Still, it soothed Joey’s soul.
“I love you too, Gid.It’s terrifying.I’m not leaving, except to shower.God, I just can’t.”
Gideon kissed him on the forehead, the gesture more comforting than Joey had ever thought possible.“Yeah.Same.I always thought falling in love would come with more sex and less exhaustion.I’m a little disappointed.”
Joey chuckled.“Think the team knows about us?”
Gideon grunted.“We may have given it away when we sang Act I ofHamiltonin the hospital.We’ll have to see.”He stepped back.“Shower.Antacids.Sleep.”He swallowed.“I want you in my arms, kid.It’s the only thing keeping me upright.”
Joey closed his eyes and steadied himself.“Same.”
They made it so.
But even after the shower, as the pale sky of a spring evening gave way to a deep purple, blending with the shadows of the buildings soaring above their head, Joey couldn’t sleep.
He lay there, body aching, brain buzzing, Gideon’s steady breathing into the nape of his neck the only thing keeping him tethered to the planet.
“Spit it out, Joey,” Gideon grumbled.“I can hear you thinking.”
“Gid… what if he gets you?”
“He won’t.”
“But what if he does?”
Stiffly, Joey rolled to his other side so he could see Gideon’s face in the descending dark.
“What if he does?”Gideon blinked.“Then you’ll grieve.You’ll… I don’t know, mourn your mate.You’ll let your pack comfort you.You’ll get up, eventually, to hunt again.”His lean mouth flickered briefly.“As much as I flatter myself that I’m a catch, Joey, I’m pretty sure you can find other old warriors who swing your way and will have your back.”
Unexpected tears burned Joey’s eyes, then spilled hotly onto his cheeks.“You’re not a fucking catch, Gideon.You’re fucking smarter than everybody, and you’re so damned hard to follow sometimes.You think everything’s a joke, and you’re laughing at me now and—”
“Shh….”And Gideon’s arm was around his shoulder.“No,” he murmured.“I’m not laughing at you.I’m….Don’t you get it?I don’t want to leave you.But look at the lives we lead.Look atlife,period.Those fuckers in ICE are shooting random civilians on a daily basis—there are innocent people trying not to lose their lives from the same government that props us up.But you, me, the team—we have sworn to putourliveson the line to protect people, from our own government, from mobsters with more connections than God.I mean, today proved that, if nothing else.So yeah, you might lose me.And I-I don’t even want to think of losing you.But if we’re strong enough to risk ourselves, we’ve got to be strong enough to pick up and go on if the worst happens.”
Joey stared at him, suddenly yearning for that sweet heroin oblivion.I get it now.I never got drugs before, but I get it now.
“Come back to me, kid,” Gideon whispered.“I don’t know where you went.”
Joey closed his eyes tight and remembered that moment of doing a backflip off a building, and how angry Gideon had been.Don’t taunt me!He’d promised not to do that ever again, but that was because it made Gideon angry, and Gideon was sorarelyangry, he knew it must be important.
But now—now—he understoodwhyit had made Gideon angry, and he swallowed in an effort to put that sudden emotional epiphany into words.
“I’m not a good person,” he said dryly.“I… I was practically feral when I got here.It’s taken me two years to learn how to fucking human, andyou’rethe one who taught me.If you… if you die first, Gid, I got no promises I won’t, you know.Go back.Getworse.I reallywouldburn down the world if something happened to you.I… I amafraid, you understand?Of who I could be, of what I woulddo,if you weren’t in my life.How do I… I don’t know how….”And that was it.He’d said the magic word,afraid, and that was as far as he could get.
But Gideon was whispering soft kisses along his bruised face, feathering touches along the outside of his arm.They were both wearing underwear—Joey in boxer briefs, Gideon in tighty-whiteys, because some things never changed—and their bodies were so battered even the whisper of skin on skin threatened to hurt.
But Joey wanted it anyway.His breathing slowed, and his eyes closed, and he thought,That’s it.I got worked up is all.Gid knows.He’ll get me to sleep and this will all go away.
But Gideon wasn’t that guy.
“You are such a better person than you know, Joey Carlyle,” he said.“You think I’m the only one you care about here?You’d take a bullet for Harding.We both would.You’d throw yourself on top of Harman Blodgett in a firefight.The sound of Pearson’s leg breaking didn’t make you puke because it was aleg.it made you puke because it wasPearson’sleg.And you care about her.God help us if anybody touches Natalia.We will fuckingendthem.Garcia, Swan, hell, even fucking Doba and Henderson—they’reours.You’re the one who came into my bed talking about wolves and deer.Don’t you watch your own fucking documentaries, Joey?We’re wolves.We’reallwolves.And wolves are a pack.They’re afamily.So you lose your mate.That’d suck.”His lips twitched.“I’d really rather that not happen, to be honest.”
“Dick,” Joey muttered, but the dry self-deprecation soothed him.
“Yeah, I am.You were right.I’m not a catch.”He sobered and ran his lips over Joey’s eyelids, which could have been the only nontender skin on his body right then.“But you’d miss me.And it would be awful.But your pack isn’t going anywhere.”He blew out a breath.“You know how much you worry about Crosby?You think he’s not worried about us the same?That’s the thing growing up with a sociopath for a father doesn’t tell you, kid.Caring for people is scary—it leaves you vulnerable.Your dad’s not wrong about that.”
“Then why we gotta do it?”Joey asked, those tears spilling again at the awful pit of fear in his stomach for everybody he… oh God.Loved.He loved them all.He loved Gideon most, but his team….
“’Cause it makes us better,” Gideon told him and then pulled him close, mindful of the splint on his wrist.Closer, closer, close enough for Joey to sob quietly into the hollow of his neck.Close enough to kiss the tears off his cheeks.
