by Layla Reyne
Maybe grabbing hold of anger again would be easier. Countering the good memories with the aftermath of Sean leaving—Charlie withdrawn and unreachable, their one and only attempt to be together that had ended in tears and a week of radio silence during which he feared he’d lost his best friend. It was the longest they’d ever gone without talking, and it had been the most painful week of his life. All because of the asshole pulling Trevor’s truck to a stop in the empty parking lot of the rusty, run-down batting cage that used to be “their spot.”
Well, fuck him. “This is protective custody?” Trevor sneered.
Sean was already halfway out the door. “Get out of the fucking truck, Trev,” he tossed over his shoulder. “We both need to hit something, not each other, or Charlie will kill us both.”
Despite Trevor’s souring mood, Sean’s eager eyes and unvarnished truth were enough to get Trevor moving. He followed Sean toward the small clubhouse at the front of the fenced-in structure that stood among the grove of magnolias. Bad game, bad day, this was where they’d always gone to clear their heads. Where Trevor had been going to hide out long before Sean ever came to town. “You’re lucky this place is still here.”
“Not sure I’d call it luck considering you hold the deed to the land and rent it to your uncle for a dollar a year.” They stopped outside the clubhouse, and Sean peered inside the glass door. “It’s dark.”
“It’s nine o’clock at night and only open on the weekends anymore.” Owing to his uncle’s arthritis and because most kids nowadays seemed to always have a phone in their hands. Didn’t leave much time or space for a baseball bat.
“You got a key, or do I need to pick the lock?”
Trevor nodded at his keyring still in Sean’s hand. “Third one from the end.”
Sean grinned. “Still a sentimental romantic.”
Trevor’s fingers ached to form a fist, but he forgot about that ache as soon as he stepped across the threshold and his heart ached worse. He came back here once a year to commemorate the day he, Sean, and Cal had won the College World Series. And now one of them was gone way too fucking early. He rubbed a hand over his chest, which did little to ease the pain. Neither did Sean’s question about a different source of heartache. “Are your parents still in town?”
Sean didn’t know about Trevor’s visits to this place after he’d left. But he did know why Trevor had started coming here as a kid, his uncle letting him hang out whenever his parents came home from a months’ long bender, usually still drunk, usually still fighting. He’d slept on the floor behind the counter where Sean stood loading balls into a bucket more than a few times.
“Gone,” Trevor answered as he turned off the alarm and flipped on lights. “Somewhere.” He joined Sean behind the counter, collecting a bat and bucket. “It’s been years now. One good thing Tracy did for me.” He flipped the big handle for the cage lights and led Sean outside. As the overhead flood lights flickered on, Trevor carried the bucket of balls out to the rickety old pitching machine. He loaded it up, turned it on, then returned to the line of batters’ boxes with the empty bucket, shedding his dress shirt on the way. Down to his undershirt, he rejoined Sean in the middle batter’s box just as the first pitch sailed by. Sean didn’t pay it any attention, his gaze locked on Trevor, who leaned back against the dividing fence. “Been a while, Hale?”
As if his voice had broken the trance, Sean blinked fast a few times, then seemed to remember where he was… and what they’d been talking about.
“You wanna tell me about Tracy?” he asked as he stepped up to the plate, his stance as perfect as it had been a decade ago. A natural behind the plate.
“Nope.”
Sean whiffed at the next pitch. Maybe not so natural anymore. Trevor lifted a brow. “Strike two.”
He stepped back and started over. Tapped one toe in the dirt, then the other, then the tip of the bat against the plate. His usual routine. He lifted the bat over his shoulder, then flicked his eyes at Trevor. “Answer the question, Caldwell.”
“She moved to town three years after you left.” The machine pitched the next ball and Sean hit it clean, the crack of the bat an arrow of joy through the bubble of anger Trevor had been trying—and failing—to hold on to. Popped, it even allowed him to recall the joy of those early days with Tracy when he’d thought love was possible again. Because Sean was right; he was a sentimental romantic. “Annie met her first, at the hospital. Introduced us. We hit it off.”
