Cheers went up around the table. Charles didn’t join in, too distracted by his memories of that soft worn leather under his fingertips. He’d fucked Ángel wearing that jacket and nothing else—
Eva elbowed him hard in the side. “Ow, what?” Charles said, glancing around. None of the others were paying attention, busy giving Ángel their drink orders.
“What’s the matter with you?” she whispered. “You’re totally zoning out.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
Eva narrowed her eyes, but she was interrupted by Ángel.
“Eva, what’s your poison, querida?”
“Manhattan, please,” she said.
“Nice,” said Ángel. “Charles?”
“Just a cranberry juice.”
“Boo,” Ángel said, wrinkling his nose.
Charles scowled at him. “I’m the designated driver.”
“Whatever. Be right back.” Ángel turned and strolled away into the crowd.
Charles struggled with himself for a few moments, gave up, and said, “He’ll probably need help carrying.” He jumped off his stool and followed Ángel, ignoring Eva’s searching look.
The bar was halfway across the room, out of their table’s direct line of sight. Charles caught up with Ángel as he was waiting for the bartender and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey,” Ángel said, startled.
“Thought you might need help,” Charles said. He made a vague gesture to encompass Ángel’s entire body. “You look like you’re feeling better. Good day?”
“Well, having possessions again does make me feel less like a vagrant drifter, even if I did put most of them right back in storage.”
“Of course.” Charles shifted on the balls of his feet. “And . . . Jesenia. Having her here is helping?”
“Yeah, it is,” Ángel said with a soft smile.
Charles had no suspicions that Ángel and Jesenia had a sexual relationship; he knew Ángel had never touched a woman that way since his disappointing first-and-only fumblings with a girl in the seventh grade. They shared a connection much deeper than sex, though—they’d been undercover together, seen and experienced things that Charles couldn’t imagine and would never truly understand. Jesenia could be there for Ángel in ways Charles couldn’t, and he hadn’t realized that would bother him until this very moment.
Ángel tilted his head, meeting Charles’s eyes. He smoothed one hand up Charles’s chest, then fisted Charles’s shirtfront and yanked him into a kiss. Charles groaned, instinctively grabbing Ángel’s hips and deepening the kiss, his tongue stroking into Ángel’s demanding mouth. Ángel pressed up against him with a quiet moan.
The kiss went on for a while before Charles got control of himself, pulling away and taking a few steps backward for good measure. He couldn’t help a fleeting look in the direction of their table, but none of his teammates were in sight. Though a few people nearby regarded them with raised eyebrows, nobody seemed inclined to start shit.
“What are you doing?” Charles said to Ángel. “Someone could see us!”
“You know, if I had a dollar for every time you’ve said that to me, I could pay for this entire round,” Ángel said, more resigned than irritated. He turned back to the bar.
Shit. “I didn’t mean . . .” Charles said, but it was too late.
“Go sit down, Charles. I worked in bars all through college and grad school; I can handle drinks for seven people.”
Charles returned to their table without argument. It had been disrespectful for Ángel to kiss him in public when he knew Charles wasn’t out, but Charles could have handled it better. Everything he did just muddied the waters more—unsurprising, since he had no idea what the fuck he was doing or what he wanted from this situation. He should be happy that Ángel had a friend he could rely on, a support system for when he left San Diego. Because Ángel would leave eventually, and Charles’s life would go back to normal, and that . . . that was what Charles wanted.
Wasn’t it?
“I thought you were helping Ángel,” Eva said when Charles sat down.
“Says he doesn’t need it.”
Jesenia studied Charles from across the table, but she said nothing.
Ángel did end up needing help, enlisting a cocktail server to carry a second tray—because in addition to everyone’s drinks, he’d bought seven shots of Fireball.
“Yes,” Shane said, drumming his hands on the table.
“I told you I’m not drinking tonight,” Charles said when the server placed one of the shots in front of him.
“What, you think you won’t metabolize a single shot of whiskey in the two or three hours we’ll probably be here?” said Ángel. He hopped up on his stool. “Just one shot, Charles.”
In Charles’s experience, Just one shot, Charles, tended to lead to five or six and Charles bending Ángel over any convenient horizontal surface. He had Eva to keep him in check this time, though, so he rolled his eyes and picked up his shot glass along with everyone else.
“To the completion of a successful operation,” Ángel said in a toast.
“To Ángel getting his shit back,” said Jade.
Ángel laughed, and everyone tossed back their shots. Charles grimaced as the cinnamon-flavored whiskey burned his throat.
“What happened to your hand?” Ángel asked Charles, dropping his shot glass and reaching for his hard cider.
“He socked this woman-beating piece of shit right in the jaw,” Sakura answered for him. “Put the guy on his knees in one punch.”
“Really?” Ángel said, intrigued. “Sounds like I missed all the excitement.”
Sakura and Shane were eager to recount the exploits of the day, continuing an earlier argument over which of them deserved credit for more arrests. Charles nursed his cranberry juice and listened quietly as they whiled away an hour or so, the conversation flowing from the various Jackals’ arrests to Ángel and Jesenia’s travails with his movers. To Charles’s surprise, Ángel switched to water after he finished his first drink, even though everyone else hit up the bar for seconds and thirds.
