Back in the Saddle

First published by Flamingo and Keri in the zine The Perfect Couple in 2010.

Standing in the hall outside the squad room’s swinging doors, the same hallway he’d walked for years, the same doors he’d pushed through, burst through, strolled through for years, Starsky had to catch his breath. This sensation, this fire in his gut and pressure in his chest, this was all new, even if the object of his new obsession had also been in his life for years.

At thirty-two years old, he’d caught the love bug like never before. Worse than a serious case of lovesickness, he had a crush on someone with a serious case of being pissed off.

He sighed, still riveted by a sight that had done something interesting to his insides for weeks now, since he’d looked across that desk one morning during a shared laugh over a horrible cup of coffee, and realized he was in love. He took advantage of the empty hallway to ogle his crush’s slouch over the typewriter; the long, lean stretch of that body shown to best advantage in the different shades and textures of blue denim from jacket to shirt to jeans; that cap of gold silk the squad room’s harsh fluorescent lighting couldn’t wash out to pale. And the guy didn’t have the first clue he was hot enough to burn through decades of his partner’s heterosexual conditioning.

Starsky had been working up the chutzpah to tell him, and show him, but fate in the form of a victimized country-western songbird had intervened the week before. Or interfered, he grumped to himself. If she hadn’t pestered Hutch to get up on stage in that hillbilly joint, Starsky wouldn’t be in this mess. Yeah, yeah, so he got carried away. For God’s sake, who wouldn’t, sitting in that audience, prouder than triplets of the gorgeous man up there fighting through paralytic stage fright to sing his little blond heart out? He would’ve had to be inhuman not to show his enthusiasm. He hadn’t known his little clapping sing-along would distract his favorite amateur performing artist that bad. God knows, he’d never meant to make things harder on his Hutch.

His Hutch.

Damn fucking right. His partner, his best friend, his one-and-only, his forever-and-a-day. That position in Hutch’s life was his. No one else, including Ms. Sweet-Voiced Grainger, need apply. He’d never been more grateful for the realities of geography. Sue-Ann might be all that and then some, but Nashville hadn’t migrated to the Mandalay Heights suburbs; it was still thousands of miles away.

Now he just had to find a way back into Hutch’s good graces so he could spring the good news on him. For starters, he was here on time in spite of the discontinued Hutchinson wake-up call and carpool during this week of the grumps, and he’d brought breakfast, including healthy-schmealthy cuisine that Mr. Wheat Germ couldn’t turn down. Nothing says I’m sorry like a Catalina Sunrise omelet made with egg whites and salsa.

He carried his culinary olive branch into the squad room with what he hoped was his most winning smile. Hutch looked up from the typewriter, shot him a quick glare and a grunted good morning, and went right back to hunting and pecking.

Not easily discouraged, Starsky did his best light-on-his-feet bound up into his chair, finding the perfect balancing perch on the back. Yeah, that put his crotch just about at Hutch’s eye level whenever his partner condescended to look up, and gave him plenty of leg in tight jeans to think about, too. If Hutch even thought about that sort of thing at all, when it didn’t come paired with two fleshy C-cup peaches up top. Starsky had his doubts. Wouldn’t you know this would be the first time Hutch was throwing out signals in some alien language that the savviest sci-fi enthusiast couldn’t interpret?

Sure as hell wasn’t Klingon. Starsky knew that much. Vulcan, neither.

“Brought you something to eat,” Starsky said, waving the bag.

“Had breakfast.”

Wow. With the greeting that made four words he’d gotten out of Hutch this morning. The Hutchinson glacier thaw had begun! On a four-word morning, Starsky could risk a little needling. “That sludge-in-a-glass shit of yours ain’t breakfast, partner. I got something here that’ll knock your white tube socks off.”

“Impossible.”

“Oh, yeah? Why? You think I can’t find you something in a city the size’a this that’d seduce your discriminating little taste buds?”

“I’m not wearing white socks.”

Hot damn! That, ladies and gentlemen, qualified as a joke. Not by three-quarters of the world’s comedic standards, but you had to judge Hutch humor with slightly different criteria. Hutch must have slept under a heat lamp: that ice had done a lot of melting since they’d parted company after the previous day’s shift.

“Okay, funny guy, feast your eyes-and your hungry little mouth-on this.”

Hutch gave him a back-off look. Uh-oh. That anger hadn’t yet melted down to the level where Starsky could flirt without serious reprisal. But Hutch did take the bag out of Starsky’s hands, and that made up for the silent rebuke. He watched Hutch open the bag, peer inside and sniff, and then dump out the wrapped take-out plate.

“Hey watch it,” Starsky warned. “That entrée definitely has an up and a down.”

Hastily righting the plate safely away from the file he’d been working on, Hutch dug with his other hand in the bag for the plastic knife and fork. His expression brightened on the unveiling of the omelet, and Starsky held his breath in anticipation of the ultimate test. Precision slicing a chunk of omelet, Hutch didn’t investigate the forkful before he slipped it in his mouth. Another good sign, Starsky rejoiced inwardly.

Then the bottom dropped out of Starsky’s high hopes.

With a grimace, Hutch dropped the fork and grabbed for his coffee mug, knocking back a lengthy chug. “Starsky, it’s got salsa in it! You know I don’t eat salsa for breakfast.”

“Only ’cause you’re pickier’n a five-year-old kid with a toothache. Thought I’d show you what you’re missing.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. First you make me the laughingstock of the Saddle-Bar, and now you’re trying to assassinate my gallbladder.”

“Listen, pal, in that hillbilly joint, a few people are vying with you for that dubious honor every night just by walking in the place.”

“Country-Western, Starsky.”

“Same difference.”

“No, it isn’t. For one thing, in a true hillbilly joint, you’d more likely hear blue grass, or mountain music, not country. Come on, where’s your usual respect for musical genre? You get in a lather if someone confuses doo-wop with sock hop.”

