Chapter 7
Q uinn reached over and unlocked the passenger door so that Peyton could open it and slide in.
“I thought I was gonna be waiting on that street corner forever,” Peyton said, securing his seat belt. He gestured at his body. “This just doesn’t sell like it used to.” His grin was impish, and Quinn leaned over to kiss him.
“I guess it’s a good thing it does it for me,” Quinn said against his lips.
Peyton laughed. “Sure is.” He used Quinn's tie to stop him from moving and kissed him again, deepening it.
“I need to stop at the butcher to get something for dinner,” Quinn said as he pulled out into traffic. “Is there anywhere you need to go?”
“Nope.” Peyton wound down his window and set his elbow on it, his fingers resting on the roof.
“Thanks for picking me up. Kell said that my car will be ready tomorrow.
But I'm gonna swing by Mum's and get my bike—I don’t get to ride it much because our apartment doesn’t have anywhere to store it, but I'm so fucking over my car breaking down on me.”
Quinn was both glad and not about that. On the one hand, motorcycles were dangerous, and the number of accidents he had to attend that were horrific were…
more than he’d like to think about. On the other hand, seeing Peyton on his bike was a religious experience.
Especially when he was in all his leathers.
“I have room in my garage,” Quinn found himself saying. He didn’t know why he brought it up. Once he and Grady worked out who had dropped the body at their apartment and had arrested that person, Peyton and Will would leave. It was temporary.
Quinn’s phone went off, and he pressed the answer button on his steering wheel. “Hughes.”
“Are you driving?” Grady. The murmuring background of voices told Quinn he was still at work. That laugh was distinctly Gideon.
“You haven’t left work yet?”
“You’ll be glad I didn’t,” Grady said. “You need to get down to your lawyer’s office.”
“Do I need representation?” Quinn was sure he hadn’t broken any laws lately.
Peyton snorted as he looked down at his phone, where he was playing some sort of water-mixing game.
“I’m sorry,” Grady said sarcastically. “Should I have said boyfriend?”
Quinn shared a look with Peyton. “Sebastian?”
“How many boyfriends do you have?” Grady asked.
“He has three,” Peyton said.
“Hey, Peyton.”
“Hi, Grady.”
“I have none,” Quinn corrected. “Don’t join forces,” he told them. Just the idea of it was terrifying. “What’s wrong with Sebastian?”
“Shots were fired, and TOU was called in. I don’t know who was involved, but considering the drive-by yesterday, I’d say the location isn’t a coincidence. I’m about to leave now; I’ll meet you there.”
“What?” Peyton breathed.
Quinn immediately flicked his lights and sirens on and changed direction, heading into the city. “What happened?”
“You now have the extent of my knowledge. If I suddenly become clairvoyant in the next ten minutes, I’ll call you back.”
“I appreciate it,” Quinn said before hanging up.
“Seb got shot at yesterday and now today?” Peyton said quietly. “Escalation is bad.” He’d placed his phone face down in his lap and was staring at his fingers. Quinn reached over and took one hand in his, giving it a brief squeeze.
He would have held on, but the speed he was driving wasn’t the safest, and he needed both hands. “I know. We're trying to work out where it's coming from, I promise.”
“Is it strange for me to be this worried about him?” Peyton asked.
“Sebastian?” At Peyton’s short nod, Quinn said, “No. Sex creates a connection whether people believe that or not. Even one night is enough sometimes. Add in the trauma that you all faced the next morning, and things can solidify a lot faster.” Quinn paused and then sent Peyton a wry grin.
“And he... has a way of drawing people in whether he wants to believe that or not.”
“You still think that, even though it didn't work out for you?”
“The breakup was my fault, not his.”
“You keep saying that, but I don't understand.”
Quinn slowed as he turned down the street that Sebastian worked on. He could already see flashing lights right outside of his building. “Ask me another time.” When he wasn't feeling quite so off-kilter. When things didn't seem so raw and on the surface. When someone wasn't trying to kill Sebastian.
Quinn parked behind a patrol car and scooped up his keys from the centre console before getting out. Heat burned through him when Peyton hooked a finger in one of the belt loops at the back of Quinn’s suit pants as he followed closely behind.
Quinn nodded in greeting at the uniformed officer, who lifted the barrier tape for them to go under.
“Is that Will?” Peyton said, his voice hardening.
Before Quinn could respond, he was already making a direct beeline to where, yes, Will was standing.
It looked like a paramedic was with him and some TOU officers.
