“He was cut—” Cooper’s voice cracked embarrassingly and he cleared his throat. “Lacerations to the abdomen.”
Neil stared at Cooper oddly, seeming to turn that information over for a long moment. “Strange,” he said finally. “I had my money on poison.”
Surprised and a tad uneasy, Cooper glanced at Park, who looked utterly stone-faced. “What makes you think that?”
Neil shrugged and shifted in his seat, eyes flicking to the side as a group of what looked like work colleagues, some of them in business attire, some in Halloween costumes, walked into the bar, bringing a draft of cool October air with them. “Guess I can’t imagine how else anyone got the drop on him. Man had a sixth sense for it. I couldn’t tail him a block without turning the corner to find him staring at me, grinning. Hell, I had to wait ’til he was dead to get a look around his room.”
Neil laughed without humor, finished his cider and put it back on the table with a loud clink. “Some eulogy, eh? Second round?” he asked, eyeing their drinks and then Park in a clear implication of who he wanted fetching them.
Park turned to Cooper. “Thirsty?” he asked.
Cooper wasn’t. Desperately didn’t want to sit here alone at the table with Neil and do anything remotely like reminiscing, as was clearly his intention. But he also thought agreeing to another round might work out some more details of the case. Because if he knew Neil, what they’d gotten was only a carefully curated ten percent of the whole story.
“Sure. Thanks,” Cooper said. He carefully touched Park’s foot with his own under the table and caught his responding ghost of a smile.
“Be right back.”
Cooper watched him walk to the bar, then turned to find Neil studying Park as well.
“You know, I heard you’d been scooped up by some elite, shadowy agency. That’s your partner?”
“Yes,” Cooper said, painfully aware that Park was still close enough to hear them if he chose to.
“Let me guess, he’s the strong and silent type.”
“You don’t know his type,” Cooper said quietly.
Neil looked at Cooper then, clearly performing surprise at his defensive tone. “Fair enough,” he said, raising his hands in acquiescence, supposedly unwilling to fight. Why did people always do that to him? Like they were warding off evil.
Cooper shook his head, irritated that he was already irritated. “The FBI wouldn’t send you undercover for some Hollywood embezzlement.”
“My bright, clever boy.” Neil smiled, and Cooper felt a flush of heat through his body that had nothing to do with pleasure.
He leaned forward. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
Neil matched his pose, bringing their faces closer together. “What’s the matter? Don’t like it when I stroke your ego anymore?”
“Nah. You never could quite get the rhythm right.”
A flicker of something dark passed over Neil’s face. It was the first organic, familiar expression yet, and Cooper couldn’t stop the shiver of recognition as if his body had finally caught on to who it was sitting across from and wanted to run away screaming.
Neil laughed, darkness gone as quick as it had come, making Cooper second-guess if he’d seen it there after all, just like so many times before. “The FBI suspects cartel connections, drug smuggling. You could say I was sent in to find the bigger picture.”
“And? Have you?
“Oh, I found a picture, all right. I’m just not sure what I’m looking at, yet,” Neil murmured. Cooper frowned and waited for an explanation. “You’ve heard of conservation orgs backing paramilitary forces before, right? Getting involved in the politics of places they have no right to be, funding local violence?”
“Sure,” Cooper said. “Is that what you think someone is doing here?”
“I think James scared Arthur. Scared him a lot. Maybe whoever the Cranes are sending their embezzled money to sent a little present back, to keep an eye on things.”
“So, Arthur got mixed up funding some, what, terrorist group? Cartel? Then killed his watchdog so he can take the money and run?”
Neil didn’t answer, instead reaching for his cider, then seemed to remember it was empty and looked toward the bar. Cooper did, too. The group of partially costumed work colleagues had stumbled up front and he couldn’t spot Park anymore.
