began to lighten, Murray had his headphones on, deeply engrossed in his work, and it was just Nick sitting there staring at the slate-gray ocean, feeling like a jerk.
The thing was, a couple weeks before this whole mess, he and Cody...
It all started with Scrabble. When business was slow, the Riptide Detective Agency had a standing Friday night game and this particular Friday, Nick had played “buss”, you know, a kiss. Cody would have none of it, and insisted that bus, with one -s, was a mode of transport. That’s all.
Murray had dutifully pulled out the dictionary and tried to show Cody but he was having none of it: busses had four wheels and cost fifty cents to ride, they weren’t something you did to your grandma’s cheek. Nick more than half-suspected Cody was objecting to the triple word score under the b, but when Murray gave up and went to bed, Cody was just hitting his stride, still protesting Nick’s kiss.
Rolling his eyes, Nick had headed for the stateroom, unbuttoning his shirt along the way. Cody followed, still protesting: since when had Nick seen this so-called buss in action, huh?
And Nick, letting the beer get the best of his brain, turned around showed Cody a buss in action, nailing him hard, flush on the lips.
The world stopped, spinning lightly on its axis and taking Nick with it.
Then Cody kissed him back, hard and needy and one thing led to another. And then some more after they recovered.
But the next morning, neither of them mentioned it -- a new client showed up on deck with a crappy divorce case, needing pics for his court case, a perfectly good evening wasted staking out the Ocean Palms, a hot-sheet hourly that didn’t even merit a neon sign. But sitting there in the dark, in the Jimmy, it had happened again, something unspoken but overdue, and they went at it in the cab, hands in open flies and mouths on necks llike stupid lovestruck teenagers.
And like teenagers, when morning came neither of them mentioned it. It was like nothing had ever happened.
Nick couldn’t cope. He didn’t know where to start, what to say; touching Cody redefined “intense”. It was like being blind your whole life and wanting so bad to see. That first time you opened your eyes and everything was in color defied description. And all you wanted was more.
But now with this Luisa thing...
Cody returned just after Nick put Murray to bed, hefting him over one shoulder and carrying him down to his stateroom cot. When he returned to the salon, Cody was there, wild-eyed and disheveled.
Nick braced himself. “Rough night?”
Cody shrugged and mumbled something too soft for Nick to hear.
“Come again?”
Cody sighed. “I said, the Jimmy broke down outside Reseda. Something with the-- wires and things. I walked back into town and had it towed.”
“You what? Cody, why didn’t you call me? I would’ve come gotten you.”
And Luisa hung unspoken in the air between them.
Nick folded his arms across his chest. “Where’d you have it towed, anyway?”
“Ponzini’s. On Avenida Espana. Near the 101.”
“Tell me you’re joking, Cody. That guy’s a clown. He has no business anywhere near the Jimmy.”
Cody raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know where else to go, Nick! What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Cody, call me maybe? They don’t have phones out in Reseda now?”
Cody looked at Nick levelly and for the first time in their friendship, Nick didn’t know how to read what was in Cody’s eyes. He knew what he wanted to see, but he wanted it so much he was afraid to look for it too deeply.
“Yeah right,” Nick muttered eventually. “Fine. We’ll go get it in the morning. Before that moron Ponzini does any damage to it.”
Cody said something even softer than before.
Nick shook his head. “One more time.”
“I said I can’t. I told Luisa I’d take her to breakfast at Straightaways to make up for tonight.”
“Well let’s hope she’s got her own ride.”
“Nick!”
“What d’you want me to say, Cody? Tell me. Tell me what I’m supposed to say here. You’re my best friend. I’d do anything for you. Going out to Reseda in the middle of the night isn’t anything to me, not even if you have your girl of the week with you. You know why? Because I can’t help it, Cody. I can’t help that I’ll always come get you. I can’t help that I’ll always love you. I can’t help that I’ll always stay here waiting by the phone when you’re out. Because if you ever need anything -- anything at all, I’ll do it. There’s no one else in the world I’d do that for, so don’t stand there and tell me you couldn’t call, Cody. ‘Cause you know damn well that had nothing to do with it.”
Cody looked down at the carpet, then back up at Nick wonderingly.
Nick couldn’t even meet his eyes this time. He gave a dismissive wave and pushed past Cody, heading for their stateroom. “You know what, that’s fine. Everything’s fine, Cody.” He turned at the top of the stairs. “Just forget I said anything, okay? You and Luisa go to breakfast. I’ll take Murray and the Vette and get the Jimmy back from Ponzini’s. Don’t worry about it.”
“Nick--”
“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry. All that other stuff I said, forget it, okay?” The words hurt coming out, but not nearly as much as it hurt walking away from Cody, leaving him there in the salon of their boat as the morning rose around them. But Nick made himself walk away, made himself go down to their stateroom and close the door before collapsing on his bunk, head in his hands. This was how it had to be. There was nothing he could do about it. That other stuff...
