28. Chris
Chapter twenty-eight
Chris
W hile Greyson finished up with the doctor and went over his discharge paperwork, I ran down to my squad and moved all of my shit from the passenger seat to the trunk. I let Nitro out real quick and hurried back inside so Greyson didn’t somehow give me the slip. I wouldn’t put it past him. I wouldn’t put anything past him at the moment. There was no telling where his head was at and desperate people did desperate shit. Clearly. Not to mention the fact, I apparently didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.
“Hey,” Janelle said as I rounded the nurse’s station. “Can we talk?”
“Sure thing.” I followed her down the hall a bit, out of earshot of everyone.
“Friend to friend?” She raised her eyebrows at me. When I nodded, she continued. “He gave Doc some story about grabbing the wrong tea leaves. I’m not buying it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, he lied throughout the whole suicide screening. He also denied being on medication but it’s there in his file from Chicago. His doctor put him on antidepressants about six months ago and then increased them two and a half months ago.” Doing the math in my head, the increase was right around when his family died, which wasn’t all that shocking.
“If he’s on antidepressants, why is he suicidal?” I wasn’t a doctor, but that didn’t make sense.
“Because that’s one of the side effects. It’s called Antidepressant‐Induced Suicidality. It’s fucked up, I know. It’s more common in kids but it affects a small amount of adults too. Some people just get worse depending on the meds they take. And the one he’s on? I’ve seen how quickly suicidal ideations take over. They can come out of nowhere. Someone who’s never been suicidal a day in their life can fall into it like that.” She snapped for emphasis.
My throat tightened, Greyson’s explanation ringing in my ears. “Can it feel like a compulsion?”
She shrugged. “Maybe? One patient described it as an out-of-body experience. Another said it made their depression symptoms so much worse and they didn’t want to live like that, but they didn’t see any other way out.”
“So what do I do? You said Doc’s discharging him. Shouldn’t he stay for a few days?”
“Trust me, you don’t want him in the psych ward here. It’s even more understaffed than the ED. Take him home, let him rest. See if he’ll talk to you, but don’t push. I know how you can be. Kid gloves for the next couple of days.”
“And then what? What about his meds?”
“A doctor will tell you to wean off of it and start a new medication. Me? I’m throwing that shit out the second I get home and calling my doctor in the morning. I’d rather deal with withdrawal for a few days than run the risk of another episode.”
“Ok. Thanks for the info.”
“Any time.”
Greyson exited his room, dressed in his own clothes again, his arms wrapped around himself.
“Take care of yourself,” Janelle said as he ambled up to us. As soon as his back was turned she looked at me and pantomimed holding a phone up to ear, mouthing “Call me,” before pointing at Greyson with a knowing look.
I nodded once. No more needed to be said on the matter. She and I both knew what a failed attempt looked like and he was nowhere near “cured” of what landed him there in the first place. Greyson wasn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. On the contrary. Statistically, he was at an even greater risk. But knowing it was more than likely his medication and not a genuine desire to die was a relief. I still wasn’t letting him out of my sight, though. I didn’t know how long I could feasibly babysit him, but I’d cross that bridge when we got to it.
“I’m out front,” I said to Greyson, gesturing toward the ambulance bay doors instead of letting him wander through the ED lobby and walking past the odd assortment of patients that tended to gather after midnight. My palm itched to touch him, to hold his hand, but the fact I was still in uniform in a public space cemented my hands to my sides. It’s not that we were guys or that I was worried about homophobic assholes—once again, it was the fucking PDA rule for all cops. People didn’t like to be reminded we were human beneath the badge, with families and friends beyond the job.
Greyson drifted alongside me like a ghost, silent and half-alive, nothing at all like the guy I’d come to know. Well, thought I knew. He was silent on the ride home, too. I wondered what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to ask. I wanted to be supportive and understanding, not take his head off like I had in the hospital. Kid gloves, like Janelle said.
