Hard Line

  Hard Line

  By Sidney Bell

  “Bell writes a meaty romance that you can’t put down, and it’s a worthy addition to the M/M contemporary romance genre.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Loose Cannon (Woodbury Boys #1)

  Premed student Tobias Benton is making amends for his past. He keeps his head down, mouth shut and colors within the lines. But when his close friend Ghost goes missing, Tobias will do whatever it takes to get answers—including using blackmail to enlist some help. The last thing he’s looking for is romance.

  Private investigator Sullivan Tate isn’t above a little breaking and entering to solve a case, but when Tobias catches him in the act, it’s almost game over. Their uneasy alliance only gets more complicated when Sullivan learns that Tobias shares his interest in kink. Mixing sex and work could kill Sullivan’s career, but Tobias’s acceptance of Sullivan’s darkest urges is nearly impossible to resist.

  Side by side, Tobias and Sullivan spend their days searching for the truth and their nights fulfilling their respective fantasies. But the answers they seek are far more dangerous than they realize, and soon they find themselves fighting for more than just each other.

  This book is approximately 120,000 words

  One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

  Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Deborah Nemeth

  Dedication

  To Mom and Rod, without whom this book wouldn’t exist, because I would’ve had to quit writing to work at Denny’s, which wouldn’t have helped either me or Denny’s. And to Mitch, because all the books are due to you.

  Also available from Sidney Bell and Carina Press

  Bad Judgment

  Loose Cannon (Woodbury Boys #1)

  Coming soon in the Woodbury Boys series

  Rough Trade

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Bad Judgment by Sidney Bell

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Part One

  Chapter One

  2011

  Later, Tobias Benton would run through the day over and over to figure out what it was that’d set him off. It would take months to nail it down, but once he did, it would be as impossible to miss as a house on fire. Of course, he would think later. Of course that’s it.

  But in that moment, sitting in the squeaky chair in his high school guidance counselor’s office and holding the blank career quiz with the bright red see me! scrawled across the top, he was lost.

  “I thought this was voluntary.” The page was trembling in his hand; he pushed it onto the desk, neatly aligning the bottom edge of the paper with the edge of the desk. The ominous ticking of the mahogany clock on the mantelpiece was very loud, the ceramic Jesus faintly admonishing from his crucifix on the wall. “I didn’t know I could get in trouble.”

  “You’re not in trouble,” Mrs. Marry said. She was a squat, horse-faced woman with kind eyes and yellow hair. She was wearing a brown suit and Tobias liked her. She was a good listener, and even after she’d met his parents, she’d never asked what it was like being the white son of a Haitian couple or whether he felt lost in a houseful of Caribbean adoptees or if the Alcides really believed in zombies or spirits. She’d acted as though there was nothing strange about his family, which he appreciated, because there’d been more than a few teachers and school officials over the years who had.

  Still, he was less inclined to like her when she called him into her office like this. His stomach ached.

  “I’m not in trouble,” he repeated doubtfully.

  “I have some questions, that’s all.”

  “About my quiz? I can do it now. I didn’t know I needed to. I’ll do it now.”

  “I don’t want you to take the quiz, Tobias.” She leaned forward. “I want you to consider what it means that you didn’t write anything down.”

  “I just didn’t do it.” He looked over her shoulder and through the window. The parking lot was a congested mess of teenagers in shiny BMWs and Mercedes leaning on their horns and cutting each other off now that school was over. Tobias’s parents were big believers that showering children with expensive material goods ran counter to crafting a compassionate, generous human being; unlike most of his friends, he didn’t have a car and usually rode the bus. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he would have to take the activities bus, which left two hours later. That wouldn’t be the end of the world. He liked the halls when they were quiet and he could fill the slow minutes with studying. Either way, though, he needed to get out of Mrs. Marry’s office.

  “We’ve talked a lot about medical school.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her fingers across her belly. “How much time have we spent discussing science courses, both here and at Denver University? Enough time that I’d think these career questions would be easy to answer.”

  “I’m not sure why you want me to do the quiz, then.” Tobias wished he could loosen his tie but he didn’t dare. School rules didn’t allow it, and he could imagine the raised eyebrow he’d get from Manman if he tried. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t here in the room; she would know. She always knew. Mothers were weird like that.

  “I don’t want you to do the quiz,” Mrs. Marry said.

  “I can. I will.”

  “Tobias.” She licked her lips, studying him like he was an adorable but obnoxious pet.

  He shifted in his chair and the vinyl squeaked. The office seemed suddenly very hot.

  “You’re not in trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong. But I do think it’s interesting that a kid who’s been in my office for guidance seven times this year about preparing for an eventual career in medicine didn’t fill out a simple five-minute quiz about what you want to do when you graduate.”

