by A. J. Thomas
The idea filled him with warmth and fear simultaneously. He wanted to laugh, to fucking giggle, it felt so good. At the same time, realizing just how much Ray meant to him, how much he meant to Ray, compounded the icy fear inside him. Alejandro’s words, the thinly veiled threat they carried, cut through Elliot’s brain and left him helpless.
He ground his teeth together. Ray might care about him, but if he didn’t stop Alejandro when he had the chance, Ray would never forgive him.
“I will shoot you!” Elliot shouted again, trying to convince himself as much as Alejandro.
In the dim glow from the dome light, Alejandro smirked at him in an open challenge. “No, you won’t.”
“Fuck you!”
The SUV spun out on the gravel, then began the reckless descent to the highway below.
For a long time, Ray didn’t want to move.
He went through the debriefing and interrogation-style interviews that followed on autopilot. Somehow coffee happened. Carmen had come into the police station and been forced to prove she’d had nothing to do with Sophie’s actions, grilled about whether or not she’d actually taken her children out of town like she said. He’d watched his sister wander out of the police station, still crying. She looked at him for a moment, and the flood of tears came back. As much as he wanted to go to her and tell her it was all right, he didn’t think he could find the words. Nothing was all right.
He knew she felt guilty for leaving San Diego, for leaving when she might have had the chance to talk some sense into Sophie if she had stayed. Ray would never hold it against her. He was proud and grateful she had the strength to put on a brave smile and distance her own children from the nightmare their family had become. Still, he had no idea how he could tell her any of that when they couldn’t look at each other without him breaking down and her bursting into tears.
Somehow, he’d ended up back at Hayes’s apartment. Weird potato dumplings in a heavy marinara sauce happened. Cheap blended whiskey happened. He ended up in bed with Elliot’s warm body wrapped around him, enveloping him in the other man’s welcome and familiar scent. And Ray would have been content to stay there, wrapped in the cocoon of blankets and Elliot forever.
But that just wasn’t possible. At dawn—maybe dawn on the second day, maybe dawn on the third—Ray woke up to obnoxious laughter and the smell of freshly brewed coffee.
“I can’t believe you won.” A voice he didn’t know well but that he hated all the same came from somewhere across the room.
“I didn’t actually expect to be right. I made the bet as a joke.”
“Hayes?” Ray tipped his head up to see his partner, with sparkling eyes, sympathetic smile—and goddamned cowboy lover in tow—standing at the foot of the bed. The cowboy wrapped his arms around Hayes’s waist, rubbing it in. Ray was all but numb inside, but even so, he was surprised when the resentment he’d felt every time he looked at the two of them together didn’t burn back to life. There was nothing now.
“Seriously, Delgado? Six depressed, frantic voice mails, and I rush down here to find you with some random guy, in my bed. What the hell, man?”
Ray stared at them both, then sighed as Elliot’s arms tightened around him. “Come back in a week.” He dropped his head back down.
“Delgado?” Ray could hear the concern in his partner’s voice. “Is that the skinny FBI guy? Belkamp, right? What’s up?”
Ray glanced up at Hayes again, cocking a single eyebrow. “Have you thought about the full range of possible answers to that question, Hayes?”
That brought a little smile to his partner’s face. “Actually, he’s right, I don’t want to know. Didn’t really expect to see you again.”
“Yeah. Shit happened. Drug cartels, break-ins, contract killers, Internet theft, creepy professors….” Elliot nuzzled against the top of Ray’s head. “Ray lost his cousin Sophie. His place got trashed, mine….”
Ray felt Elliot’s sigh ruffle through his hair. “Did the crime scene clean-up crew say if they can get the blood out of the floorboards yet?”
Elliot groaned. “It’s soaked into the damn subfloor. And the last hotel we booked got blown up, so we figured this would be all right.”
There was silence at the foot of the bed. Ray kept his head down, buried his eyes and his senses in the crook of Elliot’s neck.
“Well, fuck. That’s two.” Hayes’s lover laughed.
