WHEN WE GOT to my Jeep, Zerbrowski riding shotgun beside me and Brice in the backseat, I said, "Not that I'm not flattered that you came to my defense, but what's going on, Brice?"
"Thank you, Blake, and you, too, Zerbrowski, for not saying you didn't know what the hell I was talking about, and that you didn't want me to go eat with you."
Zerbrowski turned in the seat as far as the seat belt would allow. "You're welcome to eat with us. After putting Kirkland in his place you can sit by us any time, but why did you want to eat with us this bad? I mean, I know we're charming and all, but with all the offers you've got for dinner and more, why us?"
I glanced back in the darkened car quick enough to catch Brice smiling. He leaned between the seats and I realized he wasn't buckled in. "Buckle up," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Seat belt. I'm pretty fanatical about it, buckle up."
"It's hard to talk from back here," he said.
"I can stop this car and turn it around," I said.
"Is she joking?" Brice asked.
"No," Zerbrowski said.
Brice frowned, but slid back and buckled himself in for safety. "Okay, now what?"
"Yeah, I'd rather see your face while we talk, but my mom died in a car crash, so seat belts make me feel better."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It was a long time ago," I said, pulling out into traffic.
"Doesn't mean it stops hurting," he said.
I used the rearview mirror to glance back, and he was looking at me as if he knew I'd be looking. I looked back at the road. "You lose someone?"
"Yes." He said it soft, and didn't offer to elaborate.
I let it go, but I knew that his loss was more recent than mine. You get better at talking about it casually after a decade or two.
Zerbrowski said, "So, how'd we get to be your pick of dinner dates?" We'd go back to talking about something less painful, by the guy rules. Girl rules are different, they poke at things; guys do not.
"Well, first off, I meant what I said back there. Even officers who don't approve of your lifestyle choices would still take you as backup over Kirkland, or most anyone else. They'd say how you're bad for shacking up with vampires and wereleopards, but in a firefight they'd take your vampire-loving, furry-fucking ass over most anyone else's."
"Did they actually say 'furry-fucking'?" I asked.
He laughed. "Not exactly."
"So you want to learn the ways of the force from Anita," Zerbrowski said.
"Somethin' like that," he agreed.
"Do you have a preference on food?" I asked.
"I've been on the job for eight years."
"Which means you're just glad to have a chance to sit down and get a hot meal, whatever it is, right?" I asked.
"Yes, ma'am." Again, I caught that lopsided grin in the mirror, before I went back to looking at traffic.
"Let's go to Jimmy's," Zerbrowski said.
I nodded. "Works for me." I took a right at the next light and we were there. I found a parking spot, turned off the motor, unbuckled my seat belt. Everyone else followed suit.
Brice said, "Can we talk in the car for a minute?"
Zerbrowski and I exchanged glances, then nodded, and turned in our seats so we could see him more plainly. I thought we were about to find out how we got to be Brice's dinner dates.
"I do want to learn the job from you and not Kirkland, but I didn't expect to have Detective Arnet be so... persistent in her attempts to..."
"Date you," I offered.
He nodded.
"It's not just her," I said. "You are at the top of the female officer and female employee who-can-date-the-new-guy-on-the-force-first pool."
"I'd gathered that," he said, but he was looking at his hands. He had his fingers tangled together, almost clenched. We were about to get to something he didn't like.
"Smith thought he was the hot new thing until you showed up," Zerbrowski said.
"He's dating someone seriously, isn't he?" Brice asked.
"Yes," I said, "but that doesn't always stop some women." In my head, I added, It didn't stop Arnet from pursuing Nathaniel, but I didn't say it out loud. It sounded petty out loud; in my head it didn't sound as bad.
"No, it doesn't," Brice said, and he was looking at his hands where they held on to each other between his jean-clad thighs.
"You married?" Zerbrowski asked.
He shook his head, then looked up, and I saw a look in his face, something serious and unhappy.
"What's wrong, Brice?" I asked.
"Rumor says that some of your boyfriends are... bisexual?"
I gave him a not entirely friendly look. "A couple, but most are more just heteroflexible."
"Heteroflexible?" He made it a question.
I shrugged. "Nathaniel explained the term to me. He's one of my boyfriends. He explained that it means someone who is predominantly heterosexual, but has an exception with one or two people of the same sex, or someone who will cross the line, like at a party occasionally."
"I've never heard the term," Brice said.
I shrugged again. "Like I said, my boyfriend explained it to me." What I didn't add out loud was that the new label was one that fitted me now; there was a girl in among all my boys now. Her name was Jade, and we'd rescued her from a sadistic master vampire that had abused her for centuries. She'd been his tiger to call, and now she was mine; my black tiger, my Black Jade, which was what her Chinese name translated to. I honestly tried not to think about the whole thing much. When I was with her, I felt protective, and God knew she was fragile from centuries of being basically an abused wife of the vampire that had been her master, but to say I wasn't entirely comfortable with having a woman in my bed was an understatement of gigantic proportions.
"Most people think bisexual is just gay-light," Brice said, "but heteroflexible..." He shook his head, smiling.
