That proved to be a terrible idea, because Charles wasn’t wearing anything but sleep pants, and Ángel had stripped down to his underwear before going to bed; the new position pushed Charles’s soft, heavy cock right into the crease of Ángel’s ass.
“Shit, sorry,” Ángel said again, and scrambled off Charles altogether.
Charles sat up, rubbing his throat. “It’s okay; I shouldn’t have touched you. I heard you muttering and I was worried there might be someone in here, and then when I realized you were asleep, you just seemed so upset . . . Nightmare?”
“Not really,” Ángel said. “I don’t know.” He flopped down on his back.
“This mattress is shit,” Charles said with a grimace. He rolled off the far edge of the futon and came around to look down at Ángel. “You’ll never be able to sleep well in here after last night. We’re switching.”
“No.”
“Get up or I’m gonna carry you.”
“Yeah, right— Hey!”
Charles scooped Ángel off the futon and carried him out of the room. After his initial shocked jerk, Ángel held still; impressively strong though Charles was, he wouldn’t be able to restrain a struggling man of Ángel’s own strength and size in this precarious position without dropping him.
All of the blinds were drawn in the master bedroom, casting it in the pale glow of what sunlight managed to filter through. Charles dumped Ángel on the bed, said, “Go to sleep,” and turned to leave.
“Wait.” Ángel sat up, absently noting that this room was as Spartan as all the others, though at least the bedding was of high quality. “Charles, wait.”
Charles turned back with his eyebrows raised.
“Stay.”
His face twisting, Charles said, “You’re twelve kinds of messed up right now. I would never take advantage of—”
“I’ve never wanted sex less, believe me,” Ángel said, cutting Charles off before he could work up any steam. “I just don’t want to be alone. Stay and sleep here.” He saw Charles’s resolve weakening, so although it stung his pride, he added a quiet, “Please.”
Charles hesitated a moment more before giving in. “Yeah, okay. Just this once.”
Ángel was on Charles’s side of the bed, so he slid over on the queen-size mattress. Slipping under the covers, he turned to face the wall. The bed shifted beneath Charles’s weight as he lay down beside him.
The ensuing silence was anything but comfortable. Ángel could feel Charles’s tension creeping across the space between their bodies.
“You called me ‘baby,’” Ángel said, because apparently his exhausted brain had decided this wasn’t awkward enough.
“What?”
“When we found . . .” Ángel swallowed harshly, staring at the blank white wall. “When we found Paul, you called me ‘baby.’ Like you used to.”
“I didn’t realize,” said Charles. “I’m sorry.”
Ángel closed his eyes. “It’s fine.”
He heard Charles shifting around, and then Charles’s hand settled on his shoulder. “Ángel—”
“Don’t.”
Charles sighed and withdrew his hand. Ángel burrowed deeper into the covers, and he did eventually fall asleep again, to the sound of Charles’s steady breathing and the radiating warmth of his body.
This time, he didn’t dream.
Charles had never been able to sleep well during the day, even after pulling an all-nighter. His sleep was broken and restless as he tossed and turned in search of a comfortable position, resurfacing every thirty minutes to gaze blearily at the clock on his phone.
Around two in the afternoon, he gave up and dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. When he emerged, Ángel was still sacked out on the bed, so Charles closed the bedroom door as he headed for the kitchen to make coffee. Lots of coffee.
He was slumped on the couch, sipping his second mug and watching SportsCenter, when Ángel came out of the bedroom. Charles fixed his eyes firmly on Ángel’s face, rather than the tiny scrap of stretchy fabric he insisted on wearing instead of real underwear.
“Hey,” Ángel said, grinding his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“Hey,” Charles said with a frown. “You sure you got enough sleep?” Ángel looked like a hot mess, his face drawn and his eyes shadowed with grief and stress.
“If I sleep any more, I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Okay if I shower?”
Charles realized that, once again, Ángel was without access to his own clothes and toiletries. “Sure. Use the master—there’s nothing in the other one.”
