by Amy Lane
“Fight back,” Larx said, hating the truth. “Because if you give me nothing but ‘Yes, Larx, you’re right, Larx, I love you, Larx,’ I can’t be held responsible for what I do to you.”
“Hide all the frying pans,” Aaron said gravely.
“Hide all the pointy objects,” Larx shot back, voice grim.
“Okay—fine. You want me to fight back?” And Larx’s stomach clenched, because Aaron sounded like he meant business.
“Hit me.” Larx’s eyebrows were knitting so hard his head hurt.
“The train station.”
And suddenly they unknit, and his eyes were all big and butter couldn’t melt in his mouth. “What about it?” he asked benignly.
And Aaron’s eyebrows looked like they were making a sweater. “You gonna tell me?”
“Nothing to tell. Girl tried to buy a ticket.”
Aaron pulled away from him. “God is going to strike you down for lying, you faithless heathen! Holy Christ! Did you think Eamon wouldn’t tell me?”
“Well, if Eamon was going to tell you, why did you have to ask?” Larx snapped back. “And it’s not like you’ve told me what went on in that room!”
“I got shot! Isn’t that enough?”
Larx’s voice pitched angrily. “You saved Eamon’s life. You made the shooter aim at you instead of shooting in my direction. You saved my life. Did you know that? Because when he missed shooting at Eamon, he shot out your unit. If he’d kept aiming that way, one of the bullets would have hit me—I have no doubt. So you put yourself in harm’s way being a fucking hero, and I might not like it, but God, I sure am proud of you for it. But no—you just laid in the hospital looking like death and said, ‘Just doing my job, ma’am, just doing my job!’”
For a moment his words hung, hot and steaming, in the cold air of the minivan. Then Aaron took as deep a breath as he could muster.
“Assholes with shotguns, Larx. You behind a counter facing an asshole with a shotgun. And Percy Hardesty drawing down on you like you were dangerous. I won’t be able to work with that man ever again.”
Larx let out a breath. “That really doesn’t bother me. Percy isn’t that bright—I’d just as soon someone else have your back, truth to tell.”
Aaron leaned his head back against the seat rest. “When Eamon leaves office, he’s either going to fire Percy or leave him for me to fire. We’ll have to see how Percy takes Eamon backing me. Percy thinks he’s got a shot.”
“Well, I’ll give a testimonial,” Larx said acidly, and then he leaned his head back against the seat. Conceding to the inevitable, he turned the ignition on—but he didn’t take the car out of park. Not yet.
“Was this our first fight?” he asked, feeling raw and hurt but still okay. Aaron reached across the console and laced their fingers together.
“Closest thing to,” he admitted. “I’m going to have to weenie out of the rest of it ’cause I’m tired. Who do you think won?”
Larx pulled Aaron’s knuckles up to his lips and kissed them softly. God, for all the anger, all the resentment, Aaron was here, and Larx was so glad he was okay.
“We’ll call it a draw and fight again tomorrow,” Larx told him. Then he sighed. “When do… when do we stop fighting about this?”
“About my job?” Aaron turned to meet his eyes, and for a moment, Larx was pulled into the pretty blue of them, just like he had been that day Aaron had stopped him on the side of the road to insist that Larx run somewhere else.
“Yeah.”
“Until I retire. Can you keep it up that long?”
Larx closed his eyes and felt a smile steal across his lips. He hadn’t given it permission to be there, but, well, sometimes the heart healed what it healed.
“Can you deal with me being mad if you get hurt?”
“That depends,” Aaron said, voice sober.
Larx opened his eyes again. “On what?”
“On whether or not you break out the frying pan.”
Larx nodded. It was going to be rough. They both knew it. But there was something reassuring about buckling up for a bumpy ride. Didn’t make the ride any better, but there was a certain anger in surprise. No surprises here—Larx and Aaron had some shit to work out, and they had the emotional gloves and gas masks to prove it.
“I’ll keep the frying pan on the stove,” he promised, “but you’ve got to….” He took his own deep breath. “You’ve got to let me talk about the train station in my own time, okay?”