“I’d say so. You married her.” Another hit, a ground ball that skirted over the packed-dirt infield and bounced off the base of the machine. Sean readied for another. Toe, toe, bat, lift. “When’d it go wrong?”
“Probably the first Henby dinner I took her to.”
“Tough crowd?” He swung and missed the next pitch, the ball clanking off the fence behind Sean. He kicked it and the other missed balls over to Trevor.
Trevor gathered them back into the bucket. “The opposite actually. They welcomed her with open arms.”
Pitch. Hit. A scorcher to center field. “I don’t follow.”
“She never believed that it wasn’t Charlie’s arms I wanted to be in.”
Sean’s piercing blue gaze cut to his as the next pitch sailed between them. “Was she right?”
“To a degree. What she didn’t get was that Charlie’s arms weren’t enough.”
Pitch, hit, a gorgeous arc all the way to the back fence.
Fuck if watching Sean Hale at bat wasn’t still a turn-on.
“What happened with Julian?”
The interrogation, not so much, but the fact Sean could carry it on while still hitting most of the pitches was impressive. And fascinating enough that Trevor kept answering. “Neighbor told me. I told Tracy we could bring Julian in. I wasn’t attracted to him, but she could be the connection that made the polycule work. I just needed the relationship with her. She could also have a relationship with him. But by then, she wasn’t in love with me anymore.”
“Charlie said she wasn’t poly.”
“That too. She always thought it was Charlie I wanted instead of her. She couldn’t wrap her brain around the notion I could love and want them both. Or that I could be poly and be in a monogamous relationship if that’s what she wanted.”
“Most people don’t get it.” The next ball sped past, and their eyes clashed again over the plate. “Trev—”
He stepped up to the plate. “My turn.” He connected on the first pitch, ground ball to short, and then Sean threw a fastball of his own.
“Why didn’t you and Charlie try to find a third? If Tracy didn’t work, someone else?”
Anger gone, joy depleting as the conversation wore on, Trevor was too exhausted to hold back the truth. He mentally collected all the balls and blitzed Sean with them. “Because we were all connected. Without you, something was always missing. And who the fuck else would’ve had the self-confidence to encourage two best friends to fall in love and be sure enough in themselves to know they’d still have a place among them.” He slammed the bat into the next ball, a line drive to third. “Only you, Sean. Only you’re that arrogant.”
He didn’t sound arrogant at all when he spoke. “I’m sorry, Trevor.” His voice was soft, pained as if all those balls had pummeled him.
Trevor pitched another. “Why’d you leave us?”
“Jesus, you don’t pull your punches.”
“I thought that’s why you liked me.”
“Loved you.”
Trevor hit a homer to center field.
Sean ended the game. “Saul’s dying.”
The bat fell from Trevor’s hands. “Repeat that.”
“I got a call from Marie right after police academy graduation. Saul had collapsed and was in surgery. Cancer.”
If Trevor thought his heart had ached before… “Is he better?”
Sean whipped his head to the side and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Third time’s gonna get him.” He cleared his throat. “Any day now.”
As soon as the next ball blew past, Trevor bolted across the plate, grabbed Sean by the arm, and dragged him to the other side of the fence and into his arms. “Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. I know how much he means to you.” One orphan to another, Trevor knew how much it meant when someone else opened their arms and home and invited you into their family. Knew how much it hurt when you lost those people who were your second chance, your hope.
“I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“You forget I know how this mind works.” Trevor cupped the back of his head, fingers threading through the short hairs, as so many pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “You ran to your family. You thought you’d have to stay and take over Paxton and you wouldn’t ask us to leave our family.”
All the breath, all the fight, rushed out of Sean and he melted into Trevor. His arms circled Trevor and his hands scorched a path up Trevor’s back. “Fuck,” Sean mumbled into his shoulder. “How do you always do that? Know exactly where my head’s at.”
