“You are mine.And I am yours.However you want to define it.You belong here, in my home.I know you can’t move back in now, but there will be a time when you have to let go of your apartment so we can be here together.”
“We can’t come out to the squad,” Joey said, and for a moment Gideon felt a shaft of pain that took his breath away.Then Joey added, “Not because I’m afraid for me—or evenus—but for them.What they don’t know, they can’t tell my father.If my father finds out about us, I’ll be worried foryou, but if it’s the whole squad, we areallin danger.You understand?”
“They’d stand up for us,” Gideon said without a doubt.
“I know,” Joey said gravely.“I’ve learned that much.And we’ll stand for them too.Even Manny, who’s new—I like him.”
“Same,” Gideon said, acknowledging the new hire Crosby—who else—had discovered during the op that got him shot.Manny was partnered with Gail now that everybody was healthy, and Gideon liked the pairing.Manny Swan was easygoing, smart, measured, and thought on his feet.Gail was quick and fierce and sometimes was quicker on her feet than on her thoughts.They made a good team.
“But right now, I trust you to stay alive.Until we have a reason—or a way—to take my father down, let’s not give him a bigger target, okay?”
And Gideon understood.It wasn’t a picket fence, but it was enough.It was faith that someday, they’d bethemin front of the family they had that mattered.
“As long asyouknow,” Gideon murmured into his hair.“Unless you say anything—and I mean real words, Joey—you are my person.You said once you thoughtIwas the deer.We’re both wolves.You’remy wolf.Do you understand?”
Joey shuddered against him, but it wasn’t desperate or pleading.It was the shudder a body makes when it’s been cold too long and suddenly it begins to warm.
“You’remywolf,” he whispered.“Is there a word for that?”
“Yeah.I won’t make you say it.”
“Someday,” Joey promised, but the wine and the food—and the aftermath—were settling into his bones much like they were into Gideon’s.
Still, when Joey’s breathing had evened out against his chest, when his eyes had closed, leaving absurdly long lashes the only testament to the boy Joey Carlyle must have been at one time, Gideon was awake enough to say the word against his crown.
“I love you, Joey Carlyle.Love is the word.It’s the only word that matters.”
He dropped off to sleep to dream of hearing the words back.
Borrowed Time
JOEY STAREDat the text again and sighed before getting up from his desk to tap Gideon on the shoulder.
“I’ll tell him,” he said, and Gideon nodded, starting to get up.
“It’s fine,” Joey said.“You keep working on what you’re working on.Harding doesn’t bite.”
Gideon gave him a warm smile, and Joey twitched his lips in return.He may talk big, but he was very aware this was a shitty time to tell Harding that his father had tracked his new phone.
Crosby was in trouble again (goddammit, Crosby!) and this time, all they could do about it was cover for him and pray he didn’t get outed in the undercover assignment he never should have been given.
The good news was that, if Joey had ever doubted that the team would stand up behind him and Gideon when they came out, those doubts were dispelled when Crosby had moved in with Garcia in March, claiming to be using his spare room.
Spare room the unit’s collectiveass.Anybody who saw them move together, heard them talk, heard them argue over what color sheets were going on the bed in thespare room, knew what was happening—whathadhappened—between the two of them, and the fact was, everybody was so relieved Crosby wasn’t alone in the world like a lost puppy they didn’t even bat an eyelash that the partners were just like Joey and Gid.Partnersin every sense of the word.
But that wasn’t the only secret that had been revealed when they’d moved in together.Crosby’s past, much like Joey’s, had come to bite him in the ass.He’d needed to leave Chicago not just because he refused to go along with the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager by his partner, but because his entiredepartmenthad been rotten to the core, saturated in the stink of a white supremacy organization known as the Sons of the Blood.
And Crosby’s old partner had shown up in a federal capacity to force Crosby to do his bidding.
So Crosby was working in a Brooklyn precinct under another name, pretending to recruit for the Sons of the Blood, while his unit spent every spare moment they had trying to figure out the power structure of the organization so they could bring it down and get their Crosby back.
The whole unit was being tracked by Sons’ members.They’d already lived through averybloody night, saving Crosby’s former roommate, and a month spent looking over their shoulders and trying to keep Garcia off the ceiling from worry was wearing on everybody’s fucking nerves.
Harding didnotneed the added aggravation, but given that he’d already sat through Gideon’s rather dry revelation of their relationship and the upshot of Joey’s visit to his father with only raised eyebrows and, “The two of you?Really?Go figure,” Joey hoped their boss’s legendary stoicism wouldn’t let him down today.
“Boss?”Joey said, sticking his head into Harding’s office.Gideon had pithily described it as a plain space withverycomfortable furniture, including a couch thateverybodyhad slept on at one point or another when a case got hairy.
Harding glanced up and then sighed andstoodup, stretching his arms over his head.