Quinn checked over the crowd, looking for—there.
Sebastian was sitting on the edge of the ambulance’s floor, another paramedic with him, and one of the TOU officers standing nearby.
Peyton reached for Will and slammed into him so hard that Will stumbled a little, moving one foot back to brace himself as he wrapped an arm around Peyton’s shoulders. The rifle that Will had slung across his chest was jammed between the two of them, and it looked uncomfortable.
Will threaded his fingers through Peyton’s hair on the side of his head and used it to tug him gently back. The sight of it pulled at Quinn’s stomach, a pleasurable twist that had him rooted to the spot.
“Careful,” Will said, “I need my ribs intact.”
“Were you involved in this?”
Will’s face softened as he looked down at Peyton. “I was with Seb when the shooting started.”
Peyton stuck his fingers in the grooves of the vest that Will wore, his fingers turning white. “Having a shoot-out in the middle of the street is not how you become a superhero,” he said tersely.
“No?” Will teased, smiling.
“Are you all right?” Quinn asked.
“Not a scratch on me.”
A quick glance over his form told Quinn that, at least on the surface, Will wasn’t lying.
“Perfectly healthy,” the paramedic confirmed.
Satisfied, Quinn veered off and headed for Sebastian, leaving the two friends be. Will was clearly unharmed and not in any more danger. Even if somehow something happened now, Peyton would keep him safe.
“On a scale of one to ten,” the paramedic was saying. “How much does it hurt?”
“Seven, because you’re poking at it. Anything hurts if you poke it.”
The relief in the paramedic’s eyes when he spotted Quinn was something that Quinn was familiar with. Being in Sebastian’s orbit could be a test of patience sometimes.
“Do they just call you every time I’m involved in something?” Sebastian asked flatly.
“I'm the one investigating who's targeting you. And don't give me any bullshit about you not being the target.”
“I wasn't going to. Don't put words in my mouth.”
Quinn counted to five and then said, “What happened?” He wasn't in the right frame of mind to trade wits. Between knowing that Sebastian had come close to being shot, again, and the knowledge that Will was right beside him and could have been hurt as well... it was fucking with his equilibrium.
“An excellent question,” Sebastian said. “Will came to see me—we were going to grab some food, and I think he wanted to talk about you and Peyton, and it's a shame we didn't get to because I'm very curious about you and those two.”
“This isn't the time,” Quinn said. He turned to the paramedic with a clear question in his eyes.
“He’s lucid,” the paramedic said. “Ticked all the boxes and is of sound mind… relatively speaking.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Sebastian squawked.
“You can figure it out.”
Quinn fingered around the bandage on Sebastian’s forehead, just above his right eyebrow.
There were hints of blood seeping through.
Quinn took a deep breath against the anger.
“Isn’t that the same place that Parker hit you with his phone?
” he asked absently. Bits of Sebastian’s hair had clumped and hardened from the surrounding blood.
His hair was going to need a thorough wash.
“Think so,” Sebastian said. He shrugged. “I have a very hittable face.”
“Got that right,” the paramedic muttered.
Sebastian glared while Quinn bit back a smile.
He was glad Grady wasn’t around to hear that—though he wasn’t sure how he and Peyton had beaten him here; he must have gotten stuck in traffic.
“Does he have a concussion?” he asked the paramedic, who was packing up his gear as no one else seemed to have been injured during the incident.
A miracle. He’d said he was of sound mind, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything for a head injury. “What hospital are you taking him to?”
“Hard to say. I’m leaning towards no, since he’s not exhibiting any of the symptoms that I would look for. It would be best for him to be taken to the hospital to get everything checked over.”
Quinn narrowed his eyes. That didn’t sound definitive. “But you’re not taking him anywhere?” He tried to catch Sebastian’s gaze, but he had turned his head away, a muscle in his jaw visibly clenching.
“He refused to go.”
Of course. “You need it looked at.”
“I got it looked at already, twice. G.I. Joe over there looked at it too,” Sebastian said, waving to the TOU officer standing close by, whose name Quinn knew was Cain Murphy.
“G.I. Joe is military, genius,” Cain replied. He was looking around, one hand resting on the butt of his weapon, and he seemed agitated.
“I’ve got him, Officer Murphy, you can—” Quinn gestured towards where Will and the rest of the team had converged. Cain nodded in thanks and left, the heavy thud of his boots on the concrete fading as he went.
“Look, physically he’s fine, other than his face,” the paramedic said to Quinn.
“ He is right here,” Sebastian muttered.