“What the hell happened?” Nick demanded.
“He freaked. I don’t know. He won’t talk to me. I figured you have the rapport with him, he might respond.”
Nick nodded, frowning at the bathroom door, then glancing over his shoulder at Kelly. “Uh, Kels, this is Detective Alan Hagan, my partner. He’s useless when I’m supposed to have the night off.”
Kelly shook the man’s hand, introducing himself. He didn’t offer his relationship to Nick, though. That was Nick’s job, and frankly, Kelly didn’t know how sensitive the subject was for him. He knew Nick had come out as bi to basically everyone in his life not long after he’d come out to Kelly. How everyone had handled it, Nick had never said.
“You’re the boyfriend?” Hagan asked as he shook Kelly’s hand. “O talks about you all the damn time.”
Kelly flushed, clearing his throat and smiling uncontrol ably. He glanced at Nick again. He wasn’t sure why he kept being surprised by how open Nick was about their relationship. He knew Nick hated secrets, hated having them especially. He should have known Nick wouldn’t hide him.
Hide them.
Nick had his ear against the bathroom door. He knocked gently. “Hey, bud, it’s Detective O’Flaherty,” he called, keeping his voice low and soothing. “You okay in there?”
The response was muffled, but from the way Hagan raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, it was more response than he’d been receiving.
“Come closer to the door, we can’t hear you,” Nick called.
He waited, holding his breath. There was a thump against the door and he moved away a little like he hoped the man was opening it.
“I’m sorry,” the voice said from the other side. “I’m sorry I freaked out. I just . . .”
Nick leaned his shoulder into the doorjamb. “Hey, it’s okay. You got every right to be freaking out, we all know that.
If you feel safer in there, you go ahead and stay, okay? That’s all we want is for you to feel safe right now.”
Nick paused, and his eyes met Kelly’s. He smiled gently and winked. Kelly bit his lip to keep from smiling at such an inappropriate time. He’d seen Nick talk dozens of frightened young Marines down from panicking. He could be soothing, if he chose to be.
“I would like to know what scared you, though,” Nick continued. “Do you feel like telling me?”
“Do you have kids, Detective?” the man in the bathroom asked.
Nick frowned in confusion. “No.”
“I figured you might have toddlers or something. You’re talking to me like one right now.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed, and he gave the door an insulted frown. “Fine! So how about you get your ass out of the bathroom and we’ll talk like adults.”
Hagan inhaled sharply, and the guard on the door tensed.
The man in the bathroom was silent. Kelly winced when it seemed like Nick’s tactic had backfired, but then they heard soft laughter through the door.
The lock clicked and the door edged open. Kelly had sort of expected a neurotic-looking little bald guy in glasses or something, but the man who peered out was maybe six feet tal , just an inch or two shorter than Nick. He was wiry and fit, with a healthy tan and shaggy blond hair that had obviously been bleached by time in the sun. His eyes were a blue that seemed Photoshopped. Fuck, he was kind of Nick’s type.
Nick was still leaning against the doorjamb, one eyebrow raised at the man. “Touché, Detective,” the blond man said.
Nick nodded, crossing his arms smugly.
The guy glanced at Hagan. “Sorry.”
“Hey, I get it. Don’t hurt my feelings any. People always like him better.”
The guy’s eyes landed on Kelly, and Kelly tried to offer him a comforting smile even though he still had no clue what was going on.
“JD, this is my partner, Kelly Abbott,” Nick said as he waved his hand in Kelly’s direction. “Kels, this is our witness who doesn’t know who he is.”
“Seriously?” Kelly whispered.
“I thought . . . I thought Detective Hagan was your partner,” JD said, frowning and looking between them.
“Partner,” Nick said gently, pointing at Hagan. Then he transferred the finger to Kelly. “Boyfriend. You want to sit down and tell me what happened?”
JD cleared his throat and nodded, glancing again at Kelly and Hagan as a flush rose to his cheeks.