Trevor had a good idea where it was now too. “If Saul’s dying, that means you have to take over. Marie never wanted to. That’s why you’re back in the States?” Sean nodded, and Trevor could only laugh at fate turning the screws. Again. “Right when Charlie and I are finally ready to leave. Fucking timing.” He drew back enough to see Sean’s face, and when he noticed the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, he gently cupped his cheeks, thumbs wiping away the moisture that escaped, savoring the familiar weight in his hands and the rough scrape of stubble under his palms. “KC? Is that where you need to be?” That’s where Sean was originally from, where Paxton Industries was based, last he’d checked.
“No.”
“Where then?”
“DC.”
Trevor froze. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Saul’s doctors are there. Better politics too.” He swallowed hard and forced out an “I’m sorry.”
He angled his face, trying to look away, but Trevor held firm, fingers tightening around his skull. “Stop fucking apologizing. Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because you’re supposed to be moving on. I didn’t want to stand in the way of whatever that looked like.”
“Oh, baby.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead against Sean’s. “That plan got fucked the minute you showed up after the funeral.” Out of balls, the pitching machine died, quiet descended, and Sean’s rapid breaths were all Trevor could hear.
All he wanted to taste.
It would burn. Giving in to whatever this might be. Whether it was a good burn or a bad one, Trevor couldn’t predict, but Sean was a fire he’d never been able to look away from. He slid his hands into Sean’s hair, drawing him closer.
Rough lips ghosted across his. “Trev.”
“Yeah, baby.”
“Fucking kiss me.”
The spark caught fire, and he crashed his mouth against Sean’s, tongue diving between those rough lips and sweeping inside, tasting everything he couldn’t get out of his mind the past month. The past ten years. Coffee and Sean and hunger. Sean’s lust rivaled his own, his mouth greedy and his hands clutching at the back of Trevor’s shirt. A groan rumbled from Sean’s chest that vibrated against Trevor and sent an arrow of need straight to his dick. He needed to feel more of Sean, starting with his cock. He shuffled them back against the fence and thrust a thigh between Sean’s legs, rubbing against Sean’s erection. As hard as his own.
Sean rolled his hips and tore his mouth away on another groan. “Fuck, you feel good.” He thrust again. “More… Fuck.”
Trevor countered, but Sean’s words had shaken loose Trevor’s favorite memory from a month ago. Charlie writhing between them, begging for more. And on the heels of that one, a less pleasant memory from a decade ago. Charlie curled in the bed beside him, frustrated because there was more she—they—needed. Same as he and Charlie hadn’t been able to get Sean out of their heads then, she was in Trevor’s now, and as much as he wanted Sean, as much as he wanted to drop to his knees and take Sean’s cock into his mouth, he also wanted to look up from that position and see Charlie’s lust-darkened eyes watching from over Sean’s shoulder, wanted to hear her voice directing him and Sean how to make it good for all of them.
He tore his mouth away, panting. “We need—”
“Charlie,” Sean finished on a pant. Seemed she was on Sean’s mind too. “I know.”
“Does she know? About DC?”
He nodded, then skimmed his lips over Trevor’s jaw, little nips and licks that kept him on edge. “I told her this evening.”
“Good.” He sighed and held Sean close, enjoying the gentle attention as his breaths slowed. “We’ll talk. You need to tell us everything, including why you didn’t come back.”
Sean skated his hands around Trevor’s sides and to his front, resting over his chest. “That’s also a conversation we need to have with Charlie.”
Trevor sensed it would be an unpleasant one, but if it got them to the pleasant part, to a place where maybe this would work, they owed it to themselves to try. The stars had aligned in their favor for once, and the romantic in him couldn’t look away.
He covered Sean’s hands with his and leaned forward to press his lips to Sean’s forehead. “We’ll talk about it. We’ll make it work. We have to.”
“What are you doing down here?”
Trevor turned his head and squinted Charlie’s direction. “Migraine.”
“Lack of sleep and too much caffeine?”
