by Walker, Max
I stopped my jaw from dropping, but only by milliseconds. “Don’t apologize, Jonah.” He gave me the sense of someone drowning, fighting for that breath of fresh air. It took a lot for me not to reach across the table and put my hand on his, but I didn’t want him to freak out more than he already was. “You’re with a friend. I’ve got your back, I’m here for you whenever you need to talk. Don’t apologize.”
He nodded, seeming to collect some of himself. “You’re right. I do feel like I’m with a friend. It’s weird, man. It feels like I’ve known you way longer than I actually do. When this shit went down with Wendy, I thought, for a split second, ‘damn, I should call Fox.’ No one else… Don’t know what that says about me.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve got other friends, I swear.”
“Sometimes you click with someone on a level no one truly understands. It happens in the army all the time. Guys usually get along with their squads, they all become family, but there’s definitely buddy pairs that form right from the start. Those are sometimes the strongest bonds I’ve ever seen.”
“I kind of wish I had a friend like that… I kind of devoted all my time to my job and my girlfriend. My college friends are all scattered and we rarely talk… After my accident, I don’t talk to much of anyone from the police department…”
“Well, you’ve got a friend in me.” I grinned at me, seeing a crack in that somber gaze. “Toy Story style.”
“All right, Woody.” And then, with a deep breath, it seemed to hit home for him. His back straightened, the wrinkle between his brows disappeared, and his hands were no longer fists on the table.
“You’ll be okay, Jonah. I can tell you’re a strong motherfucker. I can also see this was a decision that you needed to make. I think, from what I can tell, you made the right choice. It will be difficult, but it won’t be impossible. Not for a guy like you.”
“You’re right, you’re right. I’m okay. It was a long time coming. I couldn’t keep going, and her flame had clearly gone out already… Honestly, Fox… I think… well, I think I might actually be better than okay. I’m kind of… hopeful? Is that fucked up to say?”
“It’s not fucked up at all.” I made sure to not let my eye contact drop, even though his blue eyes were drilling a tunnel straight to my soul. “You were talking to me about believing in everyone having a ‘one.’ I can see how strongly you believe in that idea. I love how strongly you believe in it. So I can’t imagine how painful it was to be stuck in a relationship that you knew, deep down, wasn’t the one for you. And now, you don’t have to feel that anymore. Neither of you does. There’s an endless world of possibility open to you, now. This is a rebirth, not a death.”
Jonah’s entire demeanor was shifting. His shoulders were held higher, and his smile felt more permanent, which was a good thing because he looked damn good with a smile on his face. He took in another deep breath, let it out in a loud exhale. “You’re totally right. It’s just… I felt like there was no other time to do it. And I feel so much… better. I do. I feel like a dick saying that, but wow, I feel so much better. Sure I don’t know where I’m sleeping tonight, but that can be figured out. At least I don’t have to sleep next to someone who looks at me more like a burden than a boyfriend.”
“A thousand percent.” I was smiling now, matching the one on Jonah’s face. “We used to say back during deployment ‘The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.’ So good on you for knowing what you had to do and going through with it. Not a lot of people have the courage to do that, and that’s when life gets really fucking miserable.”
“Wow, that’s pretty deep.”
“Yeah, well, we also used to say ‘drop your cocks and grab your socks,’ so not everything is really that elegant in the army.”
Jonah laughed loud at that, his eyes crinkling with his smile.
“And what’s that mean?”
“To drop whatever it is you’re doing and get ready. The drill instructor would shout it at the top of his lungs every morning during boot camp. That was fun.” My tone was dry, but my grin was wide.
“I’m going to start using that.”
“I think you should.” I looked at him, admiring for a moment the sharp planes of his face and the softness in his lips, and the… shit. I was staring. I coughed, sat up a little straighter. That’s when I got an idea.
“Come,” I said, slapping a hand on his table. “I’ve got a few beers. We can walk down to the beach and sit by the water. Get your mind refocused. It usually helps me when I’m going through shit.”
