11. Decoy
11
DECOY
“Mateo. Mateo . Wake up, we need to go inside.”
“What?” Mateo raised his head from where he’d rested it against the passenger window the moment he’d slid into his seat an hour ago.
Yup. That’s how far we got before I realised whatever was going on with him couldn’t wait the six-odd hours it was going to take us to get home.
“Wake up,” I repeated. “And stay there. I’m coming to get you.”
I shut off the Peugeot we’d hired and rolled out, rounding the bonnet to get to Mateo.
He was where I’d left him, confused but awake. “This looks like hell. Where the fuck have you brought me?”
“A&E. Sorry, brother. I think your appendix is trying to kill you.”
“No, it ain’t. Leave me alone.” Mateo resisted my attempts to ease him from the car. “It’s just a fucking bug.”
“You don’t get bugs.” I spoke nothing but truth. In the five years I’d known him, he’d never had so much as a cold. “And tell me where your pain is?”
“What pain?”
“The one making you lean like an eighty-three-year-old.”
Mateo braced a hand on the dashboard and tried to push himself upright, his usual olive complexion sickly grey. “Motherfucker, what a cunt.”
“Me or the organ misbehaving in your belly?”
“Both.”
“I’ll take that. You still need out of this car.”
Mateo levered himself out of the Peugeot and walked into the busy hospital of his own volition. The A&E department was busy. They triaged him fast, but the wait to see a doctor was endless, despite the nurse agreeing with my layman’s diagnosis.
She gave him a bed though. Probably because it was obvious to just about everyone he was going to spend however long it took to fix him scowling death at people and hurling his guts up.
“Don’t tell Em.” Mateo made a grab for my phone the second the nurse was out of sight. “He doesn’t need to get all stressy over nothing.”
Too late.
“It’s not nothing.” I evaded him easily enough to prove my point. “And if it is your appendix, it’s gonna need to come out.”
Mateo daggered a glare at me that fast became a wince, raw-dogging the pain since he’d already lost the measly paracetamol the hospital had offered to bridge the gap before a doctor found us. “Nothing’s coming out of me.”
“Everything’s coming out of you,” I retorted. “You haven’t kept anything down in days.”
“Cunt.”
“Yeah, you’ve said.”
“Not you.”
“Who, then?”
“I don’t know.”
Mateo ran out of steam and lay back on the bed, boots still firmly on his feet, sulking into the jacket he’d refused to take off. He shut his eyes for a while, as close to a nap as I’d ever seen him before today, while I texted Embry an update that would do nothing to calm him down as he made a mad dash north to get to his husband.
Decoy: triaged him and gave him a bed. waiting for the doctor to confirm, but they’re pretty certain it’s his appendix
Embry: Did they give him pain relief?
Decoy: yeah, didn’t stay down tho
Embry: Call me if anything changes
Decoy: i will
Embry fell silent. I thought about texting Folk. But clinging to the minute hope that he was peacefully asleep on Orla’s couch, I pocketed my phone instead and settled in to wait.
And wait and wait and wait.
It was the early hours of the morning before a doctor saw Mateo, and near dawn by the time a surgeon agreed with him.
“We could leave it for the day team to assess.” The surgeon checked his watch. “But my feeling is I’d like to get it out sooner, before it ruptures and we’re looking at a bigger operation.”
“You want to operate tonight?” That was me. Mateo was in enough pain by now that he didn’t give much of a fuck.
“I’d like to operate now ,” the surgeon confirmed, with a subtle urgency than belied his demeanour. “There’s a slot in fifteen minutes.”
“How long will it take?”
“About an hour.”
I checked the time and the red dot on my phone screen, tracking the car Embry and Cam were speeding north in. Despite driving like they’d stolen it, they were still a few hours away.
They’re not going to make it.
I relayed this to Mateo, giving him the choice, even though my instinct aligned with the doctor’s. “You might be out and done before they get here.”
Mateo thought on it for less than a second. “Do it. I don’t want him to sit and wait.”
