Chapter 8
Gideon let himself into Ange’s cosy little three-bedroom house with his key. He almost dropped the goodies in his arms as he shoved the door open with his ass. The letters from her mailbox slid to the floor. He thought about picking them up and then shrugged. Doing it now would cause everything else to fall. He’d come back for them.
“That better be you, Gid.”
“What if it hadn’t been?” he shot back. Damn, she sounded even worse in person than she had over the phone. Did he need a hazmat suit?
“I would have told you to take whatever you wanted as long as you got me the Soothers that I forgot when I was up earlier.”
“Who couldn’t resist that kind of invitation?” Gideon teased.
Someone would have to be keen to wade through this mess to find something worth stealing. Her lounge looked like a tornado had come through it and doubled back. If tornadoes left behind tissues, dirty dishes, and the cloying smell of Vicks VapoRub, which Gideon had never been a fan of.
He spotted Ange’s hair on the couch, peeking out from a cocoon of blankets. Her eyes and nose poked out too. “Don’t come too close.”
“I haven’t been afraid of girl cooties since high school.” Gideon shoved the ice cream he’d brought with him into the freezer and put the soup container in the microwave, turning it on before going back into the lounge.
“Isn’t that a primary school thing? You were still afraid of them in high school?” Ange asked. “I don’t remember that. They loved you.”
“High school girls are way more terrifying than primary school girls.” He would die on that hill. “That’s why I dated boys,” he said with a cheeky grin.
“You dated two, and they were both losers, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What did Lucia ever see in you?”
“I have no idea. Guess she finally came to her senses.” He leaned over, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. “Have you checked your temperature lately?”
“It’s a bit high but not so bad. I have medicine.” A manicured finger appeared, pointing at the cold-and-flu bottle on the coffee table, surrounded by the mess. It slipped back into her cocoon.
“Such a slob,” he said with a “tut-tut.” He reached over and grabbed it, turning it over so he could read the instructions. “Let me get you some food, and then you can have some more.”
He grabbed the letters on his way back to the kitchen and dumped them on the counter next to the fruit bowl. He put some of the soup in a mug so she could sip it and not have to worry about a spoon, and he grabbed a plastic bag so he could clear off some of the coffee table.
He made sure she had proper hold of the chicken noodle soup before he got rid of all of the rubbish and stacked the dishes, sitting them in the sink to be washed later.
“Scoot up,” he said, nudging her legs.
He measured out the right amount of liquid and made her drink it before she started on her soup. He’d shuffle her back to her bed before he left; she’d get a much better sleep in her room than out here. And she couldn’t watch weird daytime TV in there. If he got one more text message about it, he’d go insane.
“So,” he said into the silence as she ate. “I have a confession to make.”
Ange stared suspiciously as she sipped at her soup. “What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?”
“Why else would you need to confess? Is this personal or professional? If this is about that idiot lawyer Bradley, I told you I’d deal with him when I got back. If he called you, harassing you about his case, I’m gonna shove my foot so far up his—”
“You have tiny feet, how is that a deterrent?” The pain-in-their-ass prosecutor hadn’t tried to contact him, which Gideon could only be grateful for. Though if they were serious about damaging him, he’d pick something bigger than her foot.
“I can make it hurt,” she promised darkly before erupting into a sneezing fit accompanied by painful groans.
Gideon wisely did not ask further questions. Instead, he handed her some tissues and said, “At least wait until you can breathe properly again. I’ll even hold him for you.”
He waited until she finished blowing her nose before he followed up with, “I might have slept with our boss.”
Ange paused. She frowned, dropping the tissues into the makeshift bin beside the couch that Gideon had left there. She let out a weird giggle snort. “You might have, or you did?”
“Might have is maybe pushing the truth a bit. We definitely slept together.” He could still hear those deep whispers in his ear. Are you going to be good for me? When Riley had called him a good boy, it had done things to him that he hadn’t expected. Not a direction he’d ever gone in sex before. Lucia had been more dominant than him, but not like that .
“What the fuck ? Gid, please tell me you’re joking.”
Gideon couldn’t say, “I wish I was.” He didn’t wish that. It had been reckless, and stupid, and there were still so many ways it could go wrong for them, but he didn’t regret it. The things that Dawson and Riley made him feel? No, he wouldn’t take it back even if he could.
“Just to clarify: we’re talking about Riley Sinclair?”
“Yes,” Gideon said slowly. Who else would they be talking about? They rarely had to deal with anyone above Riley; that’s why they had Riley in the first place. He dealt with the political bullshit so they could focus on their jobs.
She fell silent, and Gideon waited. She didn’t say anything, staring at her soup like it held answers to questions she hadn’t asked.
“Ange?”
“I’m waiting for the punch line because I can’t fathom how even you could be that stupid.”