Jonah nodded, standing up as he did. “All right, let’s do it.”
With a grin, I said, “Drop your cocks and grab your socks, buddy,” and we left Jonah’s office laughing, going to the kitchen and grabbing a couple of beers before heading out. We walked the short way up to the beach, past the still-busy Ocean Drive and onto the warm sand. We took our shoes off and held them in our free hands as we walked through the sand, the soft grains filling the spaces between our toes. We made it as close to the water as we could before getting to the wet sand.
There, we looked at each other, and without saying a word, we plopped down onto the sand. In front of us, the open and dark ocean stretched out for an infinity, the moon dancing with its reflection across the small waves that crested and crashed on the shore.
The air was sweet, the breeze cool, and my heart, as shielded as it was, began to feel as bottomless as the ocean ahead.
And I was beginning to get a strong idea as to who I wanted it to be filled by.
10 Gabriel “Fox” Morrison
During my deployment, there was a man. He was straight, and he was in my platoon, and we were falling hard for one another with every passing day. It was a strong feeling that was impossible to deny.
Except he did deny it. He continued to deny it until one day, when the two of us were alone underneath the star-blanketed Iraq sky, he turned to me and told me what I had been waiting so damn desperately to hear. He was feeling something. The words rocked me. I lost all sense of logic and reacted purely on gut.
Instead of answering him with words, I was rushed away by the romance of the situation, and I kissed him. I leaned in and I kissed him.
And he freaked. Fists flew, kicks were landed. It was a really rough fucking night, regardless of how romantic it all seemed.
And now? Well… shit. Now I was living out a romance-filled wet dream.
Don’t think about how romantic this is. Don’t think about it.
Don’t think about it.
Stop. Don’t do it. Don’t.
…Fuck, this is romantic.
No one else was around. The neon lights of Miami Beach were behind us, but in front of us, there was nothing but the water and the darkness and the warm magic that combination entailed. The blanketing sound of the waves crashing onto the shore only added to the sensation of being secluded from the rest of society, even though there was an entire city at our backs.
For a while, we drank in silence. The cold Corona was refreshing, and the soft scent of salt water was soothing. We were sitting with our legs crossed, and our knees only separated by a needle-thread width of space.
“It was a gunshot wound.”
Jonah’s voice startled me, shocking me out of my lull. Away from the dangerous waters I was beginning to wade into. “Huh?”
“The reason why I’m not on the police force anymore… why I sometimes drop things, and why I sometimes have a hard time finding my words. It was a gunshot wound to the back of my head. I was on a domestic violence call, talking to the girlfriend… she was clearly shaken and in need of help. I was offering her a ride to a shelter and talking to her about some other resources… It was then that her boyfriend comes running out of the apartment with a gun, shouting about how he’s ending them… He shoots at her. I managed to push her just in time. The bullet missed her and instead grazed my brain, leaving a scar right over my parietal lobe.
Doctors said that if I had moved even a nanometer more in the wrong direction, the bullet would have shredded me… Thankfully, it only ‘kissed’ me. One of the doctors actually said that to me once… she was having a hard time making jokes. I also got the feeling she was trying to cover up how bad I really was at the time, so I let it slide. Either way, the bullet kissed the back of my brain and caused swelling for months that kept me in bed. A couple of hour-long surgeries, a lot of painful physical therapy, and some intense emotional therapy sessions later and I’m clearly doing better.” He looked at me, his crystalline-blue eyes catching the moonlight, a sheen to them. “And… that’s that.” He took a swig of the Corona, and I tried popping my eyes back into my skull.
“Holy… shit. Jonah. I thought it was something along the lines of an injury, but a gunshot wound to the head? You’re a fucking warrior. I had so much respect for you before, and now it’s off the charts.”
“I don’t know about all that, man,” he said. I reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
“Jonah, that’s hero status. A lot of people give up when faced with a situation like that. You persevered.”