Starsky glared at the world’s most beautiful finicky eater. “I don’t get in a lather. Sheesh, you make me sound like some kinda rabid dog.”

“Well, if the paw fits….”

“Fine!” Starsky growled. “Give me that.”

He leaned over, snatched the plate and Hutch’s discarded fork, and chomped down a good quarter of the omelet before he felt vindicated. Damn good omelet, too-needed some yolk in with the whites, a little more cheese, maybe a touch of hot sauce, but all in all not bad. The satisfaction of watching Hutch watch him eat didn’t balance the loss of strategic ground in the great campaign to make Hutch want to kiss him. The oblique approach having failed, Starsky opted for a direct strike.

“You can’t stay mad at me forever.”

Hutch’s bland stare conveyed studied indifference better than a method actor could learn to do in years of lessons. “There some kind of law against it?”

Right about then Starsky felt nervousness start to kick in. Was this a bigger deal than he’d thought? Had he really wounded Hutch’s pride that night at the Saddle-Bar so badly that Hutch found it too difficult to slough off the grumpiness after a week of silences, irritated looks, and icy patrols around their beat? Thrown a little off-kilter, Starsky heard himself speak the literal truth, something he hadn’t planned in this case because it might come across as emotional blackmail.

“Hah-hah. No, dummy, ’cause if the paperwork comes through, we’re gonna be serving a warrant today, remember? Not the best time for us to be at odds, y’know.”

Hutch blinked at him, but didn’t argue. He couldn’t. Every cop knew serving arrest warrants ranked up there with domestic disputes in the top ten most dangerous aspects of law enforcement. Especially with a freak like the one they were busting today. He and Hutch had put in triple overtime nailing down an airtight case against a robbery suspect who liked to break into nursing homes in the middle of the night and terrorize the elderly patients before stealing whatever valuables were lying around. Anyone who could target the vulnerable and elderly like that had a screw loose in a particularly volatile location, and was a rat capable of anything and everything nasty when cornered.

“You’re right.” Hutch nodded. “We declare a truce until we have Hoastman in bracelets.”

“Yeah? Truce?”

“Temporary truce,” Hutch corrected. He glanced at the plate teetering on Starsky’s right knee. “Here, let me have the rest of that egg and salsa concoction. It’s actually disgusting enough to blend well with Metro coffee.”

“You’re all heart, Hutch.”

“You’ll be all bruise if you topple off the back of that chair.”

“Nah, just a bruised ass.”

“Exactly. All bruise.”

~*~

Hutch squinted in the play of sunlight through his dusty driver’s side window. No, even through a squint the four-floor walk-up rooming house across the street didn’t improve in aesthetics. “I didn’t think they came any rattier than the Adams Hotel, but I was wrong.”

Starsky tucked the all-important piece of official DA blessing in the front pocket of his black leather jacket. “Place like the Walton? Prides itself in the rattiness. One of their featured amenities and all. That and the clientele. I mean, where else can you share digs with a stellar citizen like Vic Hoastman for just twenty bucks a week?”

Indeed, the building’s owner seemed to embrace chipped paint, cracked masonry, and broken windows as an exterior design statement. And some wiseacre with access to spray paint and a penchant for irony in his graffiti had changed the sign from The Walton to The Waldorf. Shaking his head at the frivolities of misspent youth, Hutch risked a longer glance at his passenger. Starsky was trying so hard to earn a free pass off Hutch’s grudge list. He’d let Hutch drive three days in a row, for God’s sake. If only he knew that his embarrassing stunt at the Saddle-Bar had already faded in Hutch’s memory, replaced by a brighter shining problem Hutch didn’t have a clue how to verbalize.

How do you tell your partner, your male partner, that you’re suddenly fantasizing about being held naked in his arms when he’s wearing that black leather jacket over that low-buttoned red shirt and those tighter-than-skin jeans with the scruffy flared cuffs? How do you explain to your male partner that you want to feel the various textures of his thrift store duds against your bare skin in perfect complement to the roughness of his stubble against your smoother face while he kisses you, touches you?

You don’t, that’s how.

And while you’re at it, you don’t tell your partner one other thing that would break his heart, because you’re simply not in the business of breaking your partner’s heart.

“I know somewhere any interested parties can share space with Hoastman for less than twenty a week,” Hutch said, patting the outside of the pocket where Starsky had stuffed the warrant. “Let’s go inform old Vic of his relocation plans.”

“By the book.” Starsky squeezed Hutch’s knee, the touch all too brief, all too warm and familiar and pleasant. “Let’s do this the easy way.”

“Right.” Echoing the silent be careful, Hutch exited the car, already listening for the rattle-clunk slam of the passenger door.

As usual they crossed the street in tandem, their hands closer to their concealed weapons without telegraphing their profession, their eyes scanning the area for a tall, pale salt-and-pepper haired guy who thought stained leisure suits the height of fashion. Just as they reached the flophouse’s front sidewalk, a shrill, brassy female voice above them grated against Hutch’s ears with the irritation of a scour pad on an open wound.

“Stop right there! I know you creeps for cops! Well, you’re not coming for Victor, yah hear me? Who’s gonna pay the rent, you take Victor in? Huh? You lousy cops, you never think of things like that, do you? What it does to the women in a guy’s life!”

Hutch caught a glimpse of a red dye job gone horribly wrong, the result calling to mind a woman wearing shredded carrots for a wig, and a face made up for caricature theater instead of daily wear. He and Starsky had no other warning, no time to duck out of the way, before an armful of clothes was pitched out of the second-floor window. In the flurry of jeans, work shirts, socks, and underwear, something solid and heavier than dirty laundry struck Hutch dead center on the crown. He saw a flash of light, funny squiggles danced in front of his eyes, and then someone yanked the sun out of the sky and pulled down the shades.

