Dry Run

by Lolly Walter

  And Devin’s beliefs had changed, right? Maybe Tanner’s could have, too. Devin twiddled Joe’s nipple, skimmed his ribs, squeezed his hip, all while in his head he made a world where Tanner was alive and accepted the gay thing. Joe held his hand, and Devin introduced him as his boyfriend, even though that term wasn’t heavy enough to convey what Joe was to him. Joe and Tanner shook hands and smiled.

  That would be enough.

  Devin smiled at the story in his head and leaned up to kiss Joe’s jaw. Joe stirred again and patted Devin’s cheek with a clumsy hand.

  “Mmm, ’s nice. Sleep, papi.”

  Devin snuggled so his ear was pressed over Joe’s heart. As always, the heartbeat soothed him, and he was soon asleep.

  He didn’t sleep long.

  Gentle rapping at the door broke through a dreamy haze. The tacky micro-poly fabric of Joe’s shirt stuck to Devin’s face where he’d drooled a bit on Joe’s chest. He brushed the shirt and the wetness away and went to the door.

  The room was too dark to tell who was visiting. Before the person could speak, a shuffling noise came from the bed, then in the crate Joe kept at the bedside. A blinding light shone from above the bed. A quiet clicking noise followed.

  “Jesus, Efraín, blind a guy. This room smells like all you two do is fuck. Didn’t you ever learn to open a fucking window to let out the smell?”

  Shit. Victor. What the hell was he doing showing up in their room? He had to know Joe was so tightly wound and so angry at him that he really might kill him.

  The light jerked.

  “I have three bullets in this gun, Victor. Now, I’ve never fired a gun before, but what do you think the odds are that at this range I’ll miss you all three times? Get away from Devin.”

  In the light Joe cast, Victor’s sharp brown eyes scanned Devin. “I ain’t gonna touch your little white ass, blanco.” He wiggled his eyebrows and bounced his strong shoulders. “I told you, your baby knows what to do with his mouth, huh?”

  “Shut up, Victor.” Devin didn’t want to be mocked, and he also didn’t want Victor’s insides flying out all over the room. “He’ll kill you if you push.”

  “Sweet of you to worry, blanco, but here’s the deal.” Victor turned back to Joe, and his body lost all the cockiness he usually carried. The way he’d looked at Joe when he’d told him Bea was dead — broken and pleading, his shoulders slumped, his hands limp — he had that look again. “I tried to beat you, Efraín, make you pay. You always win. But I got one card left, loverboy, and it’s a doozy.”

  “Get on with it.” Joe was so cold, his voice disembodied and soulless. He made Devin shiver.

  “I know where the baby is.”

  “Liar.”

  But the light shook a little.

  “Bea and I, we found her. She’s okay, but she’s being guarded. Boggs, man, it has to be him. We tried sneaking in to where they have her, but they saw us. We ran, tried to get away.” Victor hesitated. His voice wobbled. “They chased us, and Bea got shot.”

  And it was there, easy to see. God, Victor, for every reason Devin had to hate him, he’d cared about Bea. Her death had hurt him.

  “Where? Why not tell everyone? Get us all to go rescue Nina?” Joe sounded strained.

  “Blanco, brother, go stand by your boy, okay? I got to prove to him I’m not going to hurt you.” Victor winked and made a shooing motion with his hand but didn’t touch Devin.

  Devin understood the silent words underneath the spoken ones. Victor didn’t hate him, not for being Bea’s replacement or for being white or for anything, really. Victor hated Joe.

  Stepping carefully over their mattress, Devin walked toward Joe. He hesitated at the beam of light, then crossed into the darkness. From this angle, he could see Joe, his face illuminated, the muscles in his arms taut and trembling, a gun in one hand and a stick of light in the other. Devin wrapped his hands around Joe’s biceps to help with the shaking.

  “Now you know he’s safe, Efraín, turn out the light so you save the charge. We might need it.”

  Joe pressed a button on the stick, and the light extinguished. “I can still shoot you in the dark, Victor.”

