Best Gay Mystery/Thriller: Rainbow Awards 2017
Reunions can be murder.
A dial tone instead of a human voice announced Lucky’s ousting from the Lucklighter clan over twelve years ago. After living a life of crime. After testifying against his drug lord lover. After receiving a ten-year sentence. Ah, hell. Lucky would’ve disowned himself too.
Now life’s better. He’s done his time and earned a place in the Southeastern Narcotics Bureau’s Department of Diversion Prevention and Control. He has a house. He has Bo, his partner both on and off the job. And pets. But not his folks. The worst part? He’s not sure exactly why they disowned him. Too late now—they think he’s dead.
Now his father needs a gift only Lucky can give. And Lucky’s family has something that may destroy all he believes:
The truth.
An excerpt from Reunion:
Hand between Lucky’s shoulder blades, Johnson steered him inside the converted cotton mill and toward the bar. “Two Coors Lights, please.”
The place hadn’t changed much. Same blend of stale booze and a hundred competing colognes. Same dirty floor he’d never walk barefoot across. Same low light so you couldn’t see what your dance partner looked like until you woke up the next morning and tried chew your arm off and escape.
Johnson handed him a glass. “Act like you’re here for a good time.”
Lucky took a sip and sputtered. She’d certainly learned well about ordering drinks to blend in, like she’d been taught while training in undercover ops, but… “Light beer?”
Blending in wasn’t happening with a woman whose fluffy hair and heels put her close to seven feet tall. Did she ever get mistaken for a drag queen? And would Lucky survive asking the question? Even in jest?
The baddest woman in the club meandered through the crowd, Lucky in tow. Lesser beings parted to give her room. One glower and two twinks backed away from the table she’d set sights on and scurried off.
She pulled out a chair. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Lucky claimed the seat facing the door. Whatever came his way better look out. No sneaking up. He idly patted the gun hidden beneath his jacket.
Johnson took off before he could stop her, leaving him with his beer for company. At one time, he’d have scoped out a likely fuck buddy, someone to share a few meaningless but sweaty moments and then part company with a smile and no names exchanged. How times had changed.
Now he’d trade all the bodies thrashing on the dance floor for an evening with one particular man. He pulsed fuck-off vibes at a couple of men who dared make eye contact. Not interested. Wasn’t a single one of ’em could hold a candle to Bo.
Where was Bo tonight? What was he doing? Had he remembered Lucky’s birthday? He hadn’t sent a card or gift, but his undercover assignment limited contact with the real world. And Lucky had growled enough at him in the past for making a big deal of the day.
But maybe the whole birthday thing wasn’t so bad. Especially not when Bo went to great lengths to make Lucky feel special. Breakfast in bed, with bacon. Followed by hot sex. Oh well, maybe next year.
Crap! The overly-groomed moron who ignored a perfectly aimed scowl and slid into Johnson’s chair might have been the same persistent bastard Lucky’d punched out during his last visit to the club.
Shit-for-Brains had the nerve to smile. “Mind if I join you?”
Wow. Teeth bleached to blinding whiteness needed a “sunglasses required” warning. “Would saying ‘go the hell away’ make you leave?” Oh, geez. The guy reeked of some kind of hoity-toity imported beer, cigarettes, and over-inflated ego.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” The shithead wasn’t planning to take no for an answer, and settled more fully in the chair.
Lucky sighed. “I guess not.”
The world’s most unwanted pest grinned and leaned over the table. “What? You think I’m an ax murderer or something?”
He liked living dangerously, huh? Lucky turned on his best evil leer. “Of course not. What’s the chance of two ax murders meeting up at the same table, in the same club, on the same night?”
The grin vanished off the man’s face for a moment. Then he laughed and shook a finger in Lucky’s direction. If he did that again he’d pull back a nub. “Oh, you are a kidder, aren’t you?”
Now to employ his best serious face, saved for important lies. “Not really. But the way I see it, he had it coming. See, he approached me in a bar and wouldn’t leave me alone.” Lucky leaned in, putting himself nose to nose with the pain in the ass. “I got off on a technicality.”
The chair flew backwards. Wow! Someone pull the guy over for speeding. He nearly knocked Johnson over getting away.
Johnson grabbed the chair before it hit the floor. “What’s his problem?”