Hound Dog & Bean (6 page)

“Stop staring,” Bean muttered under his breath. “For God’s sake, what if he catches you?”

So Bean looked down instead and saw the guy was wearing sandals that were little more than leather flip-flops with a heel strap.
Nice feet
, he thought. They were long, creamy white, and well cared for. Even from here Bean could see that. So many men had such nasty feet: didn’t take care of them or clip their nails or groom anything below their balls, it seemed. But this guy? He…

Jesus! Now I’m staring at his feet! He sees that and he’ll think I’m some kind of perv for sure
.

Bean turned away, placed his back to the man. Stalked to the back room.
I gotta get laid
, he thought.
Or jack off more
.

Masturbate, because one-night stands didn’t do it for him. Left him feeling more alone than before. He was used to being by himself. He was an only child. His father had always been at work. His mother was a career woman all the way, with her job at the bank and the tons of charity work she did, gay organizations only a part of it all. Bean had to do a lot of caring for himself growing up, although his mother had always been there when he really needed her, and his father whenever he could. Then there was the University of Michigan, and of course the years on the road—roads all over the world.

“Don’t
need
anyone,” he whispered, then went to his office. He sat down, sighed, switched on his computer—rubbed his eyes.

Damn, the guy was cute
. From what Bean could see from across the room.

Could it hurt to go out and say hello? Wasn’t that what customer service was all about?

Bean grinned goofily and sat up quickly, rolling his chair on its squeaky wheels. He got up and headed back to the floor.

Just in time to see a big football-player type walk through the front door.

“Well, fuck me!” the man bellowed. “You!”

At first Bean thought the man was yelling at him. All his internal alarms went off as he caught the big man’s expression and saw this was not just a disgruntled customer—this man was
pissed
. Enraged, even. The man’s whole face was contorted, his thick dark brows drawn together in an ugly jagged line, his eyes on fire, his mouth a vicious snarl.

Then Bean realized the snarl was directed at the pretty dreadlocked man at the counter.

The angry man pulled back a fist that in that moment looked the size of a catcher’s mitt. Bean had time to think—
Not good! Not good!
—before he surged forward to put himself between the hurtling behemoth and the object of his fury.

It was a move timed perfectly to allow Bean’s own jaw to intercept any damage that could be done to the hapless customer.

Bean saw the fist coming at him as if in slow motion, thought
I need to duck
.

And then he knew nothing more.

B
EAN
WASN
’
T
out long. When he came to, the first thing he was aware of was the worst feeling of pins and needles all over the right side of his face. Then light. Then sound. People talking—but they sounded so far away! Like the teacher on the Peanuts cartoons. Wah-wah-wah-wah…. A face. He saw…

The face of the guy with the dreads. They were falling around his head, and he looked like a big sunflower. He started to laugh at that thought and then,
Oh!
It hurts!

Bean’s face was tingling—like when his foot fell asleep, but worse.

“You okay, boss?”

He turned away from the cute guy to see who was talking. His head started swimming.
Oh, don’t like that. Don’t like that one bit
.

A round face with huge, round black-framed glasses swam into focus.
Oh. It’s Mara. Mara Poindexter
. “Poy-en-dexxxxxx-ter,” he said, but it took him forever, and he wondered why. Concussion?

God
.

Did he have a fripping concussion?

Wait! Something was happening to the side of his face. Side? No. His nose.

No, his nose? Know his nose?

That was funny. He started to laugh again, and then there was pain and dizziness and, God, what was happening to his nose?

The kid was doing something to his face. He tried to bat him away but just got pushed down gently by… well, someone, he didn’t know who, and then heard Mara say, “Relax, oh fearless leader. Your nose is bleeding. H.D. is taking care of it. Don’t you move.”

“My node?” he said, and didn’t say. He was talking funny.

“You’re probably going to have you a good shiner there too, dude.”

He looked back at Cute Guy, and this time the world didn’t swim as much.

“Let me see your eyes, man,” said Cute Guy.

He was reaching out and touching Bean around the eyes, opening them wide and o
h, that didn’t feel good at all!