“Doctors said I had a twenty percent chance to walk again.”
I wanted to pick Jonah up, carry him into a bedroom, encase that bedroom in an impenetrable bubble, and never let him out. I wanted to keep him safe, shelter him from the cruel, cruel world, and I wanted to do that with him in my arms.
Even though this tragedy already happened, there was no protecting him. He’d forever bear the scar, the pain, the traumatic memory.
“So yeah.” He drank more of the beer and looked out at the dark ocean. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“You did good tonight. Breaking up with Wendy. I don’t know her, but I do know that anyone with a heart would have been by your hospital bed and never left your side. I wouldn’t have left your bedside, that’s for sure. She doesn’t deserve you, Jonah. She doesn’t deserve even a glance from you.”
His lips twitched into a smile before collapsing. “It’s scary, Fox. I’ve been with her for the last four years. Even though it felt like it was more of a business relationship than a real relationship toward the end, I still… I don’t know, I was comfortable, ya know, man? And there’s something to say about comfort.”
“Yeah, that it’s useless.”
He scoffed at that. “I don’t know… I don’t mind being comfortable.”
“If you’re talking about wearing comfortable silk pajamas and cuddling up under a weighted and heated blanket, then yes, that type of comfortable is great. But the other type, the one that keeps you locked in a situation you don’t like, only because you’re ‘comfortable’? Well, that kind of comfortable can go suck my left nut.” We laughed, something far ahead of us leaping out of the water like a living shadow and splashing back down. “I think everyone needs to be comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone. That’s when the best part of life tends to happen.”
He seemed to digest what I was saying for a moment, the sound of the ocean filling up the silence.
“You’re right,” he said. “Totally right. I was comfortable with Wendy but at what cost? I can make it in this world without her. And I can be okay doing it.”
“You survived a gunshot to the head, Jonah—you can survive a woman who treated you like a piece of gum stuck to her frizzy hair.” It may have sounded harsh, but it was what Jonah needed to hear. My military background was beginning to kick in; my next instinct was to tell him to drop and give me twenty.
That was underneath the instinct that was currently lighting a fire in my balls.
“Sorry, I don’t know if she has frizzy hair or not,” I admitted. “But if you can’t tell, I really don’t like her. I’m picturing her with frizzy hair and warts and a big-ass pointy hat.”
“So… a witch?”
“Yeah, basically. Am I close?”
We cracked up, our bond hardening. “You’re absolutely right. She’s a witch.” He nodded, smiling, the moonlight catching the blue in his eyes in a way that made my breath hitch.
Fuck. Since when has that happened?
That’s never happened.
My breath has never fucking hitched… what the absolute Nora Roberts kinda bullshit is this?
Jonah wasn’t the only one who liked reading romances. I had read a few on the long plane rides I had to endure. Having a Kindle meant I could hide the covers which helped avoid any ribbing from the other guys, especially the ones who weren’t that close to me. I still picked some up every now and then, but I tended more toward mysteries lately.
Go figure.
“You okay?” Jonah asked, cocking his head.
No. Frankly, I wasn’t at all okay. This shit didn’t happen to me. I didn’t fall for anyone. I knew what that kind of crap does to people, and I didn’t want it for myself. Ever. I saw it in the way it destroyed my parents, a love that burned them out and left a pile of ash in its wake. I never felt my breath hitch or my knees buckle or my fucking butterfly farm flare to life inside my gut, but here, sitting next to Jonah, all of that was happening and more.
And it was happening for a man who I was about a hundred percent sure was straight. Someone so totally out of limits for me that a wet dream over him would be a waste of come.
“Yeah, fine,” I said. I glanced down at my watch. “We should probably head back.”
“Let’s do it,” Jonah replied, finishing off his beer. I chugged the last bit of mine, and we stood, brushing off as much sand as we could.