He came to with darkness fading to gray then going white-hot bright, and a voice in his ear that sounded louder than a jackhammer, but far more pleasant.

“Hutch! Come on, snap out of it, there ya go, uh-huh, I see those baby blues. Open ’em all the way for me. Come on, Hutch. Hutch!”

He had the unique delight of seeing two Starskys swimming into blurry focus. He wished the double vision would translate into his perception of touch. He wouldn’t mind feeling four Starsky hands patting his cheeks, brushing through his hair, squeezing his shoulders.

“What hap-happened?” There. He could talk. Sort of. The words sounded shaky to him. He tried again. “We get Hoastman?”

“Not yet. His damned fancy lady got us. Weren’t just clothes she dumped on us; she coulda killed you, the bi-” Starsky bit off a particularly venomous epithet for a woman, a word he rarely used in that context, and Hutch heard a fine quaver in that strong voice.

“‘M okay,” he tried to reassure the two worried faces staring at him.

“Oh, yeah? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Which one of you?”

“Shit! You need the medics. Be right back, baby, just crossing the street to the radio.”

“What about Hoastman?”

“I don’t give a good flying fuck about Hoastman or his hooker girlfriend, hear me? And if they know what’s good for ’em, they better hope to God the uniforms get here to deal with the warrant and I don’t hafta go up there for ’em after this. Right now I’m worried about you. I think you got a concussion. I swear, Hutch, you get KO-ed at the weirdest times, conked on the head so much you shoulda been a boxer.”

Damn, that New York street accent was thicker than a Coney Island foot-long, a bad sign that something had shaken Starsky to the core. Wait. Had Starsky called him baby? And why did Starsky want him to be a dog? That one definitely needed clarification.

“I should’ve been a dog?”

Starsky groaned. “What the–? Oh. No, not that kind of boxer. Jesus. Hang on, Hutch.”

“Not going anywhere.”

“No kidding.” With a final stroke through Hutch’s hair over the spot that now throbbed its protest of whatever had landed on him from above, the two Starskys coalesced into one handsome, lean muscular form that sprang out of a crouch and dashed across the street.

Hutch tried to observe his surroundings. Wherever he’d landed, someone, presumably Starsky, had moved him, braced him in an upright sitting position against the side of the Walton’s front steps. Except for his aching head and a nice dose of the woozies, he was pretty comfortable. Might just take himself a little nap-

“Hu-u-tch!” Starsky yelled from across the street. “Keep those eyes open!”

Damn it. Starsky must have one eye on him and one on the radio. Or eyes in the side of his head. Hutch giggled. The oncoming siren wail of a black-and-white hushed his giggling. Christ almighty that hurt! His ears rang, his head felt like a lead bowling ball trying to balance on the end of a toothpick, and could someone please, for the love of God, tone down the sun a little? Just by a few thousand watts even.

He heard Starsky barking orders at the two brawny uniform guys, saw him swat one of them on the back to encourage the rush into the apartment building in pursuit of the sleazy couple. He smiled. If that’d been him, that swat would’ve landed on his butt. Starsky’s swats had excellent aim when it came to Hutch’s rear padding. Nice. Ooh, not nice; seems concussion headache and hard-ons really didn’t get along together.

Starsky was crouching down in front of him again. “Hey. You with me?”

“You know it,” Hutch said, glad he didn’t giggle.

“Still seeing two of me?”

“Nope, you’re back to your one ordinary self.”

“Thanks a lot, buddy.”

Hutch didn’t understand the dullness in Starsky’s voice. What was the problem? Hutch was very damned fond of that one Starsky self. He didn’t need two of them. Let the universe spread the joy around some. No one could accuse him of being greedy. But he didn’t care about poking around inside his partner’s mind right then, not while Starsky alternately clasped and caressed the nape of his neck, and used that tough-tender left hand to thumb a pressure point just under his throat, easing some of the queasiness. Yeah, he could just sit here for a day or two or three, let Starsky pet him right off to….

“Hutch! Don’t. Fall. Asleep!”

Damn it.

~*~

He had one hour.

One hour to get Starsky out of the apartment so he could keep his previous engagement. He didn’t want to keep that engagement, he didn’t want to shoo Starsky out like some guest who’d overstayed his welcome-something Starsky could never in a million years do anyway, even if he was a guest and not…everything that mattered. But where Hutch had to go tonight, Starsky couldn’t follow. Not this time. Maybe the next time. If Hutch didn’t foul up spectacularly and end up laughed out of two nightclubs in as many weeks.

Damn his grandfather for insisting on that back-in-the-saddle philosophy of life. If a horse threw you, you got back in that saddle at the very next opportunity. A real horse or a metaphorical one like his disastrous stage debut at the Saddle-Bar, it didn’t matter. Well, he was going back in the saddle, but he was no masochist. He didn’t plan to subject himself to the hecklers at the Saddle-Bar with Sue-Ann no longer there to serve as a lovely blonde buffer. Huggy had set him up with the owner of the Jazz Cave, where Vic Rankin had made his comeback before moving on to better things. That was more his style, anyway, and worth the three to-be-named-later favors he’d promised Huggy to keep the man’s mouth shut about the whole thing around Starsky.

Only, Hutch hadn’t planned on getting konked over the head by a toaster dropped from a window by a two-bit rent girl, and the partner-pampering that, thank God, inevitably came with such an occurrence. They’d spent the rest of Thursday’s shift in the ER, and Starsky had come back to Venice Place with him to spend the night and keep Hutch awake the necessary amount of time, watching over him when he could finally get sleep, waking him on the hour every hour as prescribed by the ER doc. Still in a fan-swoon over meeting Sue-Ann, Dobey had given them Friday off, leaving them off the roster until Monday morning.