“I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I couldn’t get close to James,” Neil said. “He just...he had this way of looking at you. Like he was reading your very skin. And he thought it was so, very funny.” His gaze was distant and his lips thin. “You ever get the feeling that everyone else in the world knows something you don’t?”
“I’m not sure everyone in the world knows any one thing,” Cooper said.
Neil looked at him sharply. “You got a similar injury to the vic’s a couple years back, didn’t you? Got all cut up or something. You ever catch the guy who did it?”
Cooper hadn’t. But his ex BSI partner had. Caught him, killed him, and buried him deep in the woods with all his other victims. The only blood Jacob Symer spilled these days was in Cooper’s occasional nightmare. “Where’d you hear I was attacked?” he asked.
“You’ve been building a solid little reputation for yourself. Recruited right out of the hospital. Jumping up the shadow ranks.”
At some point during their conversation, Cooper had leaned closer and closer to Neil. He started to sit back now, and Neil reached out and snagged one of his hands, tangling their fingers together loosely. There was nothing threatening about it—to anyone watching, it meant nothing more than a simple wait, one more thing—but Cooper still felt a pulse of anxiety tinged with the usual disproportionate rage Dr. Ripodi had explained was his body releasing floodgates of adrenaline, gearing up to fight for its life.
But there was nothing to fight. The only danger between them, the memories triggered by a touch too familiar, too intimate for who they were now. It should have been too intimate for who they were then, as well, but that hadn’t stopped Neil, and maybe a tiny little sliver of Cooper’s rage was because of that, too.
“Speaking of,” Neil said slowly. “What’s your agency’s interest in poor, dead James Finnigan?”
“If I told you, I’d have to turn in my cloak and dagger,” Cooper said, and felt Neil’s hand flex, squeezing his fingers too tightly for a moment.
“Always have to make a joke—” Neil began, but applause erupted across the restaurant, distracting them both, and Cooper pulled his hand away.
At one of the small tables near the back, a woman was getting up from one knee and hugging the woman seated in front of her, faces flickering between happiness and embarrassment. She was crying, the woman who had asked, while the other one kept leaning back out of the hug, laughing, to thumb away the tears.
“Who the hell would want to get engaged in a place like this?” Neil said, watching them.
Cooper shook his head. He wouldn’t, personally. But then again, he’d proposed to Park in the hands-down ugliest bed and breakfast he’d ever seen after watching Park sleep off a near-death experience in fur, and hadn’t regretted it for one second.
Cooper suddenly felt a bone-deep desire to be home. To be away from here, away from Neil, and in his own bed with his own fiancé.
“I’m a woman in my late twenties,” Neil murmured. He glanced at Cooper slyly. “Play with me?”
It was a game they’d had, putting other people’s lives on like clothes, something Neil had taught him to do. Cooper used to practice it almost compulsively to get into suspects’ heads and predict their next move or to trace a victim’s last steps. Not so much anymore, he realized, and wondered why.
“For old times’ sake?” Neil added.
Cooper examined the newly engaged couple. “Two small suitcases under the table. Obviously tourists. We might have gotten into town late and didn’t have time to
drop them off before the reservation. Or we just stopped by this place for a moment and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to do it here. I couldn’t wait. Too excited.”
“Too anxious,” Neil countered. “The only appeal of this place is the views, but I bypassed the much nicer tables and chose one by the kitchen so I could sit with my back to the wall. Not comfortable in this space. I’m not crying ’cause I’m happy, I’m overwhelmed by the attention. But I did it here anyway. Why?”
Cooper was getting into it despite himself. His competitive side at its worst. “The food sucks. The drinks are weak, but it’s pricey. Expensive still equals special in my mind. So does the novelty of a restaurant out of town. That plus getting on one knee, champagne on the table: rituals of a traditionalist. Mmmm, a conservative nuclear upbringing.”
“And we all know how those do a number on you. My fiancée’s a fixer, though. She’s been doing more soothing than celebrating. Gets off on saving someone.”
