by Darien Cox
“You’ll still get paid. Do you not want the night off?”
“Of course I want the night off.” She looked at Elliot and wrinkled her nose. “What happened to your face?” She touched her own chin. “You’re all red around your mouth.”
Razor burn from Nolan’s beard stubble. Great.
“Come on. I’ll walk you out to your car.”
Kelly laughed. “I think I’m good, thanks. You’re a crazy person. You know that.”
Elliot walked Kelly to her car despite her protest, his eyes darting around at the dark yard and the woods beyond.
“Look, see?” Kelly opened her car door, jangling her keys. “This is me. Getting in my car. You can go, Sir Galahad.”
Elliot bowed. “Good night.”
She shook her head and grinned. Then she paused, frowning. “What the hell is that on Nolan’s truck?”
Elliot looked over at Nolan’s truck, parked at an angle on the lawn. He lost his breath. Spray-painted in red across the side were the words ‘EXPOSE YOURSELF.’ Elliot’s head swiveled around. They’re still here. Fucker’s still here.
In the space of seconds, all of Elliot’s training slammed his head into gear, and he forced a calm to fall over him. He smiled at Kelly. “It’s a Halloween thing.”
Kelly shook her head. “Real mature. See you later.”
Elliot waved as Kelly pulled out of the driveway. Once she’d taken off down the road, he ran to the truck. Hands on his head, he followed the dripping letters. He had no doubt. This had to be that DisclosureNow from the UFO forum. He’d used those words.
Whoever did this, they were just here. Stuck around to do this even after we got home. Ballsy motherfucker.
His body tried to panic, but he took slow deep breaths. He rounded the front of the truck and looked at the other side, sighing and bending over when he saw more words. ‘OR I WILL.’
Never in all the years they’d been doing this job had someone come close to lifting the veil and figuring out who Elliot and the rest of the team really were. What they were really doing here in the village. Secrecy was everything. Without it, they were doomed. Burned. Exposed. And Ogden? Ogden wouldn’t need them anymore. They’d be damaged goods. Spoiled. Deemed irrelevant. Possibly even disposable. And Elliot knew too much to assume Ogden’s occasional glimmers of affection toward the team would hold any weight whatsoever in light of a breech this big.
But it was only a breech if this asshole actually found a way to expose them in a believable way. If they had enough to do so, they’d likely have done so already. Expose yourself or I will? It was like a game. Someone was getting off on taunting them. A bluff.
The only flicker of hope was that whoever this disclosure enthusiast was, he or she couldn’t possibly know much. Somehow, they’d developed a hunch. They wouldn’t be asking Elliot to expose himself if they had enough info or clout to do so themselves. Elliot needed to find whoever this was and find a way to deal with them, before Ogden got wind of this.
He heard Nolan come out of the house and turned toward him. “I don’t think anything was taken, but you’ll have to…” Nolan stopped dead. “Expose yourself? Who the fuck did this?”
Nolan rounded the truck where Elliot stood, scowling at the words, ‘OR I WILL.’ He moved to the back of the truck bed, then dropped the tailgate. “What the hell is this?” He picked up a large, sealed envelope.
“That wasn’t in there before?” Elliot snatched it from Nolan and opened it up, emptying the contents onto the tailgate. Nolan shone his flashlight as Elliot lay the two photographs beside each other.
“Elliot,” Nolan whispered. “What is happening?”
The first photo was a distance shot focusing on Christian’s marina. It had been taken this past summer. Elliot knew this because in the photo, Ogden’s team were lifting supporting beams, transporting the space craft that had crashed into the lake onto the mobile house. The black, teardrop-shaped craft was fully visible.
In the second photo, the house was still there, but the craft must have already been moved inside. But standing on the dock, amongst a flurry of Ogden’s soldiers, were Elliot, Nolan, Christian, and JT.
“How did someone get these photos?” Nolan asked. “Who the fuck are we dealing with?”
“Nolan,” Elliot said calmly. “Do you trust me?”
“What? Yes of course I trust you. Elliot we need to—”
“Nolan. I need you to do exactly as I say. And don’t ask questions right now. All right?”
