3. Tell

3

TELL

T ell me something.

Anything. Tell me your deepest, darkest secret.

They always do.

Everybody has one. Everybody secretly, desperately wants to share it. Get it off their chests. Expose the skeletons in their closet, air their fantasies, rid themselves of guilt.

So they tell me. That's why they call me Tell.

I deal in secrets. Information.

Like how Officer Donaldson is sleeping with Lieutenant Vallejo, and they keep talking about leaving their spouses and eloping. Sergeant Colms has a pill addiction. So many other fun facts, like how this precinct's arms lockup has a glitch and nobody's fixed the lock in three years.

All useful in the right hands. For a price.

"Hi, Jeremy. They got you filing on a Saturday morning? Rough." Maria shakes her head as I pass her desk. The glasses and the sweater vest are all she sees, ‘Jeremy's' slouch and the scuff of my loafers sealing the disguise.

"Says the gal with the three-foot stack of paperwork on her desk at seven a.m.?" I mutter with a smirk as I drop a chocolate muffin on the corner of her desk. Her favorite. One of the few treats she lets herself indulge in with four kids and a husband who works out on a fishing boat three weeks a month. Nice lady.

I slip through the halls of the precinct early in the day, carrying a stack of papers and adjusting my glasses. Nobody questions a paralegal, at least not down at the Dockside station. It's a disastrous excuse for a municipal building. Especially after last night's campus bust. They've got their hands full, dividing up the busload of college kids between a couple of different jails.

And Hellena wound up at this one. I really shouldn't care. That information is all but useless, holds no value, except to me. Because I can't stop thinking about her.

I need to know she's safe, especially since she's in here because of me.

See, somebody called the cops. I know this because I was tailing a client's kid, checking up on who little Miss Priss is sleeping with, making sure she's not caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And boy, was she ever.

Normally, I would just hang in the background, keep an eye out, gather info, and report back. Then, it's up to the client to intervene or act based on what I learned.

But sometimes, like last night…

Very few people know Tyler, or the raw version of him, me, that comes around every now and again. I always hated the name for what it was, a stamp given to me by my father to honor himself.

It's not who I am. I am not like my father.

Which is why I chose my own name to go by. It keeps a wall up around me, protects my secrets, my backstory that no one but me has a right to. With good reason.

See, Tyler can't stand certain things.

Like the frat guy I found trying to hook up with my client's daughter Stacy while she was completely unconscious last night. It's that kind of filth that I can't tolerate.

It piqued my interest when I followed her upstairs, watched her stumble into a room with her girlfriend. I took a lap and thought my job might be done until I heard a deeper voice coming from the room. He's mumbling, but she's not saying anything. So, I slip into the room unnoticed, silent as death.

It was dark. Her friend's nowhere to be found, and I could tell from the light coming through the window that she's completely out. The twisted fuck leaning over her was tussling with her clothes trying to get her undressed. He's slurring some shit about how much he loves her, how much she's going to love him, how good it's going to feel.

I wait, just to make sure, to see if she says anything. Protest, consent.

Nothing.

That thing inside me makes me twitch.

I hate it. I do everything I can to keep it from making me… do things. Wash my hands until they're chapped and bleeding, flick a light switch on and off, unlock the door nine times. It sounds silly, but it's intrusive. Controlling.

And those are the easy things. Sometimes, it's debilitating.

A stain on my shirt means the shirt goes in the trash. A hair in my food means I don't eat for a few days . And the list goes on.

So a stain on the world, like this piece of shit about to assault a girl… My arm was around his neck before I realized I'd moved. The crook of my elbow hooked under his chin and I pulled back.

One. Two. Three.

Certain things take certain periods of time. It's one of those little quirks that I can't help but keep track of. That organization helps me keep my tics under wraps.

A precise count later, and he's limp in my arms.

Part of me wanted to keep going, going for the ‘final' count instead of the ‘unconscious' count. But that's not worth the risk and the stain it would leave in me , one I would find impossible to scrub off when I got home.

Instead, I checked the hallway, tossed the fucker over my shoulder, and found another room to dump him in… the one with the passed out linebacker sleeping completely nude. I tuck him under the burly boy's arm after tossing his clothes out the window. A little thrill shivers through me as I slip back out of the room, leaving a delicious little mystery, a dirty scandal for that shitbag to clean up tomorrow.

Right before his life ends when the cops come for him.

See, I also flipped through his phone and found some truly disgusting pictures he took of himself doing what he was about to do to Stacy with several other women. Which I promptly forwarded to SHPD's sexual crimes division.

Enjoy prison, dickhead. See how you like getting taken against your will.

At that point, I was more than ready to head home, but I poked my head in to check on Stacy one last time, only to find her puking all over herself.

Gross.

After turning her on her side, I used her phone to call 911, stepped out into the hall, and shouted, "Oh, my God, Stacy!" and waited around the corner for her friend to come stumbling out of another guy's room in her underwear, rushing to her friend's side.

Babysitter acquired.

The steps in that process lined up neatly, but my skin was itching.

I got my hands dirtier than I like to. I broke my pattern, so the tics were trying to fight their way out. It's one of my secrets, my dirt that I keep private.