“Then they should live happily ever after,” Cooper said.
Neil gave him a scornful look. “They met when they needed each other most. But no one stays broken forever. I give them four good years. Seven ’til it’s over-over, which is more than they deserve for getting engaged in a bar that sells cocktails shaped like the Washington Monument.”
Cooper studied Neil. It was strange looking at him now, no longer through the eyes of a young adult on his first assignment with the FBI, clay still wet and moldable, memorizing every lesson Neil taught him, believing it was a test, and an honor to fuck such a clever, experienced man.
He recognized so much of Neil that he had adopted into his own personality. He hated so much of Neil, too. And weren’t circles the worst Venn diagram of them all?
“I’m getting married,” Cooper said. His voice sounded calm, and it was deeply gratifying to see the look of genuine shock on Neil’s face.
“To who? That guy?” Neil jerked his head toward the bar, and Cooper nodded.
“He makes me happy.” He considered that statement, how it didn’t feel enough. “I’ve never been happier.”
“Well. Congratulations.” Neil was studying him with a slightly wary look. “Happy looks good on you.”
“Is this the part where you tell me you can’t believe how much I’ve changed?” Cooper asked.
Neil laughed like he genuinely couldn’t help himself.
Cooper frowned. “Why is that funny?”
“Cooper, you haven’t changed at all. You’re the exact same ice-cold bastard you’ve always been. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun. I’d almost forgotten that part. No one ever could quite keep me on my toes like you. But there’s a reason they do a polar plunge and not a polar marathon. You’re exhilarating in small doses, but if anyone stays in you for long, their dick’s liable to fall off.”
Neil cocked his head, dragging over Cooper’s body thoughtfully. “Two,” he said.
“What?” Cooper asked numbly, still processing.
“I give you and him two good years.” Neil shrugged. “Like I said, people don’t stay broken forever.”
Chapter Five
Park cut the ignition and they sat quietly in the driveway of their home, listening to the clicks of the cooling engine. Cooper had filled him in on the little bit more Neil had revealed about the Cranes funneling money into a larger, violent organization.
“From what Neil described, it feels very likely that Arthur was also being blackmailed by James,” Park said, unbuckling his seat belt. “The intimidation techniques, the insistence that he and Genevieve flee.”
“Blackmailing him over what, I wonder,” Cooper said. “The embezzlement? Or is James the reason for the embezzlement in the first place?”
“I think the only way to figure that out is to find what that key you found in his hotel room unlocks. We could go back to the zoo tomorrow. Get a better look around.”
Cooper hummed an acknowledgment. “Sounds good.” With the car off, the air was getting rapidly cooler, and he ran his fingers through the condensation on the inside of the window, making four straight lines down. “Do you think the Cranes are wolves?”
“I don’t know,” Park said. “I don’t recognize the names.”
“Hmmm.” It was well past sunset by now, but the moon was nearly full and Cooper could easily see the tacky Halloween skeleton hanging from the porch eave, swaying in the wind; the silhouette of their house with its erratic add-ons; the unfinished porch; the shadow of a package that probably contained another absurd item Park had ordered to class up the joint. In short, their life together. The mashing together of two different people from two different worlds who had sort of just fallen into each other, wholly unexpectedly, unwillingly, uncontrollably.
In some ways, their entire relationship had felt like tripping down a cliff side. Shoved over the edge into the unknown, stumbling over all sorts of obstacles and pitfalls that hadn’t done a whole hell of a lot to slow them down, caught, as they were, in the slipstream of gravity. Pulled by a momentum so powerful, so inevitable, that it was never even an option to stop falling. The only concern—whether they would hit the bottom on their feet or their faces.
Just two good years? No. No.
“Is everything okay?” Park asked. “You seem...distracted tonight.”
Cooper turned to see Park watching him with concern, one hand on the car door handle, eyes collecting stray moonlight until they appeared reflective.