Now, Saturday evening’s nine o’clock stage call loomed closer and closer, and Starsky was still glued to Hutch’s side. He didn’t regret a single minute of the last forty-eight hours. They had watched college hoops on TV, played nearly every card game invented by man, and invented a few of their own. They had talked like they hadn’t talked in too many months, but the overwhelming sense of something left unsaid restricted them to mundane topics. Their “truce” had lasted well beyond Hoastman’s arrest, and Hutch wanted nothing less than to give Starsky the impression that it was off again.

Couldn’t be helped.

Clearing his throat, he turned from the window. Starsky looked up from the sofa where he’d sprawled out half an hour ago, engrossed in a magazine, too gorgeous for words in worn jeans and tight red jersey with thinned patches on the chest that showed the imprint of chest hair underneath.

“You hungry?” Starsky asked. “I could go for Chinese. How ’bout you? Order in a heap of food, save some for midnight snacking?”

“Starsk, it’s Saturday.”

“Right up until midnight, yeah.” Starsky grinned.

“Don’t you have…you know…somewhere you need to be?”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

Yes, but not for long, promise. “No, I just-I’m fine, Starsky.”

He got a patented Starsky wink. “That ya are, schweetheart, that ya are.”

Oh, God. Hutch had to do a rapid pivot back to the window. He might have imagined plenty of things during those first few moments of concussion, but he wasn’t hallucinating the increased frequency or blatancy of Starsky’s flirtation. He wasn’t. He didn’t know what conclusion to draw from it, and Starsky hadn’t yet offered help with that, but he knew he wasn’t hearing things.

“It was just a mild concussion, you know. I’m out of danger.”

Mild concussion or not, you took a toaster to the head from a second-story window, Hutch. God, only you would downplay that! We should’ve been looking for trouble.”

“We were looking for trouble,” Hutch said, fingering a trail of dust on one slat of the wooden blinds, “just from Vic himself, not his sleaze-bag girlfriend. What is it with perps named Vic and their prize-winning lady friends?”

“Yeah, like Vic Bellamy’s old lady, now there was a prize.” Starsky raised his pitch in a whiny mocking falsetto, “He made me lie!”

Hutch winced. Carhop waitresses could say what they liked about Starsky’s Bogey, the guy did have a stunning talent for mimicry when he wanted. Right then Hutch didn’t need that verbal slap to the back of the head, a reminder of how close he’d come to losing Starsky. Of what Starsky was willing to do for him….

And here Hutch was trying to ditch him for the night just so he could prove he wouldn’t flake out trying to sing in front of a damned audience. What the hell did he care whether he could perform onstage? He had no future plans to leave law enforcement and tour Vegas or something. So what if Starsky tagged along and made a fool of him again?

No, he didn’t need that pressure. Not tonight. And he was afraid that Starsky wouldn’t act out, and his suspicion at the Saddle-Bar, the real reason he’d chased Starsky out of the club and chewed him a new eardrum in the parking lot, would find confirmation.

Feeling two inches tall and warty all over, Hutch forced a laugh. “Yeah, she was a winner, all right. You notice how many Vics we have to arrest? Bellamy, Humphries, now Hoastman. How come so many guys named Victor are losers instead of winners?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s the universe getting the last laugh. So, Chinese?”

“Starsky, don’t tell me you’re dateless on a Saturday night.”

“Just so happens, yeah, on this rare occasion, I am. But who needs a date when he’s got a partner just itching to get his ass kicked in chess while noshing on sesame chicken?”

God, that sounded like the only Heaven Hutch wanted to know, and in any real Paradise, they could move on from Chess to more intimate games in the sleeping alcove. But this was Earth. Time for a little reality. “I’m not up for chess tonight, buddy. Or Chinese. Think I’d just like to kick back, pile up some Zs.”

“Oh? Okay. Yeah, I’m always tired after I take a licking to the head. Hey, you sack out in that comfy bed in there, I’ll just hang out here, see if there’s a good flick on the tube. I’ll keep the sound down.”

“Starsky.” Hutch knew on some cosmic ledger sheet he was accumulating bad karma at an alarming rate. “I’m not a baby chicken.”

“I’m glad you noticed that, Hutch.”

“So, I don’t need a mother hen!”

Starsky put down his magazine then and made a show of looking himself over. “Do you see any feathers? Have I clucked a single time? You know what? You’re no baby chicken; you got the wrong bird. You’re acting like a turkey.”

“Why? Because I want a little privacy in my own apartment?”

“So that’s it?” Starsky’s eyes narrowed to stern blue slits. “We pulled Hoastman in, you’re over the worst of the head thing, so now we’re on the outs again. Truce over?”

Hutch didn’t try to check his sigh. He’d known Starsky would see it that way, and why not? “I’m a little tense, Starsk, that’s all. I want to lounge around in peace and quiet.”

“And you can’t do that with me here?” Starsky had every right to sound that skeptical. Hutch couldn’t remember ever making such a flimsy excuse. “You don’t sound tense, you sound nervous. What you got to be nervous about?”

“Nothing!” Damn Starsky and his spot-on perception. Well, while he was loading up on bad karma, he could always go for the gold ring of false pretenses. “You know, maybe I need privacy for another reason, but I’m feeling a little guilty about kicking you out so I can have a girl over, after you’ve spent this unexpected long weekend keeping an eye out for me. There, you pulled it out of me. Happy now?”

Starsky didn’t flinch, but he looked pole-axed. Hutch decided ten more years in Purgatory someday would be his just desserts for bringing that expression to Starsky’s face. Impressive self-levied punishment, considering he wasn’t even Catholic! The truth would hurt Starsky worse, Hutch rationalized. All right. Five years’ added sentence in Purgatory.