Nick closed his eyes, shoving the heels of his palms in the sockets, digging until bright pinwheels eclipsed the red. There was no sound from the salon, no sound of footsteps, quick and light, crossing the floor, heading down the stairs. Nothing.
Eventually, Nick slept.
He knew he slept because all of a sudden Cody was shaking him awake.
“Wha...?” Nick raised his head. “Time’s it?”
“Seven-thirty,” Cody answered cheerfully.
“Mmf,” Nick said. He lay back down and closed his eyes, rolling towards the wall.
Cody shook him awake again. “C’mon, buddy. Up n’ at ‘em!”
Nick sighed and forced his eyes open. The ceiling of the stateroom swam, then stayed put. Cody started to shake Nick a third time but Nick caught his hand. “What’s with the outfit?” he asked muzzily. “Thought you were going to Straightaways for breakfast?”
Gone were Cody’s date clothes from the night before, the tan slacks and the yellow polo. In their place he wore his grungy mechanics jumpsuit, the one Nick had stolen for him from Reserves. The one that matched Nick’s own. “I gotta tell ya, Cody, if this chick wasn’t impressed by the Jimmy breaking down, I don’t think that monkey suit’s gonna do the trick.” Nick yawned.
Cody stood back from the bunk, smiling keenly. “I figured we could pick something up on the way.”
“Wait.” Nick sat up, fully awake. “What happened to Luisa?”
“Called her and left a message. I figured we should get the Jimmy back before Ponzini does anything to it.” He shifted his weight foot to foot. “If we get going in the next half hour, we can get there just as he opens. Tell him thanks for keepin’ the Jimmy safe overnight. Throw your toolbox in the Vette’s trunk, we can at least get her running and back to King Harbor, right, buddy?”
Nick noted both that this plan depended an awful lot on his ability to fix the Jimmy with only travel tools and zero idea what had gone wrong, and that Cody’s eyes held a tinge of nervousness. It was early and Nick was wary, still holding the hurt from last night. “What gives?”
Cody spread his arms wide. “Does something have to give? I screwed up, okay, Nick, is that what you want to hear? I...” He faltered. “I shouldn’t have taken the Jimmy to Ponzini’s. I should’ve called you.”
Nick frowned. It was too early for this conversation, or maybe too late. His traitorous arms just wanted to pull Cody down onto the bed and let their bodies explain, but that hadn’t stopped Cody from going out with Luisa in the first place. “S’fine,” Nick managed eventually. “Maybe we can even get you home in time to still meet up with whats-her-face.”
Cody’s expression soured and he turned and headed for the door. “Five and pants, Nick,” he snarled, then jogged up the stairs.
Nick grinned for the first time that morning.
Five and pants was his and Cody’s shorthand for This Is Important Enough That Whatever You’re Wearing In Five Minutes Is What We’re Leaving In. Back when they were MPs up at Fort Oro, Nick had given Cody five and pants after a long night at the base commissary with two-for-one purple hooters. Calling Nick’s bluff, Cody, wearing only his underwear, had rolled up into a ball with his blanket and Nick, forced to bluff back, had carried blanket and partner out to their Jeep and had the key in the ignition before Cody thought to object. To this day, Cody wouldn’t drink 7-Up if you paid him.
Still, Nick thought, pulling jeans on, it wasn’t as if he’d asked Cody to come home early. If dawn could be considered early.
Feeling every minute of the sleep he hadn’t gotten, Nick grabbed yesterday’s shirt off the floor and began buttoning it. Halfway through he stopped, and began unbuttoning. A minute later, he dropped the jeans next to the shirt and pulled his jumpsuit out of a drawer. He had no idea what fixing the Jimmy might look like, but on less than two hours of sleep he figured he might as well prepare for the worst.
***
Three and a half hours later, the two of them sat in Straightaways in oil-streaked matching jumpsuits, a table full of destroyed breakfast between them.
“The thing I don’t understand, Cody,” Nick said around a crust of toast, “is why you didn’t pull over when the Jimmy first started smoking.”
“Oh,” Cody said nonchalantly, “you know cars. Sometimes smoke just kind of... happens.” He punctuated this wisdom with a shrug.
Nick refrained from throwing toast at him with an effort of sheer will. “No Cody, I don’t know. In my experience engines don’t just start smoking unless something is seriously wrong with them. Like, for instance, just out of the blue here you understand, man, but something like the radiator having blown a leak fifty miles ago!”
A hush fell over the dining room. Several forks dropped to plates with a merry clink. Nick saluted the room with his toast crust then drank down the last third of his coffee.
