When they finished and were lazily wrapped in each other’s arms, Kip said, “I have a confession to make.”
“Oh? Should I be worried?” John asked with a low laugh.
“That depends.” Kip turned to gaze at him. “In all the time we’ve been together I’ve never once told you I love you.”
John nodded. “You didn’t have to. I knew it. I know it. I love you, too.” He traced one finger over Kip’s lips. “It’s sort of strange that we waited until now to say it, but I guess that’s us and what we’ve been through. We tend to dance around the important personal things. I don’t think we need to anymore. You’re safe. I’m not going to lose you to some half-assed punk trying to prove he’d got the balls it takes to be part of Macklin’s organization.”
“The same holds true for you. You’re safe, too. They could have killed you to get to me.” Kip shivered. “Now we can finally figure we’re both safe. We can live our lives the way we want without looking over our shoulders.”
“Can’t ask for more than that.”
“Well…” Kip grinned. “Except for you to agree the office walls should be teal blue, not boring beige.”
“I’ll go with that for the rest of the place. My office will be beige, or else.”
“Or else what?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”
Their night ended on that happy note, and another bout of making love.
* * * *
They awoke Sunday morning to find it had snowed. Not much. Not enough to deter them from doing more riding after eating breakfast at the same place they’d had dinner the previous night.
They returned to the city feeling better about life and their relationship than they had in a long time. It helped when Kip found a message in his email from the realtor that closing on the building would be at ten Tuesday morning. They arrived exactly on time and an hour later they were the proud owners of the building. Or as John put it, “Us and the mortgage company.”
They immediately got in touch with the contractor they’d spoken to, telling him he could start on the downstairs renovations. That was followed by ordering the furniture they needed for the agency and their upstairs apartment. They did that without any of the previous arguments, although there were a few discussions about which bed and living room suite they wanted. In the end they were easily solved, thanks to a silver dollar John carried with him.
“My first winnings at a casino in Black Hawk,” he told Kip. “Before I gave up my profligate gambling ways.” He laughed when Kip thought he was serious. “I was up there once, that’s it. Looking at the faces of the people, the deadness in their eyes as they prayed that on the next roll, or with the next quarter in the slot machine, they’d break the bank?” He shook his head. “That was enough to cure me of any desire to gamble.”
The apartment furniture arrived on Friday and after setting it up, they moved in on Saturday. A week later the contractor finished his job, at which point the painters and carpet layers took over. Then, finally, the place was finished, the furniture in place, and on December first they were open for business. The name on the door, and in the ads and on their website, said ‘J&K investigations.’ Those were the initials of their new last names, Joyner and Kingsley. They’d taken the words of their Marshals Service contact to heart, using their own initials but changing the order. Thus Kip was now Frank Kingsley, and John was Robert Joyner.
“I’m never going to get used to calling you Rob, and hearing you call me Frank,” Kip said when they first began using them. “I should be able to. I used aliases the two times I went undercover for a job and had no problems.”
“That’s because the job depended on it,” John replied. “It’s all in the mind set. We’re personally involved and have been for quite a while now.” He grinned. “Think of me as your new, sexy lover and it should be easy.”
“Uh-huh. I like my old, sexy lover so it would be hard to imagine a new one, even if it is you. Okay, that didn’t make sense, did it?”
“It did to me.” John gave him a hug. “Whatever names we use, we’re still us. That will never change.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Good.” John kissed him then said, “Now, about dinner. In or out?”
* * * *
And so their lives moved on. The agency prospered, especially after they hired Carol, a young woman who ran the business end of it with the same aplomb and attention to detail as Nina had at Kip’s old agency.
Kip was notified that he wouldn’t have to return to Denver for Macklin’s trial. With what Harris had told the prosecutor, there was enough evidence against the man without Kip’s testimony.
“Thank God for that,” John said when Kip told him. “I know you’d be well protected, but…”
“Your nerves would have been working overtime until it was over. I get that. So would mine, especially since I doubt they’d have let you come with me.”
“I know they wouldn’t have, meaning by the time you’d returned I’d have been committed to the local asylum.”