Doing that little cough thing that signaled discomfort, Starsky swung his legs off the sofa and patted his knees, slipping into his leather jacket. “Okay, I can take a hint. You got needs. So do I. Who doesn’t? I’ll just head out, maybe drop by that new club I was telling you about. You’re right, you’re doin’ fine with the head thing, don’t really need me…. ”

In rare instances, Starsky could do Jewish Mother better than any real Jewish mother out there. “Starsky, it’s not–”

“Hey, I get it. Chess and Chinese just don’t match up with some action in the sack.”

“On any given night,” Hutch started, falling silent at Starsky’s raised hand and fond smile.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Hutch, it’s only natural.”

Hutch was still contemplating the unusually bitter note in Starsky’s voice on that last word a good minute after the door slammed shut. God, he needed to just bend over right now and let the universal karmic accountant kick his ass. He swung back to the window, peering through the slatted blinds. In full-out worry mode, Starsky wasn’t above sitting out there for a little while just in case Hutch might need him, maybe even waiting for that apocryphal girl to show up before he headed off. But, no, the Torino cranked to life with a purr-rumble of engine and made the expected turn at the next cross street. Great! Hutch had less than half an hour now to dress for the Jazz Cave and get his burgeoning stage fright under control.

~*~

They’d changed the Jazz Cave since the last time he was here celebrating Vic Rankin’s return to the music business. Starsky could hardly make out faces in the dark, smoky room, but he didn’t see candlelight glinting off that one-of-a-kind gold hair at any of the small tables. He was in the right place. The cab had tailed Hutch’s Ford here from Venice, and he’d seen Hutch go in the club. He hadn’t lingered over paying his fare and getting past the cover charge attendant at the door, either. Surely Hutch couldn’t have ducked out and doubled back to his car in that short span of time. If he’d made the tail, though….

Uncomfortable with the situation, Starsky chose an observation post in the back of the bar. From here he could watch the whole club. If Hutch was still here, Starsky would see him. He ordered a JB on the rocks, harder than his usual, but he was battling the nerves now, too. This was all kinds of dumb. Following Hutch like the guy was some wanted felon under surveillance! But, damn it, Starsky had heard one evasion after another out of his partner tonight, and they didn’t do evasions. Not with each other. Not like that.

Something was wrong, and Starsky intended to get to the bottom of it, screw the ethics!

The saxophone soloist on stage finished his tribute to Billie Holiday, bowed and tooted out a few notes of thank you for the generous applause, and eased off stage as the lights dimmed even further, down to a spotlight over the lead microphone. A spiffy-dressed black man who looked vaguely familiar to Starsky approached the mike.

“Jazz brothers and sisters, we have a special guest tonight. Got us a peace officer in here moonlighting as a musician. Now, this isn’t just any peace officer. This young man and his partner helped an old friend of mine out of a jam a little over a year ago now, and I owe him a heap of thanks, so I’m asking you all to give him your undivided attention. Please join me in welcoming Detective Ken Hutchinson to the stage here at the Jazz Cave!”

In the odd swirl of surprise, hurt, disbelief, and pride, his cop’s mind always striving to match faces with names, Starsky placed the guy who’d made the announcement. Toby Something, he thought; the guy had been one of Rankin’s friends, piano player at Gil White’s club during that mess. He quit thinking, then, because Hutch had come onstage. So this was why Hutch had shed those blue-and-yellow sweats in favor of dark cords and cream turtleneck under a black blazer. He blended beautifully with the sleek baby grand piano, turned at an angle so the audience could best see the performer, and the lights had gone completely down, only the gold-and-silver shimmer of spotlight kissing Hutch from hair to shiny black boots.

God in Heaven, he was beautiful!

Starsky clutched his drink tighter, discomfort in his chest setting in with the first splinter-crack in his heart. He’d really messed up at the Saddle-Bar. He really had. For Hutch to keep something like this from him, for Hutch not to even want him here, or even to know it was going on… Jesus. This was something Starsky couldn’t fix. Hell, if he’d screwed up their partnership that bad, there was no hope for adding something new to it.

No time to think about that now, and not here, where he couldn’t afford to let his emotions show, he waited for Hutch to start singing, prepared for his heart to break a little more with the bittersweet beauty of what he couldn’t have.

~*~

Starsky was here! How in the hell was he here? Hutch had checked both side streets nearest Venice Place before he got in the car. No Torino. No Torino had tailed him to the club. But even in spotlight blindness, staring out over the heads of people whose faces he didn’t want to see, he couldn’t help noticing that one special face at the bar. Starsky standing there, nursing a drink in the Jazz Cave’s signature cut glass tumbler, his face set in that solemnity of checked emotion, his eyes sadder than Hutch had seen them in months.

This was horrible. This was… there were no words for what this was. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d hurt Starsky with this, more than Starsky had unintentionally wounded him at the Saddle-Bar. What could he do? He couldn’t say anything here, in public, without deep-sixing their careers and putting their lives in danger. He couldn’t leave the stage and back out of the performance altogether; he wouldn’t do that to Toby, and Starsky would only blame himself. Just when the silence threatened to turn awkward, Hutch received inspiration that had to be divine. All week long he’d practiced a jazz classic, but he knew one other song that just might say what needed to be said, if Starsky would listen.

Garfunkle wasn’t jazz, but the folksy genre could call itself a kissing cousin. Hutch hadn’t practiced this song, hadn’t sung it lately even in the privacy of his own apartment. For Starsky, he’d take the risk of making himself out to be an idiot. Nothing mattered… nothing mattered except taking the heart-deep sadness out of those honest eyes.

Hands on the ivories, he made eye contact with Starsky, let all the wonder, fear, passion, love and confusion he’d felt since his awakening a week ago show in his own eyes, and started the intro, his hands steadier than he expected. The bar dissolved into swirling darkness. Hutch’s only focus was the man standing at the bar watching him with tumbler in hand, pride and sadness still warring in his expression.

“I bruise you, you bruise me,” Hutch sang to Starsky, without a stutter or stumble. “We both bruise too easily, too easily to let it show…I love you and that’s all I know.”

