Unbreak My Heart (Heroes of Port Dale Book 4)

by Romeo Alexander

  “I look forward to having the next couple of days off,” Blaine offered as a change of topic.

  “Why’s that?” Eric asked.

  “I need to get some things for my apartment, so it doesn’t look like a bum lives there. Also thinking I need to find a watering hole. I hear there’s some good bars around here.”

  “A couple.”

  Blaine pulled on his pants. “Which is as good a reason as any to figure them out. I’m going to be living here a while, so might as well.”

  It was moments like this, where Blaine felt something he could only call hope. When Eric could talk to him without sounding like he’d rather headbutt a cactus repeatedly. Maybe they would never be more than friendly coworkers, but that could be enough.

  And maybe he could tuck a certain ring away out of sight at home, instead of leaving it on the table.

  Eric cleared his throat. “I know a good one.”

  Blaine cocked his head. “Yeah? Where?”

  Eric’s gaze shifted to his shoes, studying them intently. “I can show you.”

  Reaching for his bag, Blaine froze. “Oh?”

  “Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Eric snapped.

  “Okay.”

  “But you said you wanted to be friendly partners. And sometimes, partners go out for drinks together.”

  “Right.”

  “So, I’m offering to take you out to a decent place.”

  Okay, maybe they were doing better than he’d originally thought. Sure, it looked like Eric was swallowing a whole lemon, but he was still offering. Blaine had to fight to keep his mouth from curling upward.

  Same old Eric.

  “Sure. What time?” Blaine asked, keeping his tone light.

  Eric stood up. “I’ll text you the address. Meet me at eight. And don’t be fucking late.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Blaine told him, watching him stomp off.

  It was only as he heard the door leading to the stairwell slam shut that Blaine realized Eric had never told him what he was doing in the locker room.

  Eric

  The quiet hum of the bar was a direct contrast to the nerves jumbling around in his gut. The thought of pulling out his phone to check the time sounded like a bad idea. There weren’t too many people in the bar, but he didn’t need what few there were to see him nervously checking his phone like he was afraid his date had stood him up.

  He wrinkled his nose at the thought. All he’d done was invite Blaine out for a couple of friendly drinks. It wasn’t precisely what the chief and Sean had been hinting at when they’d all but chewed him out for being an ass. He wasn’t necessarily agreeing with them, but Blaine had made a good point, they needed to work together peacefully. He wasn’t quite sure if inviting the man out for drinks counted, but it was something at least.

  And at least the bar was a better place than a club.

  He looked around, taking in the atmosphere, and breathing deep. The lights were low, and the noise of the city outside was drowned out by the thick wood and glass that made up the outer walls. Most of the people were either sitting in pairs at the bar or in their own booth, speaking quietly. It was the sort of place Eric preferred, quiet, with the low murmur of conversation mingling with the gently playing music in the background.

  Frowning down at the coaster in front of him, he spun it thoughtfully. He actually didn’t know if Blaine would have preferred a more noisy environment. The loudest thing in the bar was the two guys sitting in the booth next to his. Eric had glanced at them as he’d taken the one next to them, but they’d barely paid him any attention. They were good looking, though he was pretty sure the dark-blond man was trouble, if the smile on his face was any indication. They seemed far happier playing footsie under the table with one another than paying attention to him, though.

  His head jerked up at the sound of the door opening, letting the noise of the street in with a sharp burst. Twisting around in his booth to face the door he forgot himself, his anger and bitterness, as Blaine stopped just inside the entrance. He’d gone casual, the sleeves of his long-sleeve shirt pulled up past his elbows, the collar low and showing off his collarbone. Eric’s eyes drifted over the hollow of Blaine’s neck, then down over his powerful forearms. Drifting further down, he wryly thought the man’s jeans would have probably been loose and comfortable on someone else, but on Blaine, they hugged his strong thighs tightly.

