It starts because Drake really likes monkeys. They’ve always been his favorite, ever since his first grade field trip to the zoo, when he’d seen them swinging around like a bunch of kids on the playground. They’re like little furry people with long arms, and they’ll do pretty much anything to get a laugh, so when he finds Cookie’s holiday hat between the sofa cushions a couple weeks after Christmas, he’s jazzed to take it down to Officer Gilbert’s office.

It’s weird how mean Officer Gilbert had been before he’d gotten his sweet monkey. Drake remembers hating the guy, but when he sees the careful way Officer Gilbert situates the hat on Cookie’s head with a little pat to her face, he can’t remember why. Josh is smart about a lot of things, so it’s not surprising that he’d been right about how much Officer Gilbert had needed Cookie.

“Can I play with your monkey for a while?” Drake asks as she raises her arms with a soft chirping sound. He lifts her, soft monkey-laughter in his ear as she sniffs his hair.

“Sure.” Officer Gilbert looks up from his paperwork. “Want a coffee?”

Drake thinks about it. Nobody ever offers him coffee; coffee is what adults offer to other adults. “Sure,” he says, and feels pretty sophisticated despite the fact that he’s holding a monkey in a bonnet, because he’s hanging out with a detective in his office and drinking coffee; the bad kind that grownups are always complaining about; not the kind from Spearbucks with whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

“How do you take it?”

“Uh, black,” Drake says. “With five sugars.”

“Right,” Officer Gilbert says with a snort. “I’ll be back in a few.”

And then Drake is alone with Cookie, who seems intent on showing him every object in the room; every shiny plaque and paperweight and folder, some of which are marked CONFIDENTIAL that Drake is pretty sure he isn’t supposed to see. By the time Officer Gilbert Gilbert returns with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand, Drake has already been given the grand tour.

“Take a seat,” he says, plunking the coffee down on his desk. Drake pulls up a chair and Cookie climbs up onto the desk to stare at him, grinning her happy monkey grin. Drake grins back. “So, I trust you and your brother have been staying out of trouble,” Officer Gilbert says. He doesn’t sound like he believes it.

Drake nods, taking a careful sip of his coffee, which really is as terrible as Walter always says office-coffee is. But he doesn’t think you can get an ulcer from just one cup, and the sugar probably has soothing properties. “Josh always stays out of trouble.”

When Officer Gilbert pulls off his jacket, Drake can see the strap of his shoulder holster, and when he twists to reach for the bottom drawer, the butt of his gun. Whoa. Somehow, he keeps forgetting that Officer Gilbert is a cop.

“So, have you ever shot anybody?”

His expression makes something dangerous shiver its way down Drake’s spine, especially when he says, “Yes” in a way that makes Drake wish he hadn’t asked.

“Sorry, Officer Gilbert,” he says, and takes a big gulp of coffee.

“Perry,” Officer Gilbert says. “If it’s not too…hilarious for you.”

Somehow, this time it doesn’t sound funny or British. It sounds like the name of a cop who shoots people and has a bunch of service plaques on his wall. “Nah, it’s cool. Perry.” And Drake can’t explain it, but as he crosses his ankle over his knee and takes another sip of police-station coffee, he feels even cooler than he already knows he is.

*

It figures that Josh doesn’t understand. Later that week, when Drake is telling Josh how Perry let him ride in a police car and how they’d gotten free donuts and used the siren to get through every red light, he snaps, “I get it. Officer Gilbert is super cool.”

“Perry,” Drake can’t help correcting, and gets a startled look from Josh. “Yeah, he told me to call him Perry,” he says casually. “And I’m gonna babysit Cookie tomorrow night while he’s on a stakeout. Wanna come?”

Josh just stands there, looking the same way he had when Drake spent all their yard sale money on a subscription to hotbeachbabes.com.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Josh says. “I just think it’s weird that you volunteered for actual responsibility. Don’t you remember what happened when we were supposed to housesit for Mrs. Hayfer? Or take care of Helen after her surgery?”

“Hey, you were supposed to do those things.”

“And yet you somehow turned them both into a complete debacle!”

Drake crosses his arms over the front of the red sleep shirt he’d stolen from Josh back in tenth grade. “Exactly. So who knows what’ll happen if you don’t come with me? C’mon, you don’t want me to be lonely.” He sidles into Josh’s space and bumps him with one elbow.

Josh sighs, the first sign that he’s breaking. “How can you be lonely, with the fabulous Officer Gilbert around?” He waves his hands around the words Officer Gilbert the same way he does when Drake likes a girl he finds particularly offensive.

“Dude, he won’t be around,” Drake says. “I told you, he’s gonna be on stakeout. And why are you being so weird? You like Perry; you’re the one who got him the monkey.”

“So we wouldn’t go to prison! It wasn’t a commitment to start hanging out with him in our free time.”

“Okay, I don’t get why you’re being so weird about this, but can you please just say yes now instead of waiting until the last minute and saying yes anyhow?” He gives Josh’s bicep a squeeze and smiles up into his face, which always gets Josh all flattered and flushed. Sure enough, Josh ducks his head and mumbles, “Fine.”

*

When Perry gets ready to leave for his stakeout, it’s like something from a movie. Drake lets Josh feed Cookie the rest of her dinner while he hangs back in the foyer and watches Perry pocket his keys and badge.

“So, how do you decide which gun to use?” Drake gestures at the holster at Perry’s waist, different from the one he normally wears. This gun looks bigger; or maybe it’s because Drake is getting a good look at it; sleek black metal right at hip-level. Perry gives one last tug to his belt before he pulls on a gray blazer.

“It all depends on what I’m doing,” he says. “I’m going to be up and around tonight, so this seems like the best choice, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Drake says, as though he knows what he’s talking about, when he doesn’t know anything except that Perry is fitting some kind of communication device into his ear and that’s just cool.

“And no, you can’t touch it,” Perry says as he turns to go, and leaves Drake standing in the foyer wondering why he’d just had the same reaction to Perry’s remark that he had last week when he’d unfastened Kellie Engstrom’s bra with one hand. It’s not like it takes a lot to get a twitch of interest out of him, but he likes to think that he knows what gets him going by now, and some old guy with a gun talking down to him isn’t one of those things.

Maybe he should just play with the monkey for a while.

*

“Officer Gilbert’s going to know you went through his stuff,” Josh says. He pauses, Cookie’s toothbrush in one hand as he bats Drake away from the medicine cabinet with the other. “He’s a detective, remember?”

