Two things woke Jack: the bed rocked because Dave sat at the edge, tying his shoelaces, and Tasha’s slim, silken tail tickled his nose.
He pushed the cat gently away from the head of the bed. “I told you, not the pillows.”
“You talk to the cat?” Dave turned and gave Jack’s ankle a pat. “I worry about you.”
“She’s the smartest one in here.” Jack checked the clock. Two in the morning. “You really have to leave?”
“Morning comes early for me.”
“Morning comes here too. If you stay, you can make me breakfast.”
“As tempting as that sounds, you know I like to start the day at my place.” Dave’s collegiate good looks were never more apparent than when he was trying to evade any kind of serious conversation.
“I do know that.” Jack pulled himself up so he could sit with his back to the headboard. “What I don’t know is why. You aren’t married. We’re not cheating on anyone. People know we’re friends, and I’m most definitely out. Why the oh-dark-thirty walk of shame?”
Dave kissed Jack’s neck, nuzzling him with his bristly cheek. “You really want to have this conversation now? We had a good time. Don’t spoil it.”
“Breakfast will spoil our good time?” Jack wasn’t sure he was ready to have the conversation either, but here it was anyway. Waiting for them like death and taxes. “Things aren’t like they used to be. In the FD—”
“The FD may be part of the family, but you’re not a cop. I can’t be a gay cop.”
“What does that even mean? You are a gay cop.”
“There’s being gay and it’s nobody’s business, and being gay like it’s a badge of honor. Get it?” Dave pointed to his head. It was a Think! gesture as if Jack were an idiot and Dave needed to remind him to use his head already.
“No, I don’t get it.” Jack folded his arms. The move was reflexive. It was defensive. “You were pretty proud to be gay when you fucked me just now.”
“One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jack asked irritably. Sometimes Dave’s attitude bugged the shit out of him.
“Fucking guys is just what I do sometimes. That doesn’t mean—”
“So what, then? Are you going to get married? Have kids? Stop by my place between work and coaching your kids’ soccer teams?”
“As usual, you’re blowing things all out of proportion.” Dave pulled his tie off the dresser knob and flung one end around his neck. He had to look in the mirror to tie it. Jack loved watching a man tie his tie. It was almost a kink for him. Desire tugged at his groin as Dave’s deft fingers twined the silken strips into a Windsor knot.
“This thing between us…”
Dave stopped abruptly. “Whatever you think this is between us, it’s not that.”
“I don’t think it’s anything. It’s so not anything, I’m wondering what we’re doing here.”
“Trust you to take a logical argument and make it sound like gibberish,” said Dave. “You make my head ache.”
Jack swallowed. “I’m not arguing. I guess I’m asking what your plans are.”
“It’s two a.m. I plan to go home and get some shut-eye.” Dave sat beside him. He lifted his hand and gave Jack’s short hair a scratch.
Jack lowered his gaze. Some things weren’t easy to say. “I’m thinking about making other plans, Dave.”
Dave frowned down at him. Some agonizing question hung in the air. Silence dragged out between them until Dave kissed Jack’s forehead with tenderness he rarely showed. “I’ll call you.”
Jack nodded. Dave turned off the bathroom light and left the room.
Deep breath. Jack blinked several times to adjust to the darkness.
Dave’s attitude wasn’t unexpected. It wasn’t exactly what Jack was hoping for either. Dave was a great guy. Jack enjoyed his company. Theirs was a true case of friends with benefits, but a sleepover now and again would be nice. Breakfast together. That wasn’t going to kill either of them. A little more time spent in public places—dinner or a movie or a ball game would be heaven.
It wasn’t love. But it wasn’t lonely.
Christ. Am I lonely?
Jack pictured Ryan’s happy smile and the warm feeling he’d gotten from working side by side with him. If he was honest with himself, he missed that. Missed working alongside men he saw as family. Doing the books and scheduling the jobs wasn’t the same as sitting down to communal meals at the firehouse.