“Guys, give us a minute, huh?” Nick said as JD headed for the beds in the hotel room. Nick stopped and took Kelly’s arm, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry, this’ll be a couple minutes.”
“It’s okay.” Kelly’s heart was still fluttering from the fact that Nick had so readily claimed him in front of anyone and everyone, from the possessive glint in Nick’s eyes. He would have sat out in the hall waiting all night just to see that glint in Nick’s eyes again.
He headed out of the room with Hagan, glancing back to see JD sitting on the end of one of the beds and Nick settling onto the dresser opposite him so they could talk. He looked very professional about it, if you discounted the sweatpants that were drenched at the bottom and the plastic flip-flops he was wearing.
The door fell closed and Kelly was left with the two cops in the hallway. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and bounced up onto his toes. “So!” he said cheerfully.
“This is fun.”
“This guy’s a fucking basket case,” Hagan grunted. “Might be here awhile. Want some coffee?”
Kelly shook his head and leaned his back against the wal .
He slid down to sit, propping his arms against his knees. If there was one thing spec ops knew how to do, it was sleep sitting up.
Nick kept crossing his arms and then forcing himself to stop, resting his hands in his lap instead. He didn’t want to give off body language that said he was irritated, impatient, or closed off. It was hard, though, when he was going on a few hours’ sleep and had been interrupted during what was supposed to have been an entire weekend alone with Kelly.
“What happened?”
“I had a dream,” JD said with a helpless shrug. “I woke up in a panic, bolted for the bathroom, and sat in the tub until I could breathe.”
Nick nodded, his expression carefully neutral. “You remember the dream?”
JD shook his head, wincing. He was wringing his hands, rocking a little. “I feel stupid. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry they called you down here.”
“Hey.” Nick leaned closer, lowering his voice. “People aren’t built for this kind of stress, all right? You handle it however you can, no shame in that.”
JD sniffed and laughed ruefully. “Have you ever woken up in a bathtub, Detective?”Nick opened his mouth and then closed it fast, looking over JD’s head as the memory flashed through his mind. “Yes.
But I was hungover and . . . not alone. My point, though, is that waking up and bolting for safety is nothing to be ashamed of. I wake up swinging all the time. I tried to kill my boyfriend with a TV remote one time, so . . . I get where you’re coming from. There’s no shame in fear.”
JD took in a shaky breath and rubbed a hand over his face.
“You still can’t remember anything?”
“I think I dreamed about the bookstore. I was there.” JD shook his head. “But then we knew that already, huh? All I remember is something about a book, I don’t know.”
Nick had his Moleskine pad out, jotting down notes. He nodded for JD to continue talking as he wrote.
“I think . . . I felt like I wasn’t in the right place, you know? Like I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there. I couldn’t get away though.”
Nick made an asterisk and wrote out the possibility that JD had been forced to accompany someone to the robbery.
He glanced up to find JD rocking faster. It was a habit he was familiar with, and it usually signified it was time to switch topics. “Okay. Tell you what, bud, why don’t you try to get some rest tonight. Monday morning I’m hoping I’ll have some pictures to show you; we’ll see if they jog anything else loose.”
JD nodded.
“I’ve also got someone running down your prints, going through missing persons reports. By morning, those results should be back.”
JD tensed, glancing up to meet Nick’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“What if they come in and tell you I’m someone horrible?”
A pang of sympathy hit a little too close to home. It was one thing to struggle with your humanity. It must have been torturous to do so without the benefit of past actions or even past thoughts to back up your conclusions.
“I can’t imagine it will,” he offered gently. He leaned forward and patted JD on the knee. “Try to get some rest, okay? I’m going to call Hagan back in and—”
“You can’t stay, can you?” JD blurted. When Nick raised an eyebrow at him, he paled, looking shocked that he’d spoken at al . “I mean . . . he’s nice and al , but you’re the only person I’ve felt comfortable with. I . . .”