  Blaine’s eyes swept the bar, his serious expression lightening when he spotted Eric in the corner booth. Eric remembered himself just long enough not to wave at his partner, reducing it to a sharp motion to invite Blaine over. He’d taken the corner booth for them and had left the bench with its back to the wall open for Blaine. Eric hadn’t missed Blaine’s choice of desk, and he’d noticed how Blaine preferred to place himself when he was in public.

  “You’re late,” Eric grunted when Blaine walked over.

  Blaine’s eyes moved to the clock above the bar, and chuckled softly. “Bar time. I’m early.”

  Eric grimaced, forgetting that some bars liked to set their clocks ahead. Easier to boot drunk customers out if the clock read as being well past closing time. A quick look at his phone told him it wasn’t twenty past eight, but ten till.

  He grunted. “It’s normally twenty minutes. Forgot about that.”

  Blaine hummed as he set his arms on the table to lean forward. “Not like you to forget a detail like that.”

  “I’m allowed a few,” Eric told him.

  “True.”

  Eric swallowed back first the hint of ease trying to wiggle its way into his system, and then the anger at the relaxation. Blaine looked good, he sounded good, and just his presence was enough to unwind Eric’s normally taut and constantly firing nerves. It had always been like that, even from the first moment they’d met under the tree.

  Eight years should have been enough to rid himself of that, and before Blaine had shown up, Eric was convinced it had died. Sitting across from him at some quiet little bar was a very good sign that it had not died at all, only been slumbering away. Eric had to quietly remind himself that Blaine had been the one to leave, knowing what it would mean to Eric. He had known damn it.

  “Eric?” Blaine asked softly.

  Eric grunted. “Thinking, ignore me.”

  “Lost in the forest of your thoughts,” Blaine supplied.

  Eric grimaced at the old private joke they’d shared. Instead of commenting, he waved down a passing server. He never did understand how a bar that never seemed to have all that many patrons could afford to stay open for so long, let alone afford servers. The woman came over, taking their orders before slipping away.

  Blaine leaned back, one hand resting on the table to drum his fingers lightly. “I wondered what sort of place you might pick. Looking around, I really shouldn’t have, this suits you.”

  Eric narrowed his eyes. “Meaning?”

  Blaine shrugged, thanking the woman when she returned with their drinks. “You don’t like a lot of noise.”

  “I don’t like people,” Eric said, snagging his drink and sipping.

  “One thing I always noticed was how you liked being around them, you just didn’t like being with them. You never went far from the lunchroom back in school, choosing a hallway outside where you could still be close. You could close the office door completely to keep people out, but you don’t. You choose a bar where there are still people, but they’re quiet and don’t mess with you.”

  Eric blinked slowly over the rim of his glass at his partner, too stunned to be angry. Despite his insistence to the contrary, he’d always known that Blaine had known him. How could he not after being so close for years? He’d never heard Blaine speak so openly about what he’d seen, however.

  “Uh,” Eric tried, realizing that he didn’t actually have something to say.

  Blaine either didn’t notice or ignored it, eyes looking over the bar. “That’s okay though, it’s a good place. Quiet, almost homey. Drinks aren’t too
bad either. Feels like the kind of place you’d go with someone else or a small group of people. Somewhere to just...be.”

  Now he was waxing the existential? Eric knew the drinks in the bar were pretty strong for their low price, but there was no way Blaine was feeling it quite yet. He could only stare at his partner as they sipped their drinks in silence.

  Blaine motioned for another pair of drinks, smiling. “I remember being told that I would miss all the noise and activity when I became a civilian. And that I’d miss all the structure, that I’d be like a babe in the woods, stumbling around and not sure what to do with myself.”

  Eric had heard of a similar issue from others. “And?”

  Blaine shrugged. “It was weird, at first. You get so used to knowing when you’re going to be up, what you’ll be doing, reporting every little thing that you do. Sure, it’s the military and everything likes to go tits up or break down, but that’s expected too. But coming back, being civilian? It was only weird for the first couple of months. Then I got used to it. Then I got to like it.”