“Okay. I’m just gonna . . .” Ángel gestured vaguely to his half-naked body and then to the second bedroom. “Grab my clothes.”
“Just get your pants. I’ll leave a clean shirt out for you.”
“Thanks.” Ángel took a few steps toward the other bedroom, hesitated, and said, “Have you heard anything?”
“Not yet,” said Charles.
Ángel nodded and shuffled off into the second bedroom. Charles watched him go, a sick pit forming in his stomach. He’d never seen Ángel beaten down like this before, and he’d never hated anyone as much as the person who had managed it.
Charles’s soft, worn Indiana State T-shirt was a little too big on Ángel, but not ridiculously so—just some extra fabric in the chest and shoulders. Ángel returned to the main room of the apartment and paused, glancing between the patio door and Charles’s position on the couch.
“Why haven’t you opened the blinds?” Ángel said, heading for the door.
“No point when I’ll just have to close them again in a few hours.”
Ángel made a face, his back safely turned toward Charles as he reached for the cord. Granted, Ángel had only been around Charles for a week, but it was becoming clear that this was more than grieving a lost relationship—he was genuinely depressed.
That wasn’t Ángel’s responsibility to take on, though, and Charles wouldn’t welcome his observations anyway. Blinds open, he rummaged around in Charles’s kitchen cabinets until he found a mug printed with the words I Don’t Do Mornings, filled it to the brim with coffee, and brought it out onto the patio along with his new cell phone.
Unsurprisingly, there was no furniture out here, but there was a gorgeous Weber grill that was completely out of place. Ángel checked it out with admiration as he dialed Jesenia’s number from memory.
“Hello?” she answered, her tone polite but cautious.
“It’s me; I got a new phone.” That was all Ángel got out before he choked up; he set his coffee on the ground so he wouldn’t drop it and braced his free hand against the waist-high railing.
“Ay, Ángel, ¿qué te pasa?”
“It’s Paul,” Ángel said. He kicked the railing with one foot, clearing his throat. “Está muerto.”
“No,” said Jesenia. “The FBI found him?”
“I did. Someone . . . left him for me.”
He told her as much of the story as he could bear, though he left out the message that had been painted on the wall. Talking about it was like reliving the whole thing, and he was shaking by the time he finished, his eyes hot and itchy.
“Holy shit, Ángel,” Jesenia said, sounding horrified. “Please tell me you’re going to get out of there now. Please.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. How are you going to get through this surrounded by strangers?”
“They’re not all strangers,” said Ángel. “I don’t think I mentioned this before, but Charles Hunter works for the San Diego field office now. He was part of my extraction team; I’m actually staying with him for the time being.”
“Charles Hunter,” Jesenia said. “The same Charles Hunter from Tucson who used you as a booty call for over a year and then kicked you to the curb when he’d had enough?”
“Ey, bájale.” Ángel retrieved his mug and took a deep gulp, finding the coffee as strong as he’d hoped. “It was a lot more complicated than that.”
“No
t from what you told me, it wasn’t.” With new resolve, Jesenia said, “This settles it—if you’re not going to leave, I’m coming back out there. I . . . Well, shit, I can’t come tonight because I’ve got my nephew’s birthday party, but I can be on the first flight out tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to. I’m on leave, and it’s not like it’ll be any hardship for me to spend a few days in San Diego, for God’s sake.”
Ángel hesitated. As guilty as he felt about inconveniencing Jesenia, he did want her to come. She was the only person he knew was on his side no matter what, a phenomenon that had been rare for him his entire life. Growing up, he’d known better than to trust his abusive parents, the hellfire-and-damnation church that dominated his neighborhood, the teachers who pretended to care but were only interested in pushing poor Latino kids through the public school system as effortlessly as possible. Even today, though his teammates were good people, they were little more than strangers.
Charles . . . Charles, he trusted with his life. But their relationship was too inconsistent and fraught with extremes to provide Ángel the reassurance he craved right now.
