Chapter 7
Gideon wanted a donut. Or something salty. Salty sweet. Popcorn. Something to munch on while he read through his interview notes. He absently tapped on the desk and used a blue pen to write his super-helpful notes in the margins. He used a red pen for actual changes to the notes, and the pink one for things he wanted to follow up with and further questions to ask. He’d had a lot of fun putting a requisition in for them—Riley’s face when he’d opened the packet of thirty of them had been worth every second of the painstaking paperwork that he’d filled out to explain why he had to have them.
Multiple colours on a page soothed him. He figured it had to do with his experience with colouring as both a child and an adult. An activity that brought him joy. It also helped him settle his thoughts and organise them with a system that made sense.
He absently responded to Ange’s messages, every so often reminding her she needed to be sleeping and not sending him weird videos from Instagram. If she didn’t get better soon, he would go mad, and he’d only been without her for half a workday.
Ange: Did you know that daytime TV is legitimately crazy? Also, how many times can one person get kidnapped? She needs a tracker inserted in her arm like The Hunger Games .
Gideon: You have Netflix. Stop watching Days of Our Lives .
Ange: I can’t get it to work, because it keeps saying that my password is wrong, and I cannot move from the couch right now. I think I’m really dying.
Gideon: Go to a hospital.
Ange: You go to a hospital.
Gideon snorted. He sent her a GIF with an ambulance and then another one with Jiminy Cricket telling her to go to sleep.
“Gideon,” Riley barked behind him.
Gideon jumped, and his holder of pens and pencils went over the edge again. He needed to put them somewhere else. Would he? Probably not. “Yes?” He ignored the mess and twisted in his seat to look where Riley stood in the doorway.
Fuck, he looked good. He’d taken his jacket off at some point and had the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the thick silver watch on his wrist the centrepiece of the whole look. Tie perfectly straight and not one hair out of place. Gideon already looked like he’d been dragged through a bush. He usually had Ange around to straighten his clothes and keep him in some semblance of order.
“Did you not hear your phone?”
His phone? The receiver had “four missed calls” blinking on the screen. Huh. How had that happened? The other two pairs of detectives he worked with were out and about.
He picked it up and pressed it to his ear.
“What are you doing?” Riley asked, exasperated.
Gideon pressed a few buttons and found the settings. Mute. What the…? How? Not a setting that could be accidentally set, and Gideon certainly hadn’t done it.
Grady.
That fucker. Gideon fixed it and then weaved through the room to get to the grumpy grump’s desk. He’d pay for that. Gideon would figure out something truly diabolical.
“I won’t be an accomplice to this,” Riley said, voice right behind him now.
“Then look away.” Gideon grinned, glancing over his shoulder at him. His breath caught in his throat at the whiff of that expensive cologne, warm and sexy with hints of vanilla and cinnamon. It made Gideon want to lick him, see if he tasted as good.
Spoiler alert: he did taste that good. While no one looked, maybe he could have a quick nibble to be sure that he hadn’t imagined it.
Riley splayed a hand over his chest, curling around his tie, effectively halting his advance. “Not here.”
“There’s no one in here.” Quinn had been talking about canvassing and delivering a warrant for an arrest that Grady had been frothing at the mouth for, so they weren’t due back for a while. No idea where Greer and Henry were. Since Greer rarely showed his face, Gideon was confident they’d be uninterrupted for at least long enough for a quick kiss.
“That can change in the blink of an eye, Gideon. If you want to keep doing this, we need to be careful.”
“This meaning sex?” Gideon asked. He ran his fingers up Riley’s forearm, the fine hairs tickling him. He brushed Riley’s wrist and over the veins of his hand. He shivered at the memory of what those hands had done to him last night.
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what it is to you?”
Gideon stepped forward, and Riley’s hand twisted, curling around his shirt. “No,” he said honestly. It had been so long since he’d been touched the way that Riley had touched him, the way Dawson had. He couldn’t get enough of it, wanted to be covered in it. Needed it right this second. “Touch me,” he whispered shakily.
Riley cursed and then a hand ran through Gideon’s hair, warm lips covering his. Gideon moaned, digging his fingers into Riley’s strong back.
Riley walked him backwards and lifted him onto Grady’s desk. Gideon hooked a leg over Riley’s hip, securing them together.