“Two?”
“We saw the explosion at the Hilton on the news in the airport. Christopher said he bet that was you.”
Ray glared at both of them. “You’re worse than the damn bomb-squad guys, Hayes. Besides, this time I wasn’t anywhere near the explosion. The FBI wanted to stash me there, but I came here instead. Good thing, too. There was a drug-cartel leak inside the FBI’s Gang Task Force.”
“What? Who?”
“Nobody you’d know. Some new asshole named Hathaway. Sanchez misses you, by the way. Jenkins, too. You should stop in and say hello since you’re in town.”
“Delgado.” Ray felt the bed dip slightly with the added weight of another body. “Sophie….”
“I don’t really want to talk about it. Like I said, come back in a week.”
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t we give you guys a chance to get dressed, then we’ll get some lunch.”
Ray tilted his head up again, glaring. The sudden anger burning inside him was irrational but consuming. “We’re not naked you shit! Jesus, you really think so little of me? You think, after the girl I helped raise bled to death all over me that the first thing on my mind would be getting laid?”
“Delgado, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know what you meant! I know you’re trying to be supportive! I know I shouldn’t be pissed about what you said, but…. Do you think knowing you didn’t mean anything by it makes me feel any better about the way you automatically assumed?”
Elliot’s grip on his shoulder made him twitch. “Over. Thinking.”
Ray sighed and pushed himself upright. He ran his hands through his hair. “I know. I know. I’m just a mess right now.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Hayes smiled. He grabbed Ray’s T-shirt and hauled him across the bed. His larger, taller frame was huge compared to Elliot’s, and the crushing bear hug his partner pulled him into enveloped him completely. He tried to get away, to get back to the anger and rage, but Hayes just held him tighter. “You can’t go to lunch in boxers and a T-shirt. If you need to read too much into everything I say so you end up too angry to think, go ahead. If you need to skip the bullshit and just smack me, go ahead. I might be a bit out of shape, but I can still take anything you can dish out.”
Ray accepted the hug. He needed it. He needed the reminder that he still had some human connection in the world. But the one thought that broke through the grief and anger was that Hayes didn’t feel right. Sitting there with Hayes’s arms wrapped around him didn’t feel right.
He forced himself to nod and slipped back up to the pillows, back to Elliot. He ran his fingers through Elliot’s close-cropped hair. “Lunch?”
Elliot leaned shamelessly into his touch, and Ray found something inside him pinging from the simple gesture. Elliot shrugged. “Food is overrated. There are still two boxes of strawberry Pop-Tarts from the last time I ran to the store.”
“That’s settled, then,” said Ray. “We’re going to lunch.”
The sky should have been overcast. It was two days into February, and of all the months of the year, February in San Diego should have been cloudy and depressing. Instead, it was bright, clear, and nearly seventy degrees. Just as the weather seemed to delight in not matching the occasion, the mourners didn’t seem to have the class to be stoic and reserved either. Ray’s aunt, mother, and grandmother stood in the front with Carmen, and their devastation was etched on their tear-streaked faces. But the rows of family around them were aloof, there to keep up appearances and nothing more.
Sophie’s father
and remaining brother were absent, but that was because Ray’s testimony had put them in prison years ago. Ray had to wonder if they believed the police account of what had happened or if Alejandro had lied to them all and blamed it on him or Garcia. He half hoped Alejandro had done just that. As much as he hated Alejandro, he didn’t hate his Aunt Louisa enough to subject her to the truth.
He’d kept his distance, staying over fifty yards from the grave site, but even that was too close for his extended family. Across the cemetery lawn, his nephew held up a red matchbox car and waved at him. Ray smiled and gave the boy a little wave before Ray’s own mother shot a cold look his way and turned the boy around. Carmen was the only one who hadn’t glared at him. But she hadn’t looked at him at all, and somehow that felt worse.