When they’d begun Grime, he, Gabe, and Eddie had worked out of his house. Back then, they’d shared meals, and often the guys stayed overnight in his guest rooms. When the business’s growth forced them to move to the off-site office and warehouse space, things had taken a different, more impersonal turn. They had employees to go out on calls now, Jack’s partners no longer ate over, and more often than not Jack spent the day doing the book work in his home office, alone.
Mondays when they scheduled meetings, and paydays. That was when he saw the guys.
Maybe I am lonely.
Jack could be with Dave without losing his heart. Without expectations and betrayal. What he and Dave had was good, but maybe Jack needed companionship as well. That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?
It wasn’t a question of wanting things to change. Jack simply needed to know where the boundaries were.
That way, he wouldn’t accidentally cross one.
And maybe now, I know.
Jack told Tasha, “That conversation didn’t have anything to do with Ryan.”
Jack was pretty sure he meant it.
He was certain he was in no way wondering about the man whose life had intersected with his in such a spectacularly awful way.
He wasn’t worried Ryan might be alone in his house either. Ryan was what, thirty-one? He had to be if he’d been a freshman in high school when Dave, Nick, and Jack were seniors.
“I’m sure he found someplace to go so he isn’t alone in that house by himself again,” Jack told the cat. “Or he’ll invite Kevin over.”
Everyone has to learn to live with their ghosts, right?
Tasha meowed at him conversationally.
Jack gusted out a great, deep sigh. “Maybe I should tell Dave that when he sneaks out of here, I have a hard time going back to sleep.”
Tasha the cat wasn’t troubled by Dave’s comings or goings, but she was nocturnal, wasn’t she?
Dave’s headlights fanned over the window as he pulled away from the house.
Jack grabbed the remote off his nightstand. The flat screen chimed and lit up.
“I like the food channel. How about you?” He idly scrolled through the guide, reading the evening’s offerings. “Or Deadliest Catch? That’s about fish.”
The cat settled herself close to Dave’s pillow—or what Jack normally thought of as Dave’s pillow—but not on it. Good cat.
“Hey, look at that. Lions,” Jack said. “Your homeboys.”
The cat watched him. Jack didn’t think of Dave or, God forbid, relationships, or even the way Ryan’s broad shoulders and pert ass looked in scrubs, at all.
Eventually, sleep claimed him for a second time.
* * *
The phone rang early again, which seemed unfair considering Jack hadn’t fallen asleep until late. He thought about letting the call go to voice mail. It was still practically dark on Saturday morning, after all. The phone stopped ringing, but then it started right up again.
Jack remembered the way his conversation with Dave had ended the night before, and cursed. Maybe it was Dave, checking in. Maybe he was feeling their connection waver, wondering if Jack noticed how he’d dodged his questions and backed away.
He took his phone from the nightstand and spoke. “Masterson.”
“It’s Ryan.”
“Hey. What are you doing up so early?”
Ryan let out a shuddering breath. “I never slept.”
Jack sat up. “How come?”
“I should
have taken your advice and gone somewhere.”
“What about Kevin?”
“I didn’t call Kevin last night. I don’t want him to think he’s got a chance with me right now, or ever, really. It was a mistake calling him. I should have thought that through before.”
“Isn’t there anyone else?”
“There are people who’d let me stay over, but I don’t want to leave my home. I can’t let what happened drive me away. I love this place.”
“That’s a mighty fine house,” Jack agreed. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave the comfort of a place like that to stay on someone’s couch.”
“It’s not what you think.”
Jack lay back down to listen. And he smiled. Maybe it was true you could hear a smile over the phone, and he wanted to be sure that Ryan heard his. Ryan sounded like he could use a smile.
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t really care where I sleep, but this place… It’s…it’s just…”
When Ryan didn’t continue after a while, Jack asked, “Your place is what?”