“Relax, I’m not touching anything,” Drake says, unscrewing the top of some aftershave and giving it a hesitant sniff. “Hey, what do you think of this?” he asks, putting it under Josh’s nose. “Not bad, huh?”

“You do realize that if you put that on any part of your body, you will have crossed over from suspiciously interested monkey-fan to scary stalker.” Josh says.

“Wasn’t going to,” Drake grumbles. At least, not now.

They get Cookie put to bed—it’s kind of cute, the way she starts to snore while Josh is reading a bedtime story—and then go downstairs to watch some TV.

“Drake,” Josh says, during a commercial for laundry soap. “Why are you hanging out with Officer Gilbert so much? Is it really because of Cookie?”

Drake shrugs. At first it had been Cookie, and he definitely likes to give her piggyback rides around the police station while she’s waiting for Perry to come back from the field. But then he’d discovered that Perry likes Zero Gravity and plays the bass guitar, and at the end of the day, always has the best stories.

Josh is looking at him like he’s worried or something, the same way he looks at Drake when he’s had a couple beers. “It’s not a big deal,” Drake says. “We’re friends.”

It’s hard to miss the way Josh clenches his hands on his thighs. “Friends? Drake, he’s at least forty years old!”

“So? Grammy’s like ninety, and you hang out with her all the time.”

Josh sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose as though they’re having an argument, which is confusing. How can this be an argument? “That’s different, she’s my Grammy. We’re related. Officer Gilbert is just some random guy. Some random man,” Josh says.

“He’s not random. He kept us from going to prison, you know.”

“He did everything in his power to make sure we went to prison!”

“Yeah, but then he changed his mind. What, are you still mad about the prison thing?”

“No,” Josh admits, and mutters “headaches,” under his breath. “I was just wondering if you’ve thought about why you’re spending so much time with him. Or why he wants to spend so much time with you.”

“Because I’m Drake,” he says, ignoring all the times Perry has said, Jesus, kid; not now, or Shouldn’t you be off somewhere wasting your youth?

“Right,” Josh says flatly. “How could I forget?”

*

Drake is just coming through the front door of the station when he sees Perry manhandling a skinhead down the hall. The guy’s got his hands cuffed behind his back, but he kicks so much that in one quick motion, Perry slams him into the wall face-first and holds him there, elbow to the back of the guy’s neck. He holds him there with his whole body, and whatever threat he mutters in the guy’s ear must be terrifying because he goes limp, and when Perry backs off, he follows without protest.

Drake figures he’ll just wait in Perry’s office for a while, but when Perry sees him, he growls, “Not now, Drake,” and drops a thick pile of paperwork on his desk. He’s dirty, damp with exertion, and there’s a footprint on the front of his black t-shirt that reads SWAT.

“That’s cool, I can come back later,” Drake says, and gets up to go. He’s definitely never going to be a cop. “Uh, did somebody step on you?”

Perry glances down at his shirt and scowls. “A coked out arms dealer,” he says, as though he deals with them every day. His black cargo pants are dusty, and he’s still wearing black boots-- so cool, he was on a swat team. It had been all dangerous and top-secret, and now Perry is back in his ordinary office. With Drake.

“I want that report on my desk within the hour, Gilbert!” a voice bellows from the bullpen, and Perry sits down in his chair, hard. He looks pissed, like a guy who’s been kicking ass and desperately wants to kick some more. It makes Drake want to write songs about pent up rage, and a hard day’s work. He’s gotten a lot of material since he started hanging out with Perry.

“See you later,” Drake says. He’s almost out the door, when Perry says, “Wait.”

“Yeah?”

Perry scrubs at his face and unclips his sidearm from his belt. “I’m going to need a drink tonight. You want to stop by around seven? I should be finished by then.”

“Sure,” Drake says, as though it doesn’t really matter, but Perry is going to take him for a drink. It matters a lot.

*

It’s dark when Drake parks on the street outside the police station. A few of the officers coming off duty give him nods of recognition, which he returns, feeling suave and dangerous in his ridiculously expensive new boots and the jeans that Josh says are indecent. Josh had watched with dark, disapproving eyes as he’d pulled them on over bare skin an hour ago, but had said nothing. He hadn’t even asked where Drake was going, but Josh has been acting weird lately; prone to staring moodily and generally looking miserable. Mindy is probably messing with his head again. Drake will find out later, but right now, he strides down the corridor toward Perry’s office and enjoys the hard clack of his boots on the floor.

“You’re relatively on time; I’m impressed,” Perry says when he sees Drake. He’s already locking up his office, showered and changed into a pair of jeans and a blazer over a white button-down shirt. “There’s a locker room downstairs,” he says when he catches Drake’s expression. “You don’t think we go home every time we get a little dirty, do you?”

Drake hadn’t ever really thought about it. “Oh yeah, like on Officers Down.” Mom watches the cop drama on cable, and even though she always switches it off when Drake comes into the room, it seems like a lot of scenes take place in the showers.

“Not exactly like that,” Perry says with a raised eyebrow, but Drake doesn’t know what it means.

“So, where are we going?” he asks, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. The fabric clings to his hipbones, and it works like a charm, because Perry loses the critical expression and claps his hand onto the back of Drake’s neck.

“Leave that to me, and for god’s sake, don’t try to use your pathetic excuse of a fake ID,” he says, propelling Drake toward the door.

“You know about that?”

“I am intimately acquainted with your colorful record,” he says as they walk out into the night, Perry’s hand still heavy on Drake’s neck.

“Hey, no offense, but you’re responsible for part of it,” Drake says. “Public nudity? Josh still has nightmares about that, you know.” Drake is mostly over it, over the clamp of Josh’s hands on his hips, the first time Josh had ever been anything but gentle with him. Josh’s biggest fear is being exposed like that, and Drake prickles with residual anger over how frantic Josh had been, how he’d been withdrawn for days after. “Dude, that wasn’t cool.”

“It wasn’t my best moment,” Perry admits as he unlocks his car. “How about I buy you a beer, and we’ll both try to forget the shitty parts of our lives?”

Drake nods, unsure why he’s picking a fight. He just feels on edge tonight, full of uneasy energy with no place to direct it—almost like he’s on a date, but without the date part of the equation. Overall, though…he feels good, especially when they get to the bar, one Drake doesn’t know, where there aren’t any kids or girls in sparkly halter tops. It’s a dark place with a lot of college-aged guys who obviously aren’t college students, and guys Perry’s age; cops maybe, who are there to drink, not to pick up girls. The girls are women, and the music is good; hard, undiluted rock that doesn’t ever cross over to pop.

They sit in a corner booth, Drake with a beer from the tap he tries not to smile about too much, and Perry with something strong, over ice.

