Chapter 14
Fourteen
As the doctor continued to go over surgical forms, Nic excused himself to make a call.
He needed to make sure the ball he’d started rolling yesterday with Justice on Shannon Murphy’s case was on track.
He also needed a break from the mounting tension between the Byrne brothers and from the realizations he’d had about Cam and his feelings toward him.
He didn’t have long to dwell, his call expedited to the Deputy Attorney General. “Price,” he answered. “Tell me you’re calling with an answer about San Diego.”
“No, sir. I need to reserve that decision for the end of the week.” Given this latest development and the strain Nic sensed Cam was under being away from his family, San Diego was still in play. “Unless your timeline’s been moved up.”
The Deputy AG chuckled. “Price, you know as well as I do that my timeline is always moved up. But for this I can wait.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now, what was it you needed?”
He gave the Deputy AG the thirty-thousand-foot view of the situation, emphasizing his experience handling delicate cases, Cam’s experience as a K it would kill Boston to lose her. “You want me to,” Cam said. “I need to. And they need to know too.”
She smiled and ruffled his hair. “You always were the smartest one.”
Nic rolled his eyes dramatically. “Please don’t encourage him.”
Cam chuckled, and it was a good, much-missed sound. “And you,” Cam said to him with a smile, “don’t tell my brothers she said that.”
Nic grinned back at him. “My lips are sealed.”
He didn’t miss the double play of the words, dark eyes flaring. Edye had his back too. “I like him.”
Cam rose, bending over to kiss her head. “Don’t encourage him either.”
She smirked, splitting a look between them. “This is going to be fun.”
By the time they left Tufts Medical and navigated midday traffic over to the station, Jamie was waiting out front for them.
Cam had hoped to talk to Nic on the drive over—talk, apologize, fuck he didn’t know what—but Nic had spent half the drive on the phone with the Boston US Attorney and the other half with an attorney from his office in San Francisco, making sure a motion on Friday was covered.
Cam didn’t want to interrupt, seeing as all those arrangements were for him, but he also didn’t like the wall Nic had thrown up between them.
Granted Cam had laid the foundation and Nic was only following his lead, but this was not what he’d intended to build together.
“Nic,” Jamie greeted him, hand outstretched. “Thanks for getting here so fast.”
“Was happy to help,” Nic replied.
“We officially get jurisdiction?”
“I sure as fuck hope so,” came another voice from down the street. “Otherwise, I’m in the wrong damn place.”
Smiling, Cam turned toward the New York accent that was even thicker than his Boston one. Born and raised in the Big City, diehard Yankees fan Matthew Kim had somehow landed in Red Sox country after Academy. Cam couldn’t have gotten luckier in the rookie partner draw.
“Matty-K,” he said, arms spread wide.
His old partner walked into them, giving him a back-slapping hug. “You know, you’re the only one who calls me by that fucking nickname. It’s been such a peaceful year without it.”
“Couldn’t let you forget it.”
“I heard about your mom,” Matt said, smile dimming. “You wouldn’t rather be at the hospital?”
“Climbing the walls while she has another surgery?” Cam shook his head. “No, and I’m doing what she asked.”
“Need the distraction, I get that.” He clapped his shoulder before turning to Jamie. “Whiskey, I heard you bagged a hot-as-hell Irishman.”
Jamie side-eyed Cam, who shrugged. “Hey, you said it.”
“Whole city full,” Matt teased, waving his arms around, “and you had to go to San Francisco to get one.”
“I got the right one,” Jamie said. “That’s all that matters.”
Matt cringed dramatically, like he was smelling something foul. “Oh God, he’s a lovesick fool. Keep him away!”
Cam laughed. “You have no idea.” As if to cover his own current state of foolishness, he turned to Nic, introducing him formally. “Matthew Kim, this is AUSA Dominic Price.”
The two men shook hands. “You overseeing this for Justice?” Matt asked.
Nic nodded. “I am now.”
“We work together in San Francisco,” Cam said. Nic didn’t flinch but Cam saw that telltale lift of his broad shoulders. Cam talked over it, continuing to ignore his own foolishness. “The SAC filled you in?”