As we started walking back to the still-busy Miami streets, Jonah said, “Oh wait, you’ve still got a ton of sand on you.” And before I could wipe any of it away, Jonah’s hand came down on my lower back and brushed down and over my ass.
I stopped and let him clean me off. Every time his hand glided over the curve of my ass, a spark would light in my core.
“Your turn,” I said, turning Jonah around so I can examine him under the moonlight. He had done a way more thorough job of cleaning himself off than I did, but I certainly wasn’t going to let him know that. “Jeez,” I said, “I might as well call you Mr. Sandman.”
Jonah chuckled as I brushed off the few specks of sand still on his pants. I brushed from his ass down to his thighs, down to his calves, so that I was crouching behind Jonah as I cleaned him. And then I went back up, slowing my movement, opening my hands and letting them slide up Jonah’s legs, gently squeezing.
I got back up to my feet, and my hands were still on Jonah’s hips. He was facing away from me, but somehow, I knew what his expression was. I could practically paint it. His lips parted, his eyes half-lidded as my hands squeezed and pulled, pulling him toward me.
Our bodies were pressed together. I could smell Jonah’s shampoo in his hair. The salt of the ocean. The musk of his sweat.
An intoxicating mixture that had my cock getting rock hard.
And Jonah, to my intense surprise, pushed back on it. He must have felt my stiffening dick against his ass, and he… he fucking pushed up against me. My fingers tightened around his hips, and I took another whiff of his hair. I was quickly and irrevocably coming undone. My thoughts were in a blender and my body was on fire, my core calling out for Jonah’s raw touch.
I turned him around. Our eyes were instantly locked together. An entire lifetime’s worth of stories and words were shared in that loaded moment, as brief as it was.
And then, as our lips were slowly crossing the galaxy of space between us, as our worlds were on a crash course for a devastating collision, a pair of voices drifted our way and startled the crap out of us.
“This way, Billie!”
We jumped apart, clearing our throats and looking around, as if we were kids who were caught with our hands and feet inside all of the cookie jars. The voices belonged to a drunken pair who were running and tripping their way from the nearby street to the dark shoreline. One of them spotted us and started giggling, which set my cheeks on fire.
Thank God it�
��s dark out here.
“Let’s, uh, let’s head back to Stonewall,” I suggested, realizing we were standing in silence. Both of us most likely still processing whatever the hell just happened.
“Yeah… yeah, good idea.”
We walked the rest of the way back to the office in silence. I was beating myself up for making things awkward, but on the same token, there was a pull between us that needed to be explored. At least, I needed to try exploring it.
Shit didn’t work out; that was fine. We’d move on. Tomorrow was a brand-new day, and I’d help my new friend deal with whatever bullshit he was going through while also working on our crucial case.
I focused on tomorrow and tried to forget about the almost-kiss that would have shifted my entire world off its axis.
We reached Stonewall, neither of us dying spontaneously from the intense awkwardness. We headed inside and made it all the way to Jonah’s office when it hit me.
“I’ll lock up,” Jonah said, stopping at his door. It was then I realized I had no real reason to be here, especially not in Jonah’s office. It was something like twelve thirty; I should have been home and in bed.
The only real reason to be here was Jonah, and to think he was going to spend the night here… “Come crash on my couch for the night.” It was a simple solution to Jonah’s problem, although it could have some complicating consequences.
“Thank you, Fox. That doesn’t sound bad…” He seemed to consider it for a moment.
“No pressure,” I amended. “But I’ve got a really comfortable fucking couch.” I wanted to throw Jonah a lifeline. I could see he was in a state of complete upheaval, and I wanted to help.
“Exactly how comfortable?” He crossed his arms.
“Come over to find out.”
“Touché,” he said, smiling through the darkness that I knew was closing in on him, tendrils stretching for him. I wanted to fight it away, clear the path for him. He was a good guy; I could sense that from the moment we met. His smile deserved to be a permanent fixture on his handsome face.