When discussion came around to partners and families, Charles excused himself to the restroom. He splashed cold water on his face as he washed his hands, stalling for time, unwilling to acknowledge the real reason he didn’t want to go back out there. It was too ridiculous that he was jealous of Ángel’s friendship with a woman he’d just met.
Charles left the men’s room and almost ran over the object of said jealousy, who was hovering right outside.
“I was just about to head out for a smoke,” Jesenia said. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Uh . . .” Try as he might, Charles couldn’t think of a way to refuse gracefully. “Sure, I guess.”
They slipped out the side door, standing against the brick wall while Jesenia pulled a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lit one. She took a deep drag, then glanced at the expression on Charles’s face.
“It’s gross, I know,” she said ruefully. “I picked it up with the cartel to help my cover, and I’ve been having trouble quitting. Ángel hates it.”
“I don’t mind,” said Charles, feeling guilty now about being so judgmental. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I think it’s only fair to be honest and tell you that I know about what happened between you and Ángel in Tucson, and that you’ve been sleeping together again since he got back.” Jesenia exhaled another slow stream of smoke. “Ángel said you don’t want your coworkers to know, so I wanted to make it clear you don’t have anything to worry about from me. I can keep a secret.”
“Thanks.” Beyond uncomfortable, Charles longed to reach for the door, but he held himself still. “Was that all?”
“No,” Jesenia said. She fiddled with her cigarette, flicking a bit of ash off the end. “It’s just . . . are you being careful with him?”
“Careful?” Charles said, incredulous. “With Ángel?”
Jesenia’s smile was croo
ked. “Yeah, I know. He acts like most things just slide right off him. And he’s an adult; he can make his own decisions, and he’d kill me if he knew I was talking to you about this. Considering how easily you fell back in bed with him, though, I have to wonder if he hasn’t been honest with you about what happened with Esparza.”
A chill ran down Charles’s spine. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I hope you’re not the kind of guy who’d fuck around with Ángel after what he’s been through—”
“No,” Charles said, “what do you mean, ‘what happened with Esparza’?”
“Oh,” Jesenia said, her eyes widening. “I guess he hasn’t been honest, then. Shit.” She dropped her cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out. “This is something you should really talk to him about, not me. It’s not my place.”
She turned for the door. Charles reached out to grab her arm, then decided that would come off as too aggressive and dropped his hand to his side.
“Jesenia, wait,” he said. “Please. Ángel won’t talk to me about this.”
Jesenia raised her eyebrows. “Have you ever asked?”
Fair enough. “I’m asking you now.”
Crossing her arms, Jesenia faced Charles. “Ángel can reason his way around this all he wants, but the truth is that Esparza treated him like his personal whore. The things Esparza did to him—word got around, you know. What Ángel didn’t tell me himself, I heard from other people in the cartel, from the guys Esparza let watch or join in—”
“What?” Charles caught himself with one hand on the wall.
“It was awful,” Jesenia said, hunching her shoulders. “And there wasn’t anything I or anyone else could do about it. You can’t stop a man like Raúl Esparza from smacking his boy toy around.”
“Esparza hit him?” Charles said. His stomach churned.
Jesenia looked at Charles as if he were the stupidest person alive. “Yeah.”
How could Charles not have known any of this? He should have asked—he should have at least suspected. He’d been interacting with Ángel the same way he would have in Tucson, but Ángel had been through hell and back since then, and Charles had just been ignoring it.
“I don’t know that Ángel would even be ready for a healthy, loving relationship yet,” said Jesenia. “He’s definitely not ready to be your dirty little secret again.”
Charles stiffened. Dirty little secret? Christ. If Ángel hadn’t wanted to see a guy who wasn’t out, he could have broken it off at any time. Charles had always been up-front about wanting to keep his sexuality private at work.
“Like I said—be careful with him.” Jesenia pulled the door open and went back inside, leaving Charles alone in the quiet alley.
Charles had a hard time pretending everything was normal once he returned to the table, and he was relieved when they decided to call it a night around ten. Despite Jade’s and Shane’s protests, the fact remained that it was a Sunday night, and everyone except Jesenia had to be at work the next morning.
Even though Charles had to make four stops on the way home and Ángel only had to drive Jesenia to her motel, Charles still got to his apartment first. Like a coward, he considered going straight to bed and putting everything off until tomorrow, but he was already so disgusted with himself that he couldn’t do anything other than sit on the couch and wait for Ángel.
He jumped up the second he heard his spare key in the lock to meet Ángel at the front door.
“Hey,” Ángel said, putting his keys in the bowl with Charles’s and setting his helmet next to it on the table. He was still upbeat, smiling and calm, and Charles was about to take that away from him. Again.
He had to, though, before things between them progressed any further. “We need to talk,” Charles said.
Ángel tucked his gloves into the pockets of his jacket and hung it up. “About what?”
“About what happened to you in Mexico.”