  “I didn’t think it was necessary.” He swallowed. His throat was dry. “You already know what I’m going to be.”

  “You started it. You wrote your name.”

  He had. He’d sat at his stupid desk in homeroom the other day and stared at the stupid paper with its litany of ten stupid questions and he hadn’t been able to make his hand move. He’d had to concentrate to write his name, and the letters had come out too sharp and aggressive to be his.

  “I thought I was supposed to.”

  “Tobias, you clearly began the quiz. And then you clearly didn’t answer the questions. Why not?”

  “Because you already know what I’m going to be when I grow up.” Grow up, he thought, and mentally rolled his eyes. Like he wouldn’t be eighteen in a matter of weeks. Like this—all of this, school, quizzes, meetings—weren’t me
rely a stopgap between him and decades of practicing medicine.

  “The quiz isn’t about what you’re going to be. The quiz is about what you want to be.”

  “I know that,” he snapped, and now she was looking at him with a line of concern between her bushy eyebrows. He shouldn’t have snapped at her, but really. All this for a useless quiz. As if the world weren’t set in stone. “Look, I’ll fill it out now.”

  “You’re willfully misunderstanding me,” she said calmly. “And we both know it.”

  “We’re starting on Nixon’s gastrointestinal tract tomorrow in Anatomy and Physiology,” he said, and she blinked. He thought she probably remembered the name he’d given to the dead cat he was dissecting in his science class because they’d talked about his anxiety attack after that first day of the unit a few weeks ago, as well as his desire to never, ever cut up a once-living thing again. But maybe not. He wouldn’t want to think about it anymore if he didn’t want to. He’d thought that naming it after a bad guy might help, a little bit of gallows humor, but it really hadn’t. He had nightmares about that damn cat.

  She came around the desk to sit in the chair next to his, leaning forward and pressing one hand awkwardly on the arm of his chair, like she wanted to reach out to him but the standards and practices of engaging with teenagers in a school forum wouldn’t allow her to. Or maybe she didn’t actually want to touch him but thought it seemed therapeutic to seem like she did. Or maybe—

  “Tobias. It’s okay if you don’t want to be a doctor.”

  He jolted to his feet. “I have to go.”

  “Wait—”

  “No, I forgot that I have a, a, um, a thing?” Why wouldn’t his backpack move? He yanked and the whole chair skidded, because the strap of his bag was caught on the leg. What had he been talking about? He searched for anything he could possibly be... “Drama Club.”

  “You’re in Drama Club now?” she asked, frowning.

  He yanked on his bag again. “It’s an interview. Um, a tryout, I mean.”

  “Tobias, as your guidance counselor, I would prefer—”

  “I feel guided.” He pushed on the chair so it tipped and the strap came loose. He stumbled toward the door, only realizing he was walking backward when he bumped into the door and the knob tried to take out one of his kidneys. The left kidney was located slightly superior to the right, his brain announced helpfully, and he nodded. He was—nothing in his head made sense.

  “Gotta go.” Tobias fumbled his way out of the office.

  She followed him past the iron-haired secretary typing at the desk, who looked up at him as he blew past her, rustling a couple of papers in his wake. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Tobias,” Mrs. Marry called. “Come back. We need to discuss this.”

  “Gonna be late.” He finally escaped, his shoes and breathing loud in the echoing hallway as he hurried toward the rear exit of the school where the buses were. He’d made it in time; the first one was only now pulling out. He jogged to catch up to his, thinking only about getting home so he could study and read and do all the things he was supposed to be doing, and he could—

  Mrs. Marry was going to drag him back into her office tomorrow, he realized.

  She might even call his house.

  His stomachache got worse.

  * * *

  He wasn’t the first one home. All of his siblings were already here: he could hear Ruby’s violin wafting down from the second floor, and Mirlande in the kitchen walking Guy through some terms he would need for a class presentation, because Guy’s mastery of English pronunciation, though very good after nine years in the US, didn’t quite extend to words with multiple Rs in them. Darlin was complaining in Kreyòl about America giving him too many states to memorize, and Marie was humming in the background, probably listening to her iPod even though that was against the rules.

  Normally, Tobias would join them. As the oldest, it was his responsibility to keep everyone else on task—to make Guy double-check his geometry problems, to tell Marie to put her music away, to ensure that Ruby did something academic in addition to practicing her Mozart. He never had to do much to keep Mirlande working hard—she was only two years younger, and very much like him, devoted to her studies. They would eat papayas and drink limonade and work until their parents got home, at which point homework would be checked and dinner begun. Tobias hesitated in the hallway out of sight, just listening, then went upstairs instead.

