It sounded ungracious, but in the last six months he’d learned that in the Midwest, a lot of people mistook his abrasiveness for being straightforward.It helped explain why Javi’s personality had always been water off a duck’s back…well, some of it.The rest was down to damage.
Grant sucked her teeth and acknowledged, “Fair,” she said.“But a rancher stalled his tractor in the chicken foot down on the access road.Took a minute to get around him.Got here in the end, though, and you can’t argue with results.”
Rain dripped off Javi’s curls as they flattened to his head.He gave the slicker in the trunk a wry look—it was drier than him now—and raked his hand back through his hair.
“Once you get them back to the station and booked, I’ll agree with you,” Javi said.“Anything else, Sgt?”
Moira freed a hand from her hip to point at him.
“Come over to mine this weekend,” she said.“It’s my husband’s birthday, and we’re having a barbecue.Have some good food, meet some people you don’t work with.”
Javi smiled thinly at her.
“I’d love to,” he said.“But I’m hoping to see my boyfriend this weekend.”
Moira raised a gray-streaked eyebrow.“Fair enough,” she said.“It’s an invite, not a command performance, but for the record?Hopingto see someone is a lot less satisfying than my husband’s steaks.”
“You’ve not met my boyfriend,” Javi said.
Moira laughed, waved her hand in a “you win” gesture, and sauntered off.
Shedid—Javi reluctantly admitted to himself—have a point.
He might be thriving on Montana-issue chaos, but the whole long-distance thing was taking its toll.Reading about Cloister’s mouth on him was alotless satisfying than having it on him.
Javi thought about that for a beat.Then he slammed the trunk of the carandthe door to that idea with the same finality.
He had things to do.
Thecowskullmountedon the wall of Javi’s office looked at him mournfully.
Javi finished his paperwork for the night and stared back at it.At some point, he really needed to sort out the work order needed to get that down.It was bolted to the wall.Javi’s predecessor, a Portland export who’d invested heavily in Stetsons and denim when he arrived, only to barely last two years in the post, had told Javi during handover that there was a real problem with skull-rustlers.
He hadn’t been popular.
The skull was a problem for the morning, though.Javi had a date.
Probably.
Maybe.
The “sure” he’d gotten from Cloister when he suggested they chat to firm up plans for their weekend hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic.It had been a day ago as well.Javi resisted the urge to grab some more busy work to pretend that was the only reason he was working late.He checked his phone instead.Still nothing.
His stomach sank.
Javi took a deep breath and gave himself a mental shake.It was a blip.He’d ghosted Cloister for longer than this when he wanted to pretend he didn’t feel anything.Cloister got to have his own doubts.It was just part of being long-distance, having to try and deal with doubts without the warmth of a body against you.
But Javi was going to fix that.
He pulled his drawer open and lifted out the small red velvet box.It weighed nothing, but he held it like it had weight.He opened it carefully and looked at the rings nestled in their cushion.
Over the last few months, he’d wasted hours of various jewelers' time as he tried to decide what sort of ring would say “this is us.”In the end, he’d charmed Joel into sending him the bullet they’d dug out of his calf and had it melted down and made into two plain steel bands.
The sound of a flurry of activity from outside his office made his ears prick up, but he reminded himself he was off the clock.If it was important, someone would come and get him.If it was takeout, he could grab it cold.He flicked the box shut and dropped it back in the drawer, then hesitated with his hand on the wood as he stared at it.
If he was honest, he’d had a few second thoughts about the bullet symbolism, but if he was going to propose in Nevada this weekend, he needed rings, so—
The “ping” of his phone’s notification interrupted him.He turned and grabbed it, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he saw Cloister’s name.He swiped the message open, and it felt like his whole body juststopped.Like he had to be put on pause while his brain tried to absorb the blunt words on the screen.
