Chapter 12 #2
Until that moment it hadn’t occurred to him how much he relied on Gideon Chadwick’s good opinion. That the foundation of his attraction—his need—for Gideon’s touch was built in his rock-solid respect for Gideon’s goodness and his intelligence and the thoughtful way he approached his fellow humans.
The thought drew him up short, and as he closed the door behind them, he leaned against it and tried to think about what he could do to not make this moment any more difficult than it was.
“I don’t want to stop seeing you,” he said into the sudden silence.
The face Gideon turned to him was—oh God—hurt, and he realized why people like his father hated empathy so damned much. Because when somebody you empathized with hurt, so did you, and that sucked.
But Joey didn’t care—he’d feel this again and again if it meant he could keep walking through Gideon Chadwick’s door.
“Then stop using that as an option,” Gideon said, closing the distance between them.
Joey nodded and reached out a hand. He couldn’t seem to stop himself, but that touching thing he and Gid had talked about was real—they touched behind Gideon’s door, and it meant something to him.
Gideon didn’t leave him hanging. He reached out and twined their fingers, and they drew close. Gideon leaned his forehead against Joey’s, and Joey supported some of his weight as they sagged against the door.
“I don’t want him to hurt you,” Joey confessed, his chest raw.
“Same, Joey. Do you think I’m not afraid for you?”
Joey nodded. He’d known that. He may not have articulated it in his head, but he’d known that’s why Gideon had been so angry.
“I can take care of myself there,” he whispered.
“I-I don’t know how to take care of other people there.
The only way to protect you, Gid, is to keep you secret.
” He flashed, then, to the long-ago case with Jay Arnold, protecting his poor barista.
Gideon had been so much kinder than Joey would have been—but that’s because Gideon had seen, even then, how sometimes what you wanted for your lover and what you had to offer were not the same thing.
Gideon nodded now and let out a sigh. “I don’t want to be your secret,” he murmured.
“But we’ve been partners for a year and a half—nobody’s going to question that we’re close.
We’ve both had other relation—” He paused, and Joey gave a green smile.
“Sex partners,” Gideon finished dryly. “The squad has no reason to think we’ve changed. ”
Joey put his hands on Gideon’s hips and drew him even closer, until they were no longer leaning against the door but on each other, Joey with his head on Gideon’s shoulder.
“Just stay safe, Gid,” Joey begged.
“You too,” Gideon said. “Or…. God, Joey. Do you really have to go?”
“Yeah. But only for a few days.” Joey raised his face for a kiss, a thing he never thought he needed but had come to crave.
Gideon didn’t leave him hanging, lowering his head and taking Joey’s mouth with an aching tenderness Joey couldn’t ever remember being touched with.
“And not now,” Joey whispered, pulling back for a moment to smooth his hands through Gideon’s perpetually tousled hair.
“Not now,” Gideon echoed and bent his head to take Joey’s mouth again.
“YOU HAVE to go?” Gideon asked for the umpteenth time as they strode through the slush toward the subway that would take them to the train station.
They each had their packed duffels over their shoulders, and Gideon wondered if anybody else could spot the military in the two of them, the way they carried their duffels, the way they marched.
The synchronicity that had dogged them since Joey Carlyle had come pounding down the steps trying to shoot a stockbroker about to stab Gideon in the eye with a stiletto.
“If this goes south fast, I’ll be at your place when you get back,” Joey said, sidestepping Gideon’s question about their Christmas destinations easily.
Gideon’s place. Of course he’d be at Gideon’s place.
Joey and Gideon had made a couple of trips to Joey’s apartment since Joey had been texted, ostensibly to get something Joey needed for work, in the middle of the day, or after work on the way out to a venue, including the office Christmas party.
Twice with Harding—and twice Harding had gone without them—to install new security attached to all their phones and sporadically timed lights to make it look as though Joey’s hours were so demanding that was the reason he was seldom there.
Of course Gideon had clued Harding in about Joey’s visit to his father.
For one thing, since Stephen Carlyle was well known for illegal and dangerous activities, it was important Joey be aboveboard about his interactions so he didn’t get suspicion thrown on him, but for another?
Gideon wanted help with this one, and since his former CO was across the country hunting monsters, Harding was his best bet. And a good, good friend.
A friend who didn’t ask too many questions when asked to pick up spare sets of clothes for Joey so he could stay at Gideon’s one more night than planned.
Not that Carlyle didn’t have plenty of clothes at Gideon’s already.
In the months since Garcia had arrived at the SCTF and Joey had ended up in Gideon’s bed, Joey’s clothes had been…
well, everywhere in Gideon’s apartment. In drawers where Gideon kept tablecloths, hanging behind the valances in the living room.
Three days before, Gideon had gone to pull down his duffel so it would be packed as soon as their leave came due, and he’d found three pairs of boxer briefs, black, microfiber, sized M.
Gideon wore size large tighty-whities himself.
Like so many things about what they’d been doing since the fall, Gideon had said nothing about it. He’d simply taken the underwear, put it in a drawer he’d emptied, and gone about his business.
The next morning he’d found one of Joey’s T-shirts doubling as a plant doily.
“It will get dirty here,” he told Joey, and draped it on the back of the chair, in place of the runner that normally went there.
He’d… oh God. He’d been so looking forward to spending the holidays with Joey Carlyle.
Two Christmases they’d been partnered, and once they’d worked, giving Natalia the night off, and once Joey had spent the time getting laid and Gideon had spent it at his father’s.