“Your pupils look okay, but I wouldn’t try sleeping for a while. I think you’re okay, but you might be concussed. Maybe you should go to the hospital?”

God! What was all this jibber-jabber? Pupils and concussions and hospitals? And oh, it was hard to breathe. There was a big towel on his face and part of it was stuffed in his nose and how did this happen?

The man! The man with the fist
.

“The mand wid the fid,” he said aloud.

“The what?” asked Cute Guy.

“Don’t worry, he’s gone, oh fearless leader,” said Poindexter. “Damnation. You should have seen it! H.D. was like some kind of kung-fu-dancing guy!” She made chopping motions in the air. “He was spinning about and throwing his legs up higher than my head and
ka-wham
—”

Bean flinched. That “ka-wham” was like
KA-WHAM!
in his head.

“—down big man went. We already called the cops.”

“Cobs?” Bean said and tried to sit up.

“Whoa, dude,” Cute Guy said. What had Poindexter called him? H.D.? “Let me help you. Slow and easy….”

Bean sat up, gazed around him. This time the world didn’t tilt and slide quite as badly. He saw a few customers looking on, one with wide eyes and a hand over her mouth. And Cute Guy (H.D?) was still fussing with his face. He tasted copper and something running down his throat.
God. I
am
bleeding
. He reached to help with the towel. His stomach flipped and for a moment threatened to revolt.
No. Can’t throw up
.

“H.D.,” Poindexter said. “Think we can get Bean to the office so he can sit down and lean his head back?”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

Sound was muffled there for a moment, like there was cotton in his ears. Then he could hear Tracy Chapman singing about a fast car and her plans to get away.
God. Tracy Chapman? How coffee-shop stereotype is that? Need to take that off the system and
…

And then he was being helped to his feet and guided to the back room. But he forced himself to a stop, at least the best he could, and look around. The big burly man who had caused all the trouble was nowhere to be seen. And shit. Bean quite suddenly, even through the fog, remembered who the guy was. It was the flirter from the other day. Bean shook his head, and damn, that was a mistake. The tingling on the side of his head was worse and—
oh! oh! oh!
—his nose hurt!

That’s when the cops walked in the front door. Of course,
today
they showed up fast.

D
ETECTIVES
B
ROOKHART
and Townsend handled things
surprisingly quickly. Brookhart was a handsome woman—with short dark hair and equally dark-brown eyes—and Poindexter couldn’t help but wonder if she was a “sister.” Her gaydar (lesdar?) was tingling like crazy. The police officer was polite and efficient and allowed Poindexter to do a lot of the talking since Bean wasn’t in all that good a shape to do so. He sat in his office chair, bloody towel against his face (
he needs a new towel!
), and nodded and commented now and again as Poindexter explained.

If Brookhart was the good cop, Townsend was the bad one. He seemed unhappy and uncomfortable to even be there, and what was the big deal about that? It was just a coffee shop, after all. Was it the whole gay thing?

And really, what could the cops do? As beat to shit as the attacker was, he had still fled. They had no idea who he was. Sure, he’d used his credit card the last time he was here, but how would the cops sort through the transactions and figure out who he was? It was all done on the shop’s iPad.

But H.D. came through once again. “Yeah, sure. I know exactly who he is. I told you, the dude tried to adopt a dog from us the other day. He filled out the paperwork and everything. We got his name and address and phone number—whatever you want.”

Townsend looked surprised, the expression making him even uglier. “Well, that is pretty fuckin’ convenient,” he said, running a hand over the hair-free center of his head (his bald look wasn’t even close to as sexy as Bean’s).

“You been listenin’ to
anything
I’ve said?” H.D. rolled his eyes dramatically. “He came after me because I wouldn’t give him the dog he wanted. Pissed him off royal. If you want to know his address and shit, all we have to do is go around the corner to where I work.”

“And it’s that close?” Townsend expression turned suspicious. “That’s pretty coincidental, ain’t it?”

“Oh for crying out loud, Cain,” said Brookhart. “There is nothing coincidental about it. The son of a bitch came in here for coffee and saw Mr. Fisher and went for him, and Mr. Alexander got in the way.”

