For fuck’s sake, she’s as opaque as a glass of water. I know it’s coming from a place of love but I’m over it.
Dad offered that he and Mom would pay for me to go back to college and get my doctorate. If not in psychology, maybe in languages, or something.
Something…safe.
Boring.
And that I can keep living with them while I do it, too.
I told him thanks but no thanks, I was okay.
Is that the problem? Am I an adrenaline junky?
I never really thought of myself as one before now. I avoid problems whenever possible. I don’t seek out confrontations. An integral part of my job was threat assessment and risk mitigation.
To avoid and prevent problems.
Except I do miss the constant movement, always being alert, working with a group of guys who sometimes felt like we all shared a brain in terms of responding to a situation.
I miss the camaraderie.
I miss being surrounded by a bunch of suit-clad hunks, so, yeah, I’ll own that part of it, I suppose.
By the time I’ve been medically cleared to return to work eleven months after the plane crash, it’s already clear to me that I’m not going to make it back onto The Shift.
That’s even before I fly to DC from my parents’ house in California, where I’ve been living since being discharged from the hospital to work on my PT, and Chris Bruunt puts me through a physical evaluation.
I can still shoot just as well as I ever could.
My reaction times are spot on.
Yet I struggle to come in at the minimum time for my run and I feel like I’ll drop dead in the process from the pain spiking through my body. In fact, while Chris doesn’t tell me then, I know I haven’t made the minimum just from the look on his face.
When we sit down in his office to discuss this after I grab a shower and change clothes I know his verdict even before he speaks.
“I can put you on a desk job and we can re-evaluate you in a few months after you reapply to the unit, if there are any openings. Or we can arrange a transfer to a different division. You could always go into the uniform division. Or, I can talk to the director about transferring you out of PPD. There’s no shame in working out of a field office, you know. We all started in one. With your seniority, you’d be a senior officer, not a desk grunt.”
“You want to work out of a field office after working The Shift? I’m not working uni, either.” Yes, that’s partially an ego thing but my ego’s taken enough of a hit lately.
I’m no masochist.
I’m also not a good enough sniper to transfer over to the Emergency Response Team, which wouldn’t be a downgrade, in my opinion. But, again, there’s the whole being able to run and handle a physically grueling training regimen problem being a part of ERT would require.
He sighs. “You would easily make the cut over at the FBI.”
I snort. I’m not even going to dignify that with a further response. I know it’s common for guys who need to drop out for various reasons to transfer over there, but I won’t.
For starters, the ration of shit I’d catch from my family wouldn’t be worth it. I wouldn’t be able to lie to them about the risk, and I’d likely be more at risk in the FBI than I was in the USSS. I’d probably make less money, too. Even if I went to work in their criminal profiling division.
Secondly, if I can’t be in the PPD, I’d rather work making money than be stuck in a government job. There’s a lot of green to be earned in my area of expertise, with my level of training and experience, and guys like me are always in high demand.
“I can also give you a list of names and numbers to call,” Chris offers. “Private sector. Lucrative, and active assignments. Some of them probably far hairier than you faced here.”
I guess I already knew that was the path I’d been forced onto, but I didn’t want to admit it until Chris said it out loud.
I nod. “I appreciate that, boss,” I quietly say. “I’ve had a couple of private offers, but I was…hoping.”
“I know. I hate like hell to do it. I can handle paperwork to extend your medical leave and we could do a six-month re-eval. But, honestly? You’d be better off financially taking the medical retirement and going private-sector. It’s nothing personal.”
I wave away those sentiments. “I know it’s not. I’m not mad at you.”
I know my physical condition won’t improve much over where I am now. I’ve been in training, and if I push myself any harder, I’ll injure myself. Will my pain improve, and maybe my run times as well? Sure, but it’ll be a slow process, and age will start to work against me.
It’s not just my pain levels—it’s overall stamina. Even if I could build myself back to easily making the times, I honestly don’t know if I can work the crazy hours with little to no sleep for days or even weeks at a time like I used to and not become a liability to the team. There are days I’m falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV after dinner, when several eighteen- and twenty-hour days in a row used to be nothing for me to plow through with little more than thirty-minute naps here and there.
The plateau I’ve hit is my best-case before age and the long-term toll from my injuries comes into play.
Which is how, three weeks after that, I find myself babysitting a twenty-one-year-old woman in Amsterdam. She’s the daughter of a movie star, and an Instagram “influencer.” While she’s not as stupid as some celebrity kids, it turns out she’s…
Well, let’s just say she’s not very discriminating when it comes to selecting partners to take to bed.
Not that I’m slut-shaming, because come on, that’s a dick move. My job is to make sure none of the assholes she sleeps with does anything other than fuck her brains out before I evict them the next morning.
Keep her from getting kidnapped, scare the assholes she sleeps with into making sure they use the condoms I keep her supplied with, and ensuring she doesn’t get date-raped. That’s my job.