Not once had Gideon had somebody special (and wasn’t that a tepid word?) he wanted to spend a holiday with, somebody he wanted to see light up with simple things like kids’ movies or a dumb present, and God, wasn’t Joey Carlyle all the things he’d want in a Christmas lover?
But then Joey had gotten that fucking text, and all those visions had dissipated like the bubbles in flat champagne. Gideon had accepted his father and stepmother’s invitation to their second home outside of Philly and told Joey that if he managed to get away early, he could join Gideon there.
“Or you could come back to Manhattan,” Joey said stonily, although Gideon recognized by now that he was trying to mask the hurt of having to give up the same dream Gideon had cherished.
“I like my family,” Gideon told him, hoping for gentleness. “My stepmother hates red meat, and she’s making a roast, medium rare, on Christmas Eve. That’s a big deal to her, Joey—I can’t shit on that.”
Joey frowned, his funk palpable.
“You could just not go,” Gideon said now, for the three-thousandth time.
“My father’s dangerous,” Joey repeated bluntly. “And he has ‘business’ to talk to me about, as you very well know. I told you I don’t want you anywhere near it. It would be like inviting you into a viper pit.”
Gideon wondered for the thousandth time how much of a thing they were.
Joey Carlyle’s stuff was all over his apartment.
If any of their friends walked in on any given day, they’d know somebody was sleeping there, and since they all knew Joey wore trendy, tailored, and pricey, they’d know who was sleeping there, and the jig would be up.
Gideon didn’t care. Joey was so out of his league. Every moment that feral forest creature decided not to shift his den from his apartment back to his bare stone woodland abode was a moment of PFM, as the Navy called it.
Pure Fucking Magic.
“I’ve been in viper pits,” Gideon said, hoping for a last-minute reprieve, a chance to accompany Joey, a chance to protect him.
“True story. Took a trip to India when I was in college.” He shuddered.
“Took all sorts of antivenin before I went in, and had a hook and a slipknot handle thing when I walked in. Steel-toed boots, leather chaps—”
“Are you trying to turn me on?” Carlyle asked, sounding bored, but he was giving Gideon a sideways glance, as if to assess whether or not Gideon would really wear chaps.
“Not the assless kind, and no tassels anywhere,” Gideon said dryly. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m making an analogy here.”
“That if you’ve taken your anti-snake juice, you’ll live,” Joey retorted. “Yes, I get it. No, I don’t want you to jump in the pit with me.”
“I’d have your back, Joey,” Gideon said, his hurt surfacing when he’d been trying to bury it for weeks.
Carlyle glared at him. “Of course you would. That’s not even a question. Just go eat your red meat and don’t dream of snakes. For me. My treat.”
Gideon scowled. Of all the stupid things. God help him, Joey Carlyle was ten years his junior and he was protecting Gideon.
“I’m not helpless,” Gideon muttered, not wanting to let his wounds show.
“If my father was going to attack you with a stiletto or a cheese knife, no, you are not,” Joey said, and while he still sounded hard, there was a definite sheen to his eyes.
“But he’d attack you with his words, or he’d sabotage that portfolio you don’t admit you have, or he’d go after your parents in their nice little New Jersey suburban house and then take on your stepmom’s holiday place and her family.
And yes, you could probably defend yourself if you had to, but since you don’t have to, go have a merry fucking Christmas.
I’ve taken my antivenin too, Gideon. Please, for all that’s holy, protect yourself. ”
Gideon chewed on that for a little bit, and part of him was chanting, Three months. We’ve only been doing the thing for three months. You are under no obligation to put yourself or your father in danger for a three-month relationship.
But the other part of him was saying, He’s my partner.
And he wasn’t sure how that applied. It was equally true for a work partner or a domestic partner, but he didn’t think they were to the place where he could point that out, no matter how many times he opened his kitchen towel drawer and came up with Joey’s soft white tank-tees.
He sighed. “I’ll protect you until the day I die,” he said, surprising even himself with his passion. He was not necessarily a passionate man, the increasingly intense interludes with Joey notwithstanding. Those were the exception, not the rule.
“And this is me,” Joey said, his lean, hard mouth softening. “Doing the same.” Then he let out a breath. “You’re going to miss your train, Gid. If we weren’t out in public I’d kiss you goodbye, but we are so never mind. I should be home on the twenty-sixth. It’s only three days. Enjoy your roast.”
And with that he was gone, blending in with the train-station crowd so easily not even Gideon could find him.
But maybe Gideon’s eyes were blurring for stupid reasons. The kid could blend in seamlessly whether in the city or the woods. He could track a deer for miles—or an armed perpetrator. He was closer to being a serial killer than a victim, but still….
Still….
There was something vulnerable about him.
Gideon shook himself. He’d done his best. He couldn’t make somebody take help. He couldn’t make Joey care about him.
He’d rechecked his duffel that morning to make sure he’d included his father’s and stepmother’s gifts and had found one of Carlyle’s favorite sleep shirts in his duffel.
There was no reason for it to be there, except to replace the fancy underwear.
If Gideon put it on, he’d look ridiculous.
It probably didn’t clear his navel, and it would make even Gideon’s narrow shoulders seem broad.
Gideon had rolled it super tight, so that it barely took any room, and wedged it in the corner of his bag. The thought of it now calmed him down a little.
Maybe you didn’t have to make somebody care about you when they packed their favorite sleep shirt with your underwear on purpose so nobody could mistake that you were taken. Maybe that meant they already cared. Gideon thought that might be a good rule. He’d remember it.