Aaron nodded. “I love you, Larx. Don’t forget that while we’re working shit out.”
“Love you too.” He swallowed and smiled. “I don’t think I’d be quite this pissed if I didn’t love you quite this much.”
Aaron smiled, a sexy, cocky smile, and Larx’s stomach did an irresponsible little backflip based on smile alone. “My boy loves me,” he said, like they were kids, and just saying the words meant they could frolic naked through a spring meadow of wild flowers.
“Of course I do,” Larx said quietly. “Whatever happens, it’s not going to be because there’s not enough love.”
“Then we’ll do fine,” Aaron said, and for that moment, in the warming car under the long afternoon shadows of the looming pine trees, Larx could believe him. Yeah, spring wildflowers were nice—but if they were going to endure the frozen ground of cold anger, they had to be tougher. Buttercups, crocuses, pinks—those flowers pushed their way through snow and gave people hope for a gentler moment in time.
Larx and Aaron were going to have to be like the crocus—lying latent right now, while they sent out feelers to each other’s hearts, knowing that soon the ground would soften, the sun would warm them, and it would be spring again.
THERE WAS an initial flurry of kids and excitement when Larx got Aaron home, but eventually they got him upstairs, ensconced in bed, king of the remote control. Larx kissed his cheek and told him he’d be back after he fixed everyone dinner. But when he got downstairs, he was surprised to see Christiana and Maureen working side by side, quietly giving each other help about where pots would be and what they were going to make.
“Guys, I was going with french bread pizza,” he said, smiling a little. Wasn’t the greatest meal in the world, but the thought of it right now filled him with sourdough bread joy.
“Don’t worry, Larx,” Maureen said, competence in every line of her shoulders, just like her father. “You’ve got canned kidney beans and ground beef and all the spices I need. I’m going to make chili and cornbread, and then you can have leftovers for the week. How’s that?”
Larx thought he could cry from the joy of not having to fix dinner. “Wonderful,” he breathed. “Should I set the table?”
“I’ll do it!” Jaime popped up at his elbow, like a gnome. “It’s my turn to help.”
Larx laughed. “Have you broken the dog yet?”
“Oh yes, sir,” Jaime told him gravely, nodding his head. Dozer was, indeed, passed out on his pillow. If nothing else, that seemed to be a habit now, and Larx approved. “If I could, I’d come over and break this dog every day.”
Larx smiled gently. Aaron had offered—and Larx would ask him again and again to make sure it was okay. But this boy was welcome in his home—and his brother too.
Olivia and Elton were doing finances at the kitchen table. Kirby and Kellan were playing a video game intently in the living room. Everybody had a job, a thing to do, a purpose.
“Well, fine.” Nobody was having a crisis. The thought left him… off-balance. Bereft. There was nothing to do because Aaron was….
Upstairs.
Oh jeez. He was upstairs.
And in a rush, the relief of having him there hit Larx right in the solar plexus.
He turned back around and went up the stairs, pausing in the doorway to their room, remembering the tense, painful conversation in the car on the way over.
How long was he going to be mad?
It was a good question—and he didn’t have a good answer to it. He was going to
be mad until he stopped thinking Aaron was going to be in the hospital. He was going to be mad until he got his running buddy back. He was going to be mad until he stopped panicking if Aaron was even a minute late from work, or if he heard the shwack of the Kevlar as he was leaving the house.
His hands started to shake. Was he going to be mad the rest of his life?
He put his shaking hand on the doorknob, and it swung open. Aaron turned his head and smiled gratefully. “You going to keep me company while I sit on my ass and age?”
His smile—so golden. All the anger in Larx’s heart swept away, just like it had when they’d kissed.
Larx stepped into the room and leveraged himself carefully onto the bed. Once he got there, Aaron draped the afghan on his lap over them both and pulled Larx into the crook of his shoulder so Larx could watch TV too.
Nope. No anger here.
“All the kids okay?”
“Our daughters are working on dinner, our sons are working on the PS4, and the parents of our grandchild are trying to work out finances to see if they can both work from home and pay rent, insurance, and food.”
“Mm… what about the kid who wants our dog?”