  “But you won’t.” The creak of knees and rustle of clothes. A dip in the mattress. “If you kill me, you won’t get the baby back.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m going to show you, not tell you. I tell you, I lose my usefulness, you kill me. It’s not gonna work like that. I’ll take you to her. You, me, and blondie, we’ll rescue her and bring her back to Ebony.”

  “Why us? Why didn’t you tell everyone?” Devin asked, repeating Joe’s earlier question. If Victor knew where the baby was, wouldn’t it have been smarter to get Zeke and Trig, the big guys, to go save her?

  “I don’t need you, kid. You’re collateral damage, I’m afraid. I didn’t tell everyone because think what would’ve happened. Zeke and Ebony would have run off half-cocked and gotten themselves killed. Half of the other A runners would have followed suit. It would have been a bloodbath. I need someone cold and precise, fast, smart, and brutal.”

  “He needs me,” Joe said, and he slid to his knees on the bed.

  Devin dropped down next to Joe. He wanted to object that Joe was neither cold nor brutal, but those traits existed in his partner, no matter how kindly Joe treated him. Bea probably would have said Joe wasn’t cold, too, at least up until the day he dropped her. Devin shook the thoughts away. Whatever else Joe was, he’d given something of himself to Devin that he hadn’t given to anyone else, and that was real. He moved to stroke Joe’s hand and hit the cool metal barrel of the gun.

  Too fast to disguise his fear, he jerked away and moved so he was resting against the wall, his toes nudging Joe’s thigh.

  The bed creaked with shifting weight, and Joe’s hand, minus the cold metal, fell on Devin’s knee.

  “You two done with your little lovers’ dance? Can we get back to the business of rescuing the baby?”

  All Devin could see of Victor was a pair of dimly glittering reflections that must be his eyes. He didn’t know how Victor had known what he and Joe were doing.

  “What do you care?” Joe asked.

  “About you? I don’t. About the baby?” Victor hesitated. “I… Ebony shouldn’t have to go through this again, Efraín. Once was enough.”

  “Tell me about where they’re keeping her.”

  They were so quiet, whispering in the dark. The whispers made Devin almost as nervous as what they were planning to do.

  “It’s an apartment building, a big one. They’re keeping her on an upper floor. Place has balconies. I saw four entries, each with a set of stairs. I think guards are only posted at the room, not at each entry, or if there are, it’s maybe only one guard. Even if Boggs pulled all his guys who do security here and at the office, he still wouldn’t have enough to man that many posts.”

  “How do you know it’s Boggs?”

  Tension electrified the room, and Devin understood the frustration emanating from Victor. Why was Joe publicly acting like Boggs hadn’t done this? On the first day Nina had gone missing, he’d told Devin that Boggs had to have been the one to take her. Why maintain the charade?

  “You sniveling little shit,” Victor said. “When did you turn into such a coward? You know Boggs did this. Now stop the bullshit and focus.”

  Joe sighed heavily. “Four entrances. Balconies. She’s being kept on an upper floor. What else do I need to know? How far did you and Bea get?”

  “We made it up to the floor she was on, but there’s a central hallway. As soon as we came off the stairwell and into the hall, they saw us and chased after us.”

  After the first round of sex, Joe and Devin had gone to the cafeteria. While Joe fetched their dinner, Flix, his voice shaky and hesitant, pulled Devin aside and told him that he and Marcus had come upon Victor dragging Bea back to the Flats. She’d been alive but unconscious, and she’d died before they could bring her home. Now, hearing it from Vict
or, the horror Flix had described came roaring back.

  Devin wanted to know how far they’d have to run in order for the guards to let them go. “They chased you all the way outside?”

  “Yes, and they were local, too. They knew shortcuts and places to hide. I had to leave Bea for a bit and go back after I lost them.”

  That little tremor had returned to Victor’s voice, and if he were anyone else, Devin would have reached out a comforting hand. Because it was Victor, he scooted forward until he was sitting cross-legged and pressed his shin into Joe’s thigh. From there, he rubbed his hand up and down each side of Joe’s spine, pressing into the tight muscles and doing what he could to loosen them.

  “So, we need to be prepared to run pretty far with a baby.” Devin would take care of this part. This piece of the puzzle that wasn’t beyond his abilities. Running with Joe had made him fast, nimble, and confident.