“Be cool,” Perry says, taking a long swallow with a sigh that Drake wishes he understood. He’s starting to think maybe his hard days aren’t exactly the same as Perry’s.

“Sorry,” Drake says, and takes a sip of his beer to show Perry that he’s done this before, he can be cool. A couple dozen thoughts flit through his head, all of them things he would normally throw out into the conversation, but this feels different, and Perry isn’t one of his school friends, so he takes another sip and enjoys the silence, which Perry seems to like but Drake has never had the chance to get used to.

“I had to bust up a fight last time I was here,” Perry says. “Tonight, I’d just as soon let it go.”

“Because you had a bad day.”

“I’m just glad I got that nanny for Cookie,” he says. “She doesn’t need to see me like this.”

That’s pretty nice. Perry doesn’t just treat Cookie like a pet; he cares about her feelings, and if Drake had been thinking about Cookie at all when he’d helped get her, that’s what he would have wanted. Things just seem to work out like that, and Drake feels so good that he wants Perry to feel good, too.

“You must be tired,” he says, swallowing some more beer; thick and dark, not like the cans from parties.

“In some ways,” Perry says slowly. “Needing to unwind isn’t always the same thing as being tired, you know what I mean?”

“Mmm.” Drake disguises his lack of a response for another swig of beer, and it’s finally hitting him, warm and heady, and Perry’s eyes hot on his, which is new. Drake knows the rules; he doesn’t look away, because he doesn’t want to discourage whatever is coming next. He likes Perry.

“What are you doing here?”

“Uh, you asked me,” Drake says, but he has a feeling that’s not exactly what Perry means. The question sounds more like what Josh has been asking him for the past couple months.

“I mean, what are you doing,” Perry says, and finishes off his drink just as he motions to the waitress for another. “On a school night, in a bar, with the cop who busted you for having the wrong color car.”

Drake shrugs, his thigh bumping against Perry’s underneath the table. They’re sitting together against the wall, not quite touching—until now. “I like your monkey,” he laughs.

“Right. You have a girlfriend, Parker?” he asks, suddenly relaxed, almost smiling. “Boyfriend?”

Drake sloshes beer onto his chin. No one has ever asked him that last question before. “I…”

He doesn’t want to say no. The truth is, he got hard the second Perry asked him, because he knows that question, he knows that tone, and he knows what could happen now, if he just lets it.

“Nope,” he finally says, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m a free agent.”

The waitress brings Perry another drink and whisks away his empty glass, and Drake doesn’t even notice her ass as she walks away. “I guessed as much,” Perry says, which is kind of insulting until Drake thinks about how much time he’s spent following Perry around over the past couple months.

“Why are you here?” he throws out, but Perry just drags his gaze down Drake’s body and smirks, so Drake just concentrates on his beer.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re a fun kid, but those jeans weren’t exactly made for algebra class.” Perry squeezes Drake’s thigh, which spreads out of pure reflex, right into the hand that had been roughing up criminals earlier that day. “You wanted to get noticed, and I’m noticing.”

“Uh.” Now Drake knows what Josh is always talking about when he tells Drake he should take it down a notch, that he doesn’t have to sex up the entire world, because who knew that Officer Gilbert, of all people, would be kneading his thigh and turning him on and turning him around so fast that he’s actually letting it happen? “Dude, this is like the opposite of unwinding,” he says.

“It works for me,” Perry says as he brings his hand back above the table and looks at his watch. “You have a curfew?”

“I’m eighteen,” Drake huffs, straightening his back against the booth. “And it’s still early.” His curfew is eleven tonight, but he doesn’t want to seem like some kid whose mom is waiting to tuck him into bed.

“Just checking,” Perry says. “I thought you might want to come back to my place.”

“Sure.” He likes that there isn’t any guesswork involved; that they’ve practically made an agreement up front, even if Drake isn’t technically sure what the agreement entails. Making out, definitely; probably more. Drake gulps his beer and thinks about what he’d like to do. Perry’s probably got a lot of experience—enough that he feels perfectly free to ask a hot guy over to his place.

“Take it easy with that,” Perry says, and Drake puts the beer down, warmth spreading through his belly as he taps his fingers to the beat thrumming through the bar. If this were a different kind of bar, he’d want to get up and dance a little, work off some of this energy.

“I did security for these guys a couple years back,” Perry says.

“The Hailstones? No way, I love this band.” Next to a rockstar, being a cop is probably the coolest job you could have. “What were they like?”

Perry shrugs. “Like all the other bands I’ve pulled duty on. Loud, a little stoned, killer onstage.”

“They are killer onstage,” Drake agrees happily. Perry has great taste in music, and he’s got a great mouth. Drake can’t help but notice it; full lips and white, straight teeth that he likes to bare at perps in a way that used to make Drake nervous. He’s not nervous anymore. In fact, he’s settled into the familiar habit of imagining how far he might get at the end of the night. For the first time, there might be a blow job in his future, and one he doesn’t particularly have to work for. Perry probably gives head in the same way he does everything else: practiced and confident and unyielding.

Drake slouches down in his seat, trying to be cool, but the image won’t stop spinning through his mind. He could get head from Perry.

Suddenly, his belly isn’t the only thing that’s warm. Maybe Drake has indulged in a few fantasies about doing rough, sweaty police work with Perry, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to him that it could go another direction. Guys have never been an option, but Drake chalks that up to lack of imagination, because sitting here with their knees touching, he wants, and that part is familiar. He knows what this kind of want feels like, how to take care of it.

“We could go to your house now,” he says softly, letting his hair fall over his eyes as he glances up at Perry, who just gives him a long, hard look.

“You sure?” He waits until Drake nods before he pulls out his wallet and leaves a few bills on the table.

Drake follows him closely on the way out. It feels strange to get right in Perry’s space, because he’s the kind of man who doesn’t allow it; full of sharp edges and the tendency to lash out. Apparently those edges are only for people who aren’t Drake, because when they bump shoulders, he gets a heavy hand at the small of his back.

*

Drake almost makes curfew. He climbs in the window just to be safe, and finds Josh still up, reading in bed with a small book-light. “Hey,” he says as he gets his last foot on the floor. “Why are you awake?” It’s not that he minds Josh being up, but he feels shaken, all stirred up with excitement and residual arousal, and had expected some time to settle down on his own.

Josh shuts his book and puts it aside. The light clicks when he turns it off, and then they’ve just got shadows and streetlights; much better. Drake sets about shedding his clothes, but he feels Josh watching him. “What, man?” he asks as he tugs off his boots.