To his surprise, Cody just grinned. “You know it wouldn’t have gone fifty miles on a blown radiator, Nick.”
“Well how far did it go on a blown radiator, Cody? And at what point did you forget how to check the water levels?” The toast was dry and splintery, and Nick dropped it on his plate. He’d run through all the little packets of jelly, too.
Without asking, Cody pushed his across. “I admit, I might’ve had some suspicions--”
Nick raised an eyebrow and peeled back the label on a tub of apricot.
“But you’d just gone over the Jimmy with a fine-toothed comb the previous weekend. For cryin’ out loud, Nick, it had its smog certificate and everything!”
Nick paused in the act of smearing apricot jelly over toast crust. “Cody, you’ve been helping me with engines for fifteen years now, so I’m going to ask you one simple question: in what type of engine is the radiator connected to the exhaust manifold?”
“Nick!”
“No really, Cody, I’m on tenterhooks here. Is it a Stingray, or one of the new imports? Or maybe a Bell, or one of those new solar-powered buses they have down in Long Beach...”
At the word bus the two of them locked eyes. Cody raised his eyebrows at his plate and picked up his fork. He poked delicately at the remains of his omelet but the brows didn’t lower.
Nick finished with the apricot and pulled a tub of blackberry from the tiny carousel. “So. If you didn’t notice the radiator, what exactly was Luisa doing to distract you?”
Cody dropped his fork and leaned forward over the table. “Nothing. That’s just it, Nick. The minute I picked her up I realized she was...” He sketched obscure descriptions in the air. Nick spread his jam.
Cody’s hands flopped about like fish out of water. “You know?” he asked weakly.
Nick nodded. “All bikini, no brains. It happens.” He munched his crust. “Great tits, though.”
Cody retrieved his fork and clutched it like a life preserver. “Maybe...” He seemed on the verge of saying something more, then chased a scrap of egg around the rim of his plate.
Nick smeared another blackberry blob on his dry toast scrap. “What?”
“It’s real funny, Nick, but when I was with Luisa, all I could think was--”
“How you two getting along? You need a refill on anything?”
Nick, who’d been focusing on Cody’s lips as one, a way to stay awake and two, because he was speaking and that was pretty, looked up in annoyance. One of Straightaway’s summer hires, Candy, stood at the head of their table.
“Coffee,” Nick said, more out of reflex than anything else.
Cody mustered a weak smile and Nick frowned. Candy and Cody had been an item a couple months ago. She had a butterfly tattooed just above her left hipbone. It was blue and purple.
“Hi Cody,” Candy said, leaning farther forward. Nick rolled his tired and aching eyes.
Candy refilled their mugs of coffee. “Haven’t seen you around,” she said with an air of nonchalance. Nick looked up sharply. Oh here we go, he thought. Let me guess: Cody, didn’t you say you’d take Candy to that new crab place along the pier? Or the arcade? Or Rings n’ Things?
Candy lingered at their table, coffee pot in one hand, hip in the other. “Cody, didn’t you say one of these days you’d take me to that new crab place? The one up by the highway?”
Nick put down his toast. It was nice to know he still knew his partner as well as he thought he did.
“Uh...” Cody said helpfully. “Yeah, about that, Candy.”
Nick closed his eyes. He couldn’t stop the rush of memories that flooded his brain: the two of them laughing over poker in a tent in the jungle; Nick carrying Cody, bleeding, to safety, muttering Hail Marys all the way; Cody and his boat idea, the first time he’d mentioned it, back in their shitty apartment in Long Beach; all the times he’d told the admitting nurse he was Cody’s brother, or woke up to find a smiling face reassuring him his brother had sat up all night by his bedside; Cody teaching him to dive, how to breathe underwater.
Then Scrabble, and everything that came after.
“Gail, she’s one of the day shift girls, she says they have the best King Crab legs. And a buffet on Saturdays! So whattaya say, pal?”
Nick opened his eyes in time to see Candy punch Cody’s arm awkwardly.
Cody rubbed the place she’d hit like it really hurt. Nick narrowed his eyes and reached for more jelly.
“The thing is, Candy,” Cody said in his warm sand voice. “I’ve kinda started seeing someone.”
“You have?” Nick and Candy asked at the same time.
Cody shifted in his seat, fixing his eyes on Nick. “No, it’s true. I’m actually seeing someone. Someone special.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. “Does her name rhyme with Roo-isa?”
Cody rolled his eyes in return. “No, Nick, it doesn’t.” He took a deep breath. “It’s someone I’ve known a long time, okay, but I only just realized how much h-- they meant to me. And now it’s serious, Nick, okay?” Cody looked at Nick, really looked at him, and Nick felt a weird heat rising in his chest and his face. “I just needed time to realize that.”