“What happened to me in Mexico?” Ángel repeated, bemused. He crouched down to unlace his boots.
Charles huffed out an exasperated breath. Was Ángel being purposely obtuse? “With Esparza.”
“Why? God, is this why you were in such a weird mood tonight?” Straightening up, Ángel yanked off his boots, then pushed them against the wall. “Jesenia said the two of you didn’t talk about anything important.”
Feeling awkward, Charles folded his arms across his chest. “I’m worried I might be hurting you.”
Ángel spread his hands and said, “Hurting me how?”
“By starting things up with you again after . . .” He couldn’t say it. “After.”
“After what, Charles?” Ángel’s voice was slow and dangerous.
Charles didn’t answer.
Ángel glared at him in disgust and then stalked around him, heading for the kitchen. Charles turned and followed.
“It’s not a weird thing to be concerned about,” he said. “We picked up right where we left off after that last night in Tucson, which would be fucked up even if you hadn’t spent the past two years undercover. I don’t know what happened to you there, Ángel, or what Esparza might have done to you—”
“Why now?” Ángel asked. He stopped with his hand resting on the refrigerator handle. “I’ve been back for a week. Why didn’t you ask me about this before?”
“Because I didn’t really want to know,” Charles said, determined to be frank about his own selfishness. “It’s been easier for me not to think about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing since Tucson. And it seemed like you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I didn’t. I don’t.” Ángel wrenched the refrigerator door open with unnecessary force and retrieved a bottle of water. “I thought you were respecting that.”
“I . . .” Charles hesitated. The thing was, if Ángel had ever initiated a conversation about his experiences undercover, Charles would have been more than willing to listen. He just hadn’t seen the point in pushing Ángel into discussing something neither of them wanted to talk about. Should he be pushing Ángel now?
Shit. What was the right thing to do here?
“Look, I don’t know what Jesenia said to you, but whatever it was, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Most of what she heard about Raúl and me would have been filtered through other people in the cartel, and a lot of them would have been exaggerating for effect.”
“She said Esparza let people watch the two of you together,” Charles said bluntly. “That he let other men touch you.”
Ángel took a long sip of water before he answered. “I consented to that.”
Charles swallowed past the horrible taste in his mouth and said, “She said he used to hit you.”
Ángel tipped his head back with an irritated groan but didn’t deny it.
“Jesus, Ángel—”
“He slapped my face sometimes when I was too disrespectful,” Ángel said. “I was usually very good at knowing where that line was, but every now and then he was more on edge than I realized, and I’d cross it by accident. He’d smack me to put me in my place, and then he’d be fine.”
Charles stared at him, openmouthed with horror.
“He didn’t beat me, if that’s what you’re thinking. Raúl wasn’t like that.”
“Yeah, it’s a huge relief to know the man you were sleeping with only hit you with an open hand,” Charles snapped. “I don’t know what I was worried about.”
Ángel slammed his water bottle on the counter so hard that water sloshed out the top and splashed everywhere. “Would you give me a little fucking credit, please? Do you think I wasn’t prepared for what it would mean to seduce a notorious criminal? Do you think I infiltrated a violent cartel expecting wine and roses and Pablo Neruda?”
Charles opened his mouth, but Ángel kept right on talking.
“I went in there knowing that Raúl would never respect me—men like him can’t respect anyone they put their cocks in. I understood what that would mean, and I decided that the pa
yoff was worth it. A few slaps to the face and some rough sex isn’t anything I wasn’t prepared to accept.”
“Ángel—”
So worked up now that he was trembling, Ángel said, “Raúl never, ever laid a hand on me without my consent, and he never let anyone else do so either. If you ever suggest otherwise again, I will make sure you regret it.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t know what you were doing,” Charles said, taken aback by Ángel’s ferocity. “I’m sorry.”
Ángel regarded him with narrowed eyes, seemed to conclude that he was sincere, and relaxed a bit. He wiped his wet hand off on his jeans. “When I told you I’d slept with Oscar Palomo, you jumped right to the assumption that I’d been raped then too. Why are you so eager to think of me as a victim?”
“I’m not,” Charles said, and then trailed off. Why was he so quick to believe Ángel had experienced sexual violence, when Ángel had never said or done anything to insinuate that? It wasn’t just that he’d spent time around violent men; Ángel was more than capable of holding his own, defending himself not only physically but with skilled manipulation. “I guess I . . . I know that I would back right off if I found out you’d experienced something like that, and then I wouldn’t be so confused around you.”
Ángel blinked.
“We’re furious with each other,” said Charles. “You can’t deny that, Ángel. It’s always there, right under the surface, even when we manage to pretend it’s not for a little while. We’ll never get past that unless we talk about why—but we can’t, because there’s the risk that it would go so badly we wouldn’t be able to be around each other at all, and that wouldn’t be safe for you right now. So we’re stuck in this horrible holding pattern where we lash out at each other and then fuck and then lash out again, and . . . what if I’m making everything worse? What if I’m making you worse?”
“How could you possibly be making me worse?” Ángel asked. “Worse how?”
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