  Eric nodded, not really sure if he understood all that much. He couldn’t tell if Blaine had liked the regimented life and had just grown to like civilian life, or if he’d missed civilian life without realizing it. Blaine had always been good at adjusting to whatever was thrown his way, adaptable to Eric’s stubbornness.

  “Okay,” Eric said slowly. “Then...why here? Port Dale. Being a cop, all of it.”

  “Well, I’d been sitting around doing absolutely nothing with myself for months. That was the weirdest part, just drifting. I didn’t have a purpose anymore, anything to...distract me. You spend most of your adult life with a sense of duty, knowing you’ll have something to do. Have it taken away, and you start to lose your mind a little bit.”

  “Right, doesn’t really answer my question.”

  “Because I liked Port Dale from the few times I’d come up here from Carson. Because I still wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. Plus, it wasn’t like I could keep staying on my parent’s couch.”

  Eric cocked his head, hearing a faint sour note in Blaine’s voice. “Blake?”

  Blaine shrugged. “He’s got a life of his own. He didn’t need me lingering around his house. I needed to get my own life, so I found one.”

  Eric took another drink. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt that you’re used to being shot at. Comes in handy occasionally on this job.”

  Eric’s mind was all too happy to supply him with the images of a still wet Blaine, covered only by what he would have sworn was the smallest towel possible. The man’s torso seemed like it had gone on forever, with just a soft patch of pale blond hair. Eric had been livid to see the marks across Blaine’s skin, reminders of just how stupid the man had been to throw himself in the face of danger like he obviously had for eight years. Worse, his initial reaction to the scars hadn’t been anger at all.

  “True,” Blaine said, cutting through Eric’s thoughts before his pants could grow tighter.

  Eric cleared his throat. “So, how much have you gotten out since you moved here?”

  “Ehhh, not a whole lot. I’ve done some wandering around my neighborhood, but haven’t really done much more than that.”

  “That’s a shame, there’s some good places around here you might like,” Eric told him.

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “Well, that depends, do you want to see tourist traps or the real shit?”

  “What could count as a tourist trap around here? It’s a city.”

  Eric snorted. “Well, the place is full of ‘I heart Port Dale’ shit in plenty. Go to the boardwalk, and you’ll find loads of them. Or you can just go to the heart of the city and find the overpriced clubs, that counts.”

  “And the real stuff?”

  “Dig hard enough, and you can find some good shit. The little Asian themed market by the factories has the greatest seafood you’ve ever seen. And sure, we’ve got big theatres here, putting on the shit that’s popular, but you’d be stupid if you didn’t catch a midnight showing of ‘Taming of the Shrew’ down at Le Hops.”

  Blaine snorted. “There’s a theatre called Le Hops?”

  “Nope, it’s a dive bar that the drunk and broke theatre students go to all the time. Pretty sure those assholes are the only reason that piece of shit is still open.”

  “How amazing that you can somehow manage to both praise and insult in the same breath.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  Eric hoped his relief at the change in topic didn’t show as he fell into conversation. It was easier to talk about the tourist traps and lesser-known places with Blaine than it was to talk about the past. In fact, the more Eric talked, describing a park that had monthly art fairs, or about the annual salt block sculpture contest the city held, the easier it was.

  It had always been easy to talk to Blaine; it was one of the first things that drew Eric to him. Some part of him had suspected it would be the case again if he allowed that door to open. Despite the years of distance, and everything Blaine had probably seen and done, there was still an undeniable air of calm about him. It drew Eric in, allowing him to chat and even softly laugh a few times, as the time ticked by.

  Blaine stared down at his latest drink, tapping the rim. “When did Sean start living here?”

  Eric blinked at the sudden swerve in topics. “Uh, a couple of years back.”

  “That before or after you moved here?”

