by A. M. Arthur
Maybe.
He dashed into the gas station’s convenience store for a soda, needing the jolt of caffeine for the trip home. While the drive into San Jose had seemed over too quickly, the drive home took forever and a day. He wanted to weep for joy when he finally turned on the dirt track to the ranch. His body hurt from his grief, and all he wanted was his bed.
Except when he finally reached his cabin, both beds were still pushed together, the sheets rumpled and stained from morning sex. The entire cabin still smelled like Avery. Even though it was October and kind of chilly, Colt threw open the few windows for some fresh air. He considered stripping both beds and shoving them apart when someone knocked.
So not in the mood for visitors, Colt stomped to the door and threw it open. His annoyance vanished when his visitor turned out to be Mack, holding a six-pack of beer. Mack glanced behind him where the two twin beds stuck out from the wall in an obvious way, and his easy smile melted into genuine sympathy.
“Thought you might want to sit and share a beer or two,” Mack said. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Colt’s heart gave a happy twist at the offer. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“Believe me, I know what it’s like watching someone you love get on a plane to leave. Thing is, I knew when Wes would come home.”
“Yeah.”
They settled on the bench outside and cracked open their beers. It was barely after twelve, but Colt didn’t care. He wasn’t working this afternoon, and neither was Mack. They didn’t talk, just drank and existed in silence, the distant sounds of this week’s new guests keeping them company. It reminded Colt of those dark weeks after Geoff’s death, when Mack was grieving. Colt and Reyes were there as often as possible, usually doing nothing more taxing than sitting in silent support of their friend. Standing vigil as Mack mourned his love.
And now Mack, who had every reason to never trust him again, was returning that support, and it meant the absolute world to Colt.
Reyes joined them a while later, but declined a beer. He had to pair guests with their horses in an hour, and he needed a clear head. The bench barely held all three of them, but they sat there a while longer, Colt protectively sandwiched between his two best friends on the planet. For the first time since Colt discovered the truth about the bank shooting, he was completely at ease with Mack and Reyes, because he had no more secrets. They both knew everything, including his relationship with Avery.
He’d nearly lost their friendship once, because he couldn’t be honest, and he’d never make that same mistake again…
* * *
The envelope is shaking, because Colt’s fingers are trembling. He’s finally got the answer, all he needs to do is read it. Read it, and then give Mack the closure he deserves. A wrongful death suit against the city and department doesn’t exactly scream “I’m ready to let this go,” but Mack deserves to know who fired the shot that killed Geoff. Colt pulled a lot of strings and called in every last favor to get this information for his friend.
He’s in his car, outside the precinct, sick to his stomach because of the one-in-three shot it was his bullet. But he can’t think like that. Mack will murder him in his sleep if Colt killed Geoff. No, it has to be Peterman or Beltzer. It’s one of those guys.
He starts to peel the envelope open and slices his fingertip. A paper cut can’t be a good omen. He sucks the blood off his finger and rips again. The folded paper falls out, an illegally obtained copy of the ballistics report on the bullet that killed Geoff Shelton. It’s a lot of numbers and big words, and all Colt needs is the serial number and weapon assignment.
Colt Woods.
No.
He shuts his eyes hard, then opens them again. His name remains on the paper. Reality tilts sideways, and for a moment, Colt can’t breathe. Can’t hear anything over the rush of blood in his temples and the pounding of his own heart.
I did it. My shot killed my best friend’s boyfriend. Fuck!
“Fuuuuuuuck!” Colt slams his first down on the seat beside him, but it does nothing to calm his fear, grief, and rage. He wants to rip up the report and forget he ever read it, but how can he forget something so life altering?
I need Avery. He’ll know what to do.
In the two weeks since their relationship had begun including intercourse, he’s come to rely on Avery for emotional support. He loves surrendering to Avery during sex, and last night he asked about bringing bondage into their bedroom and sex play. Avery hesitated long enough that Colt took it back, which kind of hurt, but Colt gets it. Avery likes to keep BDSM play out of his sex life, but Colt remembers how amazing it feels to combine the two.
But he doesn’t need sex right now, he needs his boyfriend to tell him everything will be okay, because right now, Colt’s life is shattering into irreparable pieces. So he drives across town to Avery’s apartment. Bangs on the door.
It flies open, and a sad, unhappy Avery stands in the doorway. For an instant, Colt thinks he knows. Then Avery’s frown shifts into open concern. “Christ, Colt, what happened? Are you sick? Was there another SWAT incident?”
He pulls Colt into his apartment and a firm hug. Colt wraps his arms around Avery and buries his face into the loose waves of Avery’s long, shiny hair. He wants to get lost in that lovely waterfall of sable and brown, and to never have to face this pain. He can’t. He can’t and he won’t. His body shakes because he can’t cry, and he can’t expel the pain any other way. Avery rubs his back and squeezes him tight.
Eventually, they’re on the couch, wrapped up in each other and a throw blanket. It’s the rainy season, and Colt isn’t wearing a coat. He stormed right through the rain to Avery’s place, and he’s kind of soaked. Avery doesn’t seem to mind.
“Tell me what happened,” Avery says.
