“My money is on the ME,” he stated. “I wouldn’t be shocked if he made copies and was handing them out as he headed out the door. He was miserable.”
Yeah, he was.
“Could be,” Ethan said. “It had to be someone with access, and that was the local cops, or us. I know I’m not kissing or telling post-crime scene.”
Gene grinned.
“Well, I wish you were kissing someone right now, and in that little fantasy, I’m the someone. There are better things to put into my mouth than bacon. Trust and believe, there’s only one thing I like more.”
Ethan laughed.
“Ditto. I feel the same.”
Gene put his hand on Ethan’s thigh under the table. He wanted to be connected with his man, simply because he knew how rough he was feeling about being here.
Gene was feeling it too.
But for now, he needed to make sure Ethan was okay, since that was his job as his lover, boyfriend, and partner.
Ethan was slightly off, and unless a person knew his mannerisms, and how he worked, they wouldn’t know it.
It was subtle.
But it was there.
“Just ask,” Ethan said, cutting into his waffle as he kept researching people they’d come across. “I can hear the hamster running at full-throttle in that wheel. Just bring it up. It can’t be anything worse than what we’ve dealt with already.”
Okay, he had a point.
So, Gene did.
“Want to go skiing?”
Ethan looked over at him.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked.
Gene laughed at the look on his partner’s face. It was clear he hadn’t been expecting that.
Good.
He liked keeping him off balance.
“Skiing. You know, when you strap wood to your feet and fly down a hill at a fast rate of speed. Then, you sit in a hot tub afterward, and canoodle bottomless with your man. I’m the man in that scenario in case you needed to be reminded.”
Blackhawk found him amusing.
“We’re working a case. I know you’re on desk duty, but if Gabe finds out we bailed to go skiing…”
He stopped him.
“No, after. We have two days when this case is over, since we are working. We’re in Utah. There are mountains, and the last snow is going to be gone soon for spring. I looked at the weather forecast, and there’s a storm coming. Want to get snowed in at some lodge with me?”
Ethan blinked.
And Gene held his breath.
He was trying to get Ethan back to where he was in Puerto Rico before everything went to shit—mainly coming here and having to deal with his past.