Nolan swallowed. “Shit. This is bad, isn’t it?”
“About as bad as it gets.”
“Okay. Yeah, of course. What do you need from me?”
“I’m gonna go open the garage. Pull your truck inside the garage and shut it off. Then come inside. Don’t call anyone. Don’t text anyone. Don’t answer the phone if it rings.”
Nolan took his keys out of his pocket and got in the truck without a word. Elliot sighed as the truck started up. He ran inside and hit the button for the garage door, thankful it was regimented, level-headed Nolan with him right now. The garage door opened and he watched Nolan pull the truck in. Once he’d parked and shut it off, Elliot hit the button and closed the door again.
Nolan got out of the truck and slammed the door. He faced Elliot, shaking his head. “I don’t like this. I want to check outside. They could still be around.”
“No. Come inside.”
Nolan followed him in and Elliot sat down on the couch.
Nolan sat beside him. “Your disclosure troll? You think he did that to my truck and left the pictures? Someone that’s been following us for a while?”
“Yeah.”
“This person does know who you are. Who we are.”
“We need to get Christian and JT over here. Now.”
“We should call Ogden.”
“No.” Elliot stiffened. “That is the last thing we should do.”
“But if we’ve been compromised—”
“We haven’t been compromised yet. We’ve been threatened with exposure. We can still get a handle on this if we work together. We need to talk this through with the whole team here before anyone picks up that phone and calls Ogden. Until we have no other choice, we handle this ourselves.”
Nolan took a deep breath, his brows pinched. “You’re afraid of what he’ll do. To the troll who left the photos.”
“No Nolan.” Elliot shook his head. “I’m afraid of what he’ll do to us. If we can find this person and contain them before they go public or whatever their plan is, only then can we risk telling Ogden.”
Nolan stared silently at Elliot. Elliot’s phone rang and they both jumped. He slid it out of his pocket. “It’s Christian. Probably wondering why we took off from the amusement park.” Elliot groaned. “Christ, Christian’s been drinking all night. Talk about bad timing.” He answered. “Hey, Christian.”
“Elliot. Hey. I know you’re busy with Nolan and all, so sorry to interrupt. But I need to come by your place and talk to you.”
“You…sound sober. You were drunk when I left you.”
“Yeah. Sobered up real fast. I don’t want to talk over the phone. Are you at your place? Or Nolan’s?”
“I’m home. Come by. And pick up JT. No one else. I have to talk to you too.”
“Why no one else?”
“Just do it, Christian. And don’t talk to anyone else. Especially Captain Smiley. Tell JT.”
Christian went quiet on the other end. “We’ll be there.”
Elliot set the phone down and said, “They’re on their way. Christian is up in arms about something too.”
“You think they got a similar visit?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t really think Ogden would—”
“Please, Nolan. Let’s wait until Christian and JT get here.”
Nolan placed his hand on Elliot’s shoulder, squeezing. “For the record, I’m not leaving you here alone tonight.”
Elliot met Nola
n’s gaze. Suddenly the kissing slammed back into his memory. Nolan must have sensed it, because he said quickly, “I’ll sleep on the couch or whatever.”
Elliot chuckled. “Okay. But we’ve got bigger problems than where you’ll sleep tonight.” He frowned. “Hey, Christian just said something weird.”
Nolan shrugged. “What?”
“He said ‘I know you’re busy with Nolan and all so sorry for interrupting’. What the hell did he mean by that?”
Nolan looked away. “Who knows? Christian talks a lot of shit.”
“Nolan. Did you say something to him about me?”
Nolan’s honey-brown eyes slid back to Elliot. He winced. “Yeah?”
Elliot’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“I’m sorry. He was probing and I needed to talk. About you. He’ll keep it to himself.”
Elliot was stunned. Kissing Nolan had been wild and confusing and made clear that they were attracted to each other, despite his mental protests. They’d both tossed their concerns about soiling the friendship aside to act on this weird and unexpected thing. But that Nolan had been so tied up in knots about Elliot to speak with Christian about it? Shit. This is getting real. And he didn’t want to admit it. Because he’d been tied up in knots over Nolan too.