I didn’t mean to get angry, it just happened. At any rate, it wasn’t necessarily directed at him, it was at myself. Seeing him like that, knowing how desperate he’d been to escape it all, meant I’d failed him, that he couldn’t trust me as a cop or as… whatever the fuck I was to him. We still didn’t have a label. Regardless, I’d failed to protect him. Failed to earn his trust. But after snapping at him while he was literally lying in a hospital bed after nearly dying, I couldn’t exactly blame him for not telling me shit.
I shifted in my seat, yanking the collar of my vest carrier down as if I might be able to escape the sensation of being strangled.
To give my self-esteem another kick in the balls, I’d failed to see the warning signs. I knew what they were. We had class every other year to go over it in case we somehow forgot. The brass would trot a therapist in to coach us on how we should talk to suicidal people, how to get them to peacefully come with us as opposed to ending it, and that was on top of the more advanced training all SOT members were required to take.
It’s not like I didn’t have my fair share of suicidal calls, either. I talked to one guy on a picnic table for almost two hours while he held a steak knife to his throat. When he finally handed me the knife, I could have cried—or thrown up. Instead, I swung through McDonald’s and got him some food while I personally drove him to the hospital, depositing him into the safekeeping of Janelle and the other ED nurses.
But he wasn’t Greyson. Even if he had bled out right in front of me, I could have compartmentalized his death like a good little cop, acknowledged it was sad but ultimately packed it up in a box and stored it away with memories of Dakota and every other horrific call I’d seen in nearly a decade on the road. Not Greyson.
Seeing Greyson teetering on the edge of death damn near sent me into a tailspin. Training? What training? Keep a level head? Yeah right. All of that went out the window the second I laid eyes on him and thought, for a split second, that he was dead.
Had he been suicidal since he moved here? Was I really that much of a fucking idiot? Or was it the meds, like Janelle said? Had the thing that was supposed to make his life better almost caused him to kill himself?
Either way, I needed to put an end to Don. Now. No more Don, no more meds, no more suicide attempts.
I already had a general idea of how I could do it outside of legal means. It’s not that I sat down and planned it, but when you worked around enough criminals, you learned a thing or two. You had to if you wanted to catch the bastards. Not to mention, thinking like them was one way to stay alive in this job.
Belmont County was nothing but agriculture. I had everything I could ever want at my disposal to get rid of a body. I even had the help. Luke would do whatever I asked, without question, whether that was dumping a body off at one of his family’s many, many farms, or giving me whatever alibi I needed. But I wouldn’t need one. I was a cop. In a small town, sure, but I still knew all about how investigations worked, how forensics were collected. I could make that fucker disappear and no one would find him. Problem solved. One less psychotic asshole in the world terrorizing people. Because if it wasn’t Greyson he was out there tormenting, who’s to say he wouldn’t go after someone else? Now that he’d had a taste of it, the thrill and the power that came from fucking with people, no one was safe.
Before I turned onto Spicewood Lane, I knew if I ever got my hands on Don, one of us was going to die and I highly doubted a plumber twice my age stood any sort of chance, no matter how fucking crazy he was.
When we got home, I parked in the driveway and officially called off-duty, even though I’d been out of service since I radioed for an ambulance. Tom had checked in on me periodically while covering my calls and Stacey brought me a sandwich. I’m not sure if Tom bought my bullshit excuses for staying there, but thankfully it was a slow night, so it’s not like they needed me on the road.
At least the report I’d lied to Janelle about was already done. It took all of about three sentences to say I’d merely “assisted medical” on the scene and administered some Narcan—not that the guy I was hooking up with had tried to kill himself because he was being stalked by some other guy who had managed to kill not one, but three , people already. It was amazing how much you could leave out of an official report while still giving the broader truth. It wasn’t lying, but it wasn’t giving the full picture either, just like the man sitting next to me.
Greyson was out of the squad before I could even open my door.