“No. You’d greet me with open arms and we’d spend the next week in bed to release the last of our tensions.”
“A week?”
Kip grinned. “At least.”
“I can live with that. How about we do it anyway, to celebrate the fact you’re not going out there?”
They didn’t spend a week in bed, just every night and twice on Sunday, but then, that was how their life was, now.
The only thing lacking, as far as Kip was concerned, was being able to stay in touch with Mitch. He had accepted that as necessary, but he didn’t have to like it. Then, one early one Friday morning in April, while he was getting ready to go to a new client’s business to set up security, Carol told him there was a man in the waiting room who insisted he had to talk to either Mr. Kingsley or Mr. Joyner. “The sooner the better, to quote him.”
“Did he tell you his name?” Kip asked.
“No. He said to tell you he’s an old friend from, um, Elderon?”
“Holy shit. Send him in. No, wait, what does he look like?”
“Mid-fifties I’d guess, black hair turning gray, blue eyes, and I think his nose was broken once.”
Kip pumped a fist. “Send him in, and ask Rob to join us, please.”
Kip was on his feet when Mitch came into his office, which made it easier for the sheriff to wrap him in a tight bear hug.
“Making time with my man?” John asked with amusement from behind them. “What the hell are you doing here, Mitch, and how did you find us?”
“I decided I needed to be sure the two of you were doing okay,” Mitch replied. “It took a lot of fast talking with certain people who will remain nameless—” He glanced at the door, even though it was closed, “—but I was able to convince them to give me an address. After all, I am a duly appointed officer of the law. So, here I am, taking a well-deserved vacation.” He laughed. “In the Bahamas, as far as anyone who knows me is concerned.”
“How long can you stay,” Kip asked.
“Until Monday. Then I am going to the Bahamas, if I don’t get a call that everyone in town has suddenly turned into rowdies while I’m gone.”
Kip laughed. “Like that will happen. Where are you staying?”
“A nice motel not too far from here.” Mitch told them which one. “I know you’re busy at the moment, or you’d better be. How about we meet there for dinner? The restaurant’s supposed to be good.”
“You bet. We should be free by six,” John replied.
“I’ll see you then. By the way, your receptionist is cute.”
“Of course she is. She’s there to impress the clients before they have to deal with him and those,” Kip said, pointing John’s tats, since his sleeves were rolled up at the moment.
Mitch frowned. “You should have gotten rid of them. They’re too distinctive.”
“Which is why I wear long-sleeved shirts and grew this,” John told
him, stroking his beard. It didn’t totally hide the tat on his neck, but it did a decent job of covering it without making him look like he’d spent the last year in the mountains prospecting.
“I guess that works. At least until summer.”
“Then I suffer,” John replied. “It’s worth it though,” he added, putting his arm around Kip’s shoulders.
“Ah, young love.” Mitch rolled his eyes, told them he’d see them at six, and left.
“That was a surprise,” Kip said. “A good one, for once.”
“Yeah.” John rolled his sleeves down. “I have a meeting with Mr. Smith to tell him about his daughter. Wish me luck.”
“Better you than me.”
Mr. Smith had come to them a week previously, asking them to search for his missing daughter. John had taken on the job—and when he found her he’d learned she’d left home to be with her girlfriend.
“Dad will blow a gasket, if he finds out,” she’d said, begging John not to tell her father where she was.
He’d had a long talk with her. The result was that she promised to return home if John could convince her father to accept her for who she was. He couldn’t persuade her it would be better if she did that herself, so he’d agreed, knowing if he didn’t she’d disappear again and this time finding her might be difficult, not to say impossible.
* * * *
After installing the security for their client, Kip returned to the agency to find John and Carol chatting about a local film festival that was coming up in two weeks. From the expression on John’s face when he saw him, Kip knew he’d been successful in his mission.