"I'm not saying some of the men in my life aren't bi, but not as many as I thought. Let's just say that it's been brought to my attention that my issues of not wanting women in the bed made them not suggest it."
"So they'd have more women if you'd be okay with it?" he asked.
I said, "Yes..." and then I stopped myself and said, "You know, this is way over your pay grade for my personal life."
"I'm loving it," Zerbrowski said, "more than you usually tell me."
I frowned at him.
He held his hands up, as if to say Don't shoot. "Hey, just saying."
"Put a girl in the middle, and it's not gay, right?" Brice said, but he sounded more bitter than some theoretical discussion should be.
"You fall afoul of some couple thing?" I asked.
He glanced back down at his big hands. "You could say that."
Zerbrowski made a small noise.
I glared at him. "Say it, before you hurt yourself."
He grinned. "Just picturing you all heteroflexible."
If he only knew about Jade, the teasing would be merciless, but I shook my head. "You don't mean it. You haven't thought about me that way in years, if ever. You're one of the most happily married men I've ever met."
"Don't ruin my image, Anita. I'm the office lech."
Brice laughed. It made us both look at him. "I figured that if you were okay with Anita's home life, maybe you'd be okay with mine, and I figured Anita wouldn't give a damn."
"What's your home life like?" Zerbrowski said. "You got a harem of cuties waiting at home for you, too?"
Brice hung his head. "I wish."
"It's harder to date this many people than you think," I said.
"Trouble in paradise?" Zerbrowski asked.
I frowned, and then sighed. "Let's just say that I'm beginning to wonder if there really can be too much of a good thing."
I waited for Zerbrowski to make another smart remark, but he didn't. I glanced at him and his face was serious, not like him.
"What?" I asked, and even to me it sounded suspicious.
"I've never seen you as happy as you've been the last couple of years, Anita. Whatever you're doing, it works for you. It makes you happy."
"And?" I asked.
"And I don't like hearing you poke at it."
"I'm not poking at it, Zerbrowski, I just had one of the newest boys get all panicked about seeing the bodies on TV. It's like he didn't realize how dangerous my job was until now."
"I hadn't thought about that; you have to explain the job to every new boyfriend. That makes me tired just thinking about it. It's hard enough with just Katie." He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. There were fine lines that I hadn't noticed with the glasses on.
"Just dreading having the talk again with the new one," I said.
"Understandable," Brice said.
We both looked at him, as if we'd sort of forgotten he was still in the car with us. It wasn't like us. "Why are we getting all warm and fuzzy in front of you, Brice?"
"I don't know," he said, "but thank you."
"For what?"
"For letting me in, I guess."
"What do you want?" Zerbrowski asked, putting his glasses back in place. Push a cop, and you get cynical back, eventually.
Brice smiled. "I'm gay, and I'm not out."
Zerbrowski made a snorting sound, and then finally laughed. We both looked at him, and they weren't friendly looks.
"Oh, come on, it's funny. Arnet has done everything but slip her panties in Brice's hand, and Millie down in tech services has found a dozen reasons to be anywhere he is; every woman in the place is after him, and he's gay. Come on, that's funny."
"Not every woman," he said, and he looked at me.
"Nothing personal, Brice, but my dance card is way beyond full."
He smiled. "If half the news reports are true, you've got your own harem, hisem, whatever. But it's more than that, you aren't attracted to me."
I shrugged. "Sorry."
"No, it's not bad, it's good."
"Wait," Zerbrowski said, "you wanted to go to dinner with the one woman in the entire department who isn't attracted to you?"
Brice nodded.
Zerbrowski frowned, and then grinned. "Sorry, Brice, you're a doll and all, but I don't think you're attractive either."
Brice grinned, then chuckled. "Good to know."
"Your sexual orientation doesn't have a damn thing to do with the job," I said.
"No, it doesn't, but if it comes out I'm gay, it will."
"Maybe," I said.
"I'd just like to come out in my own way, not be outed, that's all."
Would I have been less sympathetic if I didn't have Jade in my life? Maybe, but I did, and I hadn't been out in public with her yet; part of that was that I didn't enjoy shopping, or most of the girl stuff she wanted to do. "That's your choice," I said.
"Since you're not attracted to either of us, doesn't really matter," Zerbrowski said.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"But now what?" I asked. "You didn't just want to come to dinner to tell us your big secret."
"I'm looking for some advice on how to handle the women at work without getting them pissed at me. Detective Arnet is being particularly persistent."
I sighed. "I'll need food if we're going to talk about girls."
Brice smiled. "What does that mean?"
"It means I had some problems with Arnet wanting to date one of my boyfriends, and I need food before we get into it."
"Fine with me," Brice said.
Zerbrowski just reached for the door handle.
We all got out and just headed for the lighted windows of the restaurant. Straight, or gay, or being a girl, it didn't matter; we were all just cops eating food and passing time while we waited. I'd tell Brice a short version of Arnet's crush on Nathaniel, and then we'd pass time talking about Brice's personal life. Fine by me, it beat the hell out of talking about mine.