He pinched the bridge of his nose for a second and wondered if this was it.It had taken a month, but SSA Joel might just have broken him.He had thought if he just held his tongue about being shut out of investigationshe’ddone the groundwork for and did all the scut work she dug up—to the point hesmelledlike burned paper most days—she’d eventually have to accept he was a good agent.
Because hewas.The evidence for that was in every file Joel opened and every informant she tapped.
Six hours of being nice to people, though?That might be the straw that broke his resolve.
“You know what, I bet my dog could beat up any dog in the FBI,” a familiar voice made the combative statement.
Javi opened his eyes and gave Cloister an unamused look.
“That’s juvenile,” he said.
Cloister smirked as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.The worn-white denim slid down over his lean hips with the gesture, a slice of tanned, flat stomach just visible under his worn T-shirt.
“Notice you didn’t say it wasn’t true.”
Javi ignored that as he took in his boyfriend, all six foot three of sleep-deprived cowboy in thrift store clothes that were a choice and not the result of a deputy sheriff's wage.One day, he thought spikily, he was going to have to introduce this man to his parents.
The thought should have horrified him—that was why he’d thought it—but instead all it did was fill him with warm, cow-eyed joy.Every time Javi thought he’d come to terms with loving Cloister Witte, he just managed to find new depths of it to sink to.
It made him want to be cruel.Just to prove that it didn’tmatter.
“The FBI K-9 partnerships are the crème of the working dog training community,” Javi said, the familiar ground of a pre-relationship giving the comment bite.“If we taught Bourneville to drive, she could handle all the calls about raccoons in the crawl spaces without you.It’s not the same level.”
The snark felt good.Javi didn’t much like that about himself, but it was true.Heknewthere were people who didn’t understand what he saw in Cloister—a man who’d never knowingly flout a redneck stereotype—but only the ones who didn’t know them.Everyone else thought that Cloister had settled.Luckily for Javi, though, Cloister would never believe that.His insecurities were too deep-rooted for that.
“Really?”Cloister said as he snapped his fingers over the table.Bourneville responded to the command by getting up on her back legs, paws braced on the FBI runner, and gave him a polite “woof.”Cloister rested his hand against her shoulders.“Say that to her face.”
Bourneville cocked her head to the side expectantly, her ears pricked forward and her eyes intent on him.After a month of Cloister crashing in his apartment—it waslikeliving together, but technically the couch was always made up—Javi had gotten used to the drifts of shed hair, the watchfulness, and the tick-tack of toenails on his wooden floors.Hestillthought the dog looked suspiciously smart sometimes.
If anyoneknewthat Javi didn’t deserve Cloister, it was probably her.
“One day you’ll be replaced by an advanced drone with an olfactory sampling system,” he told her firmly.“So will the FBI’s K-9s, but you first.”
Cloister snorted.“You’d miss us.”
A minute ago, Javi had been determined to carve out some emotional distance for himself, and yet now a passing joke about the possibility made him tense.
“You going somewhere?”he asked, his voice brittle to his own ears despite his best efforts to keep it steady.To cover, he fell back on the usual pretense that none of this mattered.“Because I’ll need my spare key back.”
Cloister, as always, only reacted to the surface level of what Javi said.It was hard to tell if that was deliberate or if things really were just that straightforward for him.
“Oh, don’t worry.I left them in the kitchen when I left for my shift last night,” he said, jerking his thumb over one shoulder in the vague direction of the apartment.“I just need to grab the rest of my stuff and I’ll be out of your hair.”
Or maybe, Javi thought sourly as he felt the unexpected weight-free pitch of his stomach dropping to his boots, Cloister was secretly a devious sadist who’d mastered the art of keeping the upper hand.
“You don’t have to take everything,” he conceded, doing his best to make it sound like he was the one making a concession.“Leave the shampoo, at least.I don’t need you using mine on the dog again.”
Cloister pulled a face.
“Trust me, I wouldn’t make that mistake again,” he said.“She smelled like mango for days.I couldn’t stop her licking herself.”
“It’s blackcurrant.”
Cloister grinned, a crooked flash of humor that faded too quickly.
“You know your fruits,” Cloister said.“You can tell your mom that law schoolwasworth it.”
Javi snorted and reached over the table to grab a handful of Cloister’s T-shirt, some forgotten band’s logo creased between his fingers as he pulled the tall deputy into a kiss.It was meant to be…not exactly discreet, but quick.Instead, the moment dragged out between them, warm and sweet as Cloister’s donut-flavored lips.Javi loosened his grip on the thrifted shirt and slid his hand up over Cloister’s chest and around the back of his neck.His fingers spread over warm skin and the knobbly outline of vertebrae.He could feel the prickle of freshly cropped hair against his fingertips.