“Grey—Greyson!” I lunged across the passenger seat but he was gone, slipping through my fingers like smoke and slamming the door on me.
I hit the button to unlock Nitro’s door and sprang out of the driver’s seat. “ Guard him! ” I yelled in German. Nitro took off after Greyson like a bullet. The dog circled in front of him and planted himself in Greyson’s path, snarling a warning.
Greyson jerked to a halt and whirled on me, his gray eyes flashing. “You sent your dog after me?! Like I’m a fucking criminal?!”
“Where do you think you’re going?” I demanded, motioning for Nitro to stand down so he didn’t accidentally bite one of us during what looked like the beginning of a great shouting match, right there in the front yard. So much for keeping a low profile while still in uniform.
“Home!” Greyson yelled back. “Where do you think I’m going?!”
“I don’t fucking know! But you’re not going to be alone right now!”
“Well I’m sure as hell not going to be around you ,” he snapped.
“Oh, I’m sorry I did the wrong thing by saving your life. Not that I took an oath or anything to protect people!”
“You can’t protect me!”
“I can damn well try! So what’s the next plan? Hmm? Might as well save me the trouble of worrying. Gonna go home and brew up another batch of suicide tea? Or are you going to blow your goddamn brains out since the peaceful way didn’t work? Yeah, I know you have a gun! You want me to walk in on that next? So I can see your fucking brains and your blood splattered all over the bathroom every time I close my eyes?!”
The porch light across the street flicked on and Mrs. Perkins’ door opened. “What is all the noise out there?”
“Nothing!” I shouted in reply without even looking at her. “Go back inside.”
“Christopher?”
“Go back inside!”
“How dare you,” Greyson said through clenched teeth after the porch light had turned off across the street, tears welling in his eyes. “This wasn’t about you.”
“No, it’s about you ,” I shot back, trying to keep my voice low and unintelligible to any eavesdropping neighbors. “You’ve been lying to me since you fucking got here. You could have told me he showed up at any point today, but you didn’t. You spew spiritual bullshit all the time but you don’t practice what you preach. Honesty and communication and all that shit. A little hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“No more hypocritical than you, officer. ” His gray eyes narrowed and his face hardened. “You’re so proud of the fact you swore an oath to protect people and yet you spent the entire drive imagining ways to find my stalker and kill him!”
Goddamn it! Of course he knew that’s what I’d been thinking about. No point in denying it. “Are your morals that fucking high? That you’re actually mad at me for wanting to keep you safe from a fucking murderous psychopath?!”
“Are your morals that fucking low? That you’d throw away everything you are to kill a man you don’t know for reasons that don’t have anything to do with you?!”
“ You are all the reason I need!” I was just as surprised with that outburst as he was if his wide eyes were anything to go by, but it was too late to take it back. Walking forward slowly, hoping he didn’t bolt, I lifted a hand and touched his cheek. He flinched but didn’t jerk his face away, which I considered a win. “I would throw away everything—my career, my fucking life— if it meant keeping you safe. I don’t care if it’s some psychotic asshole with a grudge or you, yourself, I’m not letting anything hurt you. I don’t give a fuck what I have to do, or if I have to kill someone in the process. I just don’t. None of that matters when it comes to you. You’re more important. So believe me when I say, the world is better with you in it, Greyson. And I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you here.”
The earth stopped spinning as I waited for his reaction. All he did was stare at me, tears filling his pale eyes before slipping down his cheeks. Without warning, he wilted against me, burying his face into the side of my neck. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him as close as I could with the vest and all of my gear in the way. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind.
After that, there was no more discussion about where he was going or what his “plans” were. With a hand gripping the base of his neck, I steered him toward my house and straight up to the master bathroom to wash the hospital funk off of him.
While he was showering, I stripped out of my uniform and, for the first time in nine years, I locked my pistol in the gun safe next to my bed instead of setting it on top for easy access. He might have had his own gun, but why go next door when mine was right there?