Nick wondered if it was possible a human heart could explode. Right out of his chest, splattering all over the table. “You never said anything. Not a thing. Cody...”
“I’m sure, Nick. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.” He looked up at Candy with a wince. “Sorry. No can do, huh?”
Nick stared at Cody.
Candy let out a long and practiced sigh. “Why are the good ones always taken? Or gay. Ugh! Dating in this town sucks!”
Nick kept staring at Cody.
“It sure does,” Cody said sympathetically. “But don’t worry, Candy, some day you’ll find the guy of your dreams, the guy who makes everything suddenly click into place. And when you do, don’t be surprised if it’s a guy you’ve known a real long time, someone you might never’ve thought would even be interested in you.”
A long, silent moment hung over breakfast.
Then Candy snorted and turned on her heel, hips clearing a way between the other tables. Nick and Cody both watched her head for the kitchen, then let their eyes both settle, finally, on each other.
Nick broke the silence. “Explain to me again the bit where you never thought I’d be interested, Cody. Talk slow and use small words, because frankly, I think you pulled that whole thing out of your ass.”
Cody grinned down at his plate and raised an eyebrow.
***
The stateroom was close in the summer heat, warmed further by the two them, naked and sweating under the single light over Cody’s bunk, a circle of gold pushing back the encroaching darkness.
Nick leaned forward and licked his way up Cody’s belly, tracing his treasure trail up from the tightly whorled navel, up over his sternum until he found the flat plains of Cody’s chest and collarbone. He bit gently at the ridge of skin at the base of Cody’s neck, pressing his nose deeply into Cody’s skin, breathing Cody in. Nick sat with his knees raised and thighs spread to accommodate Cody, legs wrapped around Nick’s hips.
Sweat beaded Cody’s torso from chest to groin, glistening across his wide pecs. He rested his arms on Nick’s shoulders, pulling himself up, a soft grin lighting his features. Nick looked up into Cody’s face with his own grin, then kissed a line up one of Cody’s arms, wrist to elbow, tasting the sweat and thin skin. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped him. Cody shifted slightly on Nick’s lap, angling his hips up, his balls brushing against the underside of Nick’s cock, tantalizing and sweet.
Nick’s grin widened at Cody’s blush.
The closeness of the cabin, the heat of the summer night, and Cody naked in his arms. Even in Nick’s dreams it hadn’t been so good. He half-doubted it ever would be again.
Cody leaned back, hooking one knee over Nick’s shoulder. Nick raised an eyebrow.
Cody’s blush spread down his neck, taking root in his chest. Then he stretched an arm up, overhead, and turned out the light.
Rating: R
Summary: How Nick and Cody found each other in among all those bikinis is unto a miracle.
They’d won the game five sets to three, but as Nick watched Cody talking to some blonde, bikinied beach bunny, he couldn’t help feeling lost.
He waited, stubbing a toe in the sand, volleyball at his hip.
“Man, you guys were boss! You really were! With the-- and the-- over the top!” Murray jumped and swung in imitation of Cody’s killer serve and nearly fell over. Nick caught him before he hit the sand. “So boss! How did you guys learn to do that? Can you teach me?”
Nick nodded, distracted, his eyes still on Cody. This one looked like a Lisa, or maybe a Katrina. Nick hated Katrinas. He hated Lisas too, but they generally weren’t as bad as the K-girls: Katrina, Kristin, Kara, Karen. They were the ones where Nick woke up and the boat was on fire or Cody was calling collect from downtown somewhere, shoes and the keys to the Jimmy left behind when he crawled out the window to safety.
“Hey you know, Nick, maybe I could program the Roboz to teach me! If you and Cody let me videotape you-- I’ve got this killer new program can map a hundred different points on the human body, record them all over a time span, in motion, then theoretically I can map those points onto another body-- like the Roboz, and he can recreate the motion! Neat, huh, Nick?”
“Yeah Boz, real neat,” Nick answered. He watched Cody dig his toe in the sand, hands in pockets. His hair fell long over his face because Nick hadn’t made an appointment to get it cut. Even so, Nick knew the signs: she was giving him her number, maybe suggesting they go out sometime, maybe he could show her how to serve, she’d always wanted to know how to spike. She knew this great little cove down near Long Beach where--
Cody cast a glance over his shoulder at Nick, eyes flashing, widening.
Nick grinned, feeling like a champion after all. He knew that look. He’d seen it first in a dive bar in Patpong, on a day-pass in Thailand a whole lifetime ago, when Cody didn’t realize his own strength, the draw of a sweet guy with eyes like the ocean and a soul you could drown in. The girls in Patpong were professionals and Nick bore them no ill-will; hell, he tipped ‘em more American greenbacks than they’d see in a week just to peel off the best friend a guy ever had. They disappeared into the smoke and Nick guided Cody out into the night, into the thick wet neon air and laughed their way home.