“Should have”—Gideon stopped to kiss Riley again, lure too hard to ignore—“done this in your office.” Closed the door so they could make out for as long as they wanted without worry. Move some clothes around to do more than that.
Riley settled firmly between his legs and kissed across Gideon’s jaw, moving down his neck until he hit Gideon’s collar. Gideon gasped and leaned back. He shoved the keyboard and mouse out of his way so he could have more room and splayed his hands on the surface of the desk.
Riley’s hand unbuckled his belt, and Gideon bit his bottom lip, heat coursing through him. “Uh—how far are—” How far were they going out here? Gideon didn’t think he could say no even if Riley wanted to fuck him right here where anyone could walk in.
“Shh.” Riley’s teeth grazed his throat, tongue flicking over the bump of his Adam’s apple. The clink of his belt opening and Riley’s deft hand popping the top button of his pants free caused a whimper to sneak out. Everything Riley did to him drove him wild, made him insane. Helped him breathe .
Riley’s fingers skimmed across his briefs, teasing him. He arched into the touch, rotating his hips in an attempt to get closer, take more.
“You need to be quiet, Gideon.”
He couldn’t. It felt too good, and his need eclipsed everything.
“Should have gone into your office, then,” he repeated in a breathless whisper. Riley’s thumb swiped over the head of his cock through his briefs. Another one of those sounds he couldn’t control came out.
Riley’s mouth covered his. It didn’t keep him quiet for long, Gideon unable to stay still. He rolled his hips into Riley’s palm as he massaged Gideon’s hard cock.
“I need—please—” Gideon gave a keening cry when Riley’s fingers snuck in under the waistband. Riley’s free hand slapped over Gideon’s mouth.
“I’ll take care of you,” he promised. “Now be a good boy for me and keep quiet.”
He wanted to be a good boy for Riley, he really did, and he wished he could promise that. It would be a lie if he did.
Someone cleared their throat nearby, and Gideon’s heart jumped into his throat in fright. Riley twisted, half hiding Gideon with his bulk.
Gideon recognised the figure standing at the edge of the bullpen. Sebastian Devlin. The lawyer Gideon had officially met a few months ago, though he’d been up against him in court a time or two. Sebastian had a reputation as a ruthless defence lawyer, a reputation that was well-earned. He also happened to be dating Quinn.
“Should I come back?” Sebastian asked. He flicked his wrist, checking his watch. “Five minutes? Ten? If you tell me you need more than that, you should have gone somewhere else for lunch, is all I’m saying.”
“What are you doing here?” Riley asked.
Sebastian tucked a hand into his pocket and cocked his hip. “You ditched me yesterday, so I decided to hunt you down.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “For a second, I thought I’d walked into the wrong building. Didn’t know you offered these kinds of shows.”
Riley did Gideon’s pants and belt back up and helped him off the desk and onto his feet. Gideon’s heart skipped a beat when he brushed their lips together as well. Despite the fact they’d been caught red-handed, basically about to fuck, and they didn’t need to hide anything, it made Gideon warm inside that Riley still offered the affection with an audience.
“My office,” Riley said gruffly. “Both of you, now.”
Gideon straightened his shirt, following a step behind Riley. He grinned at Sebastian. “I like it when he gets bossy.”
“Is he this bossy in bed too?”
“Don’t answer that,” Riley said, opening his office door. “Get in.”
Sebastian chose to stand when Gideon slid into the seat opposite Riley’s. He braced his hands on the back of Gideon’s chair and bent. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. And while I admit to morbid fascination because I had my doubts whether Riley had working equipment or not, I have to tell Quinn.”
“I know,” Riley said simply.
Gideon didn’t know. No one asked him, so he stayed quiet.
Sebastian’s fingers curled further around the chair. “I can’t keep secrets from him. I did that once before, and I lost him because of it.” He glanced between them. “What am I telling him, exactly? Didn’t expect to come in here and find you making out with one of your own detectives. It looked like you were about to fuck him out there.”
Gideon shifted uncomfortably on his seat. He wished he could say, “We didn’t do anything wrong.” Except they had. They’d broken clear protocols, planned to do it again, and had openly flaunted it where anyone could have come in. He knew how lucky they were that it happened to be Sebastian and not someone else who would have spread the gossip like wildfire.
