Free - Hard Fall by James Buchanan

bit, then looked up at me and snapped, "Why do you fucking care?" He shoved the bundle into his pack like he was shoving his fist down a throat.
    69

    Hard Fall
    by James Buchanan
    I deserved it. I'd pissed on him. "'Cause I'm a deputy sheriff hereabouts and I can make my assumptions off your record or you can tell me." And 'cause I wanted that lean brown body in ways I shouldn't have. I wanted him to give me an excuse I could buy. "Then I'll decide if you're lying or not."
    "No, it was mine." Anger suddenly gone, he rolled his eyes and shook his head. I realized I'd caught more emotions rolling off him in the last few hours than I'd seen displayed in the weeks previous. "Well, it wasn't mine , but the crap was in my pack and I knew it. Stupid was why I did it." With a shrug he went back to inspecting the next section of rope.
    I don't know how many feet went through those fingers before I prompted, "Waiting."
    "Okay." Kabe dropped the last bit onto the coiled pile.
    Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on his thighs, letting his hands dangle between his legs. There was a bucketful of dare in his eyes when he finally looked up at me. "Not my drugs. I don't do drugs, clouds you, you don't think straight.
    Not that I'm a fucking angel or anything. I don't sell either, but you know, what's good for me," he shrugged, "well, I'm not going to be high and mighty about it and force my view on everyone else."
    Then he ran his hand through his hair and leaned back to rest himself against the stair, cocked back on his elbows and legs stretched out. "I thought the shit was at base camp. My partner picked it up on our way out. I told Tony that it was stupid, but the guy wasn't going to be there long. Tony said it needed picking up for a rave a promoter we know was 70

    Hard Fall
    by James Buchanan
    sponsoring. So we get popped on the dam. Tony takes the pills out of the other pack, shoves them in mine. 'Cause Tony's got a record and there's a big sentence hanging over another arrest. Tony begged me to take the fall, 'cause I'm clean ... record wise." His face went sour, like the words tasted bad. "Couple years, baby I'll come see you every day."
    He cooed in someone else's falsetto. "And I loved Tony's ass, so I did it."
    "So all for love was stupid?" I didn't want to believe he felt that way. Guys burned that badly often couldn't be fixed.
    They went through life carrying a backpack full of suspicion and fear of getting taken again.
    Kabe flicked a pebble off the tread and watched it bounce across the dirt. "Yeah, 'cause the last time I saw Tony was just before I got arraigned. The only people who ever came on visitor's day were my grams and my dad." He sighed, long and heavy. "I'd call Tony on the few times I'd earned it. The first two times the charges were refused and then finally Tony's number just didn't work anymore. So, I got set up for someone I loved, who saw me as a fun fuck."
    With the name and lack of pronouns, no way I could tell whether it was Tony with a y or an i. I figured by what I knew of Kabe, Tony had balls, but I could be dead wrong. "You want to kill them? Hurt them? This ain't the officer in me, just me. I'd want to hunt someone like that down after." Shoot
    'em, run over 'em a few times, drag 'em behind the truck.
    Just about anything that might make a guy wish he was dead.
    "First year and a half, shit yeah. The last six months I served, I worked it out for me. Nobody can goddamn take 71

    Hard Fall
    by James Buchanan
    advantage of you if you don't let them. So I did it. I own it. I got to live with it and just deal. Getting back at Tony wouldn't change what happened. Okay, 'nuff of my bullshit sob story."
    He pushed my knee with his foot. One of those buddy kinda moves that could have meant anything. "You were asking about cameras and what I'm doing tomorrow ... sounds like some of my past dates."
    "No, I want to go find a camera. Something ain't sitting right about this whole thing. If she was taking