“Who was in the closet,” Josh said.“So not a lot of, you know, actual experience under my belt.”This grin wasn’t as confident.“A lot like running ops, you know?Lots of observation, but the rest of it is figuring out how things work.”
Liam couldn’t smile.He wanted to ask “Why me?”but they’d already established Josh had a bent for law enforcement.He wanted to say “Don’t play with my heart,” but the one thing he knew about these people—knew aboutJosh—was that when it came to the important stuff, nobody played to hurt.
Josh took in his silence, and his expression changed subtly, and Liam could feel Felix’s calm strength radiating from his son.
“You don’t know what to do with that, do you,” Josh stated softly.
Liam swallowed and closed his eyes.“I….”East Ender, boy.I’m a flatfoot who slept his way to a job I don’t deserve and have been riding your Uncle Danny’s coattails ever since.
“I’m careful,” Josh said, and this time it wasn’t Liam’s imagination.His touch on Liam’s cheekwasa caress.“I watched the dads fall apart—not because they didn’t love each other, or me, or even my mom, but because sometimes love just hurts.”
Liam opened his eyes and took in Josh’s expression.Of all their conversations on that ship, this was the first time Josh had said anything—anything—about the hurt the family schism had causedhim.
“It does,” Liam said gruffly.“My da—my father wasn’t a bad man.So much disappointment.Jobs he didn’t get, things he wanted for my mother, things he wanted for us.It fell to shit, and he fell to drink.And people think, you know, you have to stop loving somebody when they disappoint you like that.But the love stays, and the disappointment….”
“Hurts worse,” Josh whispered.“Danny… he must have told me a thousand times that he left so he could heal, so he could be his best for me.And even though I know that’s true, the time he was gone—half my life—feels like he ripped it out of my heart.I… I’m so glad to have him back.But it makes you… careful,” he said at last.“It’s given me lots of things.A sense of how to be fair to other people, because when you hurt them, it hurts everybody.Forgiveness.People ask how I can be friends with Grace, but I know that he’s so hard on himself, he needs someone in his life who will forgive him for anything.But… maybe that’s why I go for law enforcement.”He smiled bitterly—too bitterly for somebody so young.“Because I’m hoping somebody entrusted with public safety will know how to be careful with my heart.”
And Liam had no choice.“I… I watched you grow up in Lightfinger’s pictures, you know.”
“Creepy,” Josh said, waggling his eyebrows.But they were so close right now, in breath and in heart, and Liam couldn’t make light of this.
“I thought, ‘If we ever meet, he’ll be like my little brother, or a nephew.’I honestly thought that, until… until I caught you.And you were in my arms.And you… you weren’t anything like a little brother or a nephew.”His eyes burned.“And you were so sick….I prayed, you know?”
“You never told me that,” Josh whispered.
“I said, ‘Please, God—I’ll give anything you want, just let him get better.Let us know what we can be.’And you did.And then you pushed me away.”
It was Josh’s turn to close his eyes with pain.“I’m careful,” he said again.“I couldn’t have stood it if you felt sorry for me.I spent so much of that trip in that wretched berth, and my bright spot—besides the op that almost went to hell—was that you would come visit me.I could trust you to watch out for my family when I couldn’t.And I came to feel so much for you.I just… Ineededyou to love me for who I am, not… not what illness made me.”
Liam brushed Josh’s lips with his own but didn’t deepen the kiss.He pulled back and said, “You… you’ve always been extraordinary.”He chuffed out a breath.“Do you have any idea how ordinary I am?”
Josh blinked owlishly at him.“To quote Grace, ‘Why are you talking stupid, Mr.Interpol Man?’”
And Liam felt this in his bones.“Do you know how I got the appointment to work Interpol?”he asked bitterly.
“You were awesome at your job as a detective inspector?”Josh hazarded, and Liam snorted.
“I wasdecentat my job as PC.A constable.It’s the beginning rank, if you didn’t know,” he said, and Josh stared at him, his eyes lit up in fascination.
“I did,” Josh said.“Ididknow, and I have no idea how a public constable got to be in Interpol.You weren’t even a detective?”
“I was aiming for it,” Liam said.“And there was a case—you might recognize it—where somebody was stealing art from people who hadn’t purchased it, or had stolen it from a museum and not returned it, and in the same go, rearranging the museums, putting odd returned bits in different places—”
“Oh my God,” Josh said in surprise.“Danny?”
“Oh yes.So I take this to my DI’s attention, and he sends me to the DCI liaison with the art division in Interpol.”
“This makes sense….”
Josh was still eyeing him like he knew where this was going, but Liam couldn’t help it.He kept blurting the entire stupid, sorry story out so Josh would know exactly what a fraud he was—nominally—in bed with.
He finished up with, “And so there I was, six months later, holding my broken heart in my hands with three giant promotions to show for it and… and….God, I was so fucking embarrassed I took the first Interpol assignment out of fucking London I could find.Which was how I ended up….”He was stretched out on his stomach, his weight on his elbows so he couldn’t even flail his hands.
“In that terrible alleyway,” Josh said softly.“Where Tienne’s father died and Danny almost did the same.”
“Yes,” Liam said, some of his urgency fading.“So you see….”
“You,” Josh said softly.“I see you.You’re anything but incompetent, Liam.You’recompassionate, which not all rule-following law enforcementis, or my family wouldn’t be doing what it does.”
