Xavior

I caught up with Greg by following the smell of his anxiety out the door and down the block from the JPS building. I didn’t know what could be causing it, but I wanted to find out.

I jogged up to him and fell into the running rhythm he’d already set. “Morning.”

“Morning,” Greg replied. His tension was still with him even though we were a half-mile into this morning’s jog.

“What’s got you so anxious this morning, Lyndon? I was able to catch up with you by following your anxiety.” I tried to keep my tone light, even slightly amusing. He was not having it. At least not this morning.

“Eval coming up. Also, the bicycle case. It’s odd that everything we’ve tried, all the leads are coming up empty. The captain can’t spare any more surveillance resources because it’s bicycles, and they are a low-value item. The city replaces them as needed. If it doesn’t matter, why are we looking for them in the first place?”

“That’s a good question. Maybe someone’s hoping that it’s misplacement or misappropriation, or even the bikes leaving the tracking radius.” We turned a corner, and someone rode past us on a free city bike. It felt like the universe was mocking us as we both watched them pedal away. “Or maybe someone has a pocket dimension, and they are using the bikes and then forget to bring them back.”

“That would make sense. Which would mean the only way we prove that is if whoever is taking the bikes eventually brings one back.” Greg slowed down and then stopped. “That’s it, Brantley. We’ve only been looking for the missing ones when they go missing. We haven’t seen if any of them have come back. It’s a long shot, but we could get tech to write a program to see if a bike tries to re-register to the system after it’s been removed.”

“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” I nodded and agreed with Greg. I felt pretty upbeat about the solution, but Greg still seemed pretty keyed up. The anxiety in his smell hadn’t dissipated very much. I nudged us into a walk, hopeful that I might be able to pry it out of him. “The eval shouldn’t be a problem, right? We both work pretty well together. I don’t see a reason for reassignment, do you?”

Greg winced. I took a deep breath and sighed. Maybe I read him wrong, and he was still worried about the whole dragon and knight, thing. I wasn’t. Though I suppose it was still an issue between us even if I downplayed it. “Lyndon, talk with me. What’s eating you?”

He smirked at that for some reason. The subtle shift in his smell toward attraction was better than the anxiety from a few moments before. “My boyfriend, Keith, wants to meet you. It seems the crew from the E-Med bus you called for the corner store incident talked. He thinks something is up between us and wants to find out for himself.”

“Wait. What?” Greg was honest, I could tell that, and he was embarrassed though less anxious now.

“He thinks we’re fucking around. I told him that wasn’t the case, though now I’m questioning if we should be partners if Keith plans to be difficult about us working together. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life. I suggested we all have dinner together, but now I'm questioning that idea.”

The first thought, the wrong one, was that I wanted to throttle Keith and then give him a reason to be a jealous, whiny asshole. Lyndon was as close to that ideal knight-in-shining-armor from the fairy tales you could get. The real ones were horrific, but Greg was the epitome of loyal, with a leadership quality others would envy. He cared about people. If there was any part of him that was selfish; I’d be surprised.

“Look. I’m not losing you as a partner. We’ll have dinner, I’ll bring a date, and your boyfriend can see that we have a good working relationship, and that’s all.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Your boyfriend shouldn’t dictate your career, Lyndon. Don’t worry. We’ll handle it.”

I watched as he took a deep breath and let it out. He seemed calmer now. Though if I had to admit it out loud, I missed how his attraction to me smelled. I’ve had people attracted to me before. I could usually handle it. I didn’t have to act on it. We didn’t have to act on it. We could still be friends and coworkers. I patted his shoulder and let it go before my conflicting thoughts decided to sort themselves out at the wrong moment.

“Race you back to the building?” Greg asked.

“You’re on.”

Greg took off running, and I stared at his backside before noticing that he was pretty fast.

“Oh shit!” I said to myself as I pushed myself to catch up. At the same time, I pondered calling my friend Vanessa to see if she was available for a dinner date.