Smirking, Nick raised an eyebrow.
Cody inclined his head at Kristen/Katrina/Karen.
“That’d be so boss!”
“It sure would, Boz. Hey listen, maybe you could tell Cody n’ me more about it over lunch, huh? Wiener schnitzel? My treat?”
Murray made happy bouncing shrieking noises and Nick started across the sand to Cody.
After all, Murray’s program could map a hundred different places on the human body, but Nick was willing to bet the one he liked best wasn’t on any map in the world.
***
Her name had turned out to be Mona but neither Nick nor Cody had stuck around to find out much more than that. Instead, at Nick’s approach, Cody had slapped him heartily on the shoulder and apologized for his bo-hunk friend here but he’d already promised to help Nick fix his helicopter, so how about a rain-check?
Mona brightened at the word “helicopter” -- that was a first, most girls thought the two of them were full of shit -- but Nick had eased his way gracefully out of that one by talking about pistons and rotors, clogged fluid lines and calibrating altimeters until Mona’s eyes glazed over and she backed away slowly. Cody apologized for them both and promised some other time, just as soon as they had the Mimi up and running, okay?
But from the way Mona stalked off across the sand Nick figured it wasn’t okay, not at all, not even a little bit, which was fine with him.
The only thing was, as far as Nick knew, the Mimi was running fine. She’d passed her annual inspection with flying colors, ha ha -- by which Nick meant that the FAA inspector sighed a little more than usual but found a little less to bitch about -- and what he had found Nick had taken care of the same day. Sure the detective business brought more money in than harbor tours but somehow, Nick found the thought of being grounded worse than almost anything he could name.
Then, a couple days later, Cody met Luisa, and Nick found a name for that worse thing.
Luisa was a bubbly brunette with cold eyes, and Cody took her out to Lahaina Palace, then out for a drive along the coast. Nick waited in the salon til dawn, listening to Murray chirp about high frequency sub-aquatic canyons that needed mapping, but when the sky began to lighten, Murray had his headphones on, deeply engrossed in his work, and it was just Nick sitting there staring at the slate-gray ocean, feeling like a jerk.
The thing was, a couple weeks before this whole mess, he and Cody...
It all started with Scrabble. When business was slow, the Riptide Detective Agency had a standing Friday night game and this particular Friday, Nick had played “buss”, you know, a kiss. Cody would have none of it, and insisted that bus, with one -s, was a mode of transport. That’s all.
Murray had dutifully pulled out the dictionary and tried to show Cody but he was having none of it: busses had four wheels and cost fifty cents to ride, they weren’t something you did to your grandma’s cheek. Nick more than half-suspected Cody was objecting to the triple word score under the b, but when Murray gave up and went to bed, Cody was just hitting his stride, still protesting Nick’s kiss.
Rolling his eyes, Nick had headed for the stateroom, unbuttoning his shirt along the way. Cody followed, still protesting: since when had Nick seen this so-called buss in action, huh?
And Nick, letting the beer get the best of his brain, turned around showed Cody a buss in action, nailing him hard, flush on the lips.
The world stopped, spinning lightly on its axis and taking Nick with it.
Then Cody kissed him back, hard and needy and one thing led to another. And then some more after they recovered.
But the next morning, neither of them mentioned it -- a new client showed up on deck with a crappy divorce case, needing pics for his court case, a perfectly good evening wasted staking out the Ocean Palms, a hot-sheet hourly that didn’t even merit a neon sign. But sitting there in the dark, in the Jimmy, it had happened again, something unspoken but overdue, and they went at it in the cab, hands in open flies and mouths on necks llike stupid lovestruck teenagers.
And like teenagers, when morning came neither of them mentioned it. It was like nothing had ever happened.
Nick couldn’t cope. He didn’t know where to start, what to say; touching Cody redefined “intense”. It was like being blind your whole life and wanting so bad to see. That first time you opened your eyes and everything was in color defied description. And all you wanted was more.
But now with this Luisa thing...
Cody returned just after Nick put Murray to bed, hefting him over one shoulder and carrying him down to his stateroom cot. When he returned to the salon, Cody was there, wild-eyed and disheveled.
Nick braced himself. “Rough night?”
Cody shrugged and mumbled something too soft for Nick to hear.
“Come again?”
Cody sighed. “I said, the Jimmy broke down outside Reseda. Something with the-- wires and things. I walked back into town and had it towed.”
“You what? Cody, why didn’t you call me? I would’ve come gotten you.”
And Luisa hung unspoken in the air between them.
Nick folded his arms across his chest. “Where’d you have it towed, anyway?”