“Okay,” he said. “If you’re sure it won’t be a problem.”
“You were there for me when things got rough,” Jesenia said softly. “Now it’s my turn. I’ll text you my flight details as soon as I make a reservation.”
Ángel was on the patio for a long time. When he came back inside, he looked steadier, less on the edge of a tearful meltdown.
“My friend Jesenia is flying in tomorrow to visit for a few days,” he said, tucking his cell phone into his pocket.
“That’s good,” said Charles. “Did she know Agent Warner?”
“Not personally, but she knew how I felt about him.” Ángel perched on the opposite arm of the couch, which was as far as he could get from Charles without sitting on the floor, and cradled his mug in his hands. “Looks like the truck with my stuff should get here sometime tomorrow too. Dallas PD went through all of it in case the stalker left me any nasty surprises, but it was clean.”
Charles muted the TV to give Ángel his full attention. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I guess I’ll just take whatever I need for now and put the rest in storage until I figure out where I’m going to land after this is all over.”
“If I don’t have to go in to work tomorrow, I’ll help you move it.”
“Thanks.”
There. Casual, friendly, no lingering tension. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea for them to share a bed earlier, but it would have been worse for Charles to abandon Ángel while he was so raw. They could coexist in the same space for a few days without being constantly at each other’s throats. Or dicks.
Charles turned the volume back on. A couple of minutes later, Ángel slid off the arm of the couch to sit properly on the cushion.
“How’s your grandmother?” he asked.
“She . . .” Charles paused, coming to the startled realization that he hadn’t spoken to his grandmother in a couple of weeks. She’d raised him like a son, and for most of his adult life, he’d never gone more than a few days without calling her. She would chat about the new drama in her Bible-study group or who in the neighborhood was popping out kids now—and where was her great-grandchild, Charles, because she wasn’t getting any younger . . .
Ángel was still waiting for an answer. Charles cleared his throat.
“She’s doing all right,” he said. “Had her hip replaced last year, and she’s been feeling better ever since.”
“That’s good.” Ángel shifted, restless, and glanced toward the patio door. “Where’d you get the grill?”
“Hm?” Following Ángel’s eyes, Charles said, “Oh, that thing. It was an engagement present from some friends, and when Amy and I broke it off, they wouldn’t take it back. Amy didn’t want it, so she left it here. I’d forgotten it was out there, to be honest.”
“You could probably get good money for it on Craigslist.”
“You can have it if you want.”
“That’s not what . . .” Ángel sighed, fiddling with his mug. “I thought I could grill some steak tonight, as a thank-you for letting me crash here.”
“Sure, thanks,” Charles said, and returned his gaze to the television.
Beside him, Ángel wound up tighter and tighter as the minutes ticked by, his fingers tapping against his mug. Charles ignored it as long as he could, but all the fidgeting was driving him to distraction.
“What?” he finally said. “If there’s something you want to say, just say it.”
“Are you going to sit here watching TV all day?” said Ángel.
“Well, we’ll have to go to the grocery store at some point—”
Ángel jumped off the couch and hit the power button on the television.
“What the fuck,” Charles said, too tired to work up real indignation.
“I can’t sit in this apartment all day long with nothing to do,” Ángel said. “I’ll literally go crazy, and honestly, I don’t think it’s a great idea for you either. Can we just . . . I don’t know, go to the gym or something?”
Charles didn’t really want to get off the couch, but if Ángel couldn’t settle down and ended up roaming the apartment like a squirmy puppy, he would go crazy. “Yeah, fine,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ve got a guest pass you can use.”
They had to stop at Target first so Ángel could pick up some gym-appropriate clothing, as his motel room was still an active crime scene. At the gym, they went their separate ways, and Charles appreciated the break. The more time he spent in Ángel’s company, the more confused he became; his anger and pain were still unresolved, but so was his attraction, sexual and otherwise.