“The… cousin, I guess, who broke your dog, is setting the table. I’m pretty sure they’ll call us when they’re ready.”
Aaron’s chuckle was breathy but still warm. “So you’re claiming everybody but the dog.”
Larx sighed a little in mock resignation. “Okay. Our cousin who broke our dog is setting the table.”
The night Jaime had fallen asleep next to Dozer, Larx had sat at the kitchen table when he was supposed to be doing paperwork and just stared at that boy and his dog. Aaron had needed that dog in his life. He’d thought he was getting it for Larx, but the truth was, a man like Aaron should just come with a dog. It should be part of the package, like cars coming with seat belts. Big blond men with wide chests and twinkling eyes and kind hearts should come with dogs. No-brainer.
If the dog was Larx’s, Aaron was Larx’s. Larx had said “I love you” and meant it. Their family had merged.
There were no takebacks on forever.
Aaron hmmed, oblivious to Larx’s constant state of epiphany. “God, I missed this moment. It’s just… so normal.”
It was. Right down to how angry Larx wasn’t when he was in Aaron’s presence.
And right there, his question was answered.
How long was he going to be angry? Well, as long as he was going to be worried. But he was going to worry about their kids—all their kids—for forever, and he was apparently going to worry about Aaron that long too. Those moments when he was with them and their lives were fine—those had always been like sunny days in the mountains. You were blessed by them—but you didn’t count on them.
And you didn’t take out your worry—or your anger at being worried—on the people you loved the most.
“Christiana had to stay in the hospital for a week after she was born,” Larx said sleepily, more relaxed than he’d been in… well, a week. “So for a week, Alicia and I took Olivia to the hospital twice a day so Alicia could breastfeed and drop off her pumped milk, and everybody held the baby—and then went back to the house. The stuff was all there, the new crib, the new clothes. And it sucked. There was no baby to put in the baby places. We’d had the hoopla of the birth, but Christiana’s immune system had been compromised and she needed antibiotics, so, you know, no baby yet.”
Aaron shuddered. “Must have been—”
“Weird!” Larx burst out. “Was the weirdest thing! But finally—finally—she was cleared to come home. I let Alicia stay home and nap, and Olivia and I went to get her. And you know Christi—she’s just so… so good. Even as a baby. She napped for hours, slept night to morning—and we got her home right in the middle of nap time. So we’d been promising Olivia a baby to play with, and here was the baby, in a car seat between us and the TV.”
Oh, Aaron’s chuckle should have been bottled as a cure for sadness. “How anticlimactic.”
“Right? So we’re looking at the car seat and… nothing is happening. She’s not even passing gas. And Olivia yawns—’cause we’re all exhausted—and leans on me, still in her jacket, and says, ‘Cartoons, Daddy!’ So I turn on cartoons and lean against the side of the couch, and the whole family just… took a nap.”
“Sounds nice,” Aaron murmured, dropping a kiss in his hair.
“This moment, right here,” Larx said on a yawn. “This moment is just like that.”
“God, I love you, Principal.”
“I love you too, Deputy. Help me remember that in the next few weeks, okay?”
“As often as possible.”
“Mm.”
Aaron dropped another kiss on his hair, and he dozed off. The family let him, eating quietly downstairs on their own, and when he woke up, there was a tray by the bed. Aaron was sleeping by then, and Larx sat cross-legged on the bed and ate, watching television, feeling like he was taking an unplanned holiday.
Like a baby’s nap, it was best to take his good moments when he could get them. You never knew when the next squall was on the way.
THE NEXT morning he slipped out of bed early, grateful for the first decent night’s sleep he’d had in over a week. Leaving Aaron’s warmth was hard—usually they did this together.
Aaron shifted in bed and grumbled. “Really?”
“Haven’t run in a week and a half!” he protested, half-panicked and, yes, still mostly asleep. Oh God! Was there something he hadn’t done? Was there a thing on his agenda he hadn’t gotten to? He’d gotten used to splitting duties with Aaron—groceries, cooking, talking to the kids. But now they had more kids than ever before, and Aaron had been out of commission, and he wasn’t going to just come back and boom! Be okay.
