Page 24 of Oddly Fine

“Need to take a leak—and stuff,” he said, cutting him off and winking playfully as if Hayes couldn’t see the very obvious, impressive bulge he was sporting.

It was on the tip of Hayes’ tongue to make another offer to take care of that for him, but then changed his mind. If Beckett wanted to play hard to get, then Hayes would let him and wait him out. Beckett would break eventually. He always did.

“Remember: if it moves, it dies—we’ll worry about the paperwork later,” Beckett advised solemnly, as if quoting an established rule, then vanished into the darkened passage.

Hayes sighed and thunked his head against the wall out of sheer frustration. Sometimes, when Hayes thought about it—really thought about it—he got confused as to how he’d gone from being a highly regimented, straight, single guy, to being in a fully committed relationship with the most cavalier yet incredibly volatile man this side of the equator. Had he been hit upside the head with a fucking shovel at some point and simply—forgotten the event?

Chapter 5

Beckett wouldn’t say he was losing his mind to boredom—mostly because of his having had extensive experience losing his mind on a number of previous occasions, so he was not inclined to use that expression lightly. Nevertheless, he felt as if he was skating dangerously close to reaching that point.

They’d been on this stupid stakeout for three days now. The excitement had worn off not long after the first two hours of fluffing sleeping bags followed by giving Hayes a blow job. It was all downhill after that. At this point, he was more than ready to walk out and tell Agent Cho to stuff her missing thieves and millions where the sun didn’t shine.

He didn’t—of course. Mainly because Hayes wouldn’t let him and because, technically, he really did like his job. They weren’t on thin ice with Gill—but they weren’t exactly in his good graces either. There had been several incidents in recent months that involved emergency rescues by their boss, unfortunately. While Gill didn’t appear to harbor any resentment towards them afterwards, Beckett figured Gill would tire of dealing with them eventually. Well, maybe not Hayes, but Beckett was another story. He loved blowing shit up. His personal philosophy in life was that causing chaos was perfectly acceptable as long as the job got done and no one got hurt. However, when Gill had to send his husband Riley to New York City to save their sorry asses—well, there was little doubt that Gill’s gauge of Beckett’s inherent value moved from “worth-the-pain-and-aggravation” towards “maybe-I-oughta-kick-their-asses-to-the-curb.” So, in order to avoid fucking with where his ass was currently positioned on Gill’s gauge, he vowed to remain optimistic while facing another night in this God-forsaken place.

On a lighter note, at least he was getting some decent sleep out of this deal. Well acquainted with sleeping on rocks and dirt in government-issued sleeping bags, he found these rough conditions almost comforting. Hayes, on the other hand, apparently did not share this perspective. He hadn’t slept well at all. He hadn’t whined or moaned about it, but then again he wasn’t one to complain about much of anything. Well, except for Beckett’s reckless disregard for his health and safety whenever they were in the field. And also his tendency to leave his unwashed dishes in the sink. But, other than those two things, Hayes could never be accused of being a Wendy Whiner.

“What’d you want to have for dinner?” Beckett asked while rifling through what was left in their box of field rations. “We got—burrito bowls, or—this one says chicken balls, but I’m betting it’s a typo—ain’t no way they’re serving actual chicken balls, right?” He held up the mud brown, plastic-wrapped mystery meal with a skeptical frown.

But Hayes didn’t answer him as he stared fixedly at his service weapon like it had suddenly turned bright pink and sprouted wings.

“Did you forget how to load it or something?” Beckett teased, as he wondered why Hayes was so focused on his weapon.

Hayes finally looked up, realizing that Beckett had been talking to him. There was something dark in his expression—not entirely unfamiliar to Beckett, just a look that he hadn’t seen recently.

“Everything alright?” Beckett asked, becoming concerned. It was usually Beckett’s job to lose his sanity and go berserk, but Hayes had also seen combat in several war zones—so he was certainly entitled to lose his shit too. But why he was going off the rails here and now was baffling.

“Fine,” Hayes replied with a sharp nod.

“Try again, Nancy,” Beckett said with a snort. “Maybe come up with more than one word next time—really sell it!” He dropped the unopened MRE back on the table, parked his ass on the edge, and crossed his arms while giving Hayes a searching look.

“It’s nothing—just reflecting,” he responded vaguely with a dismissive shrug.

A year ago—hell, just six months ago—Beckett might have let the subject drop. They’d worked well together from the start, respecting each other’s privacy and not meddling in each other’s affairs. But, if the past three months of enjoying their committed relationship had taught Beckett anything at all, it was that a romantic relationship could not continue to operate under those conditions. Try as they may, the moment they’d decided to call each other more than work partners, they’d forfeited that right to privacy. Keeping shit inside didn’t just fuck with their minds—it was dangerous in other ways as well, which could be attested to by the barely-healed scar on Hayes’ sternum from a poorly aimed shot. Beckett would happily give Hayes all the space and time he needed to brood and bitch to his heart’s content, but he needed Hayes to provide the reason for it first.

“Never heard of that—what’s it entail?” Beckett hoped that some gentle prodding would get the ball rolling and open the lines of communication. Hayes smiled, albeit reluctantly. It did funny things to Beckett’s gut when he did that.

“Just thinking about how my life might have turned out if I had never picked up a gun.”

While Beckett was glad he’d spoken up, this comment really threw him for a loop.

“What would it have changed? Thought you became a SEAL because of your father and all that.”

Hayes nodded while continuing to stare at his gun.

“Sure—but I trained as a SEAL because I knew I could shoot,” Hayes confessed with a humorless smile. “Never actually thought about going that route until my uncle handed me a gun one day and told me to aim at a row of tin cans he’d stacked on a log.”

Normally, Beckett would have entertained this train of thought just for the hell of it. But this was the second time recently that Hayes had broached the topic of their job as if he was having doubts or regrets. That was very disturbing. He was entirely confident that their relationship was based on a whole lot more than their partnership on the job, but if Hayes walked away from this—if he decided to reinvent himself, would there still be a place in Hayes’ life for Beckett’s chaos? Or would Hayes grow to resent him? Would Beckett be forced to follow him to keep him in his life? He felt a weird twinge near his heart.

“Okay, but you did pick up the gun, though.” Then Beckett posed a question that was undeniably self-serving. “What’s the use in pondering what could have been?”

Perhaps that was a tad harsher than he’d intended it to be because Hayes frowned briefly before his expression cleared.

“I’m not walking away,” Hayes said, like he was a goddamned mind reader. As usual.

Beckett squirmed inwardly and hastily schooled his features to look entirely unconcerned.

“I know,” Beckett lied instinctively. Neither one was fooled by his blatant efforts to appear indifferent.