“Nothing. Were you out with Officer Gilbert?”

“Yep.” Drake can’t keep the pride out of his answer. Even if Josh asked, he wouldn’t know how to explain the furious thrill of getting off with a butch guy like Perry, who had opened Drake’s jeans like he owned them and jerked him off with a wide, steady hand.

“Were you on a date?” Josh doesn’t have any reason to be so huffy; Drake’s dates are none of his business.

“I didn’t buy him dinner, if that’s what you mean.”

“Drake.”

Drake gets out of his clothes—he’d just gotten back in them thirty minutes ago—and climbs up into bed. He’s sensitive in a dozen different places; Perry is always working a five o’clock shadow by the end of the day, and Drake remembers the scrape of it against his belly as he’d kissed his way down with hard, bruising kisses. If he doesn’t want to answer Josh, it’s only because there isn’t a good way to explain why there’s probably a mark high on his thigh from Perry’s mouth.

“Where’d you go?” Once Josh gets started on something, he doesn’t stop. Sometimes, Drake actually likes that about him. Tonight, it’s annoying.

“A bar, and then his house,” he says. The sheets are cool and wonderful against his bare skin, and Drake feels entirely sexual, like there are parts of him that he hadn’t even known could feel good.

“Oh, so he took you to a bar? Officer Gilbert, who once dedicated his entire existence to making sure we didn’t so much as jaywalk, took an underage high school student to a bar.”

“I’m not underage! Not for some things, at least.”

“Why do I even talk to you?” Josh says, and flops over in bed so hard that the mattress bangs against the box springs.

“Because I’m awesome,” Drake says sleepily, and stretches his legs out in bed, drenched in satisfaction.

*

“You’re acting weird,” Josh says the next morning, when they’re halfway to school.

“You’re acting weird,” Drake shoots back, annoyed that Josh had interrupted a vivid mental replay of last night, spread out on Perry’s sofa. The hottest part had been the moment when it had shifted from a lazy makeout session on Perry’s sofa to something breathless and dirty and hurtling toward the place Drake had been afraid they’d never get. He’d been so fucking relieved when he’d heard Perry’s roughened growl at the same moment a hand had cupped him through his jeans, hot and firm and so relentless Drake never had the chance to second-guess what was happening—not that he would’ve wanted to.

After that, Perry had lain back on the sofa, pulled Drake on top, and let him do whatever he wanted.

“…and are you even listening?” Josh says, which reminds Drake that he was going to find out why Josh has been so cranky.

“Yeah, sorry,” he says, braking at the last minute for a red light. “Just thinking.”

“Gee, I wonder what about,” Josh says, and clutches his bookbag to his chest. “Are we on for bad movie Tuesday, or do you have another hot date with Officer Gilbert?”

“Of course we’re on.”

“Fine,” Josh says as they pull up at school. The moment the car stops, he jumps out, and Drake has to belatedly shout across the parking lot,

“And it wasn’t a date!”

*

Movie night with Josh is usually one of Drake’s favorite things, but tonight it had sucked, with Josh all twitchy and silent, and the way he’d gravitated away from Drake, rather than toward him. They hadn’t shared popcorn, hadn’t shared an armrest, and when it had been over, Josh had taken off with Eric and Craig.

Drake isn’t ready to go home, so he sits in the parking lot of The Premiere and dials Perry’s number. He’s never sure what Perry will be doing or whether he’ll even answer his phone, but on the third ring, he picks up, his voice deep and sleep-rough.

“Some of us have jobs,” he complains, and then a muffled, “Put that back, Cookie; it’s almost bedtime.”

“I know,” Drake says. “But sometimes you work late, and who can keep track of your days off?”

Perry sighs, but Drake is used to waiting. Perry is slow to come around, as though he takes his decisions every bit as seriously as Josh does, or maybe he isn’t quite sure he likes Drake all the time, which makes Drake even more willing to wait for a reply. Mrs. Hayfer, Thornton, Mindy…Drake can count the people who don’t like him on one hand. At least he knows Perry likes him in some ways.

“I have some free time, but I guess I could just go home,” Drake says, smirking against his phone.

Perry still sounds sleepy, but interested. “I’m just putting Cookie to bed now. I’m assuming you’re in the neighborhood?”

“I…yeah,” Drake says. “I have a couple errands, but I can be there in thirty minutes.” Grabbing a Mocha Cola Slushcup and spritzing body spray under his t-shirt totally count as errands. The rest of the time he kills by driving around, already vaguely turned on, until it’s been long enough that he can park in front of Perry’s house and knock on his front door--softly, because he loves Cookie, but he doesn’t want her around to see all the things he hopes are about to happen.

Perry’s living room is dark except for the television, a basketball game that looks like it’s almost over. “What’s the score?” he says, settling onto the sofa where they’d done unspeakable things the night before. Unspeakable, but that doesn’t make them unrepeatable.

“Does it matter?” Perry asks. He’s barefoot, in jeans and a white t-shirt that shows off his arms and chest. He’s got a thick build, but he’s one of those guys who goes heavy on the weights at the gym, and Drake can still remember how it had felt to have that strength hovering over him, shoulders flexed like two smooth fists where Drake’s hands had curled around them.

“Not to me,” Drake admits, smiling as he climbs onto the sofa next to Perry, as close as he dares. It seems like they ought to be able to get right to it; Perry doesn’t need any sweet-talk, and he’s already looking at Drake’s mouth as though it’s the most fascinating thing he’s seen all day.

“What have you been up to?” Perry’s face is dark with stubble, half hidden in shadow.

“Bad movie Tuesday with Josh,” Drake says. “It’s kind of a tradition. A fun tradition, usually.”

“So, that’s why you’re sulking.”

Their voices are low, hushed for Cookie’s sake. Drake doesn’t feel like he’s sulking; he might be a little down, but he also feels also unbearably sexy, with Perry’s sidearm in plain sight on the counter, and the faint scent of soap on his skin. “We should’ve just skipped it,” Drake says. “I think he’s mad at me or something. No offense, man, but he really doesn’t want me hanging out with you.”

Perry crosses his arms over his chest. “Ah.”

“Hey, I told you he was hanging on to that public nudity thing.”

“Something tells me it’s not the public nudity that’s got Nichols’ panties in a twist.”

Duh, of course not, but Drake knows better than to tell Perry that Josh thinks he’s some creepy old guy. That would definitely kill the mood.

“Come over here,” Perry says, spreading his thighs a little as he tugs Drake over to straddle his lap. Their mouths move together for a while; slow and wet and quiet until Perry slides his hand under Drake’s shirt, a thrill of sensation that trembles through his belly, and says, “What do you think Josh would say if he saw you right now?”