Colt doesn’t have the words, so he takes the report out of his pocket and shoves it at Avery. Avery unfolds it and reads. His stunned cry of pain when he finds the damning words makes Colt’s chest ache. “Oh, Colt, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. Fuck.”
“I wanted to give Mack peace of mind, and now I’m going to destroy him. He’ll hate me, and that’ll kill me. And I’ll lose Reyes, too, because they were friends first, and they’re my only family, Avery.”
Avery presses his nose to Colt’s cheek. “You’ve got me, babe. It was an accident. Mack will understand that, given enough time.”
“You don’t know Mack. You can’t say that for sure.”
“I could get to know Mack if you ever introduced me to him.” An odd sharpness to his tone catches Colt’s attention.
“He’s up north now, introductions are a little hard at this point.”
“There is Skype, you know.”
Colt does not need this particular conversation right now. “You really want to meet the guy who’s about to toss me out of his life? Or possibly sue personally for wrongful death?”
“Do you really think he’d do that?”
“No. I don’t know. When Mack gets pissed and holds a grudge, he stays mad at you. Turns into a stubborn old bulldog. Fuck, I should just burn the report and forget I ever saw it.”
“Let me guess.” Avery tilts Colt’s head so they’re eye to eye. “You already thought about it, then realized you can destroy paper, but not a memory?”
“Busted. But it’s not like we see each other regularly, so it’s not really like lying if I don’t tell him. He has no idea I was digging into this in the first place.”
“You’d really keep such a huge secret from your best friend?”
“To save him pain? Yes.”
Avery frowns, his eyes flashing with something unhappy, and Colt remembers how he looked when he first arrived. “Are you okay?” Colt asks.
“Don’t worry about me right now.”
Colt jerks upright. “So something is wrong. What is it?�
��
Avery ponders his twisted fingers for a moment, then sighs. “I was confused by your request last night to add ropes to our sex, so I went to talk to my mother about it. I told her I was dating a man, sleeping with a man, and she…was not happy.”
Annoyance flashes down Colt’s spine. “She wasn’t happy you’re dating a man?”
“Correct. As open-minded as she is about kink, even same-sex kink, she’s stupidly narrow-minded when it comes to same-sex love. She accused me of being infatuated with a new sub, that how could I suddenly love a man when I’ve never even tried dating women. It really hurts that she refuses to accept our relationship.”
“Oh, Avery.” Colt tugged him into an embrace, happy to support his boyfriend for a little while and forget his own drama. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to come between you and your parents.”
“You aren’t,” Avery says to his neck. “You’re the best thing in my life, Colt. I want to build a relationship with you, and if that means bringing bondage into our bed, if it means officially ending your client sessions, then I’m all in.” He lifts his head, eyes bright with emotion. “You make me happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I love you.”
Colt’s heart nearly bursts out of his chest. “I love you, too. I want to build a relationship with you, too. A life together. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Sir.”
“Same. But Colt, I’ll tell you right up front that honesty is my hard limit. If you ever lie to me, and I don’t just mean a little white lie, I mean about something important, then I…I don’t know if I can come back from that. For us to work as a couple, especially a couple that employs kink, we need to be completely honest with each other at all times.”
“I understand.” He told Avery the truth about the ballistics, so maybe that’s enough and Avery won’t push him to tell Mack.
Colt’s so happy, so stupidly in love, and he hopes he can hold on to it all…
* * *
Avery’s flight home seemed to take forever, and it was probably because the woman in the seat next to him had bathed in cheap perfume. His eyes watered from the stuff, and he nearly asked to change seats twice. Instead, he stared out the window and thought of Colt. His beautiful, feisty Colt, who still wasn’t dealing with his trauma because he hated having to rely on his friends for support.
Yes, his friends had survived their own traumas in the past, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t lean on them now. Getting shot was a big fucking deal, and Avery hadn’t managed to speak to Reyes in private about keeping an eye on Colt. Maybe he’d call Mack when he landed, since he stupidly hadn’t thought to get Reyes’s number. If Avery asked Colt for it, he’d want to know why, and Avery couldn’t lie to him. From the start, Avery’s major tenet had been honesty. He wouldn’t break that rule just as they were rekindling things.
He also couldn’t stop thinking about the last word Colt had said to him at the airport: Sir. Not “I love you, too, Avery.” Sir.
The word was an endearment, as much as it was a title, but Avery still struggled with it, because sometimes he wasn’t sure which way Colt was using it. He was always Sir during a scene, but outside of one? The lines were blurring like they never had before. Before, he and Colt had almost constantly kept sex and scenes separated, but from the moment they first fucked in the barn, they’d become entwined.
Maybe his doubts weren’t as much about Colt, as they were about Avery’s own mindset. Maybe Avery had some work left to do, to integrate the way he used to compartmentalize BDSM from his life with the way it was a permanent part of his daily routine now.
Maybe.
LAX was crowded when he arrived, and luggage took ages to arrive. And then he had to wait for a cab in the rain, so he was in a rotten mood by the time he got back to his studio apartment in Northridge. The subletter knew to clear out by yesterday, so there’d better not be anyone still in his place.