“It used to be my grandmother’s house.” A whistle sounded—a teakettle, maybe—in the background. Jack heard footsteps and clattering before Ryan spoke again. “She left it to me.”
“I wondered how you could afford that house on a nurse’s salary.”
Ryan snorted. “I can’t. But I inherited money. Mom’s side of the family had the car dealership, but the men on my father’s side were all medical professionals.”
“Is that why you became a nurse?”
“God no.” Ryan gave a light laugh. “Becoming a nurse was the final straw. My parents don’t speak to me anymore.”
“That’s their loss.” Jack tried not to sound shocked. “You know that, right?”
“Of course.”
“But your grandmother was on your side?”
“When things started to go really bad between my parents and me, they had an awful fight with my grandmother, and she threatened to sue for custody. I think they’d just washed their hands of me by that time. To be fair, I was a troublemaker.”
“How bad could you have been?”
“Bad enough my parents boarded me at St. Catherine’s Military Academy from the sixth grade to the eighth. They were looking to send me farther away for high school. I think my grandmother may have saved my life.”
“So her place is where you feel safest.”
“I did. I do.” Ryan corrected himself. “No one is taking my home away from me.”
Jack hurt for Ryan. For the owner of a house, a crime scene could be like a diseased limb. People like Jack—firefighters, cops, first responders—learned to live with the pain. They turned all feeling off—the pain and the pleasure. Maybe Ryan hadn’t perfected that yet. Maybe he hadn’t lost the ability to feel.
Jack hoped he never did. If Ryan lost his empathy, an important part of who he was would be lost with it.
“Nothing can take your peace unless you let it. Did you look into grief counseling like I said?”
Ryan was silent for too long.
“Ryan?”
“I’m here. God, what happened? I had everything under control, and then it all went wrong.”
Jack tightened his grip on the phone. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“I told you. I’m familiar with lost causes. I knew what Nick was capable of. I knew how hard things were for him. I told myself there was nothing anyone could do if he couldn’t get past his failures.”
Jack swung his feet over to the floor and stood. The first fingers of light had begun creeping through the miniblinds. He opened them and watched his sprinklers water the lawn, such as it was. Did it still count as lawn if you just mowed the heads off a patch of weeds?
God, Ryan. “Are you saying you feel like what Nick did was somehow your fault?”
“No. Yes. I’m saying I thought I understood how I’d feel if—”
“Listen to me, Ryan. Someone who is really determined to kill himself will get the job done. You’re not going to get any warning, and they won’t take any chances things will go wrong.”
“I know.” Tapping. Ryan’s fingers on a table? Nerves? Anxiety?
“I don’t think you should be alone right now. Why don’t you try calling Kevin?”
“Kevin.” Ryan sighed. “Talk about hair of the dog that bit me. My dance card is all filled up with sick people who can’t help me and addicts who don’t know how. What about you?”
Jack hesitated. “What about me?”
“Did you sleep?”
“Some.” Paws thumped onto the rug at the end of Jack’s bed. After a few slinky steps and a stretch, Tasha executed a couple figure eights around his ankles. He guessed that must mean Fetch my food, in cat. “I had a secret weapon.”
“Pain meds?”
Jack huffed out a laugh. “A cat.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m cat-sitting, and she purrs. Keeps my feet warm. The pet experience is growing on me.”
“Pets do lower blood pressure.”
“I guess.” Jack followed Tasha to the kitchen where he put his phone down on the counter. “I’m putting you on speaker because I need to open a can.”
“Canned cat food? Is this cat spoiled?”
“I didn’t buy the food. It came with the cat.” Along with litter box scooping, which he did after filling Tasha’s food and water bowls.
He came back into the kitchen just as Ryan said, “Hello, are you still there?”
“Still here. I was on kitty litter patrol.”
Several beats of silence went by before Ryan spoke again. “The memorial service is today.”
