Love's Changes

by LaQuette

  “So you’ve been off for months scratching your ass and I’m supposed to throw you a party every time you set foot in my precinct?”

  Talking shit with his friend, his captain, brought back happier times. This job, this house, this woman had kept him sane through some of the darker moments of his life. It wasn’t lost on him that he was standing here in her office now when things in his world seemed to be spiraling out of control in his personal life.

  She motioned for him to take a seat in front of her desk. “What brings you down here?

  “I can’t just want to see my favorite captain?”

  “I might be the youngest captain in NYPD history, but that doesn’t mean I’m naïve. What brings you down?”

  He lifted the large yellow envelope in his hand. “Some paperwork HR needs you to fill out and sign so I can keep getting those big checks NYPD sends in the mail.”

  She couldn’t hold her loud laughter in on that one. Yeah they made decent salaries as admins in the department, but they certainly weren’t reflective of the amount of work or the risks they took protecting and serving the community. Police work was a thankless job; you did it because you believed in it, not because you were looking to get something out of it.

  “You could have faxed or mailed that to me. You know as soon as I saw it I would have filled it out and gotten it back to you. I don’t play with stuff like this. My people won’t go without because of a paperwork fuck up on my end. Does your visit have anything to do with my cousin deciding to leave you?”

  Bryan heaved a long breath into the air. “Is there anyone in your family that doesn’t know every detail of my business?”

  She shook her head with an almost regrettable smile. “You know how it goes in the Amare clan. We’re all connected better than any cellphone or communications company out there. Free is off in a jungle somewhere halfway across the world and he sent me a message asking about the two of you.”

  All Bryan could do was shake his head. He didn’t doubt his husband’s second older brother had some very strong opinions about his current marital situation. They all did, and they were all pretty vocal about their opinions too.

  “What’s Free saying?”

  Heart shrugged as she tapped out a quick rhythm on her desk with her fingers. “The same as the rest of us, that you guys need to figure this shit out before anyone gets hurt beyond what they already are. We love you both, Bryan. We don’t want to see either of you hurting.”

  Bryan’s chest felt tight. These people did love him, despite all the pain he’d brought to Justice’s life.

  He was about to speak when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He handed her the packet of paperwork, and stepped out of her door before answering.

  “Justice? Is everything okay?”

  “I need to meet with you, are you free?”

  Justice’s voice was filled with urgency. A small drop of hope filled Bryan’s heart. His man was reaching out to him. That had to be a good sign, right? If Justice hated Bryan, if he were still determined to go through with this divorce, he wouldn’t be on the phone telling Bryan he needed him, would he?

  It was a leap for sure, but Bryan could hear his husband’s late grandmother Ida-Mae Amare saying to him, “Faith as big as a mustard seed can move mountains. You just gotta believe, boy.” That was one wise old woman and Bryan preferred to lean on her wisdom rather than his fear.

  “I’m at the precinct dropping off some papers. Can I meet you somewhere?”

  “Nah, I’m not too far from there. Give me fifteen and I’ll meet you inside your office.”

  The line was dead after Justice’s brief edict. Bryan pushed open Heart’s door again and stepped inside.

  “Is my office still my office? Your cousin just asked to drop by.”

  “What did he want?”

  Bryan shook his head. He’d like to know the answer to that question as well. It wasn’t like Justice to be secretive. When he didn’t want to answer something, he didn’t. He didn’t feel the need to be sneaky about most things, which was strangely surprising considering the cloak and dagger world he lived in while working military intelligence.

  “He didn’t say, just asked if we could meet.”

  “Grazzo is using your office because I need him to. Once you come back he’ll be right back in the squad room.”

  “He there now?”

  She shook her head no and dismissed him with a slight wave of her hand. Bryan stepped into the hall and bumped into a large mass. He looked up to find Sergeant Madison in front of him.

  “Lieutenant Smyth? You’re back?” Madison seemed surprised.

  “Not yet, I just needed some papers signed by Captain Searlington. How’s it going?”

  Madison looked down at the crate full of papers he was holding in front of him. “The usual, I’m either answering phones or jockeying paperwork. Same day, every day for the last ten years.”

  “You sound like you’re regretting not taking that early retirement option brass laid on the table.”

  Madison shook his head, a bright strip of fire lancing through his eyes. “Not for a second. If I’d have let them push me out, then they would’ve won. That’s what they wanted, my life, my spirit. I’m not happy about sitting out my career behind a desk, but I’m not going to let the fuckers that did this to me win.

  If only Bryan had been strong enough to hold tightly to those convictions. But being a cop, a hands-on cop, being able to be out there in the field meant everything to him.

  Bryan nodded his head, that’s all he could manage. He smiled politely and made his excuses. He really didn’t need to have Madison’s attack in his head while he was talking to Justice. He was anxious enough, adding the uneasiness he always felt when in Madison’s presence would only add fuel to Justice’s fire.

  No matter what Justice thought, Bryan wasn’t ashamed of him. But when explaining that to Justice, if all Bryan could do was project his sadness for Madison’s situation, then he didn’t stand much of a chance in changing his husband’s mind.