That's the thing about info, people's dirt. It's hidden. And it's usually messy. Filthy. I try not to think about it that way. It's just facts . I have to think about it that way or I cringe, overcome with the need to wash my hands again. And again.

Data is clean. Sterile. And that, I can organize, file away. Maintain order. I need that order, that perfect system and routine.

Keeping all the details in line helps me break away from other less…desirable habits. When I fail, give in to the repetitive urges, I punish myself a little. Conditioning.

Last night, I broke a rule, and the stress nearly made my knees buckle. I got my hands dirty and I washed them several times in the bathroom before rushing downstairs, ready to bolt. I can usually hold out until I get home, where I can scour my body in scalding water. All that noise, compounded with the blaring music of the DJ downstairs, was overwhelming. Driving me straight toward the back door.

That's when I saw her.

And all the noise stopped .

I don't normally buy into serendipity or fate, those ridiculous moments people talk about where time slows down and everything changes. I'm objective. Factual.

Until I met Hellena Michaels.

She saw me. Really saw me.

Our hands touched, and I didn't recoil. Like… every buzzing nerve stopped and the ticking clock I keep running in my head paused. The only thing I could feel was her hand on mine.

Warm. Soft. Pure.

I stood right beside her and I just… stared. Curves like you couldn't believe. Her hair, dark, shining chocolate waves down to her ass. Her eyes… sharp, perceptive. I can't even remember what color they are. Just that they saw through me.

I hate that I was working when I met her. That I wasn't myself entirely. Except I was… unguarded when we spoke. Real. I couldn't help the way I acted around her, abandoning my casual maneuvering through the party, drinking just enough to blend in, playing drinking games without partaking too much.

The job was an easy fit. I'm a little too old, but with my height and build, I can pass for a college jock easily. Plus, everyone is wasted, so a lot of my subterfuge was wasted. Never know when I might see someone I know, though.

But she saw right through me.

And I couldn't do a damn thing to stop myself from laughing, chatting, flirting. Flirting has only ever been a tool for me, charms to get the story, fooling around with a secretary so she'll drop a dime on her boss.

Hellena had me gabbing like a high school cheerleader at prom.

The memory of what came next has me sliding into the janitor's closet at the police station, loosening my tie. I'm tempted to loosen my belt and the zipper on these slacks to ease the pressure that immediately thrusts into the front of my pants at the thought of her kiss, the feel of that sweet, round…

A broom shifts and snaps me in the back of the head, knocking my glasses off. I almost break the damn thing, then almost laugh out loud at how absurd the situation is. I'm standing in a broom closet in the middle of a police station about to strangle my cock.

The tic makes me crack my neck, the pop jolting me back to the matter at hand.

First, drop off the photos of Officer Jones's wife cheating, the excuse I used to come down here in the first place. Another twitch reminds me of why I really had to come, and that I need to get it done to put my mind at ease. Then I can get back to work.

Check on Hellena.

Find out when she's getting out. See if I can alleviate this feeling I'm so unfamiliar with eating at my chest.

Is it guilt?

I really hoped only a few EMTs would show up to help Stacy when I called 911, but I knew it was pretty likely they'd have some badges with them. I should have insisted that she leave with me. But that would have demanded answers I have no idea how to give her.

I only know that Hellena is going to need my help. She's going to need protection. From the guys she now owes money to for drugs, dangerous guys I know way too well. From charges against her for possession to whatever the DA tries to pin on her. They'll want a scapegoat since all the rich kids' parents will buy them out of any sort of punishment.

But I can't do anything about that yet. Or the fact that she's suddenly becoming a problematic obsession.

So, I'm doing what I know how to do, researching, learning about my target. Maybe that will help me figure out why she's different . How she tore down my defenses with one fucking flick of her hips and a kind word.

Catching a glimpse of her sitting in the holding cell has to be enough, but it isn't even close. Delaney is on duty, though, so I can't linger or he'll get suspicious, or just chatty on why I'm down near the cells with no case file or a client on a Saturday.

Instead, I grab a shitty cup of coffee, pretend to drink it out front after swapping into another face. The guy sitting across from the station is just ‘Robbie', a doddering card collector enjoying some sunshine and feeding the birds. He's a nobody, like most of the people I play. Forgettable.

And it helps me forget my issues for a time, too.

My compulsions fade when I become someone else. Jeremy is just a paralegal with three cats and an addiction to reality TV shows. Trigger is just a thug for the local biker gang. Lex can just be a bouncer and take out his frustrations on patrons who step out of line. Each of them has their own life, their own quirks.

It's pure freedom for a guy like me, to step out of my own head for a while and be something else.

Changing my posture, my voice, my face, my hair. It's as easy as changing my shirt, swapping caps. People only notice what I want them to. Even being as tall as I am, which you'd think would be a disadvantage. Most folks avoid looking up, avoid looking around altogether, nowadays.

I'm always watching, and I don't miss a thing.

Especially when Hellena makes bail a few hours later. After a night in a cold cell she looks tired, disheveled.

Still sexy as hell.

Logic, the facts, tell me that she shouldn't have any effect on me. Except that I can't stop thinking about her hand on mine. Her laugh. And the way she looked at me.

More than anything else, I follow her because I need to know what it is about her that puts all of my twitching vices to rest.