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“Don’t be an idiot.” Carter sighs dramatically. “Who am I kidding? You men are all idiots. You can’t be blamed.”
“You are a man, you know. I’ve seen the proof myself.”
“You and Jake are a different breed,” he grumbles. “We shouldn’t talk about this. They have to work it out themselves. We’ll both take our friend’s side and fight, and I really don’t want to fight.”
Travis smiles to himself. “Can’t argue with that.”
“You know, that text had an interesting caption this morning. The one with the picture, I mean.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Carter takes another shaky breath. “It said ‘better come visit soon, your boyfriend is trying out cuddle replacements’.”
Boyfriend. Damn, that word sounds even more beautiful in Carter’s voice. “I’m not replacing you, don’t worry, sweetheart.”
“Maison called you my boyfriend.”
Travis’s stomach flips. Say that again. Say it a hundred times. Say it until I get a ring on your finger and you replace it with husband instead. “I mean, that’s what we are, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Of course. I mean, that’s what you introduced yourself as at the art gallery. We just hadn’t - I mean, we never got around to - to discussing it further.”
“I’d very much like to be your boyfriend,” Travis manages to say through a tight throat, his stomach now flipping for all the wrong reasons. Are they not on the same page? Is boyfriend not the word he’s allowed to use? “But I’d understand if-”
“No,” Carter says quickly. “No, no. No take backs. You’re stuck now, boyfriend.”
Travis laughs in relief. “Good. That’s - fuck, that’s good.”
“Which means you have to come back, Travis.” Carter takes in another shaking breath, and his voice cracks when he continues. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.”
Easiest thing in the entire fucking world. “Always.”
Chapter Twelve
Scott Quinton is terrified. He’s spent the last 24 hours in total darkness, the speakers of his cell alternating between silence and German heavy metal music at full volume. He's naked and dripping wet, in temperatures just warm enough to keep him from going hypothermic. He’s shackled to the ceiling by wrist chains that are stretching him up on his tiptoes, with a metal collar tightly wrapped around his throat and pressed under his chin, forcing him to keep his head at an awkward angle. He's exhausted, starving, thirsty, and - at least right now - crying.
“When are you thinking?”
Travis startles, turning to look over his shoulder at Maison. He’s been staring at the computer screen with the night vision camera on Quinton for long enough that it takes a few blinks before the green-tinted image fades. Maison takes a seat beside him, gaze flicking to the computer, and asks again, “When are you thinking?”
“Soon.” Travis rubs his eyes. He should have slept, but he’s too strung out on what’s to come. “The drug we gave him should have him nice and dried out by now. The hallucinations are coming to an end, too. He’s stopped screaming.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? You’ve done enough, Trav.”
Travis laughs softly. “Jake can’t do it. Keats doesn’t know Quinton or the case well enough. And you… don’t need to."
“Why not?”
“Because this life hasn’t tainted you yet, Maison. Not in the way it’s tainted us. You’ve been kept apart. And I’ve hated you for that at times. And I’m jealous of it at times. But now that I get the chance to protect it, I’m fucking protecting it.”
“I have not been kept apart, you son of a bitch,” Maison growls.
Travis sits back in his chair, sighing. “I’m sorry, wrong wording. You’ve been kept… clean.”
“I-”
“Have you ever raped someone, Mais?”
Maison looks away, his jaw ticking.
