Sam

The waiting is driving me crazy. I pace Jake’s motel room, restless and antsy, listening to Sam Hunt through my ear buds. Cooper’s been sequestered in our room with the feds for over an hour, and we’ve had no word. “This is driving me nuts!”

“Would you please sit down and stop pacing?” Jake says, glaring at me from over the top of his laptop. “You’re driving me nuts.”

Jake is seated at a little table in front of three laptops—his own little command center. He points at the empty chair on the other side of the table. “Sit down, please.”

I sit, then remove my ear buds and observe him for a minute. “Our server sure had the hots for you tonight—the cute brunette. Why didn’t you get her number? She practically threw herself at you. I may not dig girls that way, but even I could tell she was uber hot.”

Jake keeps tapping away on his laptop, ignoring me.

In the two years I’ve known Jake, I don’t recall him ever going out on a date. “Are you gay?” I know the question is ridiculous as soon as I ask it. If he were gay, I would know.

He glares at me once more over the laptop screen. “No. I’m not gay.”

“Do you like girls?”

More glaring, along with a clenched jaw. “Yes.”

“Then why haven’t I ever heard about you dating anyone? I mean, come on, you’re a good looking guy, with mad skills and a great job. You have a lot to offer, so why aren’t you offering?”

Jake leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his ridiculously muscular chest. “Are you finished?”

“Hey, I’m not trying to be an ass. I’m just curious. What’s your deal? You live like a monk.”

“My deal is that my personal life is none of your business.”

“Ouch!” Clearly, I hit a raw nerve. “Sorry, man. I was just making friendly conversation.”

His expression softens. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off. It’s just—complicated.”

“Are you... like... celibate?”

Jake levels his gaze at me, but says nothing.

Yeah, I definitely hit a nerve. “Never mind, man. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s okay.” Jake swipes his hand across his face, exhaling heavily. “I—I was engaged once. We were both really young—just out of high school. Too young, I guess. Anyway, her folks thought I was a bad risk for their precious daughter. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life then, no ambition. I thought about going into the military, like Shane and Jamie had, or maybe becoming a firefighter like my dad, or a teacher like my mom.” He laughs. “I was all over the map back then. I guess I can’t blame them for being concerned. Anyway, her parents talked her out of marrying me. Not only that, but they talked her into marrying someone else—an accountant in her father’s firm.”

Jake looks at me with hard eyes, and I can see the pain buried deep.

“Shit, man.” I feel guilty for bringing up such a painful subject. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He shrugs. “It’s all right. Her husband’s now a partner in the accounting firm, and they’ve got a huge house in Lincoln Park. They’ve even got a kid—a little boy, I hear. I guess she made the right choice.”

Jake acts very cavalier as he discusses his ex-girlfriend, as if she means nothing to him now, but he’s not fooling anyone. “What’s her name?”

“Annie Elliot—well, I guess it’s Annie Patterson now.”

“Do you still love her?”

Jake shoots to his feet, pocketing his phone as he grabs his jacket off the back of his chair. “I’m going out for some air. You stay here or I’ll kick your ass, you got me?”

I nod, wishing I’d kept my damn mouth shut. Jake’s a pretty private guy. He doesn’t share a lot about himself—at least not to my knowledge. I shouldn’t have pushed him.

He leaves the motel room, shutting the door behind him with a bit more force than is necessary. I walk to the window, peering through the drapes to see how far he’s going. But he doesn’t go far. He leans against the SUV, his expression stony as he seems lost in his thoughts. He’s got to be hurting. Personally, I think this Annie Elliot must be an idiot. Who would dump Jake? He’s an amazing guy.

I do some quick mental math. Jake’s around thirty, so he must have been engaged to this girl about a decade ago. Has he been pining for her all that time? Jesus. He needs to move on. He can’t put his life on hold forever because of this girl. She made her choice.

I wonder if she’s happy married to some hot-shot accounting partner. With a kid, too. She’s probably some spoiled rich bitch now. Jake has done pretty well for himself. He loves his job, and he’s damn good at it. Shane counts on him. He may not make as much as an accounting partner, but he certainly makes more than enough to support a family comfortably, even in Chicago. He would have made her a damn fine husband.

The adjoining door opens, and Cooper walks through looking nothing short of haggard. His eyes are rimmed with red.

I meet him halfway, raising my hands to cradle his face, his stubble scratching my palms. “Are you okay, babe?”

He looks at me without saying a word. Then he shakes his head as if trying to clear it. “Rehashing it again was rough. They really dug deep.”

“I’m sorry.” When I lean in to kiss him gently, his lips cling to mine. Damn, he’s really shaken. “Let me tell Jake you’re done, and then you and I can crash in our room.”

I open the front door and stick my head out, just as the feds pull away. Jake watches them go, then turns to me when they exit the parking lot.

“We’ll be in our room,” I say.

Jake pushes away from the SUV, nodding. “I’m going for a walk. I won’t go far.”

* * *

Cooper sits at the foot of our bed, looking a little shell-shocked. I remember seeing guys in the Rangers look like that when they lost a buddy in combat.

“Hey.” I drop down beside him and put my arm around him, drawing him close. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I didn’t kill him, no,” he says, his voice wooden. “But maybe if I’d stayed away from him. Maybe if I hadn’t acted on my sexual impulses, he’d—”

“Cooper—”

“Cody never got the chance to grow up, because three bullies were afraid of what they didn’t understand.” He looks me in the eye. “Billy claims I killed Cody to keep him quiet about the nature of our relationship. He’s also insinuating that I murdered Judd Franklin.”

“That’s bullshit! The judge committed suicide. Besides, you were with me all night and all morning. You have an ironclad alibi.”