Because he knew how that felt.
Things started moving quickly. I reached for my phone to update Embry, but Mateo stopped me. “Wait till I’m gone.”
He didn’t elaborate why, and I tried not to think about it too hard, or to imagine that he was Folk and I was Embry, hurtling through the night to find I hadn’t been there when Folk had needed me most.
I wasn’t sure I’d survive where that thought pattern took me. Instead, I put on a mask and watched Mateo sign consent forms he didn’t bother to read, his hand a thousand times steadier than I felt. I said goodbye with a fist bump and a grin, and only when they’d rushed him out did that fucked-up breath escape me.
“He’ll be fine.” A nurse gave me a cheerful grin. “I know it looks bad when the surgeon wants to move that fast, but he’ll be back before you know it.”
She was right.
Of course she was.
But Embry... he wasn’t here, and now I had to tell him his husband had gone for surgery and my fucking face was the last family he’d seen.
I found a quiet corner and stared at my phone, missing Folk more than ever. He was the brother who was good at this kind of thing. What to say and how to say it. Me... I was good at just being there, day after day, getting up anytime some fucker pushed me down.
Mateo was like that too. He didn’t always say the right thing, but he always showed up. Now I had to show up for him.
I made the call.
Embry absorbed the news with a slow breath, a forced breath, that scraped me to the bone. “Was he nervous about going under?”
“Not that he said. I think he just wanted it done.”
“So fucking efficient.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry you’re not here, brother.”
“I’m glad you are.” Road noise sounded at Embry’s end. “Let me know when he’s out?”
“Of course.”
There wasn’t much else to say. We hung up before I realised I hadn’t asked about Liliana. Hope was young enough that this crisis would pass her by, but Liliana had already lived through so much that it killed me all over again to imagine how she felt right now.
I really wanted to smoke. I settled for a plastic cup of bad tea and paced the spot I’d last made contact with a nurse, anxiety keeping me battle-ready when the truth was I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept. Mateo had driven most of the day, but watching him get sicker and sicker had kept me sharp, and that barbed energy still spiked my blood.
My phone buzzed.
I glanced at it.
Rubi: What the fuck is going on?
I filled him in, praying he wouldn’t call, or get too agitated before he and Ranger got back on the road.
He did neither.
Rubi: All right, Deeky. It’s gonna be fine. Mats will boss this. Keep me posted xxx
The calm my giant friend had lacked all week sank into me. The longing for Folk still cut deep, but I believed Rubi. Mateo was tough, and he was going to be okay.
A nurse came to find me five minutes later. “He’s out. Everything’s fine. They had a blip with the anaesthetic and it took a while to bring him round, but he’s doing better now. If you wait upstairs, they’ll let you see him when he’s out of recovery.”
I gave Embry the news, leaving out the part about the anaesthetic, and settled into the longest half hour of my life. One of them, anyway. But the stress faded when I saw Mateo. Though dazed and groggy, he was grouchy enough to let me know he’d survived with his personality intact.
“That was fucking horrible.” He was already sitting up and glaring around the room with eyeballs that seemed to point in different directions. “And I lost my phone.”
“No, you didn’t.” I handed over his dead phone and the clear bag his clothes had been stuffed into when they’d put him in a surgical gown. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Mateo rubbed his mouth with a shaky hand. “I’m going home.”
“That’s not happening anytime soon.”
Mateo turned his bloodshot glower on me, but I was innocent. The comment came from a new nurse—the kind who took no shit. She made him lie down and be still, and eventually his ordeal caught up with him again.
He threw up, then fell asleep, his arm over his eyes like a drunk person with the spins.
I sat beside him, a hand on his shoulder so he knew I was there, tracking that red dot on my phone as it drew ever closer and finally came to a halt somewhere outside.
Mateo woke with a jump, and I swear to God, I heard Embry’s footsteps. I rose to meet him, slipping into the corridor, but he was a blur as he passed and I found myself with Cam instead, his dark gaze a swirling dervish of anxious calm. “All right?”