  “Exactly, blanco.” Victor slapped Devin’s knee. “As for getting in—”

  “Devin’s not going.”

  “Jesus Christ, Efraín.”

  Devin’s brain short-circuited, and he gaped for a moment before he found his voice. He dropped his hand from Joe’s back and shoved him off the bed. “You are not my fucking keeper, Joe. You think you’re going to sneak out in the middle of the night to go face off with the guys who killed Bea, and I’m what? Gonna hunker down in our bedroom and hope you come back safe? Fuck that and fuck you.”

  “You’re not going.”

  Joe tried to climb back on the bed, and Devin stuck out both his feet and kicked him. He was being a baby, but he didn’t care. This whole shitty rescue mission scared him enough. He wasn’t letting Joe out of his sight. No way.

  “You can’t force me to stay here, motherfucker.”

  They all gasped at the word, ugly and true, and Devin wanted to take it back the second it came out of his mouth, but he couldn’t. There was no point. He couldn’t make Joe unhear it.

  “We’re wasting time,” Joe said, and he sounded so much older, resigned and miserable.

  “Efraín, let the kid come. We won’t let him get hurt. If you try to leave him, he’s just going to follow us and end up either giving us away or slowing us down.”

  “I won’t go.” Joe said it so softly, like every word hurt him. In the darkness, Joe moved like a shadow, standing and walking to the far window. “If he tries to come, I won’t go with you, and Ebony won’t get her baby back. If I’m doing this, Devin stays here.”

  Because Devin was paralyzed by that awful word and by Joe’s refusal to save Nina if it meant putting him at risk, it was Victor who stood and approached Joe. Devin sat there in the dark and listened to it, imagined how it worked: Victor’s big arms wrapping around Joe, pulling him in so they stood back-to-chest. He heard a sigh and knew that was the moment when Joe’s head fell back against Victor’s shoulder and his body sagged into the other man’s heat. Victor’s head would dip, Joe’s would turn, and they would kiss. Victor would take back what had been his. And Devin would sit on his ass like an idiot and let it happen.

  “You don’t get to do this to me anymore, Victor,” Joe said. “I’m with Devin.”

  “He called you a motherfucker.”

  “He made a mistake. This isn’t…”

  They kept talking, but Devin lost the flow of the conversation. God, Joe forgave him. Loved him. Loved him enough to sacrifice his own sense of duty and obligation, to ruin the life of Ebony, who mattered to Joe, in order to keep him safe. Devin couldn’t let Joe make that choice, couldn’t let him deny those true, kind parts of himself.

  “I’m going to rescue that baby, Joe. No matter what. You go, you stay, whatever. I’m going,” Devin said. It would work. Joe wouldn’t be able to stop him. Joe would go, too, save the baby, and be able to live with himself the next day.

  Joe dropped onto the bed in front of Devin and grabbed his upper arms. He laid his head on Devin’s shoulder and rasped into his neck, “Please. Please don’t do this, papi. They have guns. They could hurt you. I need you to be all right. You’re all that matters to me.”

  Joe’s warm breath tickled Devin’s neck, and Devin wanted to scoop Joe into his arms, to give in, to tell Victor to fuck off. He and Joe would stay warm and safe in the cocoon of their bedroom. But that was as much a fantasy as his earlier one, the one where Joe and Tanner shook hands. The real world was so much harder. Devin couldn’t have everything he wanted, and he was so tired of being afraid.

  He stroked Joe’s hair. “I’m not all that matters to you, not really, but I understand I’m what matters most. We’re going together, and we’re bringing Nina home. I promise I’ll try my best to stay safe, but I’m going to get that baby back.”

  “Great.” And that hard, mocking edge had returned to Victor’s voice. “Now that you two pussies are done with your soap opera, get the fuck up. We got a baby to save.”

  Eleven

  The softness in Joe lasted long enough for Devin to find his cheek and kiss it. Then as Devin stared blindly at him in the dark, Joe started issuing orders.

  “This is my show, and you two do what I say, exactly as I say it, when I say it. Understood?”