I’m a babysitter, bodyguard, chauffer, and condom distributer.
I’m also making more for this four-week gig than I did in an entire year in the PPD.
That’s after the private agency I’m working for gets their cut.
It means my ego takes a logical vacation and shuts the hell up. Which is why it’s my bank account I think of while sitting in the living room of the rented flat and listening to her ride her latest conquest into exhaustion like a Kentucky Derby hopeful.
My parents and sister are marginally happy that I’m employed by a private contractor, because I might have lied and told them I was working as a translator and profiler and getting paid well for it.
That’s…partially true.
It keeps them off my ass and they don’t worry about me, and Kayley isn’t trying to analyze me, so I call it a win.
Still, it’s not exactly my dream job.
As I lie awake at nights and stare at the ceiling, I realize this is the best my life will probably get from this point forward.
I’ll have to come to grips with that now, no matter how depressing it is.
* * * *
Over the next several years I stay alive, pad my savings account both from working and from my pension, thanks to the plane crash, and keep myself amused and employed. Washington is still my city of residence, even though I’m now subletting an apartment from a guy I work with and haven’t opted to buy a place of my own.
I gave up my old place after the plane crash. Chris and a couple of other guys packed everything for me, put most of it into storage, and shipped me what I wanted to have while in California. That meant it was easy to move into this place once I returned to DC, because most everything I needed was already there and waiting for me.
During that period, I meet Elliot Woodley and stupidly fall in love with a guy too terrified to so much as peek out of the closet, much less exit it. I can’t even tell my family I’m dating him. He asked I keep it quiet, and I will not violate his trust.
Ev
en if it fucking grates on me.
But I love the guy. Even though we have our ups and downs, and he periodically insists I should date others, if I want to, I resist doing that.
Unlike my chances of returning to the PPD, there’s still hope Elliot might eventually come out. Maybe once he gets being a politician out of his system.
I love him enough that I’m not willing to walk away from him without trying my best to make this work.
Almost seven years after the plane crash that nearly killed me even as it hard-shifted my life in a direction I never anticipated, I’m working out of the company’s DC office one chilly February Friday afternoon when I receive a text from none other than my former boss, Special Agent Christopher Bruunt. We’ve kept in touch off and on throughout the years, which is how I know he’s risen through the ranks of the PPD.
The text is from his personal phone. It’s also vague enough to be intriguing.
You in DC, available to talk ASAP, and open to listening to an offer?
Of course the first thought that runs through my mind is being asked to reapply to PPD, but I immediately choke that off. It’s a stupid idea, for starters, and completely impossible. I’m fit—far more fit than most guys my age, and I’ll be forty in a few months—but I have bad pain days that sometimes make it impossible for me to contemplate making it all the way down the stairs of my apartment building, much less keep up with the grueling and physically taxing job of keeping up with POTUS or VPOTUS.
I stare at my phone for a long moment and consider my reply. I enjoy my job—mostly—yet I’ve felt restless as of late.
Especially knowing another presidential campaign season is on the way.
And, once again, I won’t be a part of it.
Elliot and I…
We go through phases. On-again, off-again. Not breaking up but where he withdraws from me, probably in what he thinks is an attempt to make me want to seek out others to date, because they’re always heralded by him reminding me he would understand if I wanted to do that.
Right now, I’m in an on-again phase with him. He’s in his third term. His district is small, and he’s well known there, so he doesn’t have to leave DC every weekend right now to go fundraise and campaign. He hasn’t had a serious challenger for his seat in either of his re-election campaigns. The GOP contenders always cannibalize and devour each other so much during the primaries, putting off their potential voters in the process, that Elliot has no problem slaughtering the finalist in the general election.
Also doesn’t hurt that Elliot has plenty of support from business owners and local politicians of both parties, meaning the GOP can’t field a strong enough candidate to unseat him.
But during his campaigns, Elliot withdraws from me. We still text and talk, usually every day but always with the stipulation that he doesn’t mind if I date others. Meanwhile, he doesn’t date. Not even beards, like I’d fully expect and understand if he utilized.
Because of course I’ve told him that if he wanted to date others, I’d understand.
He never does.
Sometimes, during campaign season, we’ll go a month or longer without being able to see each other. And all visits by me to his apartment cease—he’ll only come to me if he thinks he can do so without being spotted. That fucking sucks but I comfort myself knowing Elliot truly needs me. Plus, I keep myself busy working, frequently taking assignments overseas during those times to keep me occupied so I’m too busy—and exhausted at night—to think about him. It also means less guilt on Elliot’s plate because I then take the responsibility for our physical distance.
Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up but he’s my fucked-up guy, and I love him.
After his elections, my pet always returns to me, crying and apologizing and in desperate need of time alone with me. I make sure that, right after the general election, I keep the following weekend and week open, and I’m awaiting him in my apartment with a fully stocked fridge, so we don’t have to go anywhere.
And I try my best to heal his soul during those too-short days together.