He and Ángel kept acting like they’d ended things with that blowout fight. Since Ángel had left so abruptly afterward, though, the truth was that they’d just pressed Pause.
Charles made sure he finished his workout first—he wasn’t going to risk being tempted into fooling around with Ángel in the gym showers, as he had on certain past occasions. Waiting in the smoothie bar with a recovery shake, Charles had to admit that he did feel much better than he would have if he’d stayed at home. He was still tired, but now his fatigue felt well earned, rather than the bleak cumulative effects of a sleepless night, an unsatisfying nap, and emotional exhaustion.
They stopped at the grocery store by Charles’s apartment on the way home, splitting up once again to get it done faster. “Can you grab me some ice cream while you’re in the frozen food aisle?” Ángel asked.
“Sure,” Charles said. It was beyond him how Ángel managed to maintain such a great body while stuffing it full of junk food at every opportunity.
When they met back up at the checkout, Charles tossed Ángel the pint of cookie dough ice cream he’d grabbed. Ángel caught it and turned it over, a strange expression crossing his face.
“What?” Charles started unloading the rest of his groceries onto the conveyor belt.
“You know you never asked me what flavor I wanted, right?”
“Did I get the wrong one?”
“No,” Ángel said with a small smile. “It’s exactly right.”
Charles gave an uncomfortable shrug and turned away, digging his wallet out of his pocket.
Back at his apartment, Charles threw together a salad and some baked potatoes while Ángel grilled the steaks. They ate on the couch with a couple of beers, watching Let’s Be Cops on demand—Ángel had been in Mexico when it came out, and Charles had never gotten around to seeing it either, because goofy comedy hadn’t appealed to Amy. The whole evening was easy, familiar.
Too familiar. Ángel had cooked Charles’s steak just the way he preferred it without ever asking; Charles had bought a new six-pack of beer at the store because he’d known Ángel wouldn’t like the dark stout he already had in his refrigerator. Even though Ángel wasn’t as free with his laughter as he’d been two years ago,
Charles could anticipate each moment when the movie would make him chuckle, and he was right every single time.
They were falling right back into old habits. Charles tried to hold on to the hurt Ángel had caused him, the anger he still felt, but after the rough few days he’d had, that all seemed less important than how good it felt just to have someone in the apartment with him again.
Instead of focusing on the painful parts of their history, Charles’s brain spilled over with memories of the good times. There had been a lot of those—Ángel’s body sliding against his on the dance floor, Ángel drunk and giggly and handsy in the back of a cab, Ángel soft-eyed and sleepy in his bed the next morning . . .
“I’m going to the kitchen,” Ángel said, startling him. “Do you want another beer?”
“No, thanks.” More alcohol was the last thing Charles’s fading self-control needed right now.
Ángel took both their plates to the kitchen, returning with his pint of ice cream and a spoon. He settled back onto the couch and dug right into the carton.
“You’re not going to put that in a bowl?” Charles said, before realizing they’d had this argument before.
This exact argument. He could have mouthed Ángel’s response along with him.
“Why would I get a bowl dirty when I’m the only one who’s going to eat out of the container?” Ángel lifted another spoonful of ice cream to his lips.
Charles glanced sideways, watching Ángel curled up comfortably on his couch, barefoot and wearing Charles’s T-shirt. How could he have ever talked himself into believing this was going to work? He’d never been able to spend any length of time in Ángel’s company without fucking him, fighting with him, or doing both simultaneously. Ángel had set Charles on fire the moment they’d met, and while those flames had banked and flared over the years, they’d never been extinguished.
Ángel noticed Charles looking and held out the carton. “What, do you want some?”
“I’m good,” Charles said, jerking his eyes back to the TV.
The silence between them charged with thoughtful tension. A few moments later, Ángel shifted over on the couch, closing the distance between their bodies. Charles took a shaky breath and continued staring at the screen. He had no idea what the fuck was going on—what movie were they watching?
Can't Hide From Me Page 14
