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ONE

Liam

“Do I even ask?” the medical examiner questions in his melodic Spanish accent as he walks into the morgue.

“Honestly, it’d probably be best for both of us if you don’t, but if you really want to know, which I’m sure you do?—”

“I really don’t,” Jerard Pérez interrupts. He looks younger than I feel like he is, but my guess has him in his thirties. He’s a smaller guy with dark brown hair and currently narrowed eyes.

“I’m sure you very much do, so I’m going to tell you a story about a man who would do anything for the person he loves. He would destroy the whole world… but… he just can’t do the single thing his love wants him to do?—”

“And you think I give any shits… why?” the man asks, sitting in his rolling chair at his desk to look over something.

“I’m going to be real honest, I don’t care whether you give a shit or not,” I confess.

“What I give a shit about is why you’re lying on my examination table,” Jerard says, as though there’s an issue with this. I used to deal with the other medical examiner but since he just retired, it looks like I have the pleasure of dealing with this guy.

“Because if I play dead, maybe I won’t have to go anywhere at all. You ever wonder what it’d be like to be dead?”

“Have you ever talked to me this much? Like… have we ever even held a conversation?” Jerard asks. “Usually, you come in, give me a look of disgust, talk to Todd, and leave. Is this because Todd is no longer here?”

“No, I always thought speaking to you was a waste of time. Don’t take offense to it because I think speaking to anyone is a waste of time, and I give all humans a look of disgust. Please, allow me to reassure you that I’m not treating you special,” I promise him.

“I’m weirdly taking offense to it,” he says dryly as he slides his chair over to the body on the other table.

Before he can even start his examination, I inform him, “She was drugged. There’s a needle puncture mark between her toes. She has a stamp on her hand from the bar down on Third Street. You can run toxicology, but she was obviously drugged, probably from something put in her glass to subdue her and get her to go with the person who drugged her. You can see the smudge of her lipstick, like her hand wasn’t steady when she applied it. It’s the kind that doesn’t smudge once it’s dried, so I can only assume that she struggled to apply it as a result of feeling dizzy and didn’t try to fix it. That bar has an emergency exit out back, so let’s say she feels funny and goes to the bathroom, then once in the bathroom she applies her lipstick, unknowingly giving the drugs time to work. When she steps out, the person who drugged her guides her out the door—if they’re quick enough, it won’t set off the alarm.

“When they get her out to the car, it’s not enough. They want some way to drug her without there being clear evidence. The person holds her down and injects a drug between her toes to keep her down. They didn’t mean to kill her, but the prescription she’s on reacted so poorly to the drug that it stopped her heart.”

Jerard stares at me. “How long have you been down here? I literally stepped out to use the bathroom.”

“Longer than I should have been. At least five minutes.”

“You figured that all out in five minutes?”

“No, I figured it out in three and then I climbed up onto the table and decided that this would be the last place Gabriel would look for me. Would you mind covering me up?”

“I’m not tucking you in. If I’m going to cover you up, I’m sticking you in a drawer for later.”

“This could possibly be worked out,” I say. “How much later?”

“When I don’t want to do my job. I’ll just pull you out when I want you to do it for me,” he responds as he slips on some gloves so he can examine between the dead woman’s toes. “Fine, I’ll bite. What is it that Gabriel is asking you to do that you’d rather play dead?”

“Meet his parents,” I whine.

That makes Jerard laugh, which pisses me off, and I consider what it’d be like to stuff him in one of the drawers. I’d let him out eventually, but I honestly think him laughing at me is reason enough for doing such a thing.

“Oh wow… the suffering you’re going through is definitely worth playing dead for.”

“I’ve decided to dislike you.”

“I’ve worked with you very little, though I’ve known you long enough to be aware that you don’t like anyone… buuuuut at least you’re good at your job.”

“Better than you, I see,” I say.

That makes him glower at me.

The door opens and Gabriel looks in before giving me a strange expression, like any part of this is odd.

“What the hell are you doing?” my sweets asks.

“He’s hiding from you,” Jerard says, and I decide that he really should spend at least the night in a drawer. With a personality like that, no one would miss him, would they?

My one true love seems to be confused by that statement to the point that it makes his beautiful face scrunch up in bewilderment. He really shouldn’t be confused. He should just look the other way while I prepare for the new medical examiner position that’ll be opening up shortly.

“Liam, I got concerned when you said you had to drop something off down here and then you never came back. We have dinner with my parents in like thirty minutes.”

“Jerard needed help doing his job since he was incapable of doing it without me holding his hand,” I explain.

“I really didn’t,” he says. “I literally just went to the bathroom.”

“Isn’t… isn’t your name Jesse?” Gabriel asks.

“It sure is, but he called me Jerard with such confidence that even I started to think it was Jerard. Like maybe my parents messed up and spelled it wrong on the birth certificate or something? I feel like Liam would know.”

“You don’t look like a Jesse,” I comment as I examine him. “To me, Jesse fits someone who is confident, intuitive, and intelligent.”