“I told you we should have gone into your office,” Gideon mumbled.
Riley gave him a look. “Constructive, thank you.”
Sebastian carefully lifted his hands from the chair and squinted suspiciously. “Have you… in here before?”
“No. Are you done trying to scold us as if you and Quinn have never been caught doing anything in public?”
“We were dating at the time, it was close to midnight, and we didn’t technically get caught. It was just you .” He clicked his fingers. “Oh, and we didn’t do it at the station where you and Quinn worked, or somewhere that has high traffic in the middle of the day. And I wasn’t his boss, and he wasn’t mine.”
“Finished?”
“Maybe. Not yet. Give me a second.”
Riley laced his fingers together and rested them on the desk. “It’s important that this doesn’t get out, for Gideon’s career as well as my own.”
Sebastian’s face twisted. “I hope you’re not implying that I would report you, because if you are, then fuck you, and I hope your next hot chocolate tastes like second-rate cocoa.”
Riley rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You can quit the dramatics at any point. I was not suggesting you would talk. It’s simply an important factor in this situation.”
“The situation where you and one of your detectives are… fucking? In a relationship? I’d like to clarify exactly what I walked in on.”
Gideon looked to Riley since they hadn’t actually clarified anything. They’d confirmed it wasn’t just about sex. That left a lot of wriggle room in terms of labels. And where did Dawson fit into that?
“If you need it explained, then I worry about what kind of relationship you have with your men.”
“Deflection doesn’t work on me. If you’re worried about the risk, you might want to avoid exposing yourselves right in the middle of the station?” Sebastian suggested. “If someone else had walked in on you, who knows what would have happened?” He cursed under his breath. “I should have taken a picture.”
“That’s perverted, even for you,” Riley said flatly.
“As proof . Who’s going to believe me?”
“Unfortunately, too many people think you have integrity and would be inclined to take you at face value.”
“Thanks… I think. You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What our relationship status is, is none of your business,” Riley said firmly. “That’s not the point of this discussion.”
“Touchy. At least tell me how long you two have been… like this?”
Finally able to contribute, Gideon happily supplied, “Since last night.” Technically, two days ago? It depended on what they considered to be the “start.” First kiss? First look? Or first overnight stay? Something in-between?
“Since…” Sebastian glanced between them. “Moving fast. Can I sit down, or are there cum stains on the chair that will only show up with blue light?” Sebastian asked.
“Sit the fuck down, Sebastian,” Riley said firmly.
Sebastian shared a grin with Gideon before complying. “I just wanted to check. Hygiene is important.”
“So is keeping my blood pressure down. You don’t particularly care about that.”
“I only have the capacity to care about one thing at a time.” Sebastian spread his legs out and adjusted his suit jacket. “I can’t believe you finally got yourself a boyfriend, and it’s one of your detectives . Couldn’t attempt to branch out a bit further?”
“Don’t you need to be getting back to work?”
“Why would I leave yet? This is too much fun,” Sebastian said, chuckling. “At least I didn’t wake you up at stupid-o’clock in the morning by kicking your bed like you did to me.”
Riley’s eyebrow twitched. “I didn’t sleep with your little brother.”
“You couldn’t handle him.”
“I am forever grateful for that fact. No one can handle him; he’s a menace to society.”
Gideon liked seeing Riley like this. Relaxed, friendly . Work mode stripped from him. It softened his features, and Gideon wanted to trace them with his fingers, learn him with his eyes closed and explore everything.
“I’m okay with him being single the rest of his life.”
“I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to hear of your plans for him.”
“He doesn’t get a say. That’s why I’m the big brother. You ready for lunch now?” Sebastain rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry.”
“Heaven forbid I not feed you in a timely manner.”
“That’s what I love about you: you get me.”
Gideon’s mobile rang from his desk. “I have to get that,” he said. It could be work related, or it could be Lucia or Hudson’s school. Gideon tried his best to always be available to answer the phone unless he absolutely couldn’t help it. The scraps a young boy got himself into at school seemed to grow exponentially every year.
It wasn’t any of those things. He smiled at the name displayed. “Hey, there.”
“Hi,” Dawson answered. “I hope you don’t mind me calling. I don’t have Riley’s number.”