“She did,” Matt said. “And now that we’re official, I can speak freely.
” Leading them to one of the picnic tables in the station courtyard, Matt switched from jovial bro to the impeccable agent who’d always had Cam’s back.
“We know why Officer Murphy wants to keep this quiet.” He pulled a file out of his messenger bag and dropped it on the table.
“It’s not just the daughter who’s into some shit. He’s knee-deep in it too.”
“Trying to protect her?” Nic asked.
“She’s a street dealer for Koehler.” One of the local thugs that Cam knew all too well. “He’s been using it as leverage against her dad,” Matt said. “Favors from BPD. Looking the other way when shipments go missing and such.”
“That’s a tougher sell to DOJ,” Nic said. Cam didn’t do a good job of hiding the frustration on his face. Seeing it, Nic hastened to add, “I’ll do what I can to sell it, but Murphy’s law enforcement. He knows better. It’ll go smoother if he cooperates.”
“He hasn’t so far,” Jamie weighed in.
Matt eyed the bulging folder in the middle of the table. “We’ve got enough there to make that happen.”
Cam’s phone vibrated with an incoming text from Di. “We better make it happen soon,” he said, looking back up at the group. “Murphy just got a ransom demand.”
“Let’s do this, then.” Matt grabbed his file, standing with a grin. “Just like old times.” He elbowed Jamie in the side. “You still aren’t official.”
Jamie shrugged, explaining to Nic, “I may have consulted a bit when I was at MIT.”
Nic rolled his eyes, chuckling. “I would have never guessed.”
He started to stand but Cam laid a hand on his knee beneath the table, keeping him seated. “Go on in,” Cam told Matt and Jamie. “Need to check one more thing with Justice. We’re right behind you.”
Matt was about to say something, but Jamie pushed him on ahead.
As soon as they rounded the corner, Nic’s attention whipped back to Cam. A blush stained his high cheekbones, highlighting his handsome, angular face, and made Cam want to do more than just talk.
But talk was what they had to do before moving forward on the case or otherwise. “Thank you for wrangling with DOJ,” he said.
“You can quit thanking me. I told—”
Cam squeezed his knee, then inched his hand higher. “But I didn’t tell you, not everything.”
Nic laid a hand atop his, stopping it from climbing higher. He left it there, though, tangling their fingers. “You’re not out to your family.”
Of course he’d figured it out. He was one of the smartest men Cam knew. “It was never the right time and now . . .”
“I’m not going to ask you to, Cam. That’s your decision.”
Cam’s gaze shot up from their hands. “I expected you to argue.”
Nic shook his head. “Not about this. It’s one hundred percent your call.”
“I feel like a coward. You, Aidan, and Jamie, you’re all out, and I—”
Nic squeezed his fingers. “There’s no one right time, Boston.
No one right way. It’s different for each person.
Sometimes a person comes out all at once to everyone, which was the case for me.
Sometimes it’s bit by bit, like Jamie, like you.
In any event, it should always be by choice, not because they’ve been outed, issued an ultimatum, or had their hand forced. I’m not going to do that to you.”
The conviction of his words and in his fierce blue eyes made Cam wonder and worry more about Nic’s own coming out. There was more to it than he’d let on last spring, Cam was sure. And he was increasingly certain it had something to do with GS and the cypress tree inked on Nic’s back.
Nic turned over their hands and put something in his palm. “But if you want to build something here, Boston, you’re going to have to eventually. I’ll give you time, but I don’t want to hide forever. I can’t anymore.”
He withdrew his hand and slid off the bench, headed for the station’s entrance. Cam waited until he’d turned the corner to open his palm. In it was a folded airplane napkin. He peeled back the corners to reveal a rough sketch of a new Gravity label.
Fighting Boston Irish. An imperial stout. Gravity’s falling apricot logo was the top third of a Celtic clover.
Cam lost his breath, his heart too.
The future he wanted was right there—in his hand and walking into the station house to help solve a case that had haunted Cam for half his life. Yet it felt like the future he wanted—with Nic—was slipping away, the rope coming untethered and Cam floating farther out to sea.