Chapter Nine #2
Aiden decided that was the moment to
enter the room. Nick was a stubborn son of a bitch at the best of
times, but when he was hurt he was even worse. He laughed when he
saw Sam and Nick fighting over the needles that ran into Nick’s arm
from the IV stand behind the bed. They were slapping at each other
like teenage girls in a schoolyard fight.
“Who’s winning?” Aiden
quipped as he placed the bag he was carrying down on the chair
against the wall by the door.
“What?” Nick scowled in
his direction.
Aiden crossed his arms over his chest
and stared as his lovers. “Well, I was just wondering who was
winning this high school slap game you both had going on
there.”
“Thank Christ you’re
here,” Sam grumbled as he re-taped the IV into Nick’s arm. “You’ve
known him longer. How the hell do you get him to sit still and do
what the damn doctor ordered?”
Aiden grinned as he picked up the bag
he’d carried in. “You get him to swear to do what needs to be done,
or you’ll eat the sandwich you’d brought for him yourself, and
refuse to give him any.”
Sam frowned. “How in the hell is
that—”
“Is that your famous
pastrami on rye?” Nick asked, a hopeful gleam in his
eye.
Aiden took his time unzipping the bag,
and pulling the greaseproof paper wrapped goodness from the inside
of it. “Yep.”
Nick shuffled back on the bed, sitting
upright. “And has it got the Swiss cheese from Newman’s deli that
we order specially?”
Aiden walked toward the table beside
the bed that had coasters on it that enabled it to be rolled to the
side of the bed, but he made sure to keep it out of Nick’s reach.
“Of course!”
Nick groaned in pleasure. “And, now,
Aiden, this is an important question, so do not mess with me, I am
an injured man. Did you make that coleslaw with the Russian
dressing on it from scratch, the one that you refuse to tell me the
secret ingredient in so that I am forever bound to you?”
Aiden unwrapped the sandwich and
leaned in to inhale the tantalizing aroma. “You insult me. I would
never sully the memory of a cow who gave its life for us in order
to be smoked and seasoned to perfection with anything
less.”
“Oh, damn.” Nick rubbed
his hands together with glee. “Pass that bad boy over, baby, and
let me worship it as it should be.”
Aiden moved the table further from
Nick’s reach, and had to fight the grin that threatened at the
scowl he sent him. “Sam, what was it the doctor wanted from our boy
here?”
“Another night on the
antibiotics and painkillers, and if his blood work returns normal
tomorrow, then he’ll be able to return home tomorrow as long as he
has someone there who can look after him.” Sam moved to sit on the
bed, grinning at Nick’s pouting face. “The effects of the
concussion are minimal, but they are concerned about the shrapnel
they dug out of his thigh and side, and they want to make damn sure
he doesn’t get an infection.”
Aiden nodded at the clinical
description Sam gave, but knew it was a mechanism to deal with the
emotional side of seeing someone he cared about hurt. It had been
almost five days since Nick had been caught in a blast that had
injured an elderly gentleman who worked behind the reception desk
at Nick’s office. He’d suffered shrapnel wounds to his thigh and
side, some of the going deep, and he was close to losing a small
piece of his liver thanks to one of them. He’d crashed into a large
concrete pillar and sustained a head injury. When Aiden had
arrived, Nick had been in surgery, and he had sat helplessly in the
lobby waiting for any information.
Sam had arrived about fifteen minutes
later with his friend Riley, and he’d simply taken over. While Sam
had sat with Aiden holding his hand tightly in his, he’s talked to
the nurses, and asked them to make calls into the actual operating
room looking for updates. Aiden would have never have done that,
but what was even better, was because of Sam’s training, he was
able to help Aiden understand what it was he was
hearing.
“So,” Aiden said as he
pushed the table closer to Nick, then pulled it back again, “what’s
it going to be, Sheriff? Are you going to play nice and do what the
doctor ordered, or am I going to eat this piece of perfection
myself and torment you with a blow by blow description of what each
and every bite tastes like?”
Nick stared at him for a long while,
and Aiden could see Sam sitting beside him with a huge ass grin on
his face. “You, Aiden George, are one mean streaked son of a
bitch.” Nick growled in frustration and threw his hands in the air.
“Fine! I’ll be a good little patient and sit here for no more than
twenty-four hours more, and I allow these offensive things,” Nick
indicated toward the needles with a look of disgust, “to stay
within me, pumping God knows what shit into my bloodstream.
