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Fuck. Henri hated that even after everything they’d been through, things were still so difficult between them. It hadn’t always been like that. Sure, there’d been fights—that was what happened when a tornado met a volcano: things exploded. But somewhere along the way, they’d realized something was missing from what they had. Henri just hated that Priest had worked it out first.
A couple of minutes later, when there was still no response from his cop, Henri shut his eyes, still holding the Post-it note.
Was Priest right? Was Henri being stupid going after Bailey? Thinking only with his dick? Sure, maybe that was part of it, but at the same time, Henri knew that the much bigger part was that he was lonely—so very fucking lonely.
It’d been a long time since he’d met someone who’d really sparked his interest, and considering he couldn’t stop thinking about Bailey before he knew his name, Henri was willing to take a risk to remind himself what it was like to be touched for a night.
He took a deep breath and then let it out, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw the registration slip sitting in the center console. Henri picked it up and reached across the car to flip open the glove box, and as he did, he spotted the only other thing inside the compartment.
It was a five-by-eight photograph. The edges were ratty, the coloring had faded, but the love on the two faces captured in the photo made the image brighter than the fucking sun.
As if it were a bomb about to go off, Henri gingerly reached for the photo and noticed his hand was shaking. He’d known all along it was in there. He’d made it a rule to never look at it, to never acknowledge its existence, and he’d promised himself he’d never revisit the time when that photo had been taken.
But as he sat there now, nearly a decade since that moment had been captured, Henri finally picked it up. He finally acknowledged it as real, and let the pain and heartache back inside one last time, in the hopes that he could banish it for good…
HENRI STEPPED OUT of one of the terminals at LAX and decided the number one thing he wouldn’t miss about New Orleans when he moved here was the fucking humidity. It’d been two months since he’d last seen Priest, and he was eager to reunite with his on-again off-again…whatever they were.
As a taxi pulled up at the curb and Henri climbed in, he thought about giving Priest a quick call to check that he was home, but in the end decided to surprise him instead. Something Priest would surely hate but soon get over after Henri took off his clothes and did his best to apologize.
The drive took fifty minutes—traffic in L.A. was shit—but when they finally pulled up at Priest’s apartment building, Henri’s irritation over the long commute vanished. He grabbed his bags and then made his way up several flights of stairs to the apartment he’d been to countless times over the past few years.
He fished out the set of keys Priest had made for him nearly a year ago, and when he unlocked the door and pushed it open, the sight that greeted him was like a sucker punch to his solar plexus. Priest was standing in the center of his living room, his lips devouring another man’s mouth, and hands that were not Henri’s were down the back of Priest’s pants.
The sound of the front door swinging open and hitting the wall alerted the two caught in the lip-lock, and when Priest raised his head and looked over his shoulder, those grey eyes Henri had always loved filled with an expression he’d never seen in them before—guilt.
“Henri.” Priest’s voice was raspier than usual, no doubt due to the arousal he had no hope of hiding in his black lounge pants. “I didn’t know you were flying in today.”
The cool, calm statement was so very Priest-like. It was perfunctory, reasonable, and so left field that Henri found himself answering despite himself. “It was going to be a surprise.”
His eyes then shifted to the other man in the room. He was the same height as Priest and had one of the most flawless faces Henri had ever seen. His eyes were the color of gemstones, jade, and right now they were full of shame.
Henri brought his attention back to Priest. “Clearly, you’re surprised.”
Priest took a step toward him, and Henri took one back. Seeming to understand that Henri didn’t want him any closer, Priest stopped and took in a breath. As he let it out, he ran a hand through his thick auburn hair and sighed.
“Henri, I was going to call you…”
As those six clichéd words left Priest’s lips, Henri’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “You were going to call me? Call me and tell me what, exactly?”