Starsky’s eyes widened, and he lifted the tumbler to his lips for a drink, but it looked to Hutch that he somehow forgot to take a sip.

“All my plans have fallin’ through, all my plans depend on you, depend on you to help them grow, I love you and that’s all I know. When the singer’s gone let the song go on….”

Starsky stood there quiet as an empty church, no smile, no hand-clapping, no fidgeting and bouncing to the song’s soft rhythm, but his faith in his partner, and that pride in Hutch he never hesitated to show, had edged out the sadness in his eyes. For that, Hutch could have gladly performed all night long, even as his own disappointment rose to the surface with the proof that he’d read the Saddle-Bar situation right.

Oh, well. None of that was important now. What meant the most was telling Starsky the truth, for better or worse, and giving him the respect of honesty.

“But the ending always comes at last, endings always come too fast. They come too fast but they pass too slow, I love you and that’s all I know.”

~*~

Starsky couldn’t believe it. The most gorgeous man ever to take the stage in the Jazz Cave was up there singing to him. Unmistakably singing to him, making love to him in a crowded nightclub with those soft, warm eyes. And, hell, doing a professional job of that singing, too.

“When the singer’s gone let the song go on. It’s a fine line between the darkness and the dawn. They say in the darkest night there’s a light beyond….”

Where the hell had jittery, shy-rabbit Hutch of the Saddle-Bar gone? Who was this mesmerizing, confident, roof-shaking performer? And what bargain did Starsky have to make with the gods to get this songbird in a dark, quiet place long enough to show Hutch what all this meant to him?

“But the ending always comes at last. Endings always come too fast. They come too fast but they pass too slow. I love you, and that’s all I know. That’s all I know, that’s all I know.”

The music trailed off, leaving Starsky soft in the knees but harder than reinforced steel in his pants. If he didn’t get somewhere soon where he could relieve the pressure, he’d do himself a permanent injury. Lost in his desperate need for the man getting much-deserved applause, he almost forgot to clap. Some kind of sixth sense zinged him at the last second, and he put his drink down on the bar counter so he could nearly break his hands out-clapping the rest of the audience. Bowing, squeaking out a thank you, Hutch all but scurried off the stage. Starsky could understand. After a few minutes that intense, the waves of pent-in stress just had to crest over a guy’s head, and Hutch didn’t want to be in the public eye for that.

Knowing Hutch would have to field congrats and backslaps from Toby and the other performers, Starsky decided it’d be smartest to wait by the bar where Hutch could find him instead of trying to track him down backstage. He finished off his drink to kill time, every second out of Hutch’s line of sight making him grit his teeth and ache a little more in the tight confines of his jeans.

~*~

His back stinging from the hearty slaps of approval Toby and the other musicians had bestowed on him, Hutch ducked into the large shared dressing room backstage. Really a glorified office converted to a dressing area with screens for privacy partitions, t housed musical instruments, sheet music stands, and other odds and ends. He thought he’d find the room empty with all hands on deck, so to speak, for a band number backing a Toby solo, but in the folding chair turned sideways in front of the mirrors, a slender dark-curly haired man in high-waisted slacks and a white button-down sat smoking a cigarette.

Hutch blinked, then rubbed his eyes. He knew this man, or he would know him, in about eight years, when Starsky was forty. “Sorry. Thought I’d have the place to myself.”

The man had a smile that Hutch had seen too many times to count. “Did me proud out theh tonight,” he said in thicker Brooklyn-ese than Hutch had ever heard from Starsky. “Got yourself some pipes, kiddo.”

“Do I-do I know you?”

“I know you. Known you goin’ on, lemme see, eight years now? So, you finally figured it out, huh? Took ya long enough.”

“Figured what out?”

“That my son’s where it’s at for ya in the foreveh-after depahtment.”

“Your-!” Hutch had to prop against the closed door. “But you’re-you’re–”

“Mike Starsky? Yeah, that’s me. Nice to finally shoot the breeze with ya, Hutch.”

“But you’re–”

“You say that a lot. Pushin’ up daisies, you mean? Guess you could say so, but they don’t ‘xactly keep us in the ground, y’know. You think I don’t get the chance to check in on my boy once in a while? No Starsky would stand for that, lemme tell ya.”

“This isn’t happening. I have a head injury. Audiovisual hallucinations, dizziness, I need to head back to the ER …” Hutch felt his forehead, absurdly checking for fever.

“Calm down, kiddo. You’re not about to keel over. Thought I’d be makin’ this appearance to a lady, but I’ve always been one to roll with the punches, and this ain’t ‘xactly a punch in the gut.” Again that lopsided grin lit the man’s face, and he took a puff on the cigarette. “I like you, Hutch. Swear t’God. You take care’a my kid, even when the pair’a you are being bozos. That counts for somethin’. I know you’d take a bullet for him. Promise me you’ll love him that hard off the streets, I’ll give you my blessing. We got a deal?”

“Yes, I’ll love him, hard as I can, on the streets and off. Are you saying Starsky-”

“He’s head over ears for ya. I think you know he don’t normally take fruit in his salad.” The older Starsky winced and tapped himself on the side of the head with the hand clutching his cigarette. “Sorry. Left-over Fifties street slang. Don’t mean nothin’ by it. What I’m sayin’ is, he’s just now figuring out he can chase a tomcat, and I’m guessin’ it’s the same with you, but you’re not gonna have any trouble. Two’a you can do anything together.” Pink tinged the olive of his complexion. “And don’t worry about me hanging around gettin’ an eyeful. Doesn’t work that way, for which I’m grateful. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad, I approve, I wish you guys all’a the best, but I don’t wanna see it.”

Hutch’s face, neck, and upper chest went red hot. “No, I’m damn glad you don’t. Why me? Why are you showing yourself to me? What about Starsky?”

