by H. E. Trent
“Should I put water in this dog bowl?” he asked.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Owen said.
Luke scooped up the metal container and filled it at the sink.
Ais stood near the door, rolling the shaft of her cane between her palms and shifting her weight. She wasn’t sure if she should be more anxious. If she’d been on the station and there’d been two men in the room with her, she might have been. More than one Tyneali had always meant she’d probably have to endure some test. On Reg’s ship, two men in a room meant she was likely about to get moved to somewhere she didn’t want to be…or be touched by someone she didn’t want to touch her.
Luke set down the bowl.
The puppy waddled over and lapped.
“Have you named this guy yet?”
She shook her head. “Need right.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I don’t blame you. When me and my brother and sister were kids, we had a pit bull for a little while. He was already five when we got him.”
“I remember that dog,” Owen muttered.
“He was a great dog, right? Maybe he wasn’t the smartest dog, but he was good company.”
“You mean he could always hear your parents coming up the stairs so you knew when to put your contraband away.”
Luke shrugged. “Okay. So, maybe I made him earn his keep. I was using wisdom way beyond my years, and you know it.”
Owen scoffed, but Ais could hear the laugh in the sound. She wished she could see his face.
“Anyway,” Luke said, “maybe we were a little hasty in naming him.”
“What name?” Ais asked.
“Sue.”
Ais canted her head. There was some joke there. Somehow, there was a joke, and she couldn’t grasp the context.
Owen shook his head as he crossed the cottage. “A boy dog named Sue.” He tossed something—perhaps a tool of some sort—into the sink and turned the water on high.
“The name was funny at the time, right?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, it was funny, but the dog deserved a little more respect.”
“Like I said, we were hasty.” Luke looked toward Ais. “He was so pitiful when we got him. We had a friend at the municipal animal shelter. She’d called and begged my dad to pick him up, even just to foster him for a little while, because he was scheduled to be put down that day and she knew there was no chance in hell anyone was gonna adopt a five-year-old pit with questionable provenance.”
“Why?”
“Long story short, pit bulls have a particular reputation. They’re not like your little terrier here. Sometimes, they’re bred to be aggressive. To attack and bite.”
“Oh.” That definitely didn’t sound like her puppy.
“Yeah. So, Dad figured, sure, we could foster the dog until someone else could take him. The shelter had called him Pablo, but that didn’t fit.”
“And Sue did?” Owen asked. He turned off the water and, using a utility towel, picked up whatever he’d been cleaning in the sink.
“Sue was a funny name, at least. It’s a nod to a song from Earth, Ais. Maybe Owen can download it from somewhere.”
“Oh. Would like hear. Like music.”
“Do you?” Owen asked, pausing to look over his shoulder.
She smiled at him. “For me,” she said, thrilled that he’d asked. “Is new. At lab, no music.”
“Hmm.” He turned back to the sink.
“That’s a shame,” Luke said. “Anyway, in hindsight, the dog deserved a much more dignified name, but that’s what happens when you let three troublemaking kids pick a name in three minutes. So.” Bending, he gave the puppy’s rump a scratch. “Take your time.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.” Whistling again, Luke walked the perimeter of the room, seeming to assess the odds and ends Owen had stacked around the place.
Owen stepped past her with his lumpy towel and out the door.
“You leave?” she asked.
“What?”
“You leave?”
“Oh. I’m putting this out to dry. Salehi needs it for the morning. He’s going to fix something in his flyer. Why, are you ready for bed?”
“Was tired.”
“We won’t hold you up. Come on, Luke.”
Luke glanced over, but resumed his study of Owen’s space. “What’s the hurry?”
“She’s tired.”
“I know the feeling. Trying to get back on a real sleeping schedule, though. If I can just hold out a few hours…”
“Maybe you could watch the movie at the farmhouse. It’s Die Hard. Should be loud enough to keep you up.”
Luke shrugged. “You want us to leave, Ais?”
“Luke.” There was an edge of warning in Owen’s voice.
“What?”
“Watch it.”
“I am. All I’m doing is watching out for you.”
“Seems to me like you’re doing the opposite.”
Ais directed some of her nervous energy to fondling the end of her braid. She couldn’t tell what their conflict was about, and she didn’t like not being able to discern if she should be afraid more than usual. She was already on edge about the possibility of being left alone.
Has he already forgotten?
He kept forgetting her.
“Ais, come here, will you?” Luke asked.
“Luke,” Owen warned.
Furrowing her brow, Ais used the counter’s edge to navigate toward Luke’s corner. On approach, he turned her by the shoulders so her back was to him, and he bent, whispering, “What do you think of him?”
Not grasping the meat of the question, she shook her head. “Sorry?”
Across the room, Owen crossed his arms.
“What do you think of him?” Luke asked. “You like him a little?”
Seemed an odd question to Ais, but she nodded anyway.
“Okay, that’s good. That’s a start.” Luke’s breath was a warm tease on the side of her face. He gave her left shoulder a gentle squeeze, and the rough skin of his fingers cruised the skin between her neck and shoulder in an unexpectedly pleasing way. The touch didn’t seem to have purpose, and perhaps that was what made it so exhilarating. He seemed to be touching to just to feel, and she liked the attention.
