Page 102 of Oddly Fine

Hayes nodded, thinking Beckett’s comments were fairly accurate.

“We’re not here for him,” Hayes gently reminded Beckett.

“I fucking know that,” he snapped—not at Hayes though—but at himself, and at the world. “We’re here because my goddamned brother—the most judgmental man I’ve ever met, decided that Matthew was—what? Redeemable? Like he’s goddamned Florence Nightingale or some shit!”

The outburst was entirely understandable, and Hayes wasn’t sure there was much he could say to refute any of it. There had been so much that happened in such a short time. Beckett wanted to help. He wanted to solve everyone’s problems—but at what cost? A man could only get slammed with so many emotions before he started drowning in them. Like the swell and the undertow of the tides working in concert, repeatedly pulling him under.

“I know,” Hayes said softly as he gently cupped Beckett’s jaw and ran his thumb across Beckett’s cheek. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his blond scruff was getting slightly out of control. Hayes found he quite liked it. “And I don’t want to undermine your—anger, or your frustration, which are—perfectly valid,” he said in a quick disclaimer, kissing Beckett’s forehead and then pulling back to look into his eyes. “But I think we need sleep—and time—and a little distance.”

Beckett bristled at first, as if gearing up for a fight. Hayes pressed another kiss to his forehead, right above the bridge of his nose, in exactly the same spot where Matthew’s uncle had pressed his Glock earlier. Beckett deflated in his grasp, sighing loudly and giving a single nod of acquiescence.

“Alright,” he agreed with a sigh, the fight draining out of him. That alone was a sure sign of his exhaustion. Beckett didn’t back down from a fight. Ever. “Take me to bed then,” he said with a smirk, looking a little more like himself. His pleasant self.

Hayes chuckled and pressed a quick kiss to Beckett’s lips, unable to help himself. As he pulled back, he found his lover’s expression a lot more open now, free of his previous distress and anger—with fat snowflakes catching on his eyelashes and cheeks.

Hayes threw an arm around Beckett’s shoulders and they headed home.

Chapter 18

Hayes was distantly aware of someone whispering next to him. An aggressive kind of whisper, like a weird kind of low level shouting. The pissed off tone penetrated his grogginess more than the volume did.

He sighed as he sat up in bed, beyond annoyed to find that it was barely past 3:00 a.m., yet Beckett was sitting on the floor next to their bed, crammed between the mattress and the wall, his phone pressed to his ear, actively engaged in a heated discussion.

“What if it’s just a tiny bit of—” his boyfriend protested. Hayes hadn’t heard enough of the conversation yet to know what was being discussed, but Beckett was clearly agitated.

“No! No! Dev, I don’t need you to—” Beckett sighed and rubbed at his forehead with his forefinger and thumb. “Okay—yes, I’ll be extra, mega, super, duper careful while placing the loads,” he promised dutifully, as if he was talking to his mother.

Hayes cleared his throat, and Beckett startled, a guilty expression crossing his handsome features.

“Yup, thanks Dev, gotta go, buddy—” he said, quickly ending the call, wearing his most sincere “definitely-innocent-nothing-to-see-here” expression.

“What happened to sleep—and time?” Hayes asked, voice rough from sleep, rubbing his eyes. He didn’t have a clear read on the conversation, but he was 98% sure he wouldn’t be going back to sleep.

“So, you remember when I mentioned throwing the tracker I usually keep in my wallet into that really suspicious-looking truck in the parking garage?”

“You mean the tracker that you absolutely, most definitely did not ever tell me about? Sure, what about it?” Hayes replied, having learned to just—roll with the punches where Beckett was concerned. He had to, for the sake of his sanity, if nothing else.

“Well, the truck’s been parked outside of a factory for the last four hours. Figured we could—” he hesitated, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he thought this through.

“Investigate?” Hayes sighed, resigned to how he’d be spending the rest of his night.

“Exactly,” Beckett agreed, snapping his fingers and adding a bonus of finger guns.

Hayes ran his hands over his face, suppressing the spate of disgruntled curses that so desperately wanted to escape. Instead, he refocused on how he’d been awoken in the first place.

“Why’d you call Devon?” he asked curiously.

“He was our demolitions expert. I wanted to know the approximate amount of C-4 that I might need to blow the lock—”

“Blow the lock? C-4? Where in the hell are we going to get C-4 at 3:00 a.m.?” he asked, this crazy-assed plan of Beckett’s shaping up way too fast for him.

“It’s at the bottom of one of my duffel bags. Have a bunch stashed at my parents’ house for emergencies.”

“You have an emergency stash of C-4?” Hayes asked, clearly sleep-deprived since he knew better than to encourage his partner’s behavior when he began sounding unhinged. Well, more unhinged than usual.

Hayes took a deep breath and cracked his neck. He was stiff and uncomfortable, his body protesting as he stretched slowly. Fuck, he was far too young to feel so damned old.

“Just so I’ve got this straight—you want to go break into a high security vehicle in the middle of the night using an old stash of C-4.”