I can’t push him for more than we have. It’ll push him away, I’m sure of it. Either immediately, out of fear, or long-term, when something goes wrong, and he bails because of that fear. He knows all he has to do is ask me for more and I’m there.
I can only give him what he will willingly take from me.
Today, my afternoon is clear. I’m in the office but I don’t have anything pressing to keep me there.
Before I can overthink this, I text Chris back.
Sure. I’m in DC, schedule’s open right now, busy later tonight. When/where?
Elliot’s coming over tonight and I won’t reschedule that from my end for anything short of me getting hit by a cab and landing myself in the hospital, or one of my parents, or my sister, having a severe medical crisis that warrants me flying to California.
Chris must have been waiting for my response because I can’t even set my phone down before he sends me an address, tells me to call him to be buzzed in through the gate when I arrive, and asks how soon I can get there.
I’m already up and moving, shutting down my laptop and packing my things so I can head downstairs. I text him I’m on my way.
I’m…curious.
The jolt of adrenaline spiking through me means I know whatever this is, it’s big. It could be the next stage of my life. I’m not exactly restless right now, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t stray thoughts running through my head from time to time.
But Elliot.
Elliot keeps me anchored to DC. Not because he’s asked me to stay.
Precisely because he hasn’t.
Yet whenever we get together, I always sense the ever-present fear in him when he asks me about work, about my travel plans.
About the lucrative job offers I’ve received to work out of offices in London, Singapore, Berlin, and Mumbai, among others.
Offers I’ve mulled over but always turn down outside of election season, because it would mean being away from Elliot.
I know he’s not involved with anyone else.
I mean, I know this. Yes, I’ll admit I get a little stalky on him sometimes and follow him without him knowing it. He’s my pet, okay? Part of it is wanting to make sure he’s safe, and part of it is…
Well, in the beginning it was paranoia. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t fucking around on me and about to do something stupid that would catch me up in a political scandal and fuck my career.
Later, it became a way for me to keep tabs on him. Some of it he knows about, and some of it he doesn’t.
All right, fine, most of it he doesn’t know about.
Hey, I have a certain skill set, all right? And access to amazing, cutting-edge tech. I worry about him.
At this point in our relationship, yes, I’m convinced he’s faithful to me. I know he loves me, too.
Every time we’re together, the terrified relief I feel in him as he sinks hard and deep into his submission with me…
Elliot needs me.
He won’t ask—never asks unless he’s nearly at his breaking point—and part of that is one of the reasons I love him so hard.
He doesn’t take me for granted. If anything, I know there’s a part of him convinced that it’s only a matter of time before I tire of him and move on to someone else who’s easier to deal with.
Which is the farthest thing from the truth.
Alone with me, he’s honest and open, stripped bare and ripped apart, able to process a life that comes at him hard from all directions. The public sees an honest, honorable, capable, brilliant, and handsome lawmaker who has the potential to go places.
Hidden in my apartment and curled up in my arms in my bed, I see the shell of a man terrified to be outed, thinking he’ll lose everything if he is.
Maybe it’s an impossible dream, to hope he’ll one day come out and embrace what we have.
Surviving the impossible is kind of what I’ve already done, though.
Waiting out my terrified boyfriend is nothing, compared to that.
* * * *
The address is a townhouse in a small gated community. Chris opens the door as I’m making my way up the walk. He greets me with a hug.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Leo. I’ll need your discretion today. You’ll have to sign an NDA.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
He leads me inside, where I pull up short when I see US Senator ShaeLynn Samuels of Florida sitting there on the sofa, along with former TV anchor Kevin Markos.
Holy shit.
“Senator Samuels,” I manage. She’s already the Democrat frontrunner for next year’s presidential election. Kevin Markos is her campaign manager. Rumor has it he’ll likely be appointed her chief of staff, if she’s elected.
I hope she’s elected. I despise Fullmer and want him to be a one-termer.
Fucker never so much as called me after the plane crash, and never called the families of the other men, as far as I know. Staffers for the then-senator sent sympathy cards, but not very presidential of him, considering lives were lost working on his fucking campaign.
He sure as hell didn’t hesitate to invoke us in speeches and interviews as a campaign prop, however.
Samuels stands, smiling. “Leo. Chris has spoken very highly of you. Nice to finally meet you.” She walks over to shake hands with me, as does Kevin Markos.
There can be very few reasons I was called here today.
I look at Chris, my pulse spiking as I struggle to rein in my eager hope. “Just say it.”
He slowly nods in that way he’s always had. “You’ll sign an NDA?”
“Absolutely. Get me the form and a pen.”
Kevin hands them to me. I don’t even read the damn thing before scribbling my name on the line. If I can’t trust Chris over this, I have no business being here in the first place.
With that handled, Chris gets right to the point. “Shae’s body man. For the election, and once she’s in office.”
“Yes.”
Indiscretion (Inequitable Trilogy Book 1) Page 17