“Uh...” In the context he was asking, of course I was. It wasn’t me who’d spent the night in pain and then topped it off with surgery. But... I didn’t feel okay and I couldn’t find the energy to lie. “It’s been a long night,” I said instead.
I barely got the words out before Cam had me in a hug, and I leaned into him, grateful for his affection. Even in our darkest moments, I’d always found comfort in Cam.
He held me as long as I needed him to. Then pulled back with a searching gaze. “You should go home.”
“Like the sound of that, but I should get back to the road.”
“No fucking chance.” Cam held my shoulders in his strong grip. “Rubes has it covered, and you being there isn’t going to get those drops done any quicker. Forget about it and go home to your people.”
I shook my head. The thought of getting in that rental car and driving five hundred miles was beyond me. “I’m not going anywhere till I’ve had a fucking nap.”
Cam shrugged. “You might change your mind when you get some fresh air. Let me know, okay? I’m going to stick with the young’uns.”
“On your own?”
“I’m never alone, brother. None of us are. Now, with all the love in the world, off you fuck.”
He gave me a gentle shove towards the exit, and I drifted away, noting the club soldiers who must’ve followed Cam and Embry north.
They nodded to me, respecting my rank, but I didn’t care. Never had, never would. My place in the club had saved my life, I didn’t need an extra patch on the cut I never wore to know it. I needed that nap before I tripped over my own feet and fell into a bin. Or forgot where I’d parked the rental car, a hilarious prospect that fast became my reality.
Fucking hell.
I fished the keys from my pocket and pressed the button, crossing my fingers for a miracle, and for once, a god I didn’t believe in answered my call.
Lights flashed with a low beep.
I spun a slow circle and by the bonnet of a faceless car stood the soul I’d lived my whole life to find.
That tawny hair.
Those moon-blue eyes.
Folk.
He’s here.
And I’d never loved him more.
* * *
Folk drove.
I slept.
We were halfway home when I woke up and he was talking to Ivy on a video call. “Look, Dad’s awake.”
He angled the phone on the dash, pointing it straight at me. I cringed at the sight of my sleep-worn face but soon forgot about it as Ivy’s bright smile filled the screen. “Nice hair. Who did that? Nash?”
“Nooooo, daddy. Locke did it.”
“Really?” I’d been joking about Nash. He was a man of many skills, but perfect braids weren’t one of them. “It wasn’t Orla?”
“She needed to wee lots so Locke helped me. He said my hair’s like Willow’s now it’s long again.”
“Same colour too.”
“That’s what he said, but mine’s wavier. Look...” Ivy bounced the loose hair that framed her face around, showcasing the curl that had developed after Lauren chopped it off to spite me. “Are you coming home soon?”
“I’m on my way now, bug.” I checked the time. “I’ll be there to pick you up from school if you haven’t had a better offer.”
“No one’s better than you, silly.”
There’d been days in her short life, so many days, when I might’ve argued, in my head if not out loud, but Folk’s love had taught me to see the imperfect perfection in everything. Ivy had too many amazing uncles to count—she had Folk . But I was her dad, and I always would be.
She hung up to go to school with Locke while Nash took Liliana.
Mateo, Embry, Folk. Me.
None of us were with our kids.
I rubbed my chest. Folk glanced at me from behind the wheel. “Take a breath. This is one of those rare moments where we need each other more than she does.”
“I know.”
“You okay?”
He’d asked me that before we’d got in the car. Couldn’t remember what I’d said in response. Just that I’d meant it. “Did you hear anything from Cam or Embry?”
“Only that Mateo has to stay until tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tomorrow would be better, but if he springs himself, at least the roads will be quiet on the drive home.”
They weren’t quiet now. We hit morning rush hour, and I was so fucking sick of snarled up traffic that I couldn’t fucking look at it.
I looked at Folk instead. His hair was long, curling behind his ears in tousled waves, and his jaw was as scruffy as mine, not quite a beard, but close. The tanned skin of his exposed neck called to me, but I got distracted by the shirt he wore.
