Victim of Love (9 page)

And I was feeling pretty good about myself until I moved to the kitchen, and spotted the man himself, Beck, out on the patio doing pushups in nothing but a pair of shorts and running shoes.

“Oh yeah, check out Hercules out there,” Laurie said from her spot at the counter where she sipped from a mug. “He’s already been out and run ten miles.”

Sweaty, half dressed, hair a disheveled mess, and Beck still looked better than I did in the morning.

I joined Kamal, Pippa, and Townsend at the table and grabbed a bagel from the tray in the center.

“Morning, Olsen,” Pippa said.

“Morning.”

Pippa and Townsend looked happy again, which pleased me.

“Hey, what are we doing for Saturday?” I asked. “Where are the fireworks gonna be?”

“They have a big thing right here at the resort where they light them over the water,” Laurie called over. “But Kamal’s working on something cool we can do during the day first.”

Kamal smiled at me from across the table, but said nothing. Townsend grinned as well.

“And?” I said.

“Someone I know usually has a big party on the fourth,” Kamal said. “He’s a good friend of my partner, James, and James is trying to arrange an invite for us. I guess he’s got a great house right on the water and his parties are famous for being a good time. I’m waiting to hear back from him.”

“That’s good,” I said. “So why is everyone looking like the cat that ate the cream?”

Pippa snickered. “Kamal’s friend lives in Provincetown.”

I frowned. “Oh. That will be...nice. I guess.”

“Come on, Olsen!” Townsend reached over and punched me in the shoulder. “Get excited. It’s P-town, the gay mecca! We gotta try and get you some action while you’re here.”

Beck stepped in from the patio, a towel slung over his shoulder. “Who’s getting action?”

“Hopefully Olsen,” Laurie said. “We need to get him laid. He’s on an extended dry spell.”

I wanted to crawl under the table, rip up the flooring, and dig a hole to China.

Beck shot me a small grin as he moved past the table. “Good luck with that. I gotta go shower.”

Once Beck was in the bathroom, the sound of the shower running, Laurie came over and sat next to me at the table. She glanced down the hall where he’d gone, then turned to me. “Hey, don’t let my brother’s attitude get to you,” she said. “He just gets uncomfortable with the whole gay thing.”

I nearly choked on my bagel. “He’s fine,” I said. “I haven’t noticed anything.” I had, however, noticed the tattoo on his hip again as he’d walked by, and with him out of the way, spotted an opportunity to get a little personal info. “Is your brother into knives or something?”

Laurie took a sip of orange juice, then frowned at me. “Knives? No. Not unless they used to belong to Julius Caesar or some shit. Why?”

“I was noticing his tattoo. Looks like knives.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “The tattoo.” She glanced down the hall again, but I could still hear the shower. I saw a flash of pain in her eyes, her shoulders stiffening. “Those are actually letters,” she said softly. “Initials worked into a design. Beck’s friend, who died a couple years ago.”

“Oh, wow. Okay.”

“Yeah, they were really close. He was a total mess over it for a while.” Laurie’s eyes looked distant, strangely forlorn. She gave herself a shake, almost a shiver, and rubbed her arms. “I don’t like to think about that time period.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry I asked.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You couldn’t have known.”

I thought about what she said. She hadn’t specified if the ‘friend’ was male or female.
A friend?
Or a lover? If it was the latter, and male, it stood to reason Laurie wouldn’t have known.

I’m not sure why this information surprised me, but it did. Granted, I’d just met the man, but Beck didn’t strike me as someone who’d ever experienced significant pain. He was all toothy grins and wise ass barbs all the time, and I realized now I’d already summed him up as being kind of superficial.
And this is why you shouldn’t judge by appearances.

But oh, what an appearance. Beck stepped into the room wearing board shorts and a pale blue tank top, complexion smooth and pink from the shower. He reached over my shoulder and grabbed an apple, his close proximity and soapy scent making my gut tighten. “So are we beach bound or what?” he asked.

“I’m ready,” Pippa said.

I wiped my hands on a napkin. “Me too.”

“Olsen,” Beck said, surprising the shit out of me by running a finger down my bare arm. “You better wear your burka. That skin of yours looks like it’s gonna burn, baby.”