Happy?”
Aiden grinned and pushed the table
over. “Yep! And I will be even more so when Sam and I dig into our
own sandwiches.”
Nick grumbled about mean streaks, and
sharing being the scourge of all evil as Aiden took out the other
two large sandwiches and handed one to Sam.
Sam took his with a grateful smile.
“Man, as the two of you were describing that damn sandwich my mouth
was watering. I hope it lives up to all the hype.” Nick groaned
with almost orgasmic intensity as he took the first bite of his
sandwich, and Aiden and Sam laughed out loud.
The three of them settled in to eat
for a while, and Aiden savored the normalcy of it. After the stress
and craziness of the past few days, these moments of calm when the
three of them were together just doing something normal were to be
cherished.
“How’s Mark Ford?” Aiden
asked. He had been the other man injured in the explosion. From
what Aiden had been told, the bomb had been in a package delivered
to the Sheriff’s office addressed only to “The Sheriff”. No first
name, just that job title. It had been detonated with a cell phone
moments after the courier had stepped from the sheriff’s office and
back into the hallway. Aiden figured that the bomber had been
watching the courier enter and then timed it for the most
collateral damage possible. If it had been delivered to Nick’s
office located at end of a room of desks and people going about
their day, and set it off the number of those hurt would have been
higher than two. And there sure as fuck would have been a few
fatalities.
It had only been because the courier
had stopped just inside the door to flirt with one of the girls
from the coffee shop at the front of the building that the timing
hadn’t worked. Nick had been on his way to collect the package when
it exploded, and Mark Ford had been behind the wall of the
reception area looking for a file when it detonated.
Nick grinned. “He’s doing okay. His
wife has started to nag him now, and according to Mark that means
he’s off the critical list and heading home soon.”
The three of them shared a laugh at
that one. Aiden could actually understand the logic, too. When Nick
had first been hurt Aiden had existed on prayer and positive
thoughts. Two days into his recovery however, and he was back to
nagging at him himself. The relief of knowing that the man he loved
was going to be fine was almost palpable.
“Did they find out
anything further about the fucker who sent that damn incendiary
device?” Sam asked before taking another bite of his sandwich.
Aiden had been looking at Nick when his gaze flicked to him, as
otherwise he might have missed it.
“What is it?” Aiden asked
after swallowing a bite that had turned to sawdust in his mouth.
“Do they think it’s him?”
Nick sighed as he wiped his hands and
mouth on the napkin Aiden had given him before they started lunch.
“There were definite similarities to this prick’s signature.” Aiden
felt his heart clench at that.
“Wait,” Sam asked in
obvious confusion, “what does that mean? Break it down for me like
I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Aiden threw the rest of his lunch in
the bin before turning back. “Bombers are a pretty vain bunch of
assholes. They favor a particular way of making their devices. Some
favor the use of high explosives like C4. Others prefer chemical
based design using black powder or ammonal, and then there are
those that are a little less high tech, but no less effective. A
tightly sealed metal object filled with an explosive material and
metal fragments can do a shitload of damage. We saw a lot of those
in Afghanistan.”
Sam nodded. “Pipe bombs. You’re
talking about pipe bombs, aren’t you?” Aiden nodded, and Sam took a
deep breath. “Yeah, I’ve seen what those little bastards can do.
Hell, that last mission for us in country we had one thrown at us
as we were heading for the EVAC point.”
Aiden had read about that one, and it
had been a bloody miracle they had all made it out in one piece let
alone still breathing. Although from what the report had said, one
of their team had come close to kissing this life goodbye, and had
it not been for Sam, their team of five would have returned as a
quartet.
“Even they can have a
signature, something that the bomber will add to it to give it his
own special little twist of sadistic pleasure,” Aiden said. “The
device that detonated in Nick’s office was homemade, detonated by
cell phone, and I am guessing that this next piece of information
that Nick is about to confirm for me, is that the pipe had been
filled with a specific type of bolt.”
Nick nodded his gaze unwavering. “Same
bolts. Not purchased from the same hardware store, but the exact
same kind that he used.”
“The same kind who used?”
Sam asked slowly.
“A man by the name of
Miles Duncan,” Aiden answered. “He also went by the name of the
Platform Bomber.”