Drake chokes out a tiny laugh, entirely without humor. Josh would die; he knows that without knowing how he knows it; Josh would storm around or cover his face or worse, be done--but for real, this time.

“That’s what I thought,” Perry muses. His hands are deft with Drake’s zipper, and then his dick is clasped in a tight grip that feels amazing. He loves the way Perry’s face looks right now: firm and intent, the same as it does when he’s angry or impatient or fed up with everything. It feels so much more dangerous than anything he’s been told not to do—but then, who would think to warn him about this?

“What would you think if Josh saw you right now?” Perry asks, skimming a thumb over the tip on the downstroke, which makes Drake’s dick jump a little, and leak all over Perry’s hand. “I think that’d appeal to your little exhibitionist streak; I think you’d like him to see you like this, getting jerked off by the last person he thinks should have their hand in his brother’s pants.”

“No,” Drake buries his face in the juncture of Perry’s shoulder and neck, but he can’t deny the rush of urgency that spools up in his balls, tight and quick, when he thinks about Josh seeing him so desperate for it, how much he likes it, how he clutches at Perry’s shoulders and rocks into his fist.

He’s suddenly barely holding on, but Perry’s voice is harsh in his ear, and his hand just as unrelenting as it forces the pleasure through him with hard, twisting strokes. “I think so, Parker. Or maybe you’d get off faster if it was his hand you were fucking, hmm? Think he’d be good at this?”

Drake doesn’t want to think about it, but there’s the image right there, along with Perry’s teeth on his ear and the abrupt, paralyzing force of his orgasm as it spills out of him in hard, blinding pulses that leave him making undignified sounds into Perry’s shoulder until his throat feels raw. Perry’s such a jerk for mixing Josh up in this, but he’s so good at everything, from the hand at the base of Drake’s cock that wrings the last shudders from him to the hand that holds steady at the back of his neck; everything he needs all at once, until Drake can breathe again.

Everything he needs until they can start all over.

“That stuff you said about Josh,” he says later, when they’re sprawled on the rug, dirty and exhausted. The basketball game is long over, and Drake is pretty sure he’s missed curfew again. “Why’d you say it?”

“Why do you think?” Perry’s fingers rifle through Drake’s hair with uncharacteristic gentleness.

“Because you like to talk dirty?”

“You thought that was dirty?”

Drake stretches out and considers. “In a way,” he says slowly. “Josh doesn’t think about stuff like that, okay?”

Perry snorts. “If you really believe that, then you two are even more messed up than I thought.”

“I’m serious,” Drake says. “I think he knows what we did last night, and he can hardly look at me.”

“Because he’s so disgusted.”

“Exactly,” Drake says, glad that Perry finally understands.

*

He can tell Josh is awake when he gets home, but he doesn’t say anything to Drake about breaking curfew, or about their bad movie date, or about the racket Drake makes when he trips over his own dirty clothes from yesterday. It’s usually a bad sign when Josh goes quiet, and Drake makes a note to look into it sometime when he’s not so tired and not in the middle of having the best sex of his life.

*

Everything is great until the next weekend. It’s late, but not so late Drake couldn’t scrounge up something to do, so when the phone rings, he’s half-hoping it’ll be someone with something good in mind. Instead, it’s Perry, who says, “I think I have something that belongs to you” in a way that Drake knows it’s not going to be something like a bag of money or a pony.

When he gets to Perry’s, Josh is sulking at the edge of the sofa. There’s something off about him. The way he holds himself makes Drake nervous because he can see from the set of Josh’s shoulders that he’s in a mood to go off at any provocation, yet his hands are clasped in his lap like an apology.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Drake says.

Josh looks down at his hands.

“I picked Josh up at a club tonight,” Perry says, loosening his tie and slowly unlooping it from his neck. “He looked a little…reckless.”

Reckless? Josh? A laugh rises up in Drake’s throat. “I know his moves can get a little dorkish sometimes, but that’s no reason to drag him out.”

“How about underage drinking, assaulting a police officer, and being generally in over his head?”
Now that Drake looks closer, he can see the swelling around Perry’s eye.

“I wasn’t in over my head,” Josh says. “I was fine, I wasn’t doing anything Drake hasn’t done a million times.”

“Yeah? Parker, do you hang out at the Wet Panther?”

“You were at the Panther?” Drake steps back from the sofa and squints at Josh, who doesn’t look like he’s had more than a couple drinks. “Dressed like that?”

Josh glares and crosses his arms over his plain button-down shirt. “Yes, dressed like this. And as I said before, it was fine.”

Drake doesn’t really see how Josh could possibly get in over his head anywhere, especially dressed like a kindergarten teacher. Then again, he doesn’t see how Josh could have even gotten inside the Wet Panther, the sleek club with limos and flashing lights and beautiful people spilling out onto the sidewalk every weekend.

“So, okay. You’re trying something new. You’re…?”

“I’m tired of waiting!” Josh yells. “It was fine before, but now you’re off sleeping with Officer Gilbert every chance you get, so I have every right to go out and have a good time without having to explain myself to the guy who-“ he breaks off, and for one awful second Drake thinks he’s going to cry, but Josh just presses his mouth into a hard line until it passes, and then says, “- to Officer Gilbert.”

“I did you a favor,” Perry says. “Babysitting isn’t in my job description, but I figure I owe you one.”

Drake just stands there, watching Josh pick at a loose thread in his jeans. Something important is happening, but he’s not sure what. “Can I talk to you a second?” he asks, and herds Perry toward the kitchen, where they can still keep an eye on Josh. “What happened?” he demands in a whisper, crowding Perry against the counter. “Did you hurt him?”

Perry jerks his head in denial. “Are you kidding? I’m the one with the busted up face.”

Drake can see that. He touches just beneath the swell of his cheekbone, and breathes in deep. This isn’t the time, but that’s all it takes to get him going, just the briefest touch of Perry’s skin. Because he’s Drake and there are a pair of lips right in front of him, he has to kiss them, eyes closed, fingers careful on Perry’s face and the familiar taste of Perry’s assent on his tongue.

“Are you always in the mood?” Perry murmurs against his mouth, and Drake nods without stopping. He’s vaguely aware that there’s a reason they can’t go very far right now, but then Perry is kissing his way across Drake’s throat, and he has to rub himself against Perry just a little until Perry says, “You know Nichols is watching, right?” He squeezes Drake’s ass with both hands, which makes it hard for Drake to think.

