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Several nights later, Gray banged the door open, then slammed it behind him. He’d have looked like a storm cloud if a cloud could have a black eye and a nasty cut across its cheek. A normal assumption would have been that he’d gotten into it with a suspect, but somehow Jack knew that wasn’t it. They’d been attacked on the job before, and while Gray got angry, he usually let those altercations roll off him as a standard job hazard. “What happened?”
“Fucking asshole fucker.”
Not an auspicious beginning.
“Who?” Jack asked.
“Thompkins.”
The bastard who’d accused them of being gay over a year ago after seeing Gray hug Jack at the end of a grueling shift. There’d been nothing inappropriate about the hug Jack and Gray had shared, but Thompkins had seen something that set him off. They’d denied it, because they weren’t ready to risk theirpartnership, but now their supervisors knew and most people at least suspected they were involved after Gray’s response to Jack being shot.
“Talk to me,” Jack said.
He wanted to pull Gray in his arms, but unlike Mason and himself, Gray didn’t like to be cuddled when he was angry.
He liked to pace and throw things and yell and then fuck the hell out of Jack and Mason. As long as Jack could keep him talking until Mason’s shift ended, they could give him exactly what he needed. Jack was more than ready to have Gray inside him again.
“The fucker was at the scene Thornton sent me to. He didn’t like how I handled delegating the work so in a voice loud enough for me to easily hear, he asked one of the other officers, ‘Who promoted this cocksucker? I’m not taking orders from some fucking fag who thinks he’s better than us.’”
Jack wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what happened next or how likely it was to get Gray suspended.
“I asked him if he’d like to say that to my face, and he turned around ready to do it when Thornton put him in his place.”
“What did he say?”
“I won’t have any disrespect on my scene. Now get out there and do what you’ve been told to do.”
Jack shook his head. “Thus setting you up for a worse fight later.”
“Yeah, the bastard caught me off-guard in the locker room. I went to work out when I got back to the precinct, hoping to blowoff some steam. I’d just gotten dressed again when Thompkins came up behind me. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, turned, and he punched me. That’s how I got this.” Gray pointed to his black eye.
“Is that from the edge of a locker?” Jack asked, touching Gray’s face right below the jagged cut.
He nodded.
Jack frowned. “Did you put something on it?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Sit down,” Jack ordered.
Gray rolled his eyes, but he did what Jack said.
Jack grabbed the first aid kit from the linen closet and got out the antibiotic ointment and an alcohol pad.
“Do you have to do that?”
“Yes.” Jack wasn’t going to listen to any arguments. He didn’t even want to think about the germs that were in that locker room.
“So he punched you and…?” Jack asked as he ripped open the wrapper on the alcohol pad.
“Can’t you just kiss it better?” Gray asked, looking like a pouty little boy.
Jack brushed his lips across the cut. “There. Now for the heavy-duty stuff.”
“Your kisses are plenty heavy for me.”
Something tightened low in Jack, and he almost let Gray distract him from both the first aid and the story of his suck-ass day, but not quite.