“I take it that means you believe I have none of those qualities,” he replies as he undoes the brakes to the table I’m on and starts to roll it toward the drawers where he keeps the bodies.

“Liam, come on. I don’t want to be late and I’m also having a hard time not feeling like this is a bit… macabre,” Gabriel says.

“I love you, Gabriel. I will see you on the morrow.” I fold my arms over my chest like a mummy as I prepare to enter the drawer.

Gabriel just stares at me, not responding that he loves me back. How dare he withhold his love because I would simply rather spend the night in a drawer made for housing dead bodies than meet his parents?

“Gabriel? I told you I love you.”

“You would honestly rather play dead than meet my parents?”

“There are a lot of things I’d rather do than meet your parents, including sitting on Sergeant Michaels’ lap and staring into his eyes as we whisper sweet nothings back and forth.”

Gabriel does not look amused or thrilled by this declaration at all. Dare I say he looks a bit… sad?

Fucking hell, how could I make him sad? I would rather someone pluck my nails off than make Gabriel sad.

Quickly, I jump off the table before Jesse can transfer me to the drawer.

“I’m coming, my love. I was just so excited to meet your parents that it knocked my breath away and Jesse here thought I was deceased. He’s rather poor at his job.”

“Please don’t ever come back,” Jesse says.

I rush up to my one true love and give him my biggest smile. “I’ve never been more excited to do something in my life.”

“You think lying will help?” he asks. “You were prepared to play dead to get out of this.”

“I’m nervous, Gabriel. I have butterflies in my tummy.”

“You’ve never been nervous in your life,” my delightful man says as he stares at me with his dark brown eyes. He’s very good at inflicting that stare on me, and it makes me want to kiss him.

Our department is big enough that we have a medical examiner’s office in the same building, which makes it nice when I want to be especially lazy. Homicide is up on the third floor, so we ride the elevator up and head to the office we share with another detective named Robinson. Originally, this was an office only Gabriel and I shared. Then Gabriel forced me to quit after he caught me in the act of dealing with a body, and Robinson moved in and took over my former desk. I would have kicked Robinson out and forced him to work elsewhere, but he’s proven quite useful.

Robinson owes me his life after I found out that he had been coerced into abducting Gabriel and handing him over to a serial killer. He’s quite lucky I didn’t end him where he stood and have, instead, allowed him to become my personal servant.

“Liam, I put the gifts for Gabriel’s parents on your desk,” Robinson says when I enter.

“Thank you.”

“Why did Robinson get my parents gifts?” Gabriel asks, suspiciously suspicious.

“When I suggested a blanket with your face all over it so they were aware that the only reason I was doing any of this was because of you, you balked.”

“You said it required wording, and you were going to put ‘Thank you for your copulation.’”

I hesitate. “I see no problem with that… oh no… Gabriel, are you not aware where babies come from?”

He sighs and I love it. I just love everything he does.

“You’re so cute,” I declare.

“Thank you, Robinson. There could be a literal rock from your driveway in here and it’d be better than anything Liam could have gotten.”

“Oh! No, Liam’s joking. He bought the items, I just wrapped it,” Robinson says.

“You just… wrapped… whatever Liam got,” Gabriel says, looking oddly terrified. Does my sweet love have so little faith in me? “Liam, what are your thoughts on me looking at it before you hand it over?”

“I think that you would make Robinson cry after he shed blood, sweat, and tears to wrap it,” I respond. “And, before you remind me that I do love tears, I don’t like Robinson’s tears. There’s generally a lot of mucus involved in his crying, so I’d rather avoid that.”

Gabriel sighs as he stares at the bag like if he stares hard enough, he might acquire x-ray vision. It’s really quite cute.

With the realization that I’m not going to open the package to verify with him that it’s adequate for the people who brought him into this world, he says, “Let’s go.”

“Suddenly, you sound like the one who doesn’t want to go. What if we tell your parents that I’m allergic to humans and shouldn’t be around them? We could FaceTime sometime; just give me a heads-up on when so I can get a cardboard cutout of myself to take my place.”

“None of that is going to happen.”

“Stop dashing my hopes and dreams.”

Once Gabriel has his coat on, he sets a hand on my back and ushers me over to the elevator.

“Please, everyone, pray for me,” I call as Gabriel forces me inside.

“I’ll pray you won’t come back,” a detective named Matthew says as he buzzes on by, reminding me that he’s dreadful to deal with.

“I can make sure you don’t?—”

Gabriel’s hand cuts me off from the rest of that threat. “Would kindness toward others hurt you physically?”

“Mentally for sure, and we all know how important mental health is,” I say, then I sneak a quick cheek kiss before the elevator door opens on the bottom floor. Gabriel looks at me in surprise and smiles.

“I’m a little nervous,” he admits.

“Why are you nervous? I’m not nervous at all. Speaking to people is my forte.”

“Yeah… you know… I almost can’t put my finger on why I’m nervous after hearing that fabrication of the truth.”