“Now, see? That’s how I know my kid’s found a winner. Your concern means a lot, Hutch, but don’t worry.” His expression darkened. “There’ll come a day I’ll get to jaw for a little while with my Davey. I’m saving all I got to say ’til then. Listen, you fellas got some rough times ahead. Job’s gonna wear you down, things you gotta do to keep the job and your life together, it’s gonna take a toll. David’s not perfect and neither are you. Yeah, tough times. But when it gets bad, when it gets really bad, you remember what you sang on that stage tonight. That stuff about ‘in the darkest night there’s a light beyond’? You guys are gonna make it. You remember I told you that, when it gets rough.”

“Thank you. I will.”

The apparition shook his head, sadness in his eyes that reminded Hutch of Starsky earlier in the bar. “Not right off the bat, you won’t. You’ll doubt. Eventually you’ll climb outta the dread though. One more thing, do me a favah? Don’t mention this chat to David?”

“He wouldn’t believe me if I did!”

“You kiddin’? The guy who buys cloves of garlic to ward off vampires? Don’t you bet on it! He’d believe you, and it’s not time for him to know this is possible yet. Like I said, I’ll get some time with him. I’ll get a whole day with him, if you wanna know, and don’t ask me how, ’cause trust me, you don’t wanna know that. Just remember what I said about you guys making it. Time’s up for me, kiddo. Gotta run. Take care of my boy.”

“Always, I promise. I don’t suppose I can shake your hand?”

Mike Starsky smiled, and with a snap of his fingers the cigarette disappeared in a puff of gray ash that blew away into nothingness. He rose from the chair, spreading his arms wide. “I can go you one better’n that. Come’ere, son.”

Hutch couldn’t say a word around the lump in his throat. He took two faltering steps and was wrapped in a bear hug. The older man was slighter in frame, less muscled than his son, but he had the height and gift of strong embrace. Hutch, who had never been hugged by his own father, wanted to stay in that fatherly hold for longer than the ten seconds it lasted. When he opened his eyes, his arms were empty, hugging thin air.

He stood there, lost for words, and wiped tears from his lower lashes.

~*~

“What took you so long?” Starsky demanded. His resolve to stay by the bar had dwindled, and he’d had to order another drink just to keep from chewing through his own lip with impatience. Taking a closer look at his partner, he felt his instinct to protect Hutch rise up, overcoming his urge to drag Hutch into an alley and show him how sexy frisking could be. “Hey, you’re pale. Are you…trembling? You okay, Hutch?”

Hutch was pale. He looked rumpled. “I need to ask you something. You can’t ask why.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Was your father a smoker?”

Starsky stared at him. “You come out here after singing me a song like that,” he whispered, “and you wanna know if Pop smoked? Okay, okay, I’m not asking why. Yeah, he did.”

Hutch nodded. “And you never told me that, did you?”

“Not to my knowledge. Doubt it ever came up. Hutch, just tell me, are you okay?”

“I think I need some of your drink.” Hutch reached for the tumbler, but Starsky held it away from him.

“You’re getting over a head injury, remember?”

“Starsky?”

“Yeah?”

“Feathers. Clucking.”

“Oh. Okay, here then. I don’t want the rest of it anyway.”

“Good. I do.” Hutch knocked back the remaining two swallows neat and coughed, thwacking himself on the chest. “Ah. Better.”

“No kidding, Hutch, you’re starting to weird me out here.” Starsky sniffed the air when Hutch reached across him to put the drink on the bar. “You smell like cigarette smoke.”

“The, uh, dressing room is full of it. Not to mention, it’s a little-” Hutch coughed against his fist. “Little thick out here, isn’t it? Why don’t we go outside, get some air?”

“Thought you’d never ask!” Starsky grinned. “Out back though, the alley? Not out front. Don’t wanna have to watch for people constantly while we…get that fresh air.”

“Sure thing. Follow me.”

“To Hell and back, partner.”

He didn’t mind following Hutch at all. He got a nice glimpse of that corduroy-clad ass whenever Hutch’s blazer hem flapped a little in his forward motion. His hands wanted to follow his eyes, his lips already stinging with anticipation of what it would feel like to have Hutch’s mouth on his. With those distracting thoughts, he had to depend on Hutch to weave them through the crowd. On his own, he would’ve knocked people down in haste to get outside into relative privacy with the man who’d opened his eyes to a unique love.

They found the alley empty. Starsky took the point, moving them from the nightclub’s rear exit to the adjacent building that stood empty, space available for rent. The rear doorway to the empty building was recessed, offering a few square feet of standing room obscured from the view of anyone who happened into the alley. They edged into the recessed area and stood face to face, both of them suddenly speechless.

Hutch spoke first. “How did you get here? Have I lost my touch with spotting a tail?”

“Nah. You just weren’t lookin’ for me to tail you in a yellow cab. When I left Venice Place tonight, I knew something was off. Drove down a few streets, spotted a cab dropping off a fare. I found a halfway decent parking spot and walked over and caught the cab, had him double back to your place and wait across the street from Chez Helene’s. He dropped me off here just as you headed into the club.”

“Starsky, I know it cut you, finding out about tonight this way.”

“Won’t lie, it stung, yeah. Mostly ’cause I thought…Christ, Hutch, I thought I’d fucked us up big time with what happened last week.”

“You mean at the Saddle-Bar?”

“Yeah, I knew you were sore. You’ve been a sorehead all week, but–”

“No, Starsk. That wasn’t all you. First few days, yes, I was holding a grudge, and not even for the reason you think. Last few days, though, I was angry with myself. I knew I wasn’t doing right by you, setting up this performance and not telling you about it. It was just… something I had to do, and I was so sure if you were here, it’d be a repeat of last week, or worse, that it wouldn’t be, and I’d–”

“Wait, hold up, you’re losin’ me. First thing, what you mean by ‘not the reason I think’? And that last bit I don’t understand either.”