He does manage to turn his head and, face pressed against Perry’s shoulder, see for himself. Josh is still on the sofa, watching with his mouth half open. His eyes are dark and covetous, and they gleam where the kitchen light filters in. Drake swallows down a moan when Perry works a hand between them, because Josh isn’t missing a thing, and his gaze is fixed on the place where Perry is tugging at Drake’s belt.

“Not so disgusted, is he?” Perry’s voice is low in Drake’s ear, warm breath that floods Drake’s belly with warmth, and no, Perry is right, Josh isn’t disgusted. He can’t read the expression on Josh’s face, but it’s not disgust. Not yet, at least, but Perry’s hand is rapidly making progress—Drake’s jeans are already splayed open in front—and in a minute his dick is going to be right there in the open.

And this is where what his teachers call ‘poor impulse control’ gets him in trouble, because it feels so good when Perry gets his hand around him that he can’t vocalize any of the protests he knows he should at least attempt to offer.

At least Josh can’t be getting much more than an occasional glimpse of anything. Any second, Drake is going to stop things—any second, he keeps thinking, but then he feels how excited Perry is, and it’s such a rare thing to feel that endless control slip away that Drake can’t help but push it further—not the right thing to do—and rubs his hand against the front of Perry’s slacks until Perry is moving and Drake is stumbling backward, tripping all over himself as Perry drags him back to the living room. He lands on the sofa, right next to Josh.

“Wait,” he says, vainly trying to cover himself with his hands, but Perry doesn’t wait; he gets down on his knees between Drake’s legs and bats his hands away. It’s useless, so Drake slumps back into the sofa and lets Perry yank his jeans down over his hips and onto the carpet.

“Nichols has had a bad night,” Perry says, sliding a hand under Drake’s t-shirt, pushing it up until he’s entirely on display. “But I’m thinking there’s a way we can make it up to him.”

Drake lets his head roll to the side; Josh is staring straight ahead at the television, unblinking.

“Tell him he can look,” Perry says, as though he doesn’t have any doubt that Josh would want to look. Josh has had a couple drinks and Drake is right here; if he wanted to look, he’d already be looking. Perry’s hand stops stroking, and Drake sighs.

“You can look,” he says.

It takes a few seconds, but Josh finally glances over, furtive at first, and then he’s openly watching Drake get a hand job.

“You ever think about doing this?” Perry asks. Drake isn’t sure he wants to hear the answer. Josh just gives Perry a steady look, his eyes shadowed, and something that might be a nod. At this point, Drake can’t tell. He’s always known he likes being on stage, but Perry had been right about everything; he’s getting off on being laid out like this, with Perry between his legs and Josh straining to get a better look. When Perry says, “Tell him he can touch, Parker,” Drake doesn’t hesitate, but the words get stuck in his throat.

“You...can,” he says.

Josh’s eyes meet his for one startling moment before he jerks his gaze away and crosses his arms over his chest. Drake sags against the sofa with disappointment. He should be glad Josh doesn’t want to get into this, but he’s not. He’s so hard, he wants as many hands on him as possible.

Perry doesn’t let him down. “You sure? Look at him; he’s getting desperate for it. He likes it when you touch him here,” he says, trailing his fingers over Drake’s belly, and he’s dead on as usual. Drake squirms against him and says, “Please,” to Perry’s mouth and Josh’s hand or…he moans thinking about Josh’s mouth, even though there’s no way it’s even an option.

“Like this?” Josh says, just as a light touch settles into his skin. Drake’s stomach jumps under the fingers that trace the line of hair just beneath his belly button, more cautious than Perry has ever been.

“Just like that,” Perry says. “But the truth is, he’s pretty easy. He likes everything. Especially this,” he says, and dips his head so he can drag his wide, flat tongue up and over Drake’s balls, hot and wet and sparking every nerve ending he’s got. The sofa is scratchy against his palms when he jams them against the cushions and struggles to keep still, to keep from just pushing his dick toward Perry’s mouth.

“Oh,” Josh says. He sounds shaken, but his hand splays over Drake’s hip as though it’s there to stay. “He, uh, really likes that.”

Drake wants more; he wants to be kissing, or touching someone, or for someone to just touch his erection, which is arched up against his belly, the head swollen and leaking all over the place Josh’s hand was just a few seconds ago. But he doesn’t know the rules here, and Perry really seems to know what he’s doing, so he hangs back, waiting to see what comes next.

“Yes, he does,” Perry says, and bites lightly at his thigh before he straightens. “And he tastes fantastic. Come down here and see, Nichols; don’t make him wait.”

Josh doesn’t look so much like a preschool teacher anymore. He looks as wrecked as Drake feels, and Drake wants him to do what Perry says, come down so Drake can see if his skin feels as hot as it looks. For a moment, it seems like he might be thinking about it, but then he bites his lip and draws back, while Drake’s thighs tremble from holding so tense for so long.

“No? You don’t have to start off with anything complicated. His mouth is as good as the rest of him,” Perry says, and when he finally lowers his head to let Drake slide between his lips, all three of them moan together. It’s almost too exciting; Drake’s nerves are the only thing that keeps him from coming, nerves about the fact that Josh’s hand is still moving restlessly from his hip to his belly, and back again.

It’s turning him on, the way they’re talking about him like he isn’t even here, and he definitely likes the stuff Perry said about him tasting good. Perry isn’t a flatterer, so he’s probably just working Josh just the right way, but it’s working. Josh is staring at his mouth like it’s the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen.

Or maybe it’s not terror, Drake thinks as he presses his head back into the cushions and tries to keep his eyes open. He knows all of Josh’s expressions, and it’s not dismay he’s seeing; it’s painful want, like every time he’d realized he wasn’t going to win the science fair. But it’s Josh, who would never presume anything and who has practiced caution since birth, so Drake lets his eyes fall shut and reaches out blindly. “Josh,” he chokes out, because Perry is going down and tonguing him and holding his balls all at once, every wet stroke like the first swell of orgasm that never quite tumbles over.

Josh has never left him hanging. Drake’s eyes are closed, but he recognizes Josh’s mouth as soon as it descends on his, soft and eager and already familiar. He digs his hands into Josh’s hair and holds him close, until Josh makes muffled, shaken sounds that rumble through him like an earthquake, like this is Drake’s first time and he can’t concentrate on more than one thing at once. The only thing he knows is that Josh is into this; Josh is kissing him without restraint, so much sweeter than Perry, as though he wants this for entirely different reasons.