Gideon leaned back against his desk, giving him a perfect view into Riley’s office, where he and Sebastian were talking. They could have been discussing their favourite dildo brand, and Riley still looked as serious as ever. “He’s here; did you want to talk to him?”
“Not really. Do you want—I’m nearby, on a job,” Dawson said, fumbling with his words. “If you weren’t busy…”
Riley looked up as if sensing they were talking about him. Gideon crooked his fingers in the universal sign for “come here.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?” Gideon teased Dawson.
“I’m asking if you want to get food with me,” Dawson said. “I guess if you want to call it that, then yeah. No one said last night was supposed to be a one-night stand. One-morning stand? Do we base it off the time when we had sex last?”
Gideon had no idea. He’d never had a one-night or one-morning anything. Every person he’d slept with he’d been in a relationship with. “I think we’d still call it a one-night stand,” he decided on.
“Am I breaking the rules by calling, then?”
“No, we’re not a one-night stand; I just mean that’s what you’d call it.”
“Oh. So about that date?”
“With just me?”
“I didn’t think his majesty would want to.”
“And if he does?”
“Then I’d like it if he came.”
Gideon put a hand over the speaker as Riley approached him. He stood close enough that Gideon could smell his cologne, and he leaned into it.
Riley settled a hand on Gideon’s hip. “What is it?”
“Dawson wants to know if you want to get lunch.”
Sebastian leaned his shoulder on the doorframe of Riley’s office. “Who is Dawson? You know, there’s so much gossip going on around here, and I never get to hear any of it. Quinn’s really holding out on me, and so are you. Are we even friends?”
“It doesn’t concern you,” Riley said. “Does having four men not keep you occupied enough?”
“I always have time for extra gossip.”
“Sounds like you need a hobby.” Riley hooked a finger in Gideon’s belt loop. “Lunch is fine,” he said, pressing a kiss to the side of Gideon’s head.
“We were supposed to be having lunch,” Sebastian said, pushing off the doorframe. “But who am I to get in the way of a budding romance?”
“You talk just to hear yourself, don’t you?” Riley said.
“It’s the only way to ensure intelligent conversation. I’m going to go surprise Peyton for lunch, and I might take a leaf out of your book and find the nearest desk.” He slapped Riley on the shoulder. “I’ll call you later.”
“Gideon?” Dawson said through the phone. “Are you still there?”
Gideon hooked his ankle around Riley’s. “We’re free; where are we going?”
Riley stirred his coffee absently as he watched Dawson across the café table, spooning the ice cream floating on top of his sundae milkshake. He’d brushed his hair to the side with his fingers to get it out of his face, but a few strands had broken free to curl against his forehead. He glanced at Gideon where he stood at the counter across the room, ordering their food. He preferred having them both in his sights.
“Why do you keep looking at me?” Dawson asked. He slid the spoon and ice cream into his mouth, lips stretching to accommodate the utensil. Riley couldn’t look away. “Do I have some cream on my face?”
“I’m trying to work out how you maintain your physique,” he lied. He’d been thinking about Dawson’s tongue. Though still a valid question. The milkshake came with drizzled chocolate, whipped cream, and a large scoop of ice cream. A meal in itself.
“So clinical. I have a labour-intensive job, and I don’t have milkshakes every day, unfortunately.”
Riley finished stirring his coffee and placed his spoon on the side of the small plate the mug had come on. “Why did you invite us out for lunch?”
“Are you always this suspicious, or am I a special case?”
Riley’s job had taught him early that most people couldn’t be trusted. Doubly true in this case. “You can hardly fault me for that, considering how we met.” How could Dawson not have an ulterior motive when the entire reason he’d met Riley had been to call him out for not wanting anything to do with his best friend? He couldn’t honestly think that Riley believed that sleeping together meant it ended there? Even with the caveat that he couldn’t mention her if he wanted to keep having sex with them, Riley doubted he’d suddenly stop wanting to bring her up.
“Is it so unusual that I want to know more about a man that I had sex with? Both of you, in fact.”
“Things you can take back to your friend?”
“Oh my God, you are the most infuriating person on the entire planet.” Not the first time he’d heard that. “I haven’t once brought up Sadie in this conversation. In fact, you’ve mentioned her more than me.”
Riley took a careful sip of his coffee and didn’t respond to that.