“Starsky, at the Saddle-Bar, I wasn’t pissed off by your over reaction to my singing as much as I was angry and jealous, because I thought you were doing it to get attention from Sue-Ann. I wanted all that enthusiasm to…to be for me. That’s when it hit me that I wanted you for me. I’ve been dealing with that ever since and taking it out on you.”

“And you told yourself if I showed tonight and didn’t act the fool like last time, it’d be ’cause Sue-Ann wasn’t here to see it?”

“Sounds stupid, I know, I can see that now.”

“Ah, it’s dumb all right.” Starsky smiled to soften the harshness of the agreement. “But I know how your mind works; I should’ve figured it out myself. Hutch, it was all for you. You got no idea how it felt to see you go up on that stage; shit, Sue-Ann didn’t even rate, and she’s a real nice lady, real lovely girl. You lit a fire in me that’s still burning, and tonight…God. Nearly had me coming in my pants just from your eyes on me, with you singing your heart out, and I know you broke hearts all over that club.”

Despite the poor artificial lighting in the alley and weak moonlight, Starsky could see a blush rising on his partner’s face. Hutch’s soft, closed-lip smile took Starsky’s breath. “I’m so glad you followed me here tonight. I didn’t tell you because I knew it would hurt your feelings if you knew about it and I asked you to stay away.”

“Yeah, I know. Look, thinking back, some’a that in the Saddle-Bar? I probably was trying to get attention. But not Sue-Ann’s, partner; yours. See, I thought like you did. Thought you’d gone soft on the country warbler.”

Chuckling, Hutch shook his head. “Like you said, she’s a nice lady, a lovely girl, but she’s not you, Starsk. No one is. No one could be.”

“Likewise, buddy. Why’d you feel you had to come sing in front of people tonight?”

“My grandfather. Drilled into my head that I had to ‘get back in the saddle’ anytime a horse of any kind threw me. After that disaster last week, I just had to prove to myself it hadn’t licked me, I guess. Get my confidence back.”

“And you came here on your own, no support, no cheering section. Brave, so brave. Well, there’s something I gotta do that I should’ve found the guts to do a few weeks ago.”

“What?”

Starsky didn’t answer in words. He took a step backward into the alley, reassured himself of their privacy, and then pressed Hutch farther into the recess and up against the steel door. He slid his hand up Hutch’s cheek, into that soft hair, and closed his eyes, touching his lips to Hutch’s. Sighing into the kiss, Hutch stroked his hands up Starsky’s back, pulling him closer. Their mouths found the perfect angle, opened, and then they devoured each other, a deeper, rougher, more passionate kiss than Starsky had ever experienced. The need he’d developed in the nightclub became an imperative. He groaned around Hutch’s slick, warm tongue in his mouth, trying to mold the front of his body to Hutch’s. Taking a turn sucking Starsky’s tongue, Hutch whimpered. Oh, for the love of….

Starsky drew his mouth away from those mind-blowing lips, trailing a kiss down Hutch’s chin. Gasping, he tried to think clearly. Hutch was shining-eyed, panting.

“Never did that before?” Hutch asked.

“What, kissed a guy? No. You?”

“First time for me, too. You wanna do it again?”

Starsky straightened Hutch’s tousled hair. “I got a scary answer to that question.”

Hutch looked panicky. “What, you don’t want to do it again?”

“I wanna do it for the rest of our lives,” Starsky said quickly.

“And that’s scary?”

“Well, nothing like a little pressure on a brand-new relationship.”

Hutch gave him that anything’s-possible smile. “Starsk, this part of the relationship is new, but it’s not a new relationship. Besides, you show as much enthusiasm for this new part of our partnership as you did for my singing in the Saddle-Bar, we’ll be just fine. So, you wanna do it again?”

“Hutch, I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, thirty-two years old, it’s embarrassin’, but if I kiss you again right now, I’m gonna shoot in my jeans.”

“You won’t be the only one.”

“Yeah? That’s terrific, but here’s the deal. I don’t have to tell you what’d happen if we’re caught here having what amounts to sex in public, even if we are fully clothed.”

“I know, and no, you don’t have to tell me. Listen, Starsky, I can’t tell you why I’m about to say what I’m about to say, but I have a feeling tonight of all nights we’re exempt from the strict caution we’ll have to use from here on out.” Hutch lowered his voice to a sultry whisper. “Right now I want to hold you right up against me, want to feel you jerk in your jeans when it happens, want to hear you come in my arms.”

“Hutch!”

Undone, Starsky grasped Hutch’s face between his palms and attacked his new lover’s mouth with all the intensity he’d built up over weeks of wanting him. Hutch did his part by grabbing Starsky’s ass, parting his stance, and pulling their groins together, starting a slow grind that incinerated Starsky’s last thread of control. Thrusting against the heat and pressure he could feel where he knew Hutch was also feeling it, Starsky broke the kiss to moan in Hutch’s ear.

“I’m…” he stopped thrusting, pressing hard as he could into the hot, firm length of his partner. He felt himself start to pulse, and took sharp, deep breaths. One look in Hutch’s eyes, seeing all the love there, and he was a goner. “I’m…I’m…I’m… coming… Hutch!”

“Oh, Starsk, oh, Starsk, oh, Starsky!” Hutch gasped, and Starsky felt the answering pulses of his partner’s orgasm through the multiple layers of cloth.

After a minute of rapid, shallow breathing, then slow and deep breaths, Starsky laughed. “That enthusiastic enough for ya?”

“Um-hm.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Just wait’ll I get you home and naked behind closed doors.”

“Wonderful. Starsky?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re gonna be drop-dead fucking gorgeous in your forties.”

Chapter End Notes:

The author wishes to thank MaDonna M. for inspiring this story. Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know” (1973) lyrics are used with respect and no intention of infringement.