Then Perry pulls off of Drake, cool air on his dick, just as Josh freezes up, his teeth sliding clumsily over Drake’s lip so hard it stings. He thinks he hears Perry say, “Get him off, Nichols,” and Drake slants one eye open to see that Perry has captured Josh’s hand. “I’m sure if you rub him the right way, he’ll return the favor.”

Drake arches up as Josh’s hand closes around his erection. He registers Josh’s excitement as a ripple against his lower lip, and he’s not sure if it’s him or Perry that’s got Josh so turned on. Sure, Josh’s mouth is pressed to Drake’s; breathing together; but Drake can feel the pressure of Perry’s hand behind Josh’s grip. It suddenly hits him that Perry might be turning Josh on, and might even be touching him right now, or vice versa. If he could drag his eyes open or his mouth away from Josh’s, he might be able to find out.

“He’s right,” he says belatedly, from deep in his throat, pausing their kiss for the barest moment. “I will, I will; please, Perry, Josh.” Josh’s fist tightens around him, and then pleasure rolls in like a heavy blanket when Josh’s fingers spread out to cover as much surface as possible, twisting around, slick and tight on the parts where Drake is dripping with it.

And just like that, Perry’s hand is gone. It’s Josh alone, jerking him off in rapt, uneven strokes. “Is this good?” Josh asks as he pulls back, pulling harder at Drake’s dick, faster, in quick jerks that make Drake’s hips twitch, almost gone. It’s hard to tell if he’s asking Drake or Perry.

“You’re doing fine,” Perry says, just as Drake says, “Yeah. Josh, it’s good,” unnerved by the way Josh is just watching; taking in all of Drake’s reactions and occasionally giving a deep enough stroke to keep Drake shuddering on the edge. “You’re good, just, please, keep…more, more,” Drake pants.

“And to think, your brother thought you wouldn’t be into this kind of thing,” Perry says as he lets his hand drift down over the front of Josh’s jeans without even asking. Josh’s grip tightens for a moment, and then his attention wanders to Perry, his eyes narrowed with confusion and arousal and, Drake imagines, suspicion that Perry is having fun at his expense.

His strokes have nearly stopped, and Drake squirms on the sofa, trying to get more. “He’s not really my brother,” Josh says, and Drake groans. The last thing they need is for Josh to get all defensive.

“No, I can see that,” Perry says, and he must sense the same thing as Drake, because he squeezes Josh through his jeans and for a moment, when Josh’s eyelids sag with pleasure, Drake thinks they’re going to kiss. He can’t believe Josh is even letting Perry touch him, but they seem to be having their own conversation now that has nothing to do with Drake. “Parker’s been trying to convince me that you’re some kind of monk; that you don’t even know what fucking is.”

Whoa, fucking? They’ve never talked about fucking. Drake lifts his head just as Perry grabs his thighs and tugs him forward so his legs are splayed wide open, and if Josh and Perry weren’t so busy staring one another down, they’d be able to see everything--everything, and Drake is suddenly clear on where Perry’s been taking this thing all along.

“Well…I do,” Josh says.

“That’s what I figured,” Perry says, smiling a little at Josh. “Sharing a room with Parker all this time, watching him strut around like he’s the gateway to the best sex you’ve never had.”

Josh nods. “He does do that.”

“Hey,” Drake says, but then Perry drags a finger back beneath his balls and he’s been busy, because it’s so slick that when Drake pushes down, desperate for something to happen, it sinks into his body the same way it has the other three or four times they’ve done this.

“Yeah,” Perry says. “But the thing is, he is.” Drake draws one foot up onto the sofa so he can get more, and then Perry has got two fingers inside, full and intimate and so much like getting fucked that he has to force himself not to just fantasize that one of them is doing the fucking and finish himself off.

“Oh my God,” Josh says abruptly, when he finally turns away from Perry. “Drake. I didn’t mean…” His voice sounds thick, slowed by whatever he sees when he watches Drake arch toward Perry’s fingers.

“Get undressed,” Perry says, giving Josh a vague impatient gesture. “Or at least take off your pants; I can’t believe he’s waited even this long.”

Josh doesn’t move. It figures he’d have to stall things out at the most important moment ever.

“I don’t, uh.” Josh’s fingers move to his belt, but don’t go any further.

It’s one thing to get jerked off by Josh, but it would be another to have actual sex with him, with Josh braced over him and nothing between them—no one between them, because Perry wouldn’t be able to help them with that. Drake suddenly wants it more than anything; he wants it to be Josh.

“Josh, c’mon,” he says. His hairline is damp, his hair sticking in pieces to his forehead, and it feels as though they’ve been doing this for hours. “We’ve already done everything else.”

By the time Josh gets out of his clothes, he’s breathing so hard Drake worries he might just keel over. Perry withdraws his fingers and slicks up Josh’s dick in a smooth, unexpected stroke that lingers for just a moment at the end, as though Perry likes the weight of it in his hand. Drake doesn’t blame him.

Then he’s gone, and Josh is kneeling between Drake’s legs. His dick is dark with arousal, and glistens from Perry’s quick onceover. Drake’s erection gives a little jerk just looking at it, and when the tip of it grazes the place where he’s slick and pliant and ready, pleasure signals rush so quickly to his brain that he whites out a little around the edges. “Right there,” he breathes, holding onto Josh’s arms and relaxing as Josh pushes in, not bigger than a few of Perry’s fingers, but harder.

That’s not the only difference. Perry had always been the one making Drake feel good, cool and unflappable even as Drake comes on his fingers, but Josh’s face is a reflection of Drake’s own gut-clenching arousal. Once he’s in, he runs both hands up and down Drake’s sides until Drake shivers with the chills that break out on his skin before they settle into heat. The corners of Josh’s mouth quirk up when he sees Drake squirm. “I never knew you were ticklish,” he says softly.

Drake tries to shrug. He’s not sure what he is right now. Instead of answering, he wraps his legs around Josh’s waist and pulls him in until he feels the dull throb of pleasure deep inside. Josh’s skin is soft and damp at the small of his back where Drake has planted his heels, and the move does exactly what he’d intended, because Josh leans forward and starts to move.

He goes slow at first. Slower than Drake would like, but then he bends forward for a kiss that gives away how far gone he really is. The kiss is better for his lack of finesse; sloppy, desperate presses of lips, teeth and tongue that mean he’s distracted by the clutch of Drake’s body—Drake can feel how tight it is—and trying not to lose it. Drake opens to it and digs in hard with his heels. Maybe Josh will have bruises from this tomorrow; maybe Drake will be able to see them and touch them in his own bed.