Mine .
I liked that.
“ Seth .”
“Hmm?”
Folk’s easy grin softened, mellowing the stress he’d carried for the last few months, the fatigue from night after night of bad dreams. “I like it when you stare at me like that.”
“Am I staring?”
“I think so.”
“Think so, eh?” Right. No. Folk was a man who knew. Which meant I really was staring, and I was okay with that. “How’ve you been sleeping?”
Folk took the motorway exit before he answered. “To answer that I have to make a confession.”
“About Cam kipping on Ivy’s bedroom floor?”
“No, before that. I jumped off the cliff at the sea pool. Viktor saw and ratted me out to Cam—that’s how he knew I needed a babysitter.”
It was a lot to take in. But loving Folk always was. He told me everything he could, perhaps to make up for the things he couldn’t. It didn’t make picturing him hurling himself off a cliff any easier, but I was thankful he wanted to tell me, today and every day. “Did it help?”
“Jumping?” Folk took a slow and even breath, one that told me I wouldn’t like what he said next. “Of course it did. But not for as long as I’d counted on. Cam caught me in a pretty bad place. That’s why he stayed.”
“Did you know Viktor would see you?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I guess there’s a reason I didn’t shake him off when I felt him behind me again.”
“Again?”
“I had a false start, at the cliff by his house. He intervened and I wasn’t that nice about it.”
“By whose standards?”
“Mine. Viktor’s a good man.”
I knew that. I’d watched him with Ivy, Liliana, and Hope. With Locke, Nash, and Orla. With Ranger . You couldn’t fake a love like that. “He’ll get over it.”
Folk hummed, and a few more miles ticked by. The landscape grew more familiar. “You hungry?”
Not really. The road diet had got to me as much as it had everyone else. I couldn’t face any more junk, and I needed to ease back in to the kind of food Folk liked to eat. “Are you?”
Folk shook his head. “Honestly, I just want to go to bed with you.”
To sleep, probably. I knew the dreams were better in daylight, especially if I was there. Or maybe he meant something else. Ivy spent at least two nights a week sleeping over with Liliana at whatever house they chose, but we’d got in the habit of doing most of our fucking during school hours, and I’d begun to wonder if that was deliberate on Folk’s part. Like... maybe he wanted to keep it separate from the nightmares he couldn’t seem to shake.
He’d tell me if I asked. Or go away and think about it until he knew the answer. But I didn’t ask. Instead, I watched the scenery pass until we pulled up at the house and a wave of relief almost swept me under.
Folk shut off the car and rotated his wrists, easing the kinks from shoulders bound to be sore. Winter was hard on him sometimes, the damp and the cold. Made me wish we lived somewhere else—somewhere like the island paradise Ranger had told me about in the rare moments he hadn’t spent bickering with Rubi. But then we’d be without the people who made us whole, and I couldn’t imagine that. It hurt to even think about.
“Are you coming inside?”
I blinked. Folk was out of the car and at the open passenger door.
He held out his hand.
I took it and let him tug me to my feet. The security camera on the house detected the motion and whirred to face us, but I didn’t care who saw as I kissed Folk on the driveway, finding my home in his warm lips and soft sigh.
He kissed me back, only breaking away to grin. “Come inside? Please?”
As if he had to beg.
We went inside. The house smelled of Cam, of smoke and leather, and home cooking. His jacket hung on the stair post, and I knew if I opened the fridge, I’d see all the signs that he’d taken control of feeding my family while I’d been gone.
I found so much solace in that, but I filed it away to think about later and focused on Folk untying his boots and shrugging out of the hoodie he’d worn to make the long drive north.
It left him in my shirt, and that primal rush stole over me again. “I need a shower.”
Folk leaned against the same counter he’d fucked me over that first summer. “Okay.”
Okay.