“Neil and I used to have sex,” Cooper blurted out. Well, he could have eased into that with slightly more grace, but at least it was out there and he couldn’t take it back.
Park blinked, eclipsing twin moons. “Ah.”
“Sorry. I just wasn’t sure if—I didn’t want you to feel like I was keeping things from you. Is that—” Okay, Cooper almost said like an idiot. “Does that upset you?”
“I don’t think it’s my right to be upset,” Park said evenly.
“That’s not an answer.”
Park acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “It’s never going to bother me that you had a sex life before me,” he said, which still somehow felt like avoiding the question, though Cooper wasn’t sure why. “How long were you together?”
“Four years, more or less,” Cooper said. “Plus a handful of times after I left undercover, but that was, you know, nothing.”
Well, not nothing. What it had been was a series of mistakes once or twice a year when they ran into each other in the office. Relapses, more than anything else. Then Cooper had been attacked and moved to the BSI. Without any reason to run into Neil again—and a whole hell of a lot else on his mind—Cooper had just...stopped thinking of him. That was the unexpected and strange thing about traumas that changed the course of your life. They eclipsed the good and the bad parts alike.
After a quiet moment, Cooper realized Park was staring at him, clearly surprised. “What’s wrong?”
“Four years while you were working undercover?” Park repeated. “You must have gotten together very quickly.”
Cooper laughed. “Yeah, you could say that. He blew me on my first day. Quite a welcome,” he added in a mutter, remembering how shocked he’d been by the whole thing. Hours into the official start of his career, still agonizing over whether he wanted to be out at work or not, and practically the next thing he knew Neil’s hand was in his pants.
Cooper shook off the memory and realized Park looked upset. He kicked himself. “Sorry. Too much information, obviously.”
“That’s not why I’m—” Park bit his lip, cutting himself off, and worried thoughtfully at the scar there. “You must have been young,” he said, sounding cautious for some reason.
“God, it feels that way now,” Cooper said with a laugh. “But I was halfway through my twenties already. Definitely an adult, by any definition.”
“And he was your senior partner. On your
first assignment,” Park said, still in that strange, careful tone.
Cooper caught on. “It wasn’t like that,” he protested quickly. “I wasn’t pressured into anything.”
Park’s expression didn’t change.
“Seriously, I wasn’t that new. And he wasn’t my boss or anything.” Distantly, Cooper recognized that if someone else were the one saying this to him, he would definitely still look as concerned as Park did. But it wasn’t someone else saying it. It was his life and he knew it wasn’t like that. How could it have been when Cooper was, well, the way he was?
“It’s not like I was much different then, you know. Probably even more of an asshole, if you can believe it,” Cooper tried to explain. “If anyone walked away fucked up from that relationship, it was him, as I’m sure he’ll try telling you himself if we see him again. We had a lot of issues, but it wasn’t, you know, whatever you’re thinking it was.”
Park looked sad and started to say something.
“Don’t,” Cooper said, without intending to, suddenly excessively irritated for reasons he didn’t even understand himself.
Park closed his mouth. The tender but wary look in his eye plus his easy acquiescence to drop it made Cooper feel impossibly fragile.
He busied himself with getting out of the car, taking a moment to count his breaths the way Dr. Ripodi had taught him. The sharp October night air cooled his lungs and he felt instantly calmer, less trapped. The anger was gone as quick as it had come, replaced by shame. Behind him, he heard Park get out, too. Even his silence was gentle.
Cooper sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“You didn’t,” Park said. “It’s fine.” He gestured at the house. “You want to head in?”
“You go ahead. I just...need a minute.”
There was a pause. But then Park nodded and headed into the house. The wind ruffled his hair and his hands were shoved into his jacket pockets, fiddling with something. Probably the house key. That was one thing Cooper had been worried about with moving in together. That he wouldn’t be able to ask for space without it being a thing to be taken personally. But it hadn’t been a problem because Park understood. He got it.
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