  He unloaded his backpack, putting everything away neatly, getting out what he would need for the next day. He used the handheld dustbuster to clean out the trash from the bottom of the pockets. When that didn’t help, he walked around the room, looking into every nook and cranny for any signs of chaos. There was no thought involved in these organizational routines, only habit, only order. He’d taken comfort in it before: his books on their shelves alphabetized by author, his shirts grouped by color in the closet, the fronts all facing to the right, always to the right, his hard copies of his school exams and papers filed by course number and date in the small file cabinet.

  There was nothing to be done. Everything was as it should be. He sat on the bed. The sun came in hot through the window, making him sweat despite the air conditioning; he got up, closed the blinds, and sat back down again.

  His feet wouldn’t stay still on the carpet, his toes following the tracks from the vacuuming he’d given it the day before. It was the oddest thing; his body usually weighed so much more than it should. Usually it was a fight to get up a flight of stairs or to get through his homework without falling asleep. Usually, he could admit, it was hard enough making his way through conversations without losing his train of thought.

  This was the most energy he’d had in months. Maybe even a year. There still wasn’t color, exactly, but things had definitely sped up. He didn’t remember the world feeling this way: overbright, too jagged, his heart hammering—he was probably tachycardic. It was very unpleasant, the way everything was rushing and pulsing inside him.

  That stupid quiz. Why hadn’t he filled out that stupid quiz? Dream job: doctor. It wasn’t hard. He’d written the word a million times, made plans a million times more complicated than a stupid senior-year career quiz. All he’d had to do was fill it out and none of this would be happening. Mrs. Marry wouldn’t have looked at him like he was an idiot and she wouldn’t be worried about him now, wouldn’t call to explain that the Alcide family’s oldest son, the young man following in his parents’ footsteps, couldn’t manage to answer ten simple questions.

  He bent over and tried to breathe into his knees. The temperature had spiked in the room. That was why he was sweating. He couldn’t—he had—that stupid, stupid quiz. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to happen when he turned it in without filling it out, but he’d hoped...he’d thought...but it was all still here.

  He got up and went to the bathroom.

  He locked the door behind him. It wasn’t anything. His younger brothers and sisters always knocked, but you never knew. He sat on the edge of the tub. The porcelain was cool through the denim of his jeans. It might’ve been nice, given how overheated he was, but it was strangely distant. His legs weren’t his, that was the problem. They were very far away.

  Somehow, he’d gotten Marie’s manicure scissors. She was constantly complaining about her eyebrows, and had several different tweezers, and she would sometimes trim them with these scissors, and she usually kept them in the drawer, but right now they were in his hand.

  He tugged up the sleeve on his left arm.

  He wondered how much force it would take. He wasn’t going to do anything. There wasn’t anything to be done about any of it, not really. He was simply wondering.

  * * *

  The next thing he remembered was sitting on the floor in Ruby’s room beside her bedroom door. His youngest sister was only six, and while the whole not-spoiling thing meant that the
rest of the kids shared bedrooms, no one could stand the repetition of her constant practicing, so they’d all agreed as a family that she should have a room to herself.

  Her decoration choices leaned toward hot pink and garish purple and extravagant frills of fabric on any object that would stand still, but all frivolity vanished the second she picked up her instrument to practice. Then she became an intent general poring over tactical maps. More driven than any of the adults who fostered her gift.

  The family had begun adoption proceedings for Ruby during a brief Catholic missionary trip to Jamaica a few years ago and she’d had trouble adjusting to the States. It had been a twist of fate, Ruby finding the violin. She had literally walked into a street performer playing outside a shop at the 16th Street Mall one weekend while the whole family had gone to lunch for Marie’s birthday. Tobias had given Ruby a couple of dollars to put in the woman’s case, but Ruby hadn’t seemed to realize what the money was for. She’d stood still as a statue, listening; they’d had to drag her away. It was the most interest she’d shown in anything since she arrived from Jamaica, so a few days later, she’d had a cheap practice violin of her own and lessons with a local teacher who’d been throwing around words like prodigy and generational talent by the end of the first week.

  Now, barely two years later, his sister played Mozart and Bach and Beethoven for hours in her bedroom every day.

  Tobias loved being in Ruby’s room. All right, granted, it was annoying to hear the same bits of music repeated ad nauseum, but by the end of each session she usually gravitated to pieces she knew in their entirety. She so rarely became distracted—a miraculous thing in a six-year-old—and the rest of the household was so respectful of her practicing time, that it was downright peaceful in Ruby’s room.

  Quiet. It was so quiet here. No noise could possibly reach him past the music.

  He listened to her play for what seemed like ages, until it registered that his shirt was soaked, that the half a roll of toilet paper he’d wrapped around his forearm hadn’t been able to sop up the mess after all. He’d forgotten about it, and he’d let up on the direct pressure too soon.