And Elliot couldn’t believe he was thinking about this now, that the Nolan situation had even for a moment superseded his panic about the disclosure troll. “What did you say to Christian?”
“Please don’t be mad.”
Elliot laughed. “I won’t be mad. I’m just surprised and confused.”
Nolan’s scowl smoothed. “I told him that I thought…” Nolan fidgeted, wringing his hands. “That I had romantic feelings for you. I told him it had come to the surface and was making me nuts. But I think maybe I’ve had those feelings a long time, Elliot. I just didn’t acknowledge them until now.”
Elliot stood and began shuffling papers back in drawers, picking up what the intruder had thrown around.
“Seriously, Elliot? Your response to that is cleaning?”
“We’re on the verge of what’s maybe the biggest shit show we’ve ever faced,” he said. His hand trembled as he slid a drawer back in place. “No time to get into this other shit.”
“This other shit?”
“JT and Christian will be here soon.”
“It’ll take them a few minutes. We can talk.”
“Why do we need to talk?” Elliot continued tidying his living room. “We established everything’s good. Clean slate. All that.” Christ, Elliot, stop talking. “Moving on,” he said, ignoring his mind’s advice.
He wasn’t sure why he was doing this. He’d just made out with Nolan and the kissing had awoken something so deep, so visceral and wild inside, it would be futile to pretend it hadn’t happened. Nolan had seen Elliot’s response to the kissing, felt it. So why was Elliot bothering to try brushing past it again? His logical mind knew he couldn’t. His body knew it. His heart knew it.
This response was pure panic, panic of a different kind than he was feeling about the current threat from the disclosure troll. Elliot was even more terrified of Nolan. Because while he’d not denied to himself that it was turning him on, the way Nolan had been slowly pursuing him the past couple days, he hadn’t really known how he felt. He hadn’t expected to feel this much just after a few hot kisses. And it scared the living shit out of him. His stability was rocked.
“Elliot, stop cleaning. We have to talk.”
“Told you, we can all talk when JT and Christian get here.”
Elliot walked into the kitchen and dumped some stuff into the trash barrel. When he turned around Nolan was there, pointing a finger in his face. “Don’t shut me out. Don’t fucking do that. You don’t want this shit? You want me to pretend nothing happened? That we didn’t just make out at the park? Tell me now. One way or the other.”
“This is not the time, Nolan! We’re not doing this now.”
Elliot was forced to walk backwards when Nolan moved in on him. His back hit the refrigerator and Nolan grabbed his shoulders. “JT and Christian will be here soon, then this shit show as you call it will commence, then there will be plans and meetings and more meetings and more plans. So fuck you, Elliot. We’re doing this now. Right now.”
Elliot’s heart pounded, his nerves a jumbled mess. Everything was upside down and inside out. Nolan’s friendship had always been a grounding force, something that kept Elliot calm. Now Nolan’s mere presence created turbulence inside. It had gone from being a gentle breeze to a raging storm, and Elliot was trapped in it. Battered about, out of control. Yet somehow unable to break free of it. Somehow, not wanting to.
To Elliot’s amazement, he found himself getting aroused by Nolan’s forcefulness, his refusal to let Elliot back out. His strong grip. Getting turned on by someone coming on strong had never been his thing. Sure, he’d let a few rambunctious young guys tie him up a couple times, let them pretend to boss him around. But the moment they made any serious demands, he was over it. Because he’d never truly given up control, not in his mind. But with Nolan, he was legitimately at a disadvantage. Out of control of his emotions. His dick. His mind. It went against his nature, so his body’s enthusiastic response was confusing.
“I need to focus.” Elliot pointed to his own temple. “I need my head in the game.”
“And not on me, you mean,” Nolan said.
“This is about you, asshole!” Elliot’s breath quivered. “I can’t let anything happen to you, don’t you get it? If Ogden finds out we’ve been compromised he could at worst make us disappear, at best remove us from this project and force new identities on us and separate us all. I have no intention of letting any of that happen, but to make sure I need to do my job right now! This is what I do and I’m good at it, Nolan. But I need you to follow my lead and help me.”