“You want anything?” I asked when Greyson slipped out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of pajama pants. “I don’t have tea, but I have some Gatorade or ginger ale in the fridge. In case your stomach doesn’t feel well.”
He shook his head and slid under the covers, pressing his back to the headboard.
“Crackers?” I offered. “Toast?”
“I’m fine,” he replied with a soft smile.
As much as I wanted to believe him, I didn’t. “I’m going to go grab something.” Spinning on the ball of my foot, I hurried downstairs for a glass of ginger ale and some saltines. I didn’t know if they’d given him anything to make him throw up or just neutralize whatever he took, but I imagined he’d be queasy either way.
By the time I came back to the bedroom, the lights had been turned off, and a variety of candles were lit in their place. Candles I didn’t even know I had.
“The light was hurting my eyes. I hope you don’t mind,” Greyson said as I set the snacks down on the nightstand and crawled into bed next to him. His attention was focused on the inside of his forearm, where he was drawing a looping sigil with a black marker.
“No, it’s fine. Where’d you find all the candles?”
He blew gently on the wet ink, ignoring me for a moment before finally answering. “The hall closet.”
“Huh.” I had no idea they were even there. Must have been left over from Monica. Thinking about her while I was next to a gorgeous half-naked guy made the back of my neck prickle. “What are you drawing?” I asked quickly, focusing my sole attention on Greyson.
“The usual,” he murmured, ending the mark with a flourished line and two dots. “I feel better when it’s there, even if I question how well it works sometimes.”
“Why don’t you get it tattooed on you?”
He smiled and reached for my hand, pulling my left forearm across his lap before he started doing his doodle magic on my wrist. “Because needs change,” he replied. “I want to leave space for those changes. Besides, it’s the intentionality, remember? A sigil is only as good as the energy you put into it. You could channel all of that into a tattoo, but then it’s easy to forget about.”
“So what’s this one?” I angled my head, trying to see it from his point of view.
“Serenity.”
It was prettier than the ones he’d drawn on me before. The ones for strength and protection were all sharp lines and geometric shapes. This one was soft and curving, like a miniature version of the one he’d done for himself.
“Can I try?” I asked when he finished.
His gray eyes darted to mine beneath his furrowed brow, but he handed me the marker anyway. “The right side is for projecting. The left is for receiving,” he said, the silent question creeping into his tone, too.
“Ok.” I laid my hand on his right shoulder and pulled it gently, indicating that I wanted him to sit with his back to me.
“You’re doing it on me ?” He blinked over his shoulder at me, but I gently pushed his face forward again.
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“No… I didn’t think you believed in it.”
I made a noncommittal noise, steadying the side of my hand against his shoulder blade while figuring out what I wanted to put. “I might be coming around. Now stop moving. I don’t want to mess this up.”
“You can’t mess it up. As long as you’re clear about the intended effect, you’re fine.”
“I can do that.” I bit my lower lip and drew the first line, a shock of black against his pale skin. Sliding my hand to the side, I made the next mark, moving slowly and methodically until it was done.
It wasn’t a real sigil, at least not like the ones he did, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have intention behind it.
Three words.
Eight letters.
I LOVE YOU, right there on his shoulder in thick black ink. His left shoulder, the one he said was for receiving stuff. So I hope it worked, that he could feel all of the love I had for him because after almost losing him, there was zero doubt that I did. From the day he moved in, he turned my world upside down. And no matter what skeletons were in his closet, no matter how much he tried to shield me from the shit in his past, there was no way on God’s green earth I was letting him go. I meant what I said earlier. I’d give it all up for him, everything, because that’s what you do for the people you love and you don’t even think twice.
Greyson’s breathing had changed about halfway through the process. What started as a barely-there rise and fall of his shoulder became a noticeable panting, like he was on the verge of hyperventilating. I capped the marker and tossed it over my shoulder, scooting closer to him and wrapping my arms around his waist. “What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, kissing the curve of his neck.