Larx was still on for a few weeks, and he didn’t forget it.
“Mm… sorry. Have a good run.” Aaron looked so sweet—so healthy and well. Larx sighed and leaned over, kissing his cheek. Usually it was Aaron leaving before he did on a call. Larx wondered if it sucked as much then as leaving Aaron did now.
“It’ll be us together soon,” he promised, closing his eyes and breathing in warm Aaron. His deputy wasn’t making going out in the cold any easier.
“Better promise,” Aaron grumbled, pulling the covers up under his chin.
Larx dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Course.”
He managed to pull on his sweats and hooded sweatshirt, then grabbed his socks and stocking cap to put on down in the kitchen.
To his surprise, Maureen was down there already, sitting at the kitchen table and doing homework. She’d been a godsend these last days, helping him to wrangle kids and generally stepping up to help out where she was needed.
“Getting behind?” Larx mumbled, plopping in the chair across from her and pulling his tennis shoes on. At his back was the weird fireplace he never used because it opened up to two different rooms and thus provided no heat. In the winter mornings, it was particularly useless because it let a draft in that could freeze the balls off a neutered dog.
“Mm,” she confirmed, looking up to give him a drowsy smile. “Running?”
Larx nodded. “Couldn’t… I mean, I could when he wasn’t here, but….” He frowned, too tired to put together how this solitary thing he’d done his whole life had become dependent on knowing Aaron was at least okay.
“You needed him home,” she said, the corners of her mouth crimping in like she was holding back a deeper smile. “He said that’s when you guys got to know each other.”
Larx rolled his eyes and tied his shoelaces. “He made me. He sort of ambushed me when I was running by the school and told me I should run on the forestry track with him.” He smiled. “It made sense. I mean, I had company, and the forestry track is safer.”
“Mm….” And now her eyes danced, and he realized the jig was up.
“He had really nice eyes, and he wanted me,” Larx told her, waiting for the impish wrinkling of her nose.
“I don’t know what to tell you. It was just… nice. Being wanted. By someone with eyes like your father’s.”
The smile blossomed completely. “You give me faith,” she said, her own blue eyes twinkling. “I came here for me, mostly. I needed to see he was okay. But I knew you’d take good care of him.”
Larx let out a sigh and cast a look upstairs. “I try. His job….”
She nodded. “Kirby did some sort of magic formula in his head. As long as he knows where everybody is, he doesn’t worry. But me and Tiff, we’d stay up at night and plan what we’d do if something really awful happened, you know?”
He pulled in a deep breath, trying to figure out what that would do to a kid.
“What did you decide?”
“Well, I said I’d stay with Kirby and raise him with our Aunt Candy. She said that was bullshit and we should go stay with Mom’s folks. I said I didn’t want to wear a dress every day to school, and she said I was being willful, which was their word for when I wanted to bring my stuffed bear places and they didn’t think it was appropriate.”
Larx grimaced. “Awesome.” He took a deep breath and tried not to judge. “I mean, old-school, you know?”
Mau shook her head. “No—they’re sort of tight-assed judgy people. Mostly I just went to bed every night and prayed really hard that Dad would come home. Aunt Candy wasn’t a bad option, but I just really didn’t want to lose him.”
“Hm….” Larx wondered briefly what it had done to Aaron’s oldest, if she hadn’t had any faith to go back on. “Maybe your sister just tried to guard herself in case she did.”
Maureen’s eyes grew really big. “Oh my God. That could be it! Do you think that’s why she’s been such a bitch these last few years? I mean, even before you, she was just… awful.”
Larx nodded. “Usually kids who lash out like that—especially kids from really nice people like your dad and mom—they’re in pain. Worrying about your dad after your mom died, that would be a lot of pain.”
“Oh. Oh wow. Thanks, Larx. I mean, it won’t make a magic fix, but if I can talk to her about it—man. It sure would be great….” Her lower lip wobbled. “I mean, Christiana is so awesome. And Olivia—I know she’s depressed, you know? But they’re both so nice to me. And it just… I miss my sister. And if she keeps being like this, she’s going to lose us.”