“It was—” No. It hadn’t been an accident. He couldn’t say that, even to make it sound better. They’d both gone into it with eyes wide open. Eagerly. At least on Gideon’s part. It had come out of nowhere, sure, but he’d been a willing participant from the very start. “I was comforting him, and it just…”
“If you say ‘it just happened,’ I am going to get up and punch you in the face. Maybe that will knock some sense into you. You can’t just happen to fuck your boss. ” She put her empty mug on the coffee table and leaned back, her head dropping against the arm of the couch. “How could he be so irresponsible? He’s in a position of power, and he should never have let—”
Gideon’s lips thinned. “No one let me do anything. It was a choice I made of my own free will. None of this makes him less,” he said sharply. None of it had anything to do with professionalism, and it certainly didn’t put Riley’s leadership skills into question. Gideon would have followed him into fire before, and that hadn’t changed. None of this had anything to do with their professional lives, and it didn’t change how they did their jobs. Riley would never let their relationship—whatever they labelled it—change how he conducted himself at work, or how he treated Gideon.
Ange froze and then slowly raised her head to stare incredulously at him. “Please tell me you aren’t developing feelings for him. That’s even worse . You can see how that’s worse, right?”
“I’m not—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Maybe he couldn’t use the word love, considering they’d had one night together and one kind-of-definitely a date, but that didn’t mean feelings were off the table. Gideon had never been able to separate sex and feelings. He’d married his first girlfriend, for fuck’s sake. He’d known the risk when he’d started it, but he also knew that none of them were in this lightly.
“I can’t believe you’ve gotten yourself into this mess. Why would you do this to yourself? You have a passably handsome face, and if you’d wanted to dive back into the dating pool, you could have had your pick of any single, eligible hottie in the city. I could have introduced you to some people. Hell, Lucia would have introduced you to some people.”
He knew they would have if he’d asked. Maybe Lucia was getting right back on the horse, but Gideon had needed more time to lick his wounds, to find his balance after the last tumultuous twelve months. His entire life had changed to something unrecognisable, and he still hadn’t managed to make it all make sense. He’d tripped unexpectedly into this situation with Riley and Dawson, and while he didn’t regret it, he certainly hadn’t gone out looking for it.
“Why Riley?”
“Have you seen him?” Gideon joked. He didn’t really have an answer for her. The switch had been flipped the moment he’d pulled Riley into his arms, and he hadn’t been able to let go. It had started something amazing, and Gideon wanted to follow the path and see where it led. He’d always been too curious for his own good. This curiosity at least promised something worth it.
“You’re better than that, Gid. A pretty face isn’t enough to make you risk so much. You could lose your job. He could lose his. Have either of you thought about that?”
“We’re being careful.” Were they? They’d already been caught by the lawyer. Whenever Riley got near, his brain turned off, and the need to touch consumed him. The desire to see those blue eyes melt and that mouth open with all the filthy things that Gideon had no idea Riley had been hiding eclipsed all else.
Ange groaned and flung her head back again, her eyes scrunching shut. “I can’t tell if the nausea is you or the sickness.”
“Err on the side of caution and assume both.” Always both.
“You have to stop. Like, right now. You can’t keep doing it.”
Gideon knew he couldn’t. Hell, it should have stopped after the first kiss. “I can’t,” he said truthfully. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever. He had no idea what his life would look like in another twelve months.
“Gideon.”
“Ange.”
She pushed him with her foot. “What happens when this ends badly?”
“We’re all adults; we deal with it then.” He couldn’t spend all his time worrying about “what ifs” and how it might end. He’d rather enjoy it and take what he could from it while he had it.
“Why did you tell me? I could have happily lived in ignorance of the fact you know what our boss’s dick tastes like.” Her head lifted, eyes wide. “What his sex voice is like.”
“It’s hot.” Underwear-melting hot.
Ange grimaced. “No, nope. We’re not taking that avenue of conversation any further. Why did you tell me if you’re trying to be all discreet and shit? Ugh, are you gonna ask me to be an accomplice in hiding your office sex?”
“You’re my partner and my best friend,” Gideon said, ignoring that comment. A locked door and a gag, and Gideon could handle hiding the office sex just fine himself. “I needed someone to know.” He and Ange had been friends since they’d lived down the road from each other as kids, and he trusted her more than anyone else in the world. Even more than his own parents.
Ange softened. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Yeah.”
She sighed. “You know that I’ll always support your dumb decisions. But I reserve the right to give you shit for them.”
“Of course.” He wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Can I have some more soup?”
Gideon beamed and jumped up. He kissed her on the forehead and murmured, “I love you,” before shuffling off to the kitchen, remembering at the last second to grab her mug.
“If you loved me, you’d also get me some ice cream,” she called out to his retreating back.
Good thing he’d come prepared.