Then again, fuck Gabe and desk duty. Gene had been walking a fingerprint to a store to fax it and had nearly died.
You didn’t get more desk duty than that.
Honestly, Ethan would take the heat if Gene had to fire his gun. Screw that. He’d rather be in trouble than Gene in a morgue somewhere.
What was Gabe going to do?
Fire him?
Well, fuck that too. Losing Gene would be worse than losing his job, and he knew that now.
Gratefully, Gene took the gun.
“I’ll be okay, Baby,” Gene said. “I love you, and I wasn’t paying attention before. I am now. That was a screw-up by me. I’m wide-fucking awake now. Trust and believe that.”
Gene put his hand on Ethan’s arm and squeezed it.
“We have this. As your boyfriend, I’m telling you that we’re good. Breathe.”
All he could do was listen.
“Don’t lose it!”
Ethan knew Gene was right. It wasn’t so much tears he wanted to let fall, but rage that he wanted to let out.
So, he took a deep breath.
Then, he reassured him.
“Okay. I’m in control. I’ll go back and research while you get that handled. I need to figure out how this went so wrong.”
On that, he agreed.
“We’ll stick together for now.”
Oh, trust and believe they would be.
Gene was going to walk him back to the café, so he could get his things. Then, he was going to strong-arm the detective into being his taxi driver.
The man wanted to help, well…
He was getting his wish.
For.
Now.
They heard Dannie shout something to a cop, and Ethan glanced over at the detective handling the scene.
“Gene?”
He was watching the cop too.
“Yeah?”
Blackhawk went there.
“I don’t like that the cop was still outside the café after talking to us. We saw him, and a good twenty minutes went by before you left. Then, you were gone thirty minutes before nearly getting shot,” Ethan whispered.