He felt as if he deserved their accusations. Regardless of who had pulled the trigger, he was the reason Sophia had always hated their family, the reason she’d tried to go into federal law enforcement, why she’d started this entire fucked-up mess. But even if he felt like he deserved their scorn, he still needed to say good-bye. There was a part of him that would have given anything to be standing there beside his mother and sister, to feel their arms around him, to be able to mourn without any doubts about whether he even had the right to be upset.
Their glares and callous attitudes just confirmed that he’d made the right choice.
A massive hand landed on his shoulder, the force catching him off guard. His partner Hayes stood behind him, clad in a respectable suit and a soft smile.
“Hey. You came.” Ray had given up hope that the other man might show up.
Hayes had stuck around for the better part of a week, helping him clean his apartment up, install a new security system, and get back into a normal routine again. As great as it had been having his best friend back in his life, he knew that Hayes’s damn cowboy was getting impatient and broody. Ray couldn’t blame the man for getting a bit annoyed by having to share Hayes’s attention. Months ago, Ray would have gotten a kick out of rubbing it in the fucker’s face, but now it just made him feel awkward too. And as much as he appreciated having the help getting his apartment sorted out, he hadn’t had an excuse to hang around Elliot for the last six days. Each night in his empty apartment, he thought about going out to a club and finding company to bring home, and then he thought about calling Elliot instead. Without the case and an army of drug-cartel hit men tying them together, though, Elliot had no reason to put up with him anymore, so each night Ray convinced himself not to bother. Instead, he fell asleep watching TV in the hours just before dawn and dragged his tired self through the days that followed.
It would be better once he got back onto regular shifts, once the interviews and internal affairs crap was behind him.
“Hey, yourself. I see your family is as charming as ever.”
Ray didn’t even have to glance at him to know the exact expression he’d have on his face. Hayes had this way of smiling at grief that always left Ray feeling grounded and stable. Over the years they’d spent working together, Ray had come to do the same thing, and he was always amazed at how the simple act of forcing a smile onto his face could make utter chaos manageable again. So Ray smiled, too. “I don’t have a family. Not anymore. Even Carmen doesn’t want anything to do with me. Sophie was the only one who ever did.”
Hayes squeezed his shoulder tight.
A moment later, a slender hand clasped his other shoulder. Ray glanced to his left, surprised at the way his heart rate spiked. Elliot stepped close to him, pressing his body close to Ray’s without quite hugging him. It was hard not to reach out and kiss him, not to pull him into a hug.
He didn’t dare, though, because they weren’t alone.
He scanned the mass of people behind him, wondering how the hell he’d missed the way the shadows had appeared on the lawn at his feet, silhouettes of dozens of people. His fellow homicide officers, men and women he had worked with in the police department’s gang-enforcement unit, patrol officers he went drinking with so he could keep up on gossip from different neighborhoods, they were all there. His captain and the detectives he worked with on a daily basis were standing right behind him. There were even six members of the bomb squad, dressed in the tactical gear he’d splattered with neon green paint.
“You’ve got a family, kid.” Captain Jenkins smacked him in the back of the head.
“He’s right.” Sanchez ruffled his hair. “You might be the eccentric brother we’re embarrassed to invite to special occasions, but you’re still ours.”
“Goddamn it, Sanchez.” Ray sniffled, fumbling in his breast pocket for his sunglasses. “I was totally cool and calm until you came along. Then you have to go all mushy on me, and then I get all mushy….”
She poked him in the back hard. “Being mushy is how we show we care. And speaking of mushy, someone had fun with superglue and thumbtacks around your desk. You might want to be careful when you come back on duty. You could end up mushy, yourself.”
“You didn’t….” He managed to keep himself from laughing, but only because it would have been too inappropriate, even for him. He looked at Hayes, who was still smiling. “The woman turns my desk into a thumbtack bed-of-nails while I’m gone, and I don’t think I’m loved. Now I know better.”
“Sounds a little kinky to me.” Hayes glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Didn’t think you’d be into that kind of thing.”
“I have a life outside of work. But this time, I swear it wasn’t me.” She grinned, obviously lying.