“Smith wasn’t happy at first,” John said when Kip asked. “Okay, that’s putting it mildly. He was furious and wanted me to drag her home if necessary. Then I explained a few facts of life to him, like her being a lesbian was not a choice, and that if I even tried to make her go home she’d vanish and he might never see her again. When I asked him if he loved her he broke down and said ‘More than anything. She makes my life special. Mine and her mother’s.’ After that it was a piece of cake. I went back to where she and the girlfriend were staying and gave them a ride to her parent’s house. The last I saw, they were having a tearful reunion.” He smiled. “It’s cases like this one that make what we do worthwhile.”
John also told the story to Mitch over dinner, ending it with the same comment.
“That, my friend…” Mitch had opted to use phrases like that with Kip and John in public for fear he’d slip and use their real names. “That is why I’m so proud of both of you. You especially.” He put his hand on Kip’s arm. “You’re not the young man I met so long ago. You’ve made something of your life in spite of everything that happened. If I had a son, I’d hope he turned out exactly like you.”
Kip knew he’d turned red at the compliment as he replied, “If I’d had a father like you…Well, things would have been very different, although—” he smiled at John, “—I might not have met you. So I guess things turned out the way they were supposed to.”
“Sure you would have,” John replied. “You’d have started the agency, with Mitch’s blessing, then you’d have decided you needed to hire someone to help you, and there I’d have been, standing on the doorstep, hat in hand.”
Kip snorted. “Helmet in hand, maybe.”
“Well, that too.” John kissed him lightly, despite the fact Mitch was watching, and probably some of the other customers in the restaurant were as well.
After that, the meal progressed with Mitch telling them stories about what was going on in Elderon and Kip and John catching him up to date on their lives. When dinner was over, they promised Mitch they’d spend the weekend showing him around the city—which they did. Monday morning he left because, as he’d told them, he really was going to the Bahamas, where he planned to relax and get an enviable tan before returning home.
They met Mitch for breakfast before he left, and then drove him to the airport. As they headed to the agency afterward, Kip said, “I miss him already.”
“Me, too,” John replied. “But he did promise he’d visit again as often as possible.”
“And when he makes a promise, he keeps it.”
“Like someone else I know.” John waggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, boy. What did I promise now?”
John smiled, putting his hand over Kip’s on the steering wheel. “To love me, just as I’ll love you, forever.”
“Forever and a day,” Kip replied softly.
He meant it—they meant it—and they followed through. A year later, with little fanfare, they were married by a justice of the peace. While John wished his family could have been there to witness the event, under the circumstances that wasn’t possible, any more than their inviting Nina was. Mitch made it a point to attend, standing in for both their families.
The agency grew, necessitating them hiring two more investigators and moving it to a larger building. Because Kip insisted, the building they chose allowed them to have their own apartment on the premises.
“After all,” as Kip said, “why break with tradition?”
John agreed wholeheartedly.
The night after they moved in they celebrated in the best way possible—in bed.
“Who knew?” Kip said much later, his head nestled on John’s shoulder.
“Knew what?” John asked when he didn’t continue.
“That a scared homeless kid would end up making something of his life and finding the perfect man to share it with.”
“I did, the first time I met you.”
“Uh-huh.”
John grinned and kissed him. “Well, maybe not at first, but yeah, I knew. So deal.”
“Dealing,” Kip replied, meaning it. He could deal with anything as long as John was by his side.
THE END
ABOUT EDWARD KENDRICK
Born and bred in Cleveland, I earned a degree in technical theater, later switched to costuming, and headed to NYC. Finally seeing the futility of trying to become rich and famous in the Big Apple, I joined VISTA—Volunteers in Service to America—ending up in Chicago for three years. Then it was on to Denver where I put down roots and worked as a costume designer until I retired in 2007.
I began writing a few years ago after joining an online fanfic group. Two friends and I then started a group for writers, where they could post any story they wished no matter the genre or content. Since then, for the last five years, I’ve been writing for publication—my first book came out in February of 2011. Most, but not all, of my work is M/M, either mildly erotic or purely ‘romantic.’ More often than not it involves a mystery or action/adventure, and is sometimes paranormal to boot.
For more information, visit edwardkendrick.blogspot.com.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!
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