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“You’re not,” Calvin assured him. “How have you been?”
“Would you mind if we talked privately?”
“Not at all. I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me after what happened.”
“You were doing your job.” Felipe motioned over to the bar and a couple of empty stools at the end of it.
Calvin excused himself, telling Ethan he’d be back. He slid his half-empty beer to Ethan to finish off. His best friend looked puzzled by Calvin’s departure, but his attention was quickly commandeered by Dex. Leaving his teammates to their shenanigans—or rather, Dex’s—Calvin joined Felipe at the bar, where they ordered a couple of beers. Calvin patiently waited for Felipe to say whatever was on his mind.
“When I heard Drew was dead….” Felipe swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a moment before seeming to get his emotions in check. He shook his head and let out a soft laugh. When he opened his eyes, they were filled with heartache and pain. “What does it say about me that I miss him? That for the first few seconds when I wake up in the morning, I expect to see him there? I miss a murderer.”
“You miss the guy you fell in love with. The guy you thought he was. When Hogan approached Drew, he should have walked away, or at the very least asked for help. Instead he let Hogan twist him up inside and turn him into a killer. He risked his freedom, his life, you, to follow Hogan. He hadn’t been your Drew for a long time, Felipe.” Calvin put his hand on Felipe’s arm in the hopes of offering him some comfort. “What happened to Drew wasn’t your fault.”
“I keep telling myself that I should have pushed harder. I suspected he was lying to me about where he went, but I didn’t want to believe something was wrong. I was terrified he might be cheating on me.” Felipe wiped a tear from his eye. “It was so much worse.”
Calvin felt for the guy. He really did. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been seeing a therapist to help me work through all this. I feel guilty, thinking if I’d done more, he wouldn’t have involved himself with Hogan. That he’d still be alive, and things might have gone back to how they were. I left the city for a few weeks, to get away from the reporters, the threats, the hate mail, everything. The way people looked at me….” Tears welled in his eyes again. “Like I had killed those people.”
“Hey.” Calvin pulled him into his arms. It wasn’t Felipe’s fault his boyfriend had done what he had. Felipe was a good guy, a Therian teacher who cared about his students and worked with local homeless Therian youth. He didn’t deserve the shit he’d been thrown into. “Drew shut you out. If you’d suspected and gone after him, Hogan might have killed you.”
Felipe nodded and pulled back with a sniff. He thanked Calvin for the tissue he offered, a small smile coming on his face. “Seems like whenever we meet, I end up crying on your shoulder.”
Calvin smiled. He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his THIRDS cards with his name and number on it. After flipping it over, he took one of the pens lying on the bar for signing credit card slips and scribbled his personal cell phone number. “Here.” He handed the card to Felipe. “Anytime you need my shoulder, you call.”
“Thank you. I’d like that.” Felipe tucked the card into his pocket before wiping his eyes. “On a lighter note, how’s your boyfriend?”
“Ah, that. He’s not really my boyfriend. Sort of.” Felipe arched an eyebrow
at him, and Calvin laughed. “Yeah, we THIRDS agents don’t do anything the easy way. Everything I told you about us was true, except the boyfriend part. Ethan and I have been best friends since we were kids. Things changed between us, and that night I left you in your apartment, things got a little heated.”
Felipe’s face went red. “Oh God, he knows about that night?”
There was no way to make it sound less awkward. “He was in the surveillance van listening.”
“He’s an agent as well?” The color in Felipe’s face intensified.
“He’s my partner at the THIRDS.”
Realization seemed to dawn on Felipe. “Was he at the table?”
“Yeah, the tiger Therian sitting next to me.”
Felipe’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God, he must want to punch my lights out.”
If Felipe had been close by that night, it’s possible Ethan might have. Calvin had never seen his partner so pissed off. “Ethan knows the job. He doesn’t hold it against you.” Too much.
Felipe’s expression softened. “From what you’ve told me about him, he sounds like a great guy.”
“He is. We’ve been through everything together. Then, like I told you that night, things changed.” Calvin took a sip of his beer. It wasn’t just the change that had turned everything upside down. It was Ethan’s inability to decide what to do about it.
“Does he feel the same about your relationship?” Felipe asked gently.
“He’s got SM—selective mutism—and social anxiety. Change is really hard for him. Something as big as this…. It’s been difficult for both of us. He hasn’t told me he loves me, but the way he feels about me has definitely changed. I don’t know if he’s ready to put a name to whatever’s going on between us or if he’ll be ready to move forward. I don’t want to push him, so we’ve been taking things slow. Really slow.”
“I can understand how the SM would make things difficult for him. I have a student with SM, though he’s responding well to the behavioral therapy. How long ago was Ethan diagnosed?”
“Late teens. Ethan was always a shy kid, and with everything going on at home, his parents assumed he was quiet. Ethan’s doing better now than when we were kids, but he didn’t take to the therapy as well as his parents had hoped. The therapy definitely helped, but he’s never been able to work past the mutism. He has good days and not so good days. When his anxiety hits him hard, it tears me up. There’s not much I can do for him on those days other than help him feel safe.”