He nodded, then slowly pushed himself to seated, pleased to find the throbbing headache he’d woken up with mostly gone. “Needed the quiet and darkness down here”—he gestured around the station’s shadowed holding cell, even more so owing to that morning’s rain—“while I waited for the meds to kick in.”
She kicked off her heels outside the cell door then crossed the box on quiet feet, lowering herself next to him on the bench. “Wouldn’t the hotel or my office couch be comfier than this?” She patted the narrow strip of cold cement between them.
“Ixnay on the hotel. That whole I might murder Craig thing. Ixnay on your office as it was Grand Central yesterday.”
“Picky, picky.” She rolled her eyes and bumped a shoulder against his. “Just be glad I’m not officially locking you up for that disappearing act you pulled.”
The guilt that had been shoved aside yesterday by the twists and turns of the case, then by the twists and turns with Sean, made itself known again. He covered Charlie’s hand on the bench. “Hey, I’m sorry I worried you, and I’m sorry I put more stress on you when there’s enough already. It wasn’t intentional. I was going to call.”
She shot him a knowing side-eye. “After you got to Apex.”
“After I got to Apex.” No use lying. She had him dead to rights. Because she was a good cop and because she knew him better than anyone. “In fairness, I didn’t know another body was gonna drop. And I thought you were going to be in the interview most of the day.”
Her side-eye twinkled with humor. “Excuses, Caldwell.” They both laughed, their soft chuckles reverberating around the quiet corner of the station, and when Charlie lifted her fingers, Trevor slid his in between them.
After the roller coaster of the past three days—fuck, the past month—the simple touch, the comfortable silence, was a balm. He enjoyed the easy quiet another minute before following up on the topic of conversation he’d left open. “Speaking of, tell me how the FBI interview went this morning. You’re just back?”
She nodded. “Traffic to and from Wilmington was heavy for a Tuesday.”
“Summer vacationers.”
“Rain didn’t help either.” She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “It was kind of like an Internal Affairs interview, retreading the details of the Salazar case. Sean warned me the interviewing agent liked his rule book and no joke, we walked through every step of that op.”
“Including what happened to Mitch and Cal?”
�
�He said the takedown was textbook.”
“Like we keep telling you. It wasn’t your fault.” Maybe she’d believe it now, hearing it from an impartial third party. He didn’t press, though, wanting to hear how the rest of the meeting went. “And after that part of the interview?”
“We ran through a few case sims and discussed how I would approach them. Then he explained the training process and how assignments in CID work.”
Like those times when he used to be in the dugout, checking his equipment or reviewing the stats for the next inning, and the crack of a well-hit ball would draw his attention back to the diamond, his heart raced with excitement. With the promise of a home run. “Wait, so you’re in?”
“Pending clearances, yes.”
“Holy shit, Charlie.” He yanked her off the wall and into his arms. “I mean, I knew you’d get it, but… Holy shit!”
When she opened her eyes, her face scant inches from his, a potent mixture of pride, hope, and concern swirled in her dark gaze. “But it’s real now.”
“Take the job, Charlie,” he implored. “You deserve this. We’ll work everything else out. With the department, with Annie, with—” He cut himself off, still not quite believing last night at the batting cage with Sean was real. The hope and prospect he offered. But judging by Charlie’s wide eyes and pink cheeks, her mind had gone to Sean too. And that look on Charlie’s face only made other mental pictures crowd his mind. Charlie astride Sean’s lap, head thrown back, lips parted, a flush creeping up her chest and neck. Of Sean’s lips stretched around his cock and his body, sweaty and naked, beneath them. Of Charlie’s lips colliding with his own, over and over, neither of them able to get enough, groaning against those lips as he’d come down Sean’s throat.
Fuck. He shook himself out of the fantasy and back to reality, which also included the third person in those memories, but this wasn’t the time or place. And they were missing a critical piece of the conversation. He shifted the conversation a different direction for now. “FBI offer aside, how are you?”