“I know. You said.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go? You probably knew Nick better than I did. We were never close, even as kids. It seems so wrong for me to go while you’re—”
“I said my good-byes years ago.” Jack’s heart tightened painfully.
“No, you didn’t.” Ryan pressed the issue. “If that was true, you wouldn’t have come yesterday.”
“That was my job.” Even as Jack said it he knew it was a lie.
“That was your love,” said Ryan, low-voiced and earnest. “Come with me. I don’t want to go alone. My parents will be there and—”
“If I do, will you contact a grief counselor?”
“I told you, I’m not grieving. Nick and I weren’t even close. He was just the most recent in a long string of lost causes I got myself involved with.”
God, if Ryan didn’t even know he had a problem… “Look. Why don’t you come to my place, and I’ll cook up some breakfast. We can talk, okay?”
A pause. “I don’t know if I can handle that right now.”
“All right. But can I ask why?”
“You apologized in advance for being another lost cause.”
I’m not that lost, am I? I’m not.
I know that, because I could lay Nick to rest with some of the love I once felt for him, despite what he did to me.
Jack’s smile was shaky, but he forced himself to smile so Ryan could hear it. “I don’t think I knew the entire truth right then.”
Chapter 10
Jack answered the door and found Ryan standing on his stoop, suit bag in hand. Ryan smiled warmly, although he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Attractive and well-groomed but subdued, he waited until Jack invited him in.
“Welcome. Come on in. Kitchen’s this way.”
“I brought my funeral clothes.” Ryan followed Jack. “I didn’t know if I’d go to the memorial from here, or—”
“You can change here.” Jack pointed him in the direction of the guest bath. “Hang your stuff on the back of the bathroom door, right through there.”
“All right.”
Jack poured himself a cup of coffee and waited for Ryan to return. Tasha stayed close to his feet, suspicious of the newcomer. “What do you like to eat?”
“Anything’s fine.” Ryan c
ame back to the kitchen and looked around. “Is that your borrowed cat?”
“Yeah.” Tasha played it cool, peering out from between Jack’s leg and his cane. “Her name is Tasha.”
“She’s a Russian Blue, so she should be Natasha.” Ryan knelt to coax her out. “Natasha Badinov, the spy with nine lives.”
Jack tried to watch Ryan interact with the cat without imagining Ryan on his knees for a very different reason. Christ, was he a horndog or what?
He cleared his throat. “Are you in the mood for protein or carbs? I’ve got eggs and bacon, or I can make pancakes.”
“I have to choose?” Ryan teased gently.
Jack took a step back and bumped the counter. “Not really. I can make both.”
“I’m kidding. You don’t have to go to any trouble for me.” Ryan rose fluidly with Tasha in his arms. “I smell coffee.”
“I’ll get you a mug.” Jack pulled one of the larger mugs from the cupboard. “Make yourself at home.”
Ryan didn’t appear to need telling where things were. With Tasha content in the crook of his arm, he found the sugar on the counter and helped himself to half-and-half from the fridge. Jack moved around him to get out eggs and bacon along with butter, milk, and pancake mix.
Jack worked while Ryan played with the cat.
As they had when working at Ryan’s house, they said little unless there was a question that needed to be answered.
“Waffles or pancakes?”
Ryan glanced up. “I love waffles.”
Jack smiled like an idiot. “Waffles it is.”
“I can help, if you need me to.”
Jack relaxed against the sink where he’d been rinsing off a pan. “Unless you really love to cook, I’ve got it. Breakfast is easy.”
“I don’t like to cook at all.” Ryan set Tasha down on the floor. “What does that say about me?”
“It says you should date firefighters.” As soon as the words were out, Jack tried to backtrack. “I mean, you know. Guys who can cook.”
“As opposed to guys who are too high on coke to eat?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“When I met Kevin, he’d been sober for two years. I thought—we both believed—he’d never use again.”
Jack: Grime and Punishment: The Brothers Grime, book 1 Page 7