Townsend’s expression got even uglier. “So how did he—”

“Brubaker is his name,” H.D. filled in. “Robert Brubaker.”

Townsend shot him a look. “How did
Brubaker
know you’d be here?”

“You really haven’t been listening, have you?” Brookhart asked. “Brubaker came in for coffee and saw Mr. Fisher—”

“Who just
happens
to work right around the corner.”

“Yeah,” Brookhart admitted with a shrug. “You think he
knew
Fisher would be here”

Poindexter watched this all with bemusement, and when she looked over at H.D., saw a mixture of anger and humor warring for control of his emotions as well. The man was an open book—total heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy. She winked at him, and he gave her a lopsided grin, the humor winning the battle—thank goodness!

H.D. winked back, then said. “You wanna get the four-one-one on Brubaker or not? We can go get it right now.”

“No,” said Bean, breaking his momentary silence. “Dondt….” His words were still affected by his swelling nose.

God, is that going to look like shit tomorrow
, Poindexter thought.

“Dond’t wandt to press charges.”

Detective Brookhart swiveled to face him. “You don’t?” It was her turn to look taken aback.

Bean shook his head and then immediately winced and closed his eyes. “No. Leave it alone.”

“But Mr. Alexander,” she responded. “If he’s done this once, he could do it again. He’s obviously a violent man….”

“Dond’t wandt to press charges,” Bean repeated firmly.

Brookhart shook her head. “Well, we have to at least check up on the man. See if he has a record.”

“Damn right we do!” Townsend added. “You want him pullin’ this shit again?”

“You do whad you haf to do, but I dond’t wandt to press charges,” Bean answered.

Townsend glared, then looked at H.D. “And you, rasta-boy?”

H.D. laughed, turned to Bean, then back to Townsend. “Hey mon,” he said, breaking into a fair imitation of a Jamaican. “I and I is fine. Ol’ Bobby did na laid a hand on me. If de manager he’ah”—he hitched a thumb toward Bean—“don’ wanna press no charges, I sure don’ need ta.”

Detective Brookhart sighed again. “Can we at least get the info on him? Maybe my partner and I can pay a little visit and scare the God into him.”

H.D. chortled. “You bet, sis! Let’s do it.” He stopped and walked over to Bean. “You okay man? I feel like shit about this. If it weren’t for me, this would’a never happened.”

Poindexter smiled. This dude was nice. He was cute too. Too bad boss man was too banged up to notice.

“Not your fault,” Bean said. “I judst hope
you’re
okay.”

“Dude, I am finer than frog’s hair,” H.D. replied. “Now you take it easy, go sit down, relax—don’t go to sleep in case you’re concussed—and I’ll be back with a home remedy for that eye. We’re gonna do our best to make sure it don’t swell all up, ’k?”

“Sure,” Bean replied.

And good gracious! Was that a smile on boss man’s face, Poindexter wondered.

It was enough to make her grin as well.

B
EAN
SAT
in his office, feeling like utter shit. He sure hadn’t expected his day to go like this. Poindexter had changed his towel and gotten him some ice, which he held against his nose and face. He leaned back—trying to feel even a little bit better. It was a losing battle, but at least the ice helped. Cute Guy had insisted on the ice, and then said to switch it to something warm in a couple of days. And then promised once more he would be back.

Bean felt conflicted about that. He would love to see the young man again (
how old is he
?) and was surprised he
did
want to see H.D. When had he last felt like that?

But he sure didn’t want the guy to see him like this!

He had to look like shit. Bean wasn’t sure because he was afraid to check himself out in a mirror and see how bad the damage actually was.
Wuss
, he told himself.
Go look
.

He rose carefully to his feet, head held back slightly while holding the makeshift ice pack in place. Luckily, there were two bathrooms, and he didn’t have to go back into the shop itself, scaring customers with his bloody towel (even if this new one was
less
bloody than the last) and what was surely an ugly face. He made it to his goal without incident and tugged the cord that hung from the ceiling. The harsh light revealed an image that, happily, wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Yes, his nose was swelling a bit, and there was some bruising, but his eye wasn’t too bad, and not puffed up in the least. Not bad considering the Hulk had knocked him out.