“Ponzini’s. On Avenida Espana. Near the 101.”
“Tell me you’re joking, Cody. That guy’s a clown. He has no business anywhere near the Jimmy.”
Cody raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know where else to go, Nick! What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Cody, call me maybe? They don’t have phones out in Reseda now?”
Cody looked at Nick levelly and for the first time in their friendship, Nick didn’t know how to read what was in Cody’s eyes. He knew what he wanted to see, but he wanted it so much he was afraid to look for it too deeply.
“Yeah right,” Nick muttered eventually. “Fine. We’ll go get it in the morning. Before that moron Ponzini does any damage to it.”
Cody said something even softer than before.
Nick shook his head. “One more time.”
“I said I can’t. I told Luisa I’d take her to breakfast at Straightaways to make up for tonight.”
“Well let’s hope she’s got her own ride.”
“Nick!”
“What d’you want me to say, Cody? Tell me. Tell me what I’m supposed to say here. You’re my best friend. I’d do anything for you. Going out to Reseda in the middle of the night isn’t anything to me, not even if you have your girl of the week with you. You know why? Because I can’t help it, Cody. I can’t help that I’ll always come get you. I can’t help that I’ll always love you. I can’t help that I’ll always stay here waiting by the phone when you’re out. Because if you ever need anything -- anything at all, I’ll do it. There’s no one else in the world I’d do that for, so don’t stand there and tell me you couldn’t call, Cody. ‘Cause you know damn well that had nothing to do with it.”
Cody looked down at the carpet, then back up at Nick wonderingly.
Nick couldn’t even meet his eyes this time. He gave a dismissive wave and pushed past Cody, heading for their stateroom. “You know what, that’s fine. Everything’s fine, Cody.” He turned at the top of the stairs. “Just forget I said anything, okay? You and Luisa go to breakfast. I’ll take Murray and the Vette and get the Jimmy back from Ponzini’s. Don’t worry about it.”
“Nick--”
“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry. All that other stuff I said, forget it, okay?” The words hurt coming out, but not nearly as much as it hurt walking away from Cody, leaving him there in the salon of their boat as the morning rose around them. But Nick made himself walk away, made himself go down to their stateroom and close the door before collapsing on his bunk, head in his hands. This was how it had to be. There was nothing he could do about it. That other stuff...
Nick closed his eyes, shoving the heels of his palms in the sockets, digging until bright pinwheels eclipsed the red. There was no sound from the salon, no sound of footsteps, quick and light, crossing the floor, heading down the stairs. Nothing.
Eventually, Nick slept.
He knew he slept because all of a sudden Cody was shaking him awake.
“Wha...?” Nick raised his head. “Time’s it?”
“Seven-thirty,” Cody answered cheerfully.
“Mmf,” Nick said. He lay back down and closed his eyes, rolling towards the wall.
Cody shook him awake again. “C’mon, buddy. Up n’ at ‘em!”
Nick sighed and forced his eyes open. The ceiling of the stateroom swam, then stayed put. Cody started to shake Nick a third time but Nick caught his hand. “What’s with the outfit?” he asked muzzily. “Thought you were going to Straightaways for breakfast?”
Gone were Cody’s date clothes from the night before, the tan slacks and the yellow polo. In their place he wore his grungy mechanics jumpsuit, the one Nick had stolen for him from Reserves. The one that matched Nick’s own. “I gotta tell ya, Cody, if this chick wasn’t impressed by the Jimmy breaking down, I don’t think that monkey suit’s gonna do the trick.” Nick yawned.
Cody stood back from the bunk, smiling keenly. “I figured we could pick something up on the way.”
“Wait.” Nick sat up, fully awake. “What happened to Luisa?”
“Called her and left a message. I figured we should get the Jimmy back before Ponzini does anything to it.” He shifted his weight foot to foot. “If we get going in the next half hour, we can get there just as he opens. Tell him thanks for keepin’ the Jimmy safe overnight. Throw your toolbox in the Vette’s trunk, we can at least get her running and back to King Harbor, right, buddy?”
Nick noted both that this plan depended an awful lot on his ability to fix the Jimmy with only travel tools and zero idea what had gone wrong, and that Cody’s eyes held a tinge of nervousness. It was early and Nick was wary, still holding the hurt from last night. “What gives?”
Cody spread his arms wide. “Does something have to give? I screwed up, okay, Nick, is that what you want to hear? I...” He faltered. “I shouldn’t have taken the Jimmy to Ponzini’s. I should’ve called you.”
Nick frowned. It was too early for this conversation, or maybe too late. His traitorous arms just wanted to pull Cody down onto the bed and let their bodies explain, but that hadn’t stopped Cody from going out with Luisa in the first place. “S’fine,” Nick managed eventually. “Maybe we can even get you home in time to still meet up with whats-her-face.”