I left him and retreated to wash the road grime from my hair and skin. I didn’t hear him come upstairs, but that meant nothing. Folk was quiet in most things he did—it’s how I knew when a bad dream had crept up on him. The goosebumps on his skin, his harsh gasp, the violence in how he reached for a weapon from the past before he remembered I was right there.
Water streamed into my face, into my eyes, as if I could wash those bittersweet nights away. But I didn’t want to. Not for my sake, anyway.
I shut off the shower and left the bathroom in time to catch Folk at the top of the stairs. His hair was damp at the edges, like he’d dunked his face under the kitchen tap, and he still wore my fucking shirt.
Words weren’t my thing, in this context or any other.
I tossed my towel and pushed him into our bedroom. Onto our bed. Folk was so strong, but he liked it when I used my bigger frame to hold him down. And I’d grown to like it too—to believe in it, a reality where a man as beautiful as Folk got off on a man like me.
He wants me— he wanted sex , something I didn’t take for granted when some days he could only stare at me in the dark.
Reaching for him, I peeled his clothes away and rolled him into bed, reaching for a condom so he wouldn’t have to get up again when this was over.
Folk smiled, saying nothing and everything, and I claimed that smile as my own, kissing him as I eased him onto his side and pressed inside him, knowing his body—knowing him and what he needed.
Give him more .
All the way in, I pushed a little harder, a little deeper , and got my reward in his ground out moan. In the hand he clamped over my hip and my name on his lips.
Seth .
I wrapped my hand around his cock and fucked him slowly, following his subtle cues, revelling in the more obvious ones, every sound and flex he made amping up the heat stampeding through every nerve in my body.
My breathing began to heavy, sweat coating my skin, my chest flush to his back as I pumped into him, lips at his throat. The bed rocked with the rhythm spinning my head. Still slow but climbing. Faster, harder, Folk’s dick sliding in my palm, pulsing with the raw energy binding my muscles. I drove into him with the same force we’d started with and a guttural moan tore from my chest, curving my whole body closer around him as he began to tremble from the impact of the release bearing down on him, my own just a heartbeat behind.
It took us under.
I cursed against Folk’s hot skin. Still clutching my hip, he groaned into the crook of his elbow, spilling into my palm, and for the hazy moments we held each other through it, everything was perfect.
Panting, I eased out of him, tipping him onto his back. He smiled up at me, watching me wipe my hands and ditch the condom before we were closer than close again.
“I needed that.”
I tucked a stray lock of tawny hair behind his ear, knowing he didn’t mean it as literally as getting fucked the second we’d got through the door. “Cam’s taken me off overnight runs for a while.”
Folk absorbed that with his patented thoughtful nod. “I thought he might. I struggled while you were gone, and I didn’t try all that hard to hide it.”
“You don’t need to hide shit like that.”
“I think Ivy saw it too.”
Folk was uncharacteristically late to the party if he thought the last few weeks were the first time Ivy had noticed he wasn’t himself. That naps on the couch sometimes ended abruptly enough to make her jump too. “It’s not a bad thing for her to know life is hard for us sometimes.”
“I want her to feel safe with me.”
“She does.”
“Seth, I left her with Embry and jumped off a cliff.”
“No, you didn’t. She ditched you to hang out with Liliana. How you chose to spend that time is your own business.”
“That’s a magnanimous way of looking at it.”
“It’s how I feel.” It had to be, or the real fear that Folk’s desperate craving for relief had been something more sinister would drown me.
I pulled him tighter against me. He hid his face in my chest and I thought he might sleep, but he just breathed for a while before he looked up at me again, and it was the oddest thing to feel like something had changed. Not between us—no, it was bigger than that, and Folk felt it too.
He’d gone very still, rocked by a seismic shift that hadn’t been there before.
I put my hands on his face. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze flickered to the window. “Feels like change. Maybe Saint came home.”
“He’s still not here?”
Out of energy, Folk shook his head again. And then he did sleep, in my arms, silent and unmoving, until it was time to go get our little girl and be a family again.
Until it was time to face whatever was coming as we were always meant to be.
Together.