  Bryan had just enough time to give himself a mental shake before Justice was filling the doorway to his office.

  “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Anytime, Jussy. What’s going on?”

  Justice reached inside of his jacket and pulled out a stack of folded paper. He handed it to Bryan, saying nothing while Bryan unfolded the papers and began to read.

  The tiny bit of hope that was blooming in his chest a few moments ago was slowly hardening, sinking to the bottom of his stomach.

  “Son of a bitch. You’re serving me with a signed divorce petition?”

  “Bryan…” the way Justice called his name seemed fake. It was cold, unfeeling, as if Bryan were no more than a stranger on the street.

  “You’re doing this in my place of business? You couldn’t wait for me to get home so we could discuss this in private?”

  Bryan watched a cloud of shame fall over Justice’s smooth caramel features and understanding began to dawn.

  “You didn’t want to discuss this in private. You thought if you served me here I’d be too afraid to have this discussion for fear of outing myself?”

  “You do love your job, Bryan,” the coldness in his voice sounding so odd coming from lips that had spent time touching the most intimate places on Bryan’s body.

  It was true, Bryan did love his job, but there was no comparison of which mattered more, NYPD or the man standing in front of him.

  “What I love is my husband, and this is bullshit and you know it. This was a low blow, Justice. It didn’t have to go down like this.”

  Bryan re-folded the papers and shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans. He stepped close into Justice’s space, almost close enough to kiss him. Bryan stood there, chest pulling in deep, hard breaths as he tried his best to figure out what he was really angry about. Was he mad that Justice actually pulled some bullshit like this at his job, or was Bryan furious they were standing this close in his
office instead of their home? At home Bryan could do something about the jerking dick in his pants that was threatening to make its presence known. Standing in the middle of his precinct, his options were limited.

  “This isn’t over,” Bryan’s hissed words drawing no reaction from the well-trained Marine standing rock-still in his presence.

  He gripped hard fingers around the front of Justice’s neck and pulled Justice to his lips. Their flesh came together in a fiery clash as Bryan moved angry lips over his husband’s mouth.

  When Bryan ripped his lips away, he could see Justice trying to piece his unbothered façade back together again.

  Bryan rolled his eyes, too pissed to try to get beyond Justice’s practiced stoicism. Bryan simply pushed past his rugged form and exited the office.

  As he made it to his car he was distracted from his anger by the vibrating of his phone. He looked down to see a text from his sister-in-law, True.

  Meet me at your place. We need to talk.

  Bryan smacked his hand at his steering wheel. Apparently, this was the fucking day that just kept on giving.

  Bryan opened the door to True. Her face was impassive, not giving away any of her thoughts.

  Damn these Amare children and their ability to wipe emotions from their faces, their bodies, whenever they needed to.

  “What can I do for you, True?”

  There was no need in presenting platitudes and niceties. This shit, whatever fucked up reason True was standing in his apartment, needed to be over now. His husband signed fucking divorce papers and handed those motherfuckers to him. He did not have time to entertain bullshit, not when he needed to think up a way to save his marriage.

  Shit just got real.

  “Law called me, told me to help you get our brother to give you another chance.”

  “And?” He figured she was here to tell him exactly what she wanted him to know. True didn’t bite her tongue, so asking her a bunch of questions was pretty much unnecessary. She was going to tell you what she wanted, how she wanted it, and there wasn’t much you could do about it.

  “You’ve been fucking over my brother for the last five years. You broke his heart when you left him. All of his hopes and dreams were shattered when you asked to separate. So now because you took a bullet to the chest and found Jesus, Allah, Buddha, whomever in that coma of yours, I’m supposed to set my brother up for heartache again?”

  Her arms were folded over her chest; her legs spread shoulder-width apart. She meant every fucking thing she was saying at this moment.

  “Why should I?”

  There was only one way he knew how to answer her question. She was right. Bryan had broken Justice’s heart when he pushed Jussy away. She was also right that he’d had a crazy emotional experience while he was comatose. But True’s ability to correctly read him didn’t change one simple fact.

  “Because I love him and he loves me.”

  Bryan’s answer wasn’t intended to be a get-out-of-jail-free card. He fully accepted his responsibility in making this mess they were all currently muddling through. It weighed on him heavily every waking moment of each day.

  “And that’s supposed to explain everything? You gotta come better than that bullshit you’re slinging right now.”

  “True, my fucking husband just came to my office to serve me a signed divorce petition. Right now, I don’t really give a flying fuck what you think. I’ve got to find a way to stop Justice from making the biggest fucking mistake of our lives. Do I want your help? Not particularly, because I know you’re crazy, and I’m probably going to end up in some fucked up situation messing around with you. But am I desperate enough to let you get involved? Absolutely! At this point, I’d do just about anything to keep my man with me, where he belongs.”

  A slow smile crawled up her lips and bloomed across her face. “If you’re willing to talk to me like that, knowing there are a hundred different ways I can kill you from here, without even laying my hands on you, you must really be willing to do just about anything to get back with my little-big brother.”