He laid his arms over the top of mine, but not before I felt tears drip onto my skin. Turning in my arms suddenly, I only got a glimpse of his teary face before he kissed me.
I kissed him back, trying to strike a balance between letting him know that I cared, that I wasn’t rejecting him after what had happened, and trying not to give the impression that I wanted to take it to the next level. Which I did, always, but I’d already been a self-centered asshole earlier so my nightly quota was definitely met.
Greyson wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled himself into my lap, deepening our kiss with a sense of urgency.
“Babe,” I murmured, pulling back slightly and running my fingers through the longer part of his damp hair. “We don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“We don’t have to,” I reiterated. “It’s been a long day for both of us.”
“I want to feel close to you,” he whispered, snaking his hand down the front of my sweats and stroking my half-hard dick.
I couldn’t argue with that, or the fact my hard-on was getting harder by the second.
When I pressed my lips to his, he moaned softly. I ran my fingers through his hair again and clutched the nape of his neck, kissing him slow and deep.
Slipping out of my lap, he shimmied out of his pajama pants while I shoved mine down as well. He laid on his side, away from me, arching his back. I knew what he wanted and I was happy to give it to him.
I grabbed the bottle of chocolate lube from the nightstand and poured some into my palm, slicking myself up before spreading the leftovers around his rim and pushing some inside. He moaned softly and rocked his hips against my hand, partly for pleasure and partly to speed up the process.
Once he was ready, I curled behind him, angling my cock between his cheeks. It slipped in with a practiced ease, sliding deeper and deeper, until my pelvis was flush with his ass.
He exhaled a shaky breath and reached back for me, his fingers digging into my hip, like I wasn’t close enough.
I slipped my arms around him, holding him tight, and kissed him over his shoulder—the same shoulder where I’d written I Love You .
Instead of fucking into him hard and fast, I kept my movements slow and gentle. Rhythmic swivels and hip rolls instead of thrusting and pounding. Enough movement to feel good, but not so much that it overshadowed the emotional connection we were both desperate for. Reassurance that tonight would never happen again.
He laid his hand over mine and moved it down his body, curling my fingers around his cock. I stroked it slowly while kissing his neck and shoulder, right over the words that encapsulated everything I felt for him. Lacing our fingers together, he held my other hand close, pressing kisses to the back of it and along each digit while he rocked his ass against me to meet my shallow movements.
Pleasure was still pleasure though. Even if we were being gentle, the muscles in my lower abdomen began to tighten. From the way Grey’s breathing picked up, I assumed he was in a similar state.
“Are you going to come, baby?” I asked, kissing his neck and moving my hips with a bit more purpose.
“Yeah. Don’t stop,” he whispered, turning his face toward me so I could kiss his lips.
We were still kissing when his body tightened around my cock. A moment later, his dick throbbed in my hand, coating it with white spurts. Feeling his orgasm from the inside out sent a shockwave spiraling through me. I pressed my hips into him as hard as I could, unloading with a groan.
Exhausted from everything—the shitty sleep, the fear of losing him, the sex—I nuzzled the back of his neck and closed my eyes, tightening my arms around his torso. I should have asked if he wanted to get up and shower again, but I was so fucking tired. I imagined he was too.
“Darling?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you too,” he whispered.
For a moment, I wondered if I blurted it out at some point, or mumbled it on the threshold of sleep. But I knew I hadn’t. Realizing I was in love and saying it out loud were two different things. So how did he know?
The answer to my silent question stared me right in the face in bold black words—I LOVE YOU.
Of course he knew that’s what my “sigil” was. The question of how was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept it inside with the last bit of energy I had. For once, I didn’t want to question the magic or whatever it was that made Greyson the way he was. I was simply glad it existed—that he existed. And that he was mine.