“Drake,” Josh moans, burying his face in Drake’s neck, his arms braced on the cushions. “Do you want me to-“

“Yes. Just keep doing that, okay?” Drake says, lifting his hips over and over again, his dick caught under the warm pressure of Josh’s belly. Then they’re suddenly on the same wavelength, Josh sucking mindlessly at his neck while his thrusts get hard and erratic, and when Drake comes, it’s with his hands in Josh’s hair and one heel pressed to the ridge of his spine.

He’s come on Perry’s hand and in his mouth, but it’s different to come on Josh, to feel his sweat-damp hair and the tremble that goes through him with every thrust. The whole thing is different, because Drake wants to keep holding on, to keep Josh’s tongue stroking just below his ear, keep them together like this.

Josh stills abruptly, with a gasp. “Oh. I’m coming,” he whispers, and “Drake,” in a way that makes Drake’s chest clench up with everything he hears behind it.

“This is good,” he says, petting down the smooth lines of Josh’s back. “We should…” He trails off as Josh shakes in his arms, unsure what they should do. Kiss some more, or crawl up on Perry’s sofa and take a nap. He doesn’t know why they haven’t always been like this, pressed naked together, feeling good together. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, and maybe that’s why, when he turns to look for Perry, he isn’t anywhere to be found.

*

He drives Josh home in the late night fog, traffic lights bleeding out into the dark, and silence bleeding between them in the front seat of Drake’s car. Josh makes it easier by pretending to doze with his head against the window. When they get upstairs, they both begin to get ready for bed as though nothing has happened, as though it’s any other night, and Drake isn’t about to let that happen.

“I had fun tonight,” he says, reckless in his irritation.

Josh continues getting undressed and pulls a sleep shirt over his head, which disturbs his hair into a fluffy mess. “Yeah. I sure didn’t expect Officer Gilbert to…let me hang out with you guys.”

Drake snorts. “You just practically had sex with him; I think you can call him Perry.”

“You mean you practically had sex with him,” Josh says, flinging his jeans toward the hamper with a violence that surprises Drake. When he turns around, he sees that Josh’s face is lined with misery.

“No, I had sex with you.”

“Right. Me, Perry, and anyone else that happens to come along.”

And Drake doesn’t know how Josh got to this point so quickly when just an hour ago he’d been saying Drake’s name as though he was everything. It’s pretty insulting, what he’s implying.

“You,” Drake says as he climbs up into bed. “That’s it. You’re the only one.”

“The only one what?”

Drake sighs and stares up at the ceiling. “The only one who’s ever done that to me. With me. Whatever.” He flaps his hands as he talks, as though to describe what neither of them want to say outright. Josh is the only one Drake would trust to come inside like that, especially without a condom, without anything between them.

Josh sits down on his bed, hard enough that Drake hears it thump against the wall. “But you were so...you know. Good at it.”

Of course he’d been good at it. All he’d had to do was lie there, kiss Josh and let his body move however it felt best. Why wouldn’t Drake be good at that? It’s like they’ve been in training for that act since the day they met. All the times they’ve roughhoused and fought and made up and put one another first—that’s all been leading up to this.

“You were good at it, too,” he says, and can tell by Josh’s soft disparaging snort that he doesn’t believe him. “You know you were. Didn’t you feel me?” The way he’d made himself open to Josh, had kissed without finesse, and toward the end, had rocked and clutched and come all over Josh’s belly. Drake had seen him mop it up afterward, with an expression that almost resembled confusion.

“I felt you,” Josh says. “I just don’t know what it means. Officer Gilbert got us all hot and bothered, and then he just left.”

“Hot and bothered?” Drake rolls his eyes. Josh needs to lay off the romance novels.

“You know what I mean. I don’t like not knowing what to do. I slept with somebody else’s boyfriend, but I don’t even feel bad about it, which is really making me question my integrity. My integrity, Drake!” Josh puts his head in his hands and makes an unhappy sound. Apparently his integrity is pretty important to him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not overreacting.

Drake sits up in bed and turns on his lamp. “Please. You know why you don’t feel bad?”

“Because of my tragic moral decline?”

“No. Because it was me.”

“That just makes it worse.”

“Bull! You don’t believe that. It makes it better, and the reason you don’t feel guilty is because you know that if anybody should be fucking me, it’s you. Admit it! That’s why you hated Perry, that’s why you went out to pick up at a club tonight, and that’s why you said yes to everything Perry offered.”

“Please stop talking.”

“No. Because you’re right about everything. It should be us.”

Josh doesn’t lift his head. “But Perry knows everything you like.”

“Yeah. He knew I’d like you.” Maybe what’s bothering Josh is how much Perry had known about what Josh would like, how he’d guessed that Josh had been going crazy with wanting and would be willing to go further and further until he’d been inside Drake, fucking as though he’d never have the chance again. Josh doesn’t like other people to know things he doesn’t; it’s why it never would’ve worked out with Mindy. She enjoys making people feel outside the loop.

“Can I come down there with you?” Drake says.

“Why?”

“Because I wanna kiss you.”

“Drake,” Josh says, but he doesn’t sound angry. Instead, he sounds the way he had earlier, when he’d given everything away, and if it hadn’t been his voice, it would be his eyes, open and pleading.

“I’m coming down,” Drake says, and Josh rolls over to make room.

*

The police station corridors have the same scent of Lysol and gun oil, and when Drake slips in Perry’s office, it smells of the lemon fruit snacks that Cookie likes so much.

“You’re the last person I expected to see here,” Perry says, barely looking up from his stack of paperwork. He always has so much paperwork. “Shouldn’t you be home letting Nichols cook you dinner, or whatever it is he does to make up for fucking you on the first date?”

“What do you do to make up for fucking on the first date?” Drake asks.

Perry’s smile is sharp and smug. “Fuck on the second date.”

For a moment, Drake feels drawn in again by Perry’s dangerous edges. He smiles back, but that isn’t what he wants anymore.

“So, what is it, Parker? Don’t tell me it didn’t work out with your brother, after all the trouble I went through to make it happen--not to mention the blue balls.”

“No, no, it worked out. Thanks,” he adds. “It’s just…” He shrugs. “I just really like your monkey, okay?”

Perry lifts an eyebrow. “You like my monkey.”

“Hey, she likes me,” Drake says.

He knows he’s in when Perry smirks, more amused than anything, and reaches into his drawer for an extra set of keys, which he tosses at Drake. “Tell the nanny to take the night off, don’t feed her any junk, and for the love of God, I just got my sofa steam-cleaned.”

“Thanks,” Drake says, Perry’s keys cool in his palm and Josh waiting in the car with a single ripe banana.

*