Though my face was burning
now
from the simple attention he’d given me, no one else seemed to think anything of it. Except for Kamal, who was giving me that look again, like I was an unruly pupil and hadn’t learned my lesson. “He’ll be fine,” Kamal said. “He’s got his Sunblock 3000.”

Twenty minutes later we were all down on the crowded beach, grouped around a cluster of cabana chairs. Townsend was battling with Pippa and Laurie, who wanted to go paddle boarding.

“Jet skiing is way more fun,” he said. “Paddle boarding is hard work, and I don’t want to do hard work on my vacation.”

“But it’s fun work,” Pippa whined.

“You guys can do it then,” Townsend said. “I’m out of shape. There, I said it. I want to engage in a water sport that involves sitting my ass down and going really fast on something with a motor. Olsen, jet skiing?”

I patted the small knapsack by my side. “Actually...I kind of want to just hang here and read.”

“I’ll jet ski with you, Townsend,” Kamal said. “I am not as young and spritely as I used to be.”

Pippa clapped her hands. “Okay so Laurie and I will paddle board and you guys can jet ski. Beck? How ’bout you? What’s it gonna be?”

“I don’t know,” he said, squinting at the sun as he peeled off his tank top. “I already exercised, I think I might just hang on the beach with Olsen. I brought a book too.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “
Boring
. Okay, fine. We’ll see you guys later on.”

Beck picked Laurie up and tipped her upside down, making her squeal. “Don’t fall in the water, sis! Don’t fall in the water!”

“Stop it, you’re getting sand in my hair!”

He let her go and she dove on him, sweeping her leg under his and tripping him. Beck fell and grabbed her arm, rolling her over his head where she landed in the sand. “I hate you!” she said, but she was laughing.

I smiled at their sibling play, something I’d never had. I used to beg my mother for a baby brother when I was a kid, but apparently my large head had shredded her vagina and she had no desire for a repeat performance, so I got a puppy instead.

An old emotional scar twinged in my belly, recalling that year in college when my life became a bad country music song. My mom died of colon cancer in the spring. By Halloween, my dad had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and was gone by the end of November. As icing on that shit sandwich, my dog, then fifteen years old, died on Christmas day.

Lost in my maudlin memories, I barely noticed the others had already gone, until Beck took the cabana chair beside me, pulling a book out of his bag. I was surprised he’d opted to stay behind with me, but tried not to read too much into it.

But his presence was palpable, as was my awareness of him as he stretched back, one hand tucked behind his head, the other holding his book. I took my shirt off and slathered myself with my turbo sunblock, then pulled my own book out.

“What you reading?” Beck asked.

“Ah, the new Dennis Lehane novel. You?”

He showed me his book. “Mummification and Death Rituals of Ancient Egypt.”

“Oh. Yours sounds a bit heavier than mine. I’ve just been really looking forward to some escapist reading. So many years reading nothing but science text books while I was in school. Crime thrillers are about my speed these days.”

“Hey,” Beck said. “Never apologize for what you like to read. Most people never crack a book after high school. Besides, I get it. After I got my MFA I spent an entire month in my underwear watching reality television.”

I glanced at his profile. “You’ve got an MFA, huh?”

He nodded.

I set my book down, more interested in the man beside me than the crime kingpins in my novel now. “Laurie said you used to work in a museum.”

He glanced at me, then set his own book down. “I was a curator.”

“And now you do...what is it that you do?”

He grinned, looking out at the water. “My sister had it pretty close. I find weird shit for weird people who want weird shit.”

“I don’t really understand. But that’s okay. I don’t mean to pry.”

Beck shifted onto his side and looked at me, propping his head on his palm. “I was working as a curator for a long time. One day this guy comes to me and he’s got this item he wants the museum to buy. He had all this verification paperwork and was quite adamant about its authenticity. But I told him no, we didn’t want it. Maybe it was the real thing, maybe it wasn’t, but either way, it was too...tacky. And kind of appalling. I’d had a...blow in my personal life that year and was just...different then. Now I’m not so sensitive anymore. Tackiness goes a long way toward paying the bills.”

I shrugged. “So what was it? What did the guy have?”