Cody’s expression soured and he turned and headed for the door. “Five and pants, Nick,” he snarled, then jogged up the stairs.
Nick grinned for the first time that morning.
Five and pants was his and Cody’s shorthand for This Is Important Enough That Whatever You’re Wearing In Five Minutes Is What We’re Leaving In. Back when they were MPs up at Fort Oro, Nick had given Cody five and pants after a long night at the base commissary with two-for-one purple hooters. Calling Nick’s bluff, Cody, wearing only his underwear, had rolled up into a ball with his blanket and Nick, forced to bluff back, had carried blanket and partner out to their Jeep and had the key in the ignition before Cody thought to object. To this day, Cody wouldn’t drink 7-Up if you paid him.
Still, Nick thought, pulling jeans on, it wasn’t as if he’d asked Cody to come home early. If dawn could be considered early.
Feeling every minute of the sleep he hadn’t gotten, Nick grabbed yesterday’s shirt off the floor and began buttoning it. Halfway through he stopped, and began unbuttoning. A minute later, he dropped the jeans next to the shirt and pulled his jumpsuit out of a drawer. He had no idea what fixing the Jimmy might look like, but on less than two hours of sleep he figured he might as well prepare for the worst.
***
Three and a half hours later, the two of them sat in Straightaways in oil-streaked matching jumpsuits, a table full of destroyed breakfast between them.
“The thing I don’t understand, Cody,” Nick said around a crust of toast, “is why you didn’t pull over when the Jimmy first started smoking.”
“Oh,” Cody said nonchalantly, “you know cars. Sometimes smoke just kind of... happens.” He punctuated this wisdom with a shrug.
Nick refrained from throwing toast at him with an effort of sheer will. “No Cody, I don’t know. In my experience engines don’t just start smoking unless something is seriously wrong with them. Like, for instance, just out of the blue here you understand, man, but something like the radiator having blown a leak fifty miles ago!”
A hush fell over the dining room. Several forks dropped to plates with a merry clink. Nick saluted the room with his toast crust then drank down the last third of his coffee.
To his surprise, Cody just grinned. “You know it wouldn’t have gone fifty miles on a blown radiator, Nick.”
“Well how far did it go on a blown radiator, Cody? And at what point did you forget how to check the water levels?” The toast was dry and splintery, and Nick dropped it on his plate. He’d run through all the little packets of jelly, too.
Without asking, Cody pushed his across. “I admit, I might’ve had some suspicions--”
Nick raised an eyebrow and peeled back the label on a tub of apricot.
“But you’d just gone over the Jimmy with a fine-toothed comb the previous weekend. For cryin’ out loud, Nick, it had its smog certificate and everything!”
Nick paused in the act of smearing apricot jelly over toast crust. “Cody, you’ve been helping me with engines for fifteen years now, so I’m going to ask you one simple question: in what type of engine is the radiator connected to the exhaust manifold?”
“Nick!”
“No really, Cody, I’m on tenterhooks here. Is it a Stingray, or one of the new imports? Or maybe a Bell, or one of those new solar-powered buses they have down in Long Beach...”
At the word bus the two of them locked eyes. Cody raised his eyebrows at his plate and picked up his fork. He poked delicately at the remains of his omelet but the brows didn’t lower.
Nick finished with the apricot and pulled a tub of blackberry from the tiny carousel. “So. If you didn’t notice the radiator, what exactly was Luisa doing to distract you?”
Cody dropped his fork and leaned forward over the table. “Nothing. That’s just it, Nick. The minute I picked her up I realized she was...” He sketched obscure descriptions in the air. Nick spread his jam.
Cody’s hands flopped about like fish out of water. “You know?” he asked weakly.
Nick nodded. “All bikini, no brains. It happens.” He munched his crust. “Great tits, though.”
Cody retrieved his fork and clutched it like a life preserver. “Maybe...” He seemed on the verge of saying something more, then chased a scrap of egg around the rim of his plate.
Nick smeared another blackberry blob on his dry toast scrap. “What?”
“It’s real funny, Nick, but when I was with Luisa, all I could think was--”
“How you two getting along? You need a refill on anything?”
Nick, who’d been focusing on Cody’s lips as one, a way to stay awake and two, because he was speaking and that was pretty, looked up in annoyance. One of Straightaway’s summer hires, Candy, stood at the head of their table.
“Coffee,” Nick said, more out of reflex than anything else.
Cody mustered a weak smile and Nick frowned. Candy and Cody had been an item a couple months ago. She had a butterfly tattooed just above her left hipbone. It was blue and purple.
“Hi Cody,” Candy said, leaning farther forward. Nick rolled his tired and aching eyes.