Dawson huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “I have no idea why, but I want you. She’s going to kill me when she finds out. Probably never talk to me again, and I’d deserve it. Every time you open your mouth, I wonder why I’m even still here.”
“And?”
“And what?” Dawson bit out.
“What are you doing here?”
Dawson’s lips flattened. He put his spoon down and stood. “You know what, this was a bad idea. I should go.”
“Come here,” Riley said before Dawson could move away from the table. He could admit to being an asshole and his unfair treatment of Dawson.
He couldn’t deny that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for Dawson to push the agenda again. He couldn’t think about what it meant that Sadie existed, that his biological parents were still out there somewhere in Sydney. Some part of him, a long time ago, had wondered if they were local or not. Until he’d realised that he didn’t care. They weren’t part of his life, and he didn’t want to be part of theirs. He had a family. One he would never give up for anything in the world. Not even the chance to find out more about the two people who had abandoned him when he’d been only a few days old. Whose genes made up his own.
Dawson hesitated and then dropped into the chair beside Riley. “What?” he asked defensively.
Riley slid the milkshake across the table and gathered some of the ice cream with his teaspoon. He cupped Dawson’s neck and fed it to him slowly. Heat flared in Dawson’s dark-brown eyes as he parted his lips, letting Riley in.
The spoon had barely touched the table before Riley kissed Dawson, lapping up the sweetness of the cold dessert with his tongue. Dawson moaned and curled a hand around Riley’s tie, drawing him closer.
“I didn’t put you in this position,” Riley said, dragging his thumb across Dawson’s bottom lip. The cold from the ice cream lingered. “You chose to confront me, drunk, I might add”—Dawson’s eyes prickled with irritation—“and then you chose to continue to invade my space with a half-assed apology that was more about making yourself feel better than making amends.”
“There better be a ‘but’ in there somewhere, or the couple that keeps staring at us is about to watch a completely different scene. One with blood and the need for an ambulance.”
“And you keep threatening an officer of the law.”
“I think your idea of the law is a lot more flexible than mine,” Dawson murmured, tilting his head and teasing Riley with a brush of his lips.
“You think so?” He couldn’t deny it. His new relationship with Gideon made it obvious he obeyed the law only when convenient for him. Gideon was a mistake and a dream, all at once. A man that Riley had been infatuated with at a young, impressionable age. One now in his arms. Better men than him wouldn’t have been able to resist. And Riley wasn’t a good man to begin with.
Dawson pressed the tips of his fingers to Riley’s throat, above his collar. “You’re not anything like I thought you would be.”
Riley didn’t ask him what he meant. It wouldn’t change anything; he could only ever be himself.
The corner of Dawson’s mouth lifted briefly. “You fascinate me. I wish you didn’t, because all of this is so fucking complicated. I can’t help myself. I want to kiss you as much as I want to punch you in the mouth, and I want to know more about you.”
“Like what?” He had nothing to say about himself that didn’t involve his family or his work. He didn’t have anything more than that. Hadn’t nurtured a life beyond that. No past relationships. No hobbies.
“What’s your favourite colour?”
“That’s your question? That’s completely asinine and—” Dawson put a hand over Riley’s mouth, and Riley glared.
“Just answer it.”
Riley tugged Dawson’s wrist to remove his hand. “Green.”
Gideon returned then, curiosity in his own warm brown eyes. He slid into Dawson’s vacated seat.
Dawson gave Riley a sly look that instantly put him on alert. “What’s Gideon’s?”
Those eyes saw too much. Surprisingly clever, considering he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
“What’s my what?” Gideon asked. He stretched out, his ankle resting against Riley’s. “They said they’d bring the food out when it’s ready.”
Riley contemplated not answering. “Yellow,” he said eventually.
Dawson rewarded him with a kiss. “We’re playing twenty questions. The first was favourite colours.”
“Curious,” Gideon said. He gathered his own drink—an iced coffee that didn’t have all the drippings like Dawson’s—and took a sip from his straw. “You know my favourite colour?”
“I pay attention to my detectives’ preferences.” Maybe he paid a little more attention to Gideon; loose cannons required extra supervision. Not merely because he could stare at Gideon all day, like a painting in a museum that sucked in his soul and evoked emotions that stayed with him long after he’d left.
Gideon nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, what’s Grady’s, then?”
“Is this an interrogation or a lunch out?” Riley asked stiffly.