  “After. I’ve been here for six years. First was spent at the academy, then the next five at our precinct.”

  “And you spent those five years with your last partner?”

  Eric’s good mood began to crumble, gripping his glass tightly. “Yes. Why are you asking this?”

  Blaine looked up, eyes widening. “What? Why wouldn’t I? I want to know about you.”

  Eric’s jaw tightened. “You mean what you missed.”

  “I...you could put it that way, yeah.”

  “Because you were gone.”

  Blaine sighed heavily. “Eric...please.”

  Well, his good mood was officially dead and buried. Eric scowled at his partner, wishing the man had just stayed on the far safer topic. Now he was half-drunk and being dragged right back to the eight years he’d spent without Blaine.

  Blaine groaned. “And there’s that look again.”

  “What look?” Eric asked hotly.

  “The one you get where you shut right down and snarl at anyone who tries to talk to you.”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “Case and point.”

  Eric drained the rest of his drink with hurried gulps. “Look, Blaine. I know you’re trying to make nice and be buddy-buddy, but our conversation before was as far as we were going to get.”

  A strange light entered Blaine’s eyes. “That so?”

  “Oh, don’t you dare pull that...wise old man shit on me. I told you from the start that we were...what we are now. You’re the one who made the choice.”

  “Am I?”

  Alright, he was officially done. If Blaine wanted to play it that way, then Eric wasn’t going to play at all. He stood up, slapping money down on the table and sliding out away from the booth.

  “Go to hell, Blaine. Your choices were made a long ass time ago, and now you want to go back and pretend like it never happened? No, fuck you, and fuck this ‘I’m super calm and above it all’ bullshit too. I never should have told Morgan we could stay partners. I’m through with this shit. Enjoy your fucking night,” Eric ground out, hands balling up at his side.

  He almost expected a hand to close around his wrist as he whirled around, refusing to look at the foreign expression on Blaine’s face. He had been an idiot to even offer this much of an olive branch to the other man. He should have known it would go too far. He and Blaine could never be anything.

  Not again, he told himself as he stomped toward the door.

  Blaine

  All he could do was stare at Eric, shock rippling throug
h him as the man’s words bounced around in his mind. They had been having such a nice night too. Jesus, all he’d done was ask a few simple questions. But once again, he found himself on the receiving end of Eric’s rage about something neither of them could do anything about anymore. Over a choice that Blaine hadn’t been alone in making. Now the man was stomping off toward the door.

  In his daze, Blaine heard a not so muted voice from the booth next to his. “Well, that sounded familiar. Really familiar.”

  “Jesus, Aidan, quiet down. He’s going to hear you.”

  “Think it’ll play out the same way?”

  “I don’t know. Drink your drink so we can go.”

  “You just want me drunk, so you can have your way with me.”

  “Yeah, like that’s a hard task.”

  Blaine’s attention slid away from them, not caring that they and everyone else in the bar had been an audience to the entire fit. In fact, he found he was past the point of caring altogether. The last hope he had for something decent between him and Eric was shriveling up before him in the latest fire of Eric’s anger.

  “Right,” Blaine said calmly, draining his glass and throwing a bill of his own onto the table.

  He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do as he strode across the bar, ignoring the curious glances shot his way. The warm air of the city brushed over him as he pushed through the door and onto the sidewalk. The crowd from earlier in the night had thinned, with people either having found their favorite drinking hole or gone home for the night. It wasn’t hard to see Eric’s hunched shoulders as he stomped down the sidewalk.

  “Eric!” Blaine boomed, surprised to find a flare of anger bursting to life in his chest.

  Eric whirled around, shot him the finger, and suddenly pivoted to the left. Blaine snorted as the man disappeared from sight, taking the nearby alleyway instead of the sidewalk. Blaine didn’t care if the man knew the area better than him, there was no way he was getting away. Which worked out well when the crowd parted for him, wary of whatever they’d heard in Blaine’s voice.