  She stepped closer into his space, her hands in her pockets, her eyes locked on his. “I’m going to help you Bryan, because I know you really do love Justice. But understand this, fuck with my brother’s heart again and I will end you. I could give a damn about that badge of yours. With the type of dirt I deal in, they’d never find a body. Understand me, Lieutenant?”

  Bryan swallowed carefully. True was intense on her best day, scary on most others. He knew she wasn’t just lobbing idle threats at him. She meant that shit with a passion.

  “Understood, Dr. Amare.”

  She nodded her head and slapped a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Let’s sit down and talk strategy, Bryan. It’s time to get your man back.”

  Chapter 7

  “I don’t know about this True,” Bryan huffed as he took a seat on the workout bench. “Justice isn’t stupid. He’s going to walk in here and see right through this bullshit.”

  True pressed two fingers against her temple and rubbed in a slow circular motion. “Say it with me now Bryan, ‘All. Men. Are. Stupid’,” she chimed. “Y’all will always try to apply a logical solution to an illogical situation and wonder why the shit doesn’t work. If you listen to me, I promise you in just a few minutes you’ll be on your way to getting your man back. Just remember that this is a start to the path you guys need to be going down. I’m just gonna get you the opportunity, you’re the one that’s got to bring it home.”

  Bryan opened his mouth to respond when a tall dark haired man entered the room. He was somewhere over 6 feet tall, nearly eye-to-eye with Bryan. His butterscotch skin covered a solid muscular body that Bryan certainly would’ve had an interest in exploring if he wasn’t so in love with Justice.

  “Bryan,” True intruded upon his thoughts. “This is the newest member of my OT team over at Trinity, Martin Herrera. Martin, this is my brother-in-law, Bryan Smyth.”

  Bryan gave his sister-in-law a long glance. “Are you sure this is gonna work, True?”

  “It worked for Kenneth and Heart, didn’t it?”

  He took a moment to think about his captain, who also happened to be a first cousin to the Amares, and her husband, Kenneth. Those two fought like the devil and all of God’s angels before they finally settled into happiness. If his memory served him correctly, True sent in one of her partners from Trinity to stir up trouble between them. It was volatile for a while, but in the end Kenneth and Heart were now inseparable.

  “So you gonna stand here yapping at me all day long?” she asked. “Or are you going to get to work?”

  Bryan threw up his hands. This woman was either going to get him beaten, or worse, killed.

  I guess both of those selections are better than divorced.

  “So Martin you ever work with an injury like mine?” Bryan asked the man politely standing there pretending the conversation Bryan and True were having wasn’t awkward.

  “Your sister-in-law tells me you had an injury to the chest with a high-caliber round?”

  Bryan nodded, just remembering that hellified day made the healing wound in his chest throb. According to the doctors he was all cleared to get back to the business of being Lieutenant Smyth, but the tissues, nerves, and muscles the bullet pierced ached with the memory of that pain.

  “Yes, it was a through-and-through actually. The round was so powerful it went from me and into the abdomen of my superior’s husband.”

  Martin watched him for a moment. Bryan knew he was going to get the pity stare, the one that meant, ‘I’m so sorry for your experience’. It seemed to repeat itself again in every person’s eyes that learned about his ordeal.

  He got that people didn’t really understand what to say when they found out a person had been shot, but the, ‘I’m so sorry for what happened to you’ hook and line was kind of old at this point. Bryan wanted to move beyond it. This training and getting back to his day-to-day was moving beyond it. And True was right, if h
is man wasn’t gonna help him get back to his physical norm, the least this training could do was help him set things right with his husband.

  “Damn, you must be a tough son of a bitch,” Martin praised. “I know dudes in the Corps that were grazed and it was enough for them to give up their career forever. You really ready to go back to the streets?”

  A skeptical smile began to build on Bryan’s lips. That was the first time anyone ever acknowledged he was doing his job. The job he loved, a job he had every intention of returning to.

  Yeah, this working out with the new trainer thing just might work after all.

  “I only know how to be two things in life,” Bryan responded, “a Marine and a cop. I gave up being a Marine a long time ago. I’d like to hold onto being a cop for a little bit longer.”

  “If that’s what you want, Lieutenant,” Herrera’s smile offered just a hint of mischief. “Then I’m just the man to deliver that for you.”

  Justice’s lungs burned. Running the repeated circle around Gersh’s track on Linden Boulevard since the ass crack of dawn had him drenched in sweat and his body screaming, What the hell, dude?

  Yeah, his father had state-of-the-art workout equipment in the basement gym to keep them all in tip-top shape. He could have easily completed his morning PT there. Knowing his husband and at least two of his siblings were down there working out sent him straight for the familiar school yard. Yeah, it was the coward’s way out, keeping him from facing his husband and his family like the man he claimed he was. But every time he saw Bryan, there was this overwhelming need to go back, and he just couldn’t risk giving in to it at this moment.

  After all this time, he finally had the strength to take his life back. To stop waiting on the fringes for Bryan to see what they had and how valuable it was. The only problem, even though he knew he couldn’t continue as they were, it didn’t mean he didn’t love the man.

  Making the conscious decision to divorce your husband was a bold move, sticking to it took strength Justice wasn’t certain he had.