He unlocked the door and shoved it open. The odor of old food and urine struck him all at once, and Avery gasped at the state of the place. The kitchen was a mess, with dirty pots and pans filling the sink, the garbage can overflowing, and flies buzzing around. The coffee table was littered with pizza boxes and foam takeout cartons. The taupe couch had stains on it, and so did the ivory carpet. He couldn’t make himself look at the bedroom area or bathroom.
Temper sizzling, Avery called the work acquaintance who’d referred the subletter and gave them a piece of his mind over the state of his apartment. The woman apologized over and over, and she agreed to share the cost of a cleaning service, because Avery wanted his place sterilized. He went directly to a hotel, too disgusted to stay in his own fucking apartment tonight. For years, he’d sublet his apartment if he was away for an extended period, and never before had he come home to such a mess.
No more. The place can sit empty.
His hotel had a restaurant, so Avery took his tablet down to the bar, ordered a glass of red wine, and settled in to check his work email. Copied information on different projects, questions about his research, mostly general stuff. The only interesting one was from the dean of his department, asking if Avery could take on an online American history course for the spring semester.
He genuinely didn’t mind doing online teaching, because he didn’t have to stand in a lecture hall full of students with fifty-odd pairs of eyeballs on him. The workload was similar, but the human interaction part nonexistent. He liked that. And it was a course he could teach remotely, if he happened to get another consultation gig. So he sent back his agreement to teach the course.
It was his favorite subject, after all.
With work taken care of, Avery shut off the tablet, sipped his wine, and thought about his other favorite subject: Colt. He’d flown to Garrett the first time in order to observe a discovered ghost town, and he’d been shocked as hell to run into Colt in the guesthouse kitchen. Then a few weeks later, he’d been angry that Colt denied them a friendship, after being the one to disappear all those years ago.
Avery never expected his three-month consultation gig would end with him in love with Colt all over again, both of them making promises to work things out. To make long distance work for them, so they could have their happily ever after.
“So what’s her name?” a stranger asked.
Avery looked to his left where a man his age sat on the stool beside him, an old-fashioned glass of something amber in his hand. “I’m sorry?”
The man grinned, showing off perfectly white teeth and dimples. “My assumption. You had this dreamy look on your face, so I assumed you were thinking of a beautiful woman. Am I wrong?”
Avery wasn’t much for trotting out his social life in front of strangers. “Yes, you are. I’m here to enjoy a glass of wine and unwind, not find conversation.”
“Understood. Enjoy your evening.” The man moved a few stools down.
This was why Avery didn’t like to drink in bars. Perhaps he’d been rude in running the man off, but he hadn’t come here to chat with people. He wanted to brood over wine about leaving Colt, and then coming home to a trashed apartment. The hotel room and cleaning service hadn’t exactly been in his budget, but Mack was a generous boss and Avery wasn’t in financial straits just yet.
Not for the first time, he wondered if the expense of Los Angeles was worth it. Sure, the San Francisco area probably wasn’t much cheaper, but it was a hell of a lot closer to Colt and the ranch he’d come to adore.
Nope, not thinking like that just yet.
No, they needed at least six months before Avery believed Colt could truly manage being apart for so long. And Avery needed it, too, because Colt had reawakened a part of Avery that he’d buried years ago. The inner Dom who got off on tying Colt up, watching that lovely tanned skin covered in intricate knots and patterns. Seeing Colt completely helpless, but also in a state of total trust and bliss.
His fingers it
ched for a length of rope.
Avery drained his first glass of wine, and then ordered another.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Three weeks passed in a strange kind of blur for Colt. He threw himself into his work at the ranch, which he was back at one hundred percent to do, despite the occasional phantom pain in his back. Sometimes he entertained bitterness over not being able to work on the ghost town restoration, but he also understood why Mack didn’t want to work alongside him every day.
They were slowly coming back together as friends, occasionally sharing beers in the evening, but still not really talking. Colt would take it, though. Any gesture from Mack was a new lifeline to their old friendship.
And Avery. Not being able to touch and kiss him every day hurt, but they Skyped every evening. Sometimes Colt brought his dinner back to the cabin, so they could “eat together.” Often, they’d put on the same movie and watch it “together.” A few times, when Avery was feeling particularly frisky, they’d jerk off.
He also still kept in touch with Derrick Massey every once in a while. Derrick sent funny Snapchat messages and texts, and he invited Colt to come out on Saturday nights to hang. Colt politely declined each invitation, even though a night out drinking and dancing kind of sounded nice. He hadn’t been clubbing in months, and it would be a good way to work out his internal frustration over being apart from Avery.
On Saturday afternoon, less than ten minutes after that week’s guests had been taken down to their cars, Colt’s phone rang. He grinned at the name. “Hey, you,” he said.
“Hello,” Avery replied in a cheerful voice. “How are you today?”
“About the same as I was when we chatted this morning. Working hard and missing you.”
“Same, but that’s not why I called.”
“Oh?” Colt was intrigued.
“I’m calling to inform you that you’re going to be kidnapped into the city by Robin and Reyes this evening, so you can blow off some steam.”