  A part of Devin wanted to wrap his arms around Joe’s thighs and fish in his boxers for his dick so he could do that sucking thing again, because one, Joe’s groin was shoved right in his face and it smelled like sex, and two, Joe getting bossy turned Devin’s crank. More than he wanted the sex stuff, though, Devin wanted to prove that he could do what Joe said and be an asset to this rescue team.

  “Got it, Joe.”

  “Whatever the fuck, Efraín,” Victor said. “I wouldn’t have come to you expecting anything else. Bossy shit.”

  Joe grunted. “If I say run, papi, you run. If I say—”

  “Jesus, the kid’s not that stupid. He gets it.”

  This time, Joe growled. “Fine. Orders at the start, Devin. If gunfire breaks out, you run. If people chase us, you run. If anything goes wrong, you run. Don’t stop to help me. Don’t stop to help Victor. Forget about the baby. You run back here and lock yourself in this room and you don’t come out until I come for you or they bring my dead body under the window for you to look out and see it.”

  This was getting ridiculous. Devin stood, and he enjoyed the way he towered over Joe. “I’m not five, and you’re not goddamned Tanner. Knock it off and move on.”

  “I brought blondie a ski mask,” Victor said, and Devin appreciated the distraction because Joe probably intended to argue more. “You guys got black clothes?”

  “Yeah, just…” With the click of a switch, the room flooded with light. This time, Joe had turned the light toward the ceiling, so it bounced up and cascaded back down. He shoved the light into Victor’s hands. “Here.”

  Joe nudged Devin toward his crate. Devin had thrown on his darkest shirt and was digging out his black jeans when the light moved enough that he couldn’t see his shit. He turned and found the light focused on Joe’s ass as he bent over to rummage through his own crate.

  Devin threw a pair of socks at Victor. “Hey, quit that.”

  “Damn, that pretty little ass always felt good.”

  “I said knock it off, shithead.”

  Joe straightened and whacked Devin’s chest, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make a point. “He’s baiting you. Ignore him and he’ll stop.”

  Devin didn’t think that was what Victor was doing at all. You didn’t hate someone the way Victor hated Joe without a whole lot of something less ugly on the other side of it, but Victor latched on to the explanation.

  “Blanco here was starting to think I was a decent guy, Efraín. Can’t have that.”

  Joe pulled off his shirt and replaced it with a black t-shirt that stretched over his shoulders and tight little muscles. “He wouldn’t think that.”

  Except Devin kinda had been. What had Victor done recently, except antagonize Joe? That other stuff had happened when they were both kids. And then, oh, yeah. Vict
or had told Joe’s horrible secret to the whole group. Jesus. What a huge thing to forget.

  “I remember, Victor. You tried to wreck him in front of everyone. He trusted you and you betrayed him.”

  Victor threw the ski mask at him while Devin was still fastening his jeans. “Yeah, I betrayed him. Put that shit on, blanco. Let’s go.”

  “I’ll put it on when we get outside.”

  “Put it on now, shit-for-brains. I don’t want anyone seeing us, even in here, and they’ll see that blond shit on the top of your head for sure.”

  “Stop arguing. Devin, put on the mask. Victor, shine the light on my hands for a minute.”

  Victor did, and Devin’s mouth dropped open when he saw what Joe was holding. Weapons. The fucker had a secret stash of weapons right next to their bed.

  Joe looked apologetically at Devin. “You didn’t need to know.”

  And wasn’t that a punch to the gut? He didn’t need to know. Fucking hell. Even as his stomach turned, Devin fought down his desire to walk away, to go curl up on Bea’s empty bed and forget about Joe and Victor and even baby Nina. He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and reminded himself that Joe was a secretive asshole. This was only one more example, not a different crime.

  Joe’s shoulders slumped, and he set most of the weapons on the floor. He kept a leather-looking pouch with straps and, from it, pulled a huge knife. Its metal glinted in the light, and the wooden hilt extended beyond Joe’s bony, delicate hand.

  “This one’s yours, Devin. Strap the sheath onto your thigh. The knife, hold it like I am right now, with your fist wrapped around it and the blade pointing away from you.”

  Joe held up the sheath first, and Devin took it and strapped it around his leg. When Joe held out the hilt of the knife, the blade resting in his palm, Devin hesitated.

  This was a test, whether Joe meant it that way or not.