Gideon smiled secretively, still sucking obscenely on his straw. “What number are we on?”
“The first one.” Dawson stretched his arm out behind Riley. “We should keep count. Anyone got a pen?”
“Sorry, nope,” Gideon replied.
Dawson looked at Riley as if the answer would be any different.
“No.”
“Don’t you guys have to take notes and shit when you’re at a crime scene? I’ve seen them do that in TV shows.”
“Don’t believe everything that you see,” Riley said with a dry look. “Some will use pen and paper if that’s their preference. Most of us use our phones. Or there are tablets that can be signed out.”
“Let me guess; you’re the pen-and-paper guy?”
“Riley doesn’t go out on calls.” Gideon scooped some whipped cream off his coffee and made a show of licking it off—had to be a show; no one ate their cream like that.
Riley wanted to slide Gideon under the table and make him lick his cock like that, with slow licks of his tongue. Gideon could eat something else while they had their lunch.
He adjusted himself and focused on his coffee. Hopefully the food would get out here soon.
“Right,” Dawson said. “You’re the boss man. That’s kind of hot.”
How? “I go out if no one else is available,” Riley said. Life happened, and murderers didn’t wait for it to be convenient for his detectives.
Luckily, he didn’t have to elaborate further since their food—steak sandwiches with hot chips for him and Dawson and potato wedges for Gideon—were delivered. The talented woman, who managed to juggle all three plates with ease, slid them onto the table.
“Next question,” Dawson said as soon as they were alone again. He picked up his steak sandwich and took a bite out of it, chewing contemplatively. “If you were on a deserted island—”
“No.” Riley had no idea why he still found Dawson attractive whilst talking with his mouth full and a smear of sauce on the corner of his lip. Dawson’s eyes would darken further if Riley licked it off.
“I didn’t even finish the question,” Dawson protested. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, sadly taking Riley’s opportunity to taste away.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Fine. What question do you want to ask since you’re such a question-asking expert?” He took another bite, and more of the gooey barbeque sauce oozed over his bottom lip.
Riley hadn’t initiated this. Why did he have to think of a question? What did he want to know about Gideon that he didn’t already know? What did he want to know about Dawson?
“Do you have siblings?” he found himself saying without thought. Skirting too close to the entire reason they’d met and something Riley had failed every day since to not constantly think about.
Dawson wiped the sauce off with his thumb and sucked it into his mouth. Too distracting for his own good. “Just the one: an older brother, Marshall.” He bit his lip. “Do…” He hesitated. “You said you had, um…” Red spread across his cheeks, giving them an attractive hue.
“I have five,” Riley offered, giving him a lifeline. It was the least he could do since he’d been the one who’d initiated this disastrous line of enquiry. He should have known better. Both these men made it hard for him to think. “One older, the rest are younger. Kellan is the oldest, by three years. Then me, then Lucas, Danny, and the twins—Parker and Peyton.”
“Wow. That’s… a lot of brothers. I can barely handle one. Are you close in age?”
“Relatively. Lucas and I are four months apart.” Easy to forget that he and Riley were roughly the same age, considering Lucas’s maturity levels. Their mother had already been heavily pregnant with Lucas when she’d adopted Riley. He’d never really understood why she’d chosen to take him in when she already had a family, with no reason to believe that she wouldn’t be able to have more if she wanted.
He’d never asked, and he’d tried his best to move past it. She’d chosen to love him, and that’s all that mattered.
All those feelings had come back at him like a freight train in the last few days, all without his permission. Why had Theresa taken him, why had she loved him when the ones who had created him hadn’t?
“And the rest?” Dawson asked.
He’d started this train wreck, and he had no choice but to follow through. “Mum got pregnant with Danny about six months after Lucas was born. He turned twenty-eight last October. Peyton and Parker are twenty-six this year.”
“Your parents really liked each other, huh?”
Riley let out a small, surprised laugh. “A little bit. After almost forty years of marriage, I guess they still do.”
Dawson’s smile disappeared. “It sounds like you have a wonderful family,” he said sincerely.
Riley didn’t know how to answer that. They were perfect, in their own way. His siblings constantly got on his nerves, got themselves in trouble, and took on the world without a thought for their own safety. And they were his. He’d quite literally do anything for them.