“The shattered neck bone of Mary Queen of Scots. Supposedly stolen from her grave when the body was moved.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

He shrugged. “I found out a while later that he’d sold it to a private collector for a small fortune. Found a buyer through an agent who handled such things. Guy called Quinn Penza.”

“Quinn. The guy from the antique store?”

“The same. I looked him up. Quinn helped me break into the business. Then I got addicted. Then I got better at it than him. Then we weren’t friends anymore. And that’s about it.”

Beck’s eyes glinted in the sunlight, little flecks of gold around the pupil. I knew because I was making an effort to maintain eye contact and not look at all that tawny flesh now that he’d taken his shirt off. “So what changed?” I asked. “If you were appalled by that sort of thing, why did you decide to change careers and start doing that very thing?”

Beck held my eyes for a long time, then faced front, sighing as he stared out at the sea. His silence continued for so long I grew uncomfortable. I determined I’d crossed a line, and decided to let it drop, picking up my book. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t have to explain.”

Then Beck groaned softly as he stretched back, linking his fingers behind his neck. “Sometimes a life can become so unbearable that there’s no fixing it,” he said. He glanced at me. “Know what I mean?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

He smiled and faced front again. “Good. I hope it stays that way for you. There’s nothing for it but to throw in the towel or get a new life altogether. The day that man came into the museum with his centuries old murder trophy, everything changed. Because when he left, I thought, I could never be like him. Insensitive. Immune to the horror. And I was jealous of him.” He glanced at me. “So fucking envious of that man. So I thought...if I can become like him, someone so far different than who I am right now...well, then I can be someone else. Someone strong. Someone who can go on. It was the most appealing thought I could imagine in that moment.”

I frowned. “So...you just did it?”

He nodded. “I had to.”

“And it worked out for you?”

He grinned at me and pointed to his face. “Even got my beautiful smile back.”

I smiled back at him. Though I couldn’t comprehend the desire to become something that repulsed you, I got the gist of what he was saying. Beck had found himself with a wound that wouldn’t heal, so he’d cut off the infected limb. Become a different version of himself. It seemed fairly extreme to me, but then I had no idea what got him to that place. And I was smart enough not to push my luck and ask. I got the feeling he was already sharing more with me than he did with most people.

Veering the subject in a slightly different direction, I asked, “So the job Quinn was trying to say you stole out from under him. What was that?”

“A mummy head someone wanted.”

I laughed. “A mummy head? What did they want it for?”

“Just to have in their personal collection.”

“Just to
have?
Why would anyone want that? Why would someone want a mummy head?”

“I don’t know, Olsen. Some people want a mummy head. The rich are different than us.”

“I guess.”

“I have to say though, this head was pretty cool. Ancient Egyptian. It had this little lock of black hair sticking out between the bandages. I mean, perfect. Perfectly preserved, shiny black hair. Gave me the chills thinking about how old it was. Someone’s hair that they washed, combed. Maybe a lover had run their fingers through it at some point. Thousands of years ago.”

“Man.” I shook my head. “I’d love to get something like that under a microscope.”

Beck laughed. “You sound like my sister.”

I nodded. “There are reasons Laurie and I get along so well. Nerd power.”

Beck glanced out at the water. “How long do you think they’re gonna be out paddling and jet skiing and what have you?”

“I don’t know. Probably a while. Why?”

He turned to me with a sly smile. “You want to go back to my room and smoke a joint?”

My stomach lurched. Back to his room...that I was down with. Smoking a joint, well, not really my thing. “Um, you brought drugs?”

“
Drugs?
It’s just weed, Olsen.”

“I know, but I only did it once. In college. I got really paranoid. I spent like two hours in my dorm room looking at all my stuff, worried that people must think I’m pretentious because I had way too many magazine subscriptions.”

Beck frowned, then chuckled. “Oh. You wild man. Ease up on those National Geographics, baby, people are starting to talk.”

I fell into laughter, admiring the way Beck’s nose wrinkled when he smiled. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. The moment you start thinking every laugh line and hair follicle on a person’s body is pure perfection, you’re already halfway to the danger zone. I should have realized it at the pool yesterday when I was mooning over his damn feet.