Nolan kissed him, his hands coming up to grip Elliot’s face. Elliot stiffened, eyes squeezing tightly shut. Nolan’s hands lowered and his arms slipped around Elliot’s waist, hugging him tight as he ate at his mouth. Elliot’s body slowly unwound, lips parting as he let Nolan’s tongue in, clinging to him.
Nolan released Elliot’s mouth with a breath. “We’ll find this fucker, Elliot. I’ll help you do your job. And I won’t kiss you again until you ask me to. But we’re not going back in time. No clean slate or moving past it. Nothing’s gonna fracture our friendship. And no conspiracy asshole or Ogden or aliens or any other shit is gonna take us down. But this thing with us? It’s happening, Elliot. It’s real. And I need you to acknowledge it.”
Someone knocked on the front door.
“They’re here,” Elliot said. He swallowed hard, pinned by Nolan’s gaze.
“They can wait.”
“They both have a key. They’ll come in if we don’t answer.”
“Then they can walk in here and see me with my arms around you for all I care.”
Three more knocks on the door.
“Okay.” Elliot rolled his eyes. “I won’t shut you out. And I acknowledge what’s happening.”
“Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
Elliot snickered and Nolan smiled. Elliot lifted his hands and ran his fingers through Nolan’s hair. Nolan’s eyelids fluttered. “It’s real,” Elliot said. “It’s happening. And I don’t want it to stop. Okay?”
Nolan nodded. “Okay.”
“Elliot!” Christian’s voice called from outside. “You in there?”
“Guess we better answer the door,” Nolan said.
Maybe it was the stress of the work situation, maybe it was an instinctive ploy to win his control back, or maybe it was just a reckless whim—But whatever prompted it, Elliot leaned in and grabbed a final kiss, reaching down and palming Nolan’s groin over his jeans, feeling him instantly swell against in his hand.
Nolan’s mouth ripped away with a gasp, eyes closed. He shuddered and let out a soft laugh. “You evil little shit.”
Elliot chuc
kled and patted Nolan’s face. “Guess we’d better answer the door,” he said and walked out the kitchen.
He opened the front door and saw Christian, JT on the stair behind him. “Come in.”
“Where’s Nolan?” Christian asked as they stepped inside.
“He’ll be right out,” Elliot said, and turned away. “He just needs a minute.”
****
“Holy shit,” JT said as the four of them stood in Elliot’s garage, staring at the words spray-painted on Nolan’s truck. JT sifted through the two photographs, scowling. “If this fucker’s hanging round the village, I want to go out right now and beat his ass.”
Nolan snorted. “Better get Christian to do it. He’s a better fighter.”
Christian was uncharacteristically quiet, just frowning at the truck. Nolan glanced over at Elliot, who wore a pained expression. This was weighing heavily on them all. But they had to suck it up and deal with it. Nolan too. He’d gotten what he needed from Elliot in the kitchen, enough reassurance to calm his aching heart and his burning need. But now was the time to put personal things aside, for the good of them all.
“Elliot,” JT said. “Do you really think keeping Ogden in the dark is the right move? With his resources we could find this person quicker. Figure out who they are and what their deal is.”
Elliot turned toward the door that led back into the house. “Come inside,” he said. “I need to talk to you all about something before we decide anything.”
Nolan met JT’s eyes. JT gave him a questioning look. “What’s going on, Nolan?” JT asked softly.
Nolan shook his head. “Let’s go find out.”
They went in, Christian following silently behind. They found Elliot seated on a living room chair, his chin resting on his clasped hands. He blew out a breath and looked around as they all found seats, Nolan and JT on the couch, Christian in the chair opposite Elliot.
“I have news,” Christian said. “But Elliot, you look like you have something you want to get out, so I’ll wait. Give us the big picture.”
“Okay.” Elliot sat up straight. “You guys know I worked for Ogden almost a year before I met you.”