Everything had been fine, and Riley had been content with his life. Until Sadie and Dawson had swept into it like a hurricane and turned everything upside down.
He didn’t want to care and hated that he couldn’t stop it.
“How old is Marshall?” Gideon asked. “I myself am an only child, so I can’t tell you anything about my non-existent siblings. I could , but only my imaginary ones.”
“Explains so much about you,” Riley said. Gideon’s parents attended the police family barbecue every year, along with Lucia and Hudson. Gideon’s warm vibrance came from them both. As well as his love for art, regardless of his lack of talent for it.
“He’s thirty-five. Mum and Dad only planned for one kid, but then surprise, she got pregnant with me.” Dawson grinned. “I’m the best thing that ever happened to them. I tell Marshall all the time that obviously he wasn’t enough, and they needed me in their life.”
“Yes, who doesn’t need that kind of excitement?” Riley said with a wry half smile.
Dawson nudged him with his knee and stole one of his chips. He smiled as he chewed. “Did you always want to be a cop?”
“Yes.”
“Not going to elaborate?” Dawson took another chip, so Riley swapped their plates.
“His dad is a cop,” Gideon offered. “Lucas is a firefighter, and two of his brothers were in the military. Danny still is. Regimented lifestyles are in the Sinclair blood.”
Dawson wisely didn’t mention the lack of blood relation. Riley had never considered himself anything but a Sinclair, regardless of his blood type or DNA.
“Did you always want to be a gardener slash handyman slash jack-of-all-trades?” Gideon asked, expertly moving the conversation to safer topics.
“No, actually,” Dawson said. “I wanted to play in the AFL.”
“Most kids do at some point or other,” Gideon said.
“True,” Dawson said, grinning ruefully. “I played VFL, but I injured my shoulder before the draft, and I wasn’t picked.”
“You have a very physical job. I assume the injury healed enough you could play again if you wanted?”
Dawson fiddled absently with his spoon. “They told me that I should focus on recovery, and for sure I’d be picked up the next year. It’s happened to others, and the dream wasn’t really dead, just postponed. A couple of months later I got a job in a nursery, owned by one of my best friend’s parents, and I found I really loved it. And the rest is history.”
Riley shifted uncomfortably. The addition of “one of my,” insinuated that he didn’t mean Sadie. Who else could he be talking about? Were they speaking half-truths now, to avoid the subject?
“Did you always want to be a cop?” Dawson asked Gideon. Finished with his own food—and Riley’s—he started helping Gideon eat the potato wedges left on his plate. “It’s your turn.”
“Sort of?” Gideon answered. He dipped the last potato wedge into what was left in the small bowl of sour cream and then the sweet chili sauce and popped the whole thing in his mouth. “I went to university first and got a degree in criminology because it fascinated me. Then when I graduated, I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I applied to the force, and I liked it. Guess I don’t do too bad a job since this guy hasn’t fired me yet.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Is that what you hope Hudson will do?”
“Fuck, no,” Gideon said, laughing. “If I wanted him to be me, I would have done that weird thing where I named him after me. Last month he wanted to be a firefighter, the month before that he wanted to dance, the month before that he wanted to be a chef, and this month, he wants to be a footy player because of Auskick. If he turns around one day and says he wants to be a cop, then cool. But it will be because he wants to, not because I want him to be. I don’t believe in pushing those expectations on a child. He’s got plenty of time to decide for himself.”
“I bet you’re a fun dad.” Dawson smiled, leaning back with a hand on his stomach. No doubt pleasantly full; he’d eaten essentially two meals, plus a milkshake heavy with extras. It reminded Riley of his brother Danny, who needed constant feeding to fuel his large frame.
“I’d settle for just being a dad,” Gideon said. He shrugged and finished off his iced coffee. “The unpredictability of my job means I can’t do many sleepovers with him. I don’t spend as much time being there for him as I’d like to.”
“I bet he doesn’t see it that way.”
“The divorce has been harder for him than for us, I think. We knew it was coming; he didn’t. Me moving out has only made that worse.”
“Do you get along with your ex?” Dawson asked.
“She’s my best friend, and that hasn’t changed.”
Riley finished his coffee as he listened absently to their conversation. Learning more about Dawson and opening the door for whatever this ended up being? It would eventually blow up in their faces.
He knew that, and he’d still opened the door.