Nick had to fight hard not to groan. He always managed to pick up the strays somehow. He shook his head, feeling guilty for blowing off such a sincere request because he wanted to go home and fuck his boyfriend. “I’m sorry, we can’t just switch things up without reporting it and giving a compelling reason to do it.”
JD lowered his head, looking crestfallen. He nodded, though, and took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“You good for tonight?”
JD nodded again, more confidently this time. “I’m good.”
Nick sat with him for a few more minutes, letting him know he was merely a call away, that he’d be right back on the case on Monday, and there was nothing to worry about as long as he stuck with Hagan or one of the officers assigned to their door.
“I’m sorry I brought you out so late. Tell your boyfriend I’m sorry too; this must be weird for him.”
“We met in Recon,” Nick said. “He’s used to weird.”
He stood and gave JD’s shoulder a last pat before heading for the door. When he stepped into the hal , Hagan was leaning against the wal , his head back and his mouth open as he snored. Kelly had fallen asleep sitting ramrod straight against the wall right beside the door.
Nick snorted and glanced at the uniformed officer, who was sitting in his chair with a cup of coffee and giving Nick a smirk. “Are you guys the cavalry?”
Hagan jerked and snorted, shaking his head as he woke.
“I’m awake.”
Nick chuckled and nodded, stepping aside so Hagan could get back into the room. “I told him you’d call me if anything came up.”
“You got it, brother. You deal with this shit better than me,” Hagan said, and then stumbled toward his bed and flopped into it.
Kelly was still sitting with his back against the wal , blinking up blearily at Nick.
“You can fall asleep in under five minutes sitting in the hal way of a hotel, but you can’t sleep in my nice soft bed on my boat.”
Kelly licked his lips and reached up for Nick to help him to his feet. “Maybe we should sleep on the flybridge again,” he said as they headed for the elevators. “I slept like a baby up there on that pool float with Ty that one time.”
Nick snorted and jabbed at the elevator button. “We’re getting a hotel.”
“So, tell me about this case. The witness has amnesia?”
Kelly asked in the car on the way back to the Boston Harbor Marina. He’d tried as long as he could to keep out of it, but he was just too curious.
“Yeah, he took a bullet to the back of the head. Doctors said it’s either physical damage or shock of some kind.”
“Kind of like that time I got kicked in the head by that goat.”
Nick burst out laughing. “Yeah, kind of like that.”
Kelly glanced at him, admiring his profile. He still owed Nick for that. They’d been on a mission when they’d taken cover in a gully that just happened to be sheltering several goats, including one territorial billy goat who’d taken a shot at Kelly’s head. He’d woken up as they’d been carting him back to camp, and Nick had convinced him he was a Bible salesman from Oklahoma who’d gotten fresh with the livestock and paid for it with a hoof. Kelly’d believed it for two whole hours before his memory came back. He still had trouble looking at goats without flashes of completely unwarranted guilt.
“Asshole,” Kelly muttered.
Nick very nearly giggled before he got himself under control. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. We don’t know if he has any solid information or not, we don’t even know who he is.”
“Could he be one of the robbers? Got knocked out at the scene and just pulled something out of his ass when he woke up rather than going to jail?”
“It’s a real possibility, yeah. That’s the other reason we’ve got him under protection.”
“Oh. Smart.”
“Indeed,” Nick drawled, throwing Kelly a sly smirk before he turned his eyes back to the road.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in detective mode. It’s kind of . . . sexy.”
Nick merely smiled. Kelly watched him, pondering the silence that fell between them. It wasn’t uncomfortable. It never had been, not from the first moment they’d met. It could sometimes be heavy, though, especially during the months after Nick had returned from his POW experience in Afghanistan.
This silence was something different. It was easy and light, devoid of expectation. Kelly liked it. But he could sense that Nick had more on his mind than the next few weeks with him.