Beside him, he felt Elliot chuckle.
“What?” Ray cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Just thinking it takes a special kind of person to make homicide investigation a fun job. You guys are interesting.”
“Now you see why I won’t jump ship? Aside from beating the shit out of each other for a good time, you Feds are kind of dull.”
“Professional decorum has its place,” said Elliot. “I’m kind of envious, though. Most of our guys get transferred every few years. We get to express a preference about assignments, but ultimately we have to go wherever the bureau sends us. It would be nice to build the kind of close team you guys have.”
Behind them, Jenkins cleared his throat. “Well, just be aware. If you start hanging out in the homicide office too much, they’ll stop thinking about you as a guest.”
“He’s right,” said Ray. “Hang around too much, and you’re fair game.”
“Of course, Delgado is the only one you’d really have to worry about, so if you can put up with him, you’re fine.”
Ray opened his mouth, tried to think of some argument that could possibly dispute his captain’s warning, and then shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
Elliot laughed and squeezed his shoulder tighter. Ray knew he couldn’t hug him, couldn’t kiss him, but he shifted closer to him anyway.
As the distant ceremony came to an end, Ray looked to the men and women who had gone to so much trouble just to stand beside him. He wanted to make a joke about it, to ease some of the awkward tension in his throat, but he was out of jokes. He met his captain’s gaze, the old man’s eyes shining with a concern Ray had seldom seen. “You set this up?”
Captain Jenkins shrugged innocently. He didn’t say a word.
“Of course you set this up. I don’t know what to….” Ray would never be able to express just how grateful he was. “Thank you.”
A slight incline of his head was all Ray would get for a nod, but it spoke volumes.
“Has Internal Affairs decided to let me come back to work yet?”
Another slight nod.
Ray felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest. “You know I make things fun.”
“Fun,” Jenkins agreed. “Monday morning, Delgado.” With a quick half nod, the old captain strolled away. The rest of the homicide office trailed off to their cars.
“Fun is the new word for coming up with fill-in-the-blank forms for things like decorating the bomb squad and
rigging the copy machine to spit out porn?” Hayes asked.
“How cool is that?” Ray smiled proudly. “I have redefined fun.”
Hayes patted him on the shoulder, nodded at Elliot, and left them alone.
Ray turned toward Elliot, hesitating. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“How’s the remodel going?” Ray asked.
“I have new floors. Dark cherry to match the cabinets. And I’ve been informed by two contractors and my neighbors that I will never, ever be able to unload the house on anybody. Apparently, people getting shot there is something that has to be disclosed when you put a house on the market.”
“People get weird about that kind of thing. It could be a selling point, with the right crowd, though. You know, Goth chicks and vampire fans.”
“I’m okay holding on to it. Even if I get transferred somewhere else in a few years, this seems like a decent place to settle down.”
“It is.” Ray took a deep breath and steeled his resolve. “I could show you around a bit, if you want? Maybe this weekend?”
Elliot grimaced, and the warm grasp he had maintained on Ray’s shoulder vanished. Elliot nodded toward the parking lot, and Ray followed him. “I wish I could. I’ve got to go up to LA this weekend. Maybe some other time, though?”
“Oh.” Ray kept smiling, trying to recall how many times he’d used that line to get someone out of his place the morning after sex. Too many times. “Yeah, okay. I need to go into the office anyway, get caught up on new case files I’ve missed this week. I’ll see you around!” He jogged to his car, hoping he could escape without looking like more of a fool.
He pulled out of the parking lot fast, aiming for the highway where he would have to focus on staying alive in traffic, where he wouldn’t be able to think.
He didn’t know why he was acting like such an idiot. Elliot really didn’t have a reason to put up with him anymore, and he’d made no secret of how much he didn’t want Ray in his life. Ray had never meant to hurt any of the men or women he’d let down the same way, but now he wondered how many of them had felt like he did right now. How many people had read too much into their conversations, too much into the sex?