“See,” Luke said, “I think he’s afraid of you.”
She whipped her head around and looked up at him. “Why?”
“Don’t try to make sense of a McGarry. I’ve never found that activity to be a good use of my time. I think if you like him a little, though, you should see what happens if you touch him.”
She scoffed.
“Really. Don’t you want to?”
She rubbed her thumb along her braid and fidgeted her cane with the other hand. She didn’t want to lie, but didn’t know if demonstrating such honesty was smart, either.
“Nothing that happens in here leaves, okay?” he whispered. “This is your secret and his, and I’ll keep it.”
“Because you stay?”
“To make sure he behaves the way he needs to. Yeah.” He walked her across the room, closer to where Owen stood by the door.
“Luke, you’re asking for a beatdown,” Owen said.
“Am I? How?”
“You know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah. We’ve been here before, haven’t we?”
“Those other times were different.”
“You’re right. All those times were different because we didn’t have to see those women again, but you want to see Ais again, don’t you?”
Luke moved her even closer to Owen.
Owen stood firm near the doorway with his arms folded across his chest and chin cocked at an aggressive angle.
“Don’t mind him,” Luke said to her. “Some dogs are all bark and no bite. That dog might try to attack people, but you won’t be one of them.”
“How know?” Ais asked.
“Because I know him. So touch him.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Luke,” Owen snarled. He suspected he may have already been too late with the warning, but with Luke, he could never be sure. When Luke got a wild hair to do something, there was generally no stopping him. He was like a human freight train, terribly evolved and entirely too proficient at hurting the people stupid enough to get in his way. Owen knew for sure that he wasn’t stupid.
Luke smiled over the top of Ais’s head and took her wrists into his hands. “Chill. I’m just helping you out.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“I’m not doing anything now that’s so different from what I would have been doing on Earth, right? We’ve done this before.”
Ais glanced back at him, brow furrowed.
Owen’s compulsion to punch his best friend in the face for the second time in their lives didn’t dissipate. The first time he’d punched him had been about a week after Michael’s funeral. Luke had been trying to pull him out of his shell, and Owen had found Luke’s refusal to let him mourn in the way he wanted to disrespectful. Luke had left him alone after that, but not for long.
“Don’t worry,” Luke told her. “I’m not saying we make a habit of this.”
“That’s exactly how that sounded.” And the scenario was familiar enough that Owen didn’t wish to divulge just how often they’d staged such a scene. All those other times, however, had been planned by both him and Luke in advance. Luke was a little more than a wingman. He was a partner in crime.
At the moment, however, Owen didn’t think he was in need of his friend’s services.
“Luke,” he said, “what the hell are you doing?”
Smiling like the shark he was, Luke bent and whispered into Ais’s ear, never breaking his stare on Owen.
Owen shifted his weight. He knew he should have left—that he should have made his protest clear by walking out of the cottage until Luke came to his damn senses and stopped the humiliating thing he obviously had in mind to do, but curiosity held him in thrall.
What’s he saying to her?
Still whispering, Luke set Ais’s hands at Owen’s waist, and moved her a bit closer.
Owen’s breathing notched up, and his heart pounded harder.
Luke took a step back, but Ais was still there.
Owen was still as a statue, and she was moving her hands up from his waist and then, in spite of her near blindness, easily working loose the buttons of his shirt.
He should have stopped her, especially with Luke looking on so smugly, but again, curiosity won—curiosity and his equally strong impulse to see how she’d touch him. He didn’t understand why she’d want to touch him. He hadn’t been very kind to her, and she deserved kindness above all else.
She pulled his undershirt free from his waistband and slid her soft palms up his belly, tickling with her tentative touch.
Luke whispered to her again.
Her eyebrows drifted upward briefly, then her thumbs hooked the plackets of Owen’s shirt. She pinned an unfocused gaze on his face and gave the sides of his shirt shy tugs in opposite directions.
He remained still. He didn’t resist as she nudged his shirt down his shoulders and off his arms. Didn’t move a muscle as she wadded his undershirt at the waist and started inching the fabric upward. She got the garment as far as his armpits. Without his aid, that was all she could do.
“Don’t make her ask you, Owen,” Luke said.
“I’m surprised you aren’t the one asking her since you’re obviously turning this into a peep show of the exact sort you like.”
“Nah, my dick’s not in my hand. You can’t say I’m getting anything out of this yet.”
Luke took Ais by the hand, and she reluctantly relinquished her grip on Owen’s undershirt. “Come here, hon.”
Ais followed him compliantly across the room to the bed. He sat. He turned her to face Owen, whose feet may as well have been glued to the cottage floor.
“Come on,” Luke said.
“What is your end game?”
“Like I said, I’m just helping out a friend.” He leaned his weight back onto his elbows and smirked.
“And when you leave, then what? You’ll run from the embarrassment you caused and I’ll be left here to endure the blowback.”
“This’ll only be embarrassing if you do what you always do and leave before the lady’s had enough.”
“You shouldn’t make promises to them you know I can’t keep.”