Candy refilled their mugs of coffee. “Haven’t seen you around,” she said with an air of nonchalance. Nick looked up sharply. Oh here we go, he thought. Let me guess: Cody, didn’t you say you’d take Candy to that new crab place along the pier? Or the arcade? Or Rings n’ Things?
Candy lingered at their table, coffee pot in one hand, hip in the other. “Cody, didn’t you say one of these days you’d take me to that new crab place? The one up by the highway?”
Nick put down his toast. It was nice to know he still knew his partner as well as he thought he did.
“Uh...” Cody said helpfully. “Yeah, about that, Candy.”
Nick closed his eyes. He couldn’t stop the rush of memories that flooded his brain: the two of them laughing over poker in a tent in the jungle; Nick carrying Cody, bleeding, to safety, muttering Hail Marys all the way; Cody and his boat idea, the first time he’d mentioned it, back in their shitty apartment in Long Beach; all the times he’d told the admitting nurse he was Cody’s brother, or woke up to find a smiling face reassuring him his brother had sat up all night by his bedside; Cody teaching him to dive, how to breathe underwater.
Then Scrabble, and everything that came after.
“Gail, she’s one of the day shift girls, she says they have the best King Crab legs. And a buffet on Saturdays! So whattaya say, pal?”
Nick opened his eyes in time to see Candy punch Cody’s arm awkwardly.
Cody rubbed the place she’d hit like it really hurt. Nick narrowed his eyes and reached for more jelly.
“The thing is, Candy,” Cody said in his warm sand voice. “I’ve kinda started seeing someone.”
“You have?” Nick and Candy asked at the same time.
Cody shifted in his seat, fixing his eyes on Nick. “No, it’s true. I’m actually seeing someone. Someone special.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. “Does her name rhyme with Roo-isa?”
Cody rolled his eyes in return. “No, Nick, it doesn’t.” He took a deep breath. “It’s someone I’ve known a long time, okay, but I only just realized how much h-- they meant to me. And now it’s serious, Nick, okay?” Cody looked at Nick, really looked at him, and Nick felt a weird heat rising in his chest and his face. “I just needed time to realize that.”
Nick wondered if it was possible a human heart could explode. Right out of his chest, splattering all over the table. “You never said anything. Not a thing. Cody...”
“I’m sure, Nick. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.” He looked up at Candy with a wince. “Sorry. No can do, huh?”
Nick stared at Cody.
Candy let out a long and practiced sigh. “Why are the good ones always taken? Or gay. Ugh! Dating in this town sucks!”
Nick kept staring at Cody.
“It sure does,” Cody said sympathetically. “But don’t worry, Candy, some day you’ll find the guy of your dreams, the guy who makes everything suddenly click into place. And when you do, don’t be surprised if it’s a guy you’ve known a real long time, someone you might never’ve thought would even be interested in you.”
A long, silent moment hung over breakfast.
Then Candy snorted and turned on her heel, hips clearing a way between the other tables. Nick and Cody both watched her head for the kitchen, then let their eyes both settle, finally, on each other.
Nick broke the silence. “Explain to me again the bit where you never thought I’d be interested, Cody. Talk slow and use small words, because frankly, I think you pulled that whole thing out of your ass.”
Cody grinned down at his plate and raised an eyebrow.
***
The stateroom was close in the summer heat, warmed further by the two them, naked and sweating under the single light over Cody’s bunk, a circle of gold pushing back the encroaching darkness.
Nick leaned forward and licked his way up Cody’s belly, tracing his treasure trail up from the tightly whorled navel, up over his sternum until he found the flat plains of Cody’s chest and collarbone. He bit gently at the ridge of skin at the base of Cody’s neck, pressing his nose deeply into Cody’s skin, breathing Cody in. Nick sat with his knees raised and thighs spread to accommodate Cody, legs wrapped around Nick’s hips.
Sweat beaded Cody’s torso from chest to groin, glistening across his wide pecs. He rested his arms on Nick’s shoulders, pulling himself up, a soft grin lighting his features. Nick looked up into Cody’s face with his own grin, then kissed a line up one of Cody’s arms, wrist to elbow, tasting the sweat and thin skin. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped him. Cody shifted slightly on Nick’s lap, angling his hips up, his balls brushing against the underside of Nick’s cock, tantalizing and sweet.
Nick’s grin widened at Cody’s blush.
The closeness of the cabin, the heat of the summer night, and Cody naked in his arms. Even in Nick’s dreams it hadn’t been so good. He half-doubted it ever would be again.
Cody leaned back, hooking one knee over Nick’s shoulder. Nick raised an eyebrow.
Cody’s blush spread down his neck, taking root in his chest. Then he stretched an arm up, overhead, and turned out the light.
Psst!
(I'm not ignoring your message, in other words :)