“I’m not making any promises at all this time,” Luke said. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“Why are you here, anyway?”
“To make sure you stay.”
“I don’t need to be told where I should or shouldn’t be.”
“Funny way of showing it.” Luke gave the skirt of Ais’s dress a gentle tug. “Right, Ais?”
The sudden shift in conversational focus must have startled her, because she jerked and put a hand over her chest. “Yes.”
“Tell him to come to you. He won’t tell you no, will you, Owen?”
Owen held up his middle finger to him, reasonably certain Ais couldn’t see him.
Luke clucked his tongue. “As always, I won’t take that literally, in spite of our liberal environment.”
Owen rolled his eyes and dropped his hand. He always forgot that Luke swung both ways, and Luke being the opportunist that he was would certainly find a way to make the most of the situation for as long as he was on Jekh. He’d never come on to Owen. They were friends and only that, and Owen’s sexuality simply didn’t skew that way. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been touching. They’d shared before. In the heat of the moment, Owen never got squeamish about whose hand—or dick—was accidentally touching what. Or purposefully touching, in Luke’s case. Annoying the hell out of Owen got Luke more turned on, and Owen endured because he knew that was just Luke.
Ais looked over her shoulder at Luke.
He waved dismissively. “Ignore me.”
“No. You…like?”
“Not in that way. You don’t need to worry about Owen and I forming a spontaneous Jekhan trio with you. We’d be violently incompatible, and Owen doesn’t like men.”
“You like?”
“Sometimes. I’m not exactly what’d you’d call ‘out’ on Earth. Given the nature of my job, I really can’t be. The FBI is still a boy’s club, and those particular boys think I should find a nice little lady to settle down with. Full stop. Why should I have to pick, right?”
Ais nodded. “Yes. Why?”
He shrugged, but Owen knew damn well Luke knew the answer.
While Luke fucking who he wanted to may have been legal, and even marrying the person he preferred, he couldn’t have his cake and eat it, too, in spite of what Mrs. Cipriani had said.
“You feel like you’re gonna be missing out? Just find some lady and marry her,” she’d said to a red-faced Luke a few Thanksgivings back. “You got a guy on the side? Whatever. You wouldn’t be the first married guy to get screwed by his man when his wife turns her back. It’ll be the three of ya’s secret.”
Luke could keep a secret. He had to, given the nature of his job, but he didn’t like keeping his sexuality under wraps—he hadn’t since Precious had so unsubtly came out. He’d never been the kind of brother who let his younger siblings blaze trails for him.
“Precious thinks I should change careers so I can come out of the closet,” he told Ais.
“Should,” she said.
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Oh.” He pushed up an eyebrow. “Well, I dunno. I think she’s a bit more irresponsible than I am. In spite of the way I come across, I do actually like to think things through before I commit to lifestyle disasters.” Luke gave her skirt another playful tug. “Hey. Maybe if you take your dress off, he’ll come closer.”
The threat of her taking it off impelled Owen closer.
He grabbed her hands as she began working down the zipper at the side of her bodice.
“You’re doing this all wrong, Owen
,” Luke said. “You’re not supposed to be stopping her.”
“Maybe I don’t understand what the this you’re referring is. What’s the point of this exercise?”
“For a guy your age, you really are dense. Seems obvious to me that the lady wants to get into a more naked state with you.”
“She doesn’t have to.”
“What is this ‘have to’ shit?”
“She should feel—” Owen growled. He was talking to the wrong person. Debating Luke was an absolute waste of breath.
He tipped Ais’s chin toward his face so she turned her attention to him. “You don’t need to do this. I’m not asking that of you. If you think taking your clothes off will make me happy, I’m afraid you’ve misread the situation.”
The openly curious expression she wore slowly tightened. Her cheeks flushed, eyes went narrow, and lips pressed.
“Way to go, bozo,” Luke muttered. “Listen.” He sat up and rubbed Ais’s back. “That didn’t come out right, did it Owen?”
If she’d heard Luke, Owen couldn’t tell. She was still looking up at Owen, eyes gone somewhat watery, anger making her jaw clench.
Luke sighed. “And this is why I’m here.” He pulled Ais onto his lap and kissed her cheek. “He’s not so good with the talking thing. Sometimes, he says stupid shit and doesn’t know just how stupid he is until someone like me tells him, isn’t that right, Owen?”
Owen dragged his hand through his hair and paced.
He wouldn’t protest. He knew better than anyone that he was no saint, and Luke knew that, too. Luke should have been trying to protect Ais from Owen. They had to live together on that farm. They wouldn’t be going their separate ways at the end of everything. But, he wanted her to touch him in that exploratory way she did. Maybe he was a caveman, but he liked the idea of in some way being someone’s first.
Fuck.
He took a breath. “I can…see where what I said would sound offensive.”
“You don’t mean to be offensive to her, do you?” Luke queried.
“No. Of course not.”
“Tell her what you really meant. Use different words.”
“All I meant was that she doesn’t have to offer her body to me in payment for kindness or whatever.”
“See? That’s much clearer.” Luke crooked his index finger and motioned for Owen to move closer.