Cooper laughs. “You realize you’re not exactly an objective witness, right?”

I shrug. “Jake’s video footage is, though. He’ll have it on film that you were here in our room all night long.”

“The feds said an autopsy is being performed on Judd, but that the initial forensics investigation concluded it was a cut-and-dry case of death by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They told me not to worry about Billy’s attempts to deflect blame. None of his claims hold up to scrutiny.” Cooper reaches out to touch my cheek. “I’m sorry I brought you down here. You don’t need this.”

I reach for his hand, linking our fingers together. “Hey, I wanted to come, remember? In fact, I think I insisted on it.”

Cooper shakes his head. “I never wanted you involved in my fucked-up past.”

I nudge him with my shoulder. “Shut up. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than by your side, drama or not. I love you.” And then I kiss him.

* * *

We stay in for the rest of the evening. An hour later, Jake returns from his walk and proceeds to make enough noise over there to wake the dead, opening and closing doors. I feel bad for dredging up his past.

“What’s his problem?” Cooper says.

“I think that’s my fault. I asked him about his love life, and he told me about his ex-girlfriend.”

“Ah, yes. Anne Elliot.”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have pushed him. It put him in a really bad mood. It’s been ten years though. The guy needs to move on.”

Cooper shrugs. “The heart wants what it wants.”

Our conversation is interrupted when Shane calls Cooper to get an update on our status. While Cooper’s talking to Shane, I reply to text messages from Beth and Erin. Beth’s not happy that I left Chicago so soon after returning. Erin’s going on and on about Mack—Jesus, I wish those two would just hook up already and quit dancing around each other. I promise Beth I’ll be home soon, and I recommend that Erin buy some low-cut tops and display a bit of cleavage to motivate Mack to take action. So there’s a bit of an age gap between them. Who cares? Shane’s a lot older than Beth. And hell, look at me and Cooper. He’s old enough to be my father.

Erin texts me back:

But I don’t have much cleavage to display. : (

Chuckling at Erin’s reply, I text her back:

Mack’s a red-blooded heterosexual male. Trust me - he won’t be able to resist cleavage, regardless of its size.

Cooper and I eat some snacks while we watch a movie in bed. It’s late, and I’m half sleep when Cooper turns off the TV and nudges me. “Time for bed.” He gets up and heads to the bathroom.

Just as I get up to follow him, the adjoining door bursts open and Jake comes through the door, gun in hand. “Look alive. We’ve got company.” He peers past the drapes in our room to the parking lot. “We’ve got three Tangos in the rear of the building. I don’t see anyone out front.” He scans the room. “Cooper’s in the bathroom?”

“Yeah.” I grab my gun and tuck it in the back waistband of my jeans, then grab Cooper’s gun and head for the bathroom. The door is partly open, so I rap quietly before pushing it open. Cooper’s standing shirtless at the sink. I flip off the bathroom light and hand him his gun. “We’ve got company. Three Tangos out back.”

Cooper tucks his gun into the waistband of his jeans, then pulls on his discarded T-shirt.

There’s a window in the bathroom, but the glass is frosted, so we can’t see out of it. Cooper double-checks the window’s lock, and we back out of the bathroom to confer with Jake, who’s back in his room consulting the video feeds on the laptop screens.

“We’ve got three guys in the rear of the building,” he says, pointing at the surprisingly clear black-and-white video feed. Then he hands us each a two-way, wireless communication earbud. “Billy Monroe and the two guys he had with him at the tavern this evening. They’re armed with shotguns and wearing Kevlar.”

“Then they came to do some damage,” Cooper says grimly, as he inserts his ear piece. Then he checks his weapon.

“They’re moving around to the front of the building,” Jake says, moving to peer out through the drapes in his room. “Stay clear of the windows and door.”

We move away from the front wall of Jake’s room.

“Do you want to call it in?” Jake asks Cooper, letting him make the call. “Are we going to handle this ourselves or let the police deal with it?”

Cooper considers the question for a minute, then shakes his head. “I’m sure someone will call it in when the bullets start flying. Until then, we’ll let them make the first move. Then we can claim self-defense. Let’s take out as many of these assholes as we can. After all, they started this.”

Not a moment later, the front wall of Jake’s room is sprayed with gunfire. The large window shatters inward, sending glass flying into the room. The screens of two of the laptops shatter, and the door is riddled with holes and now resembles a huge block of Swiss cheese. Fortunately, the other room is untouched.

“They don’t know we have two rooms,” Cooper says, moving back into our room to make sure there’s no damage. Then he returns to Jake’s room and takes up a position near the base of the shattered window.

I take a spot, too, at the open window, and we return fire on the assholes who are now hunkered down behind an older model pick-up truck.

A sharp cry of pain is the only indication that we hit at least one of them.

“I’m going out the back window so I can come up on their right flank,” Jake says, heading for the bathroom. “Keep them occupied.”

A couple minutes later, with Jake positioned out front, we’ve firing at the Tangos from two sides. We hear a second scream, indicating a second Tango has been hit.

The shrieking wail of sirens rents the air, letting us know that some helpful citizen has called 911, and our opportunity to take these guys out is quickly coming to an end.

Jake moves closer to the pick-up, using our rented Escalade as cover. I throw open the damaged door to Jake’s room so I can race outside and take shelter behind a large metal trash can. I figure our best bet is for Jake and me to come at them from opposite sides and pin them down behind the pick-up. If we can force them to make a run for it, out into the open, we’ll have clear shots at them.

“Sam! Get back inside!” Cooper hisses into the comm system, clearly pissed.

Shit! Now is not the time to let Cooper coddle me. The sirens are getting closer, and we don’t have much time. Jake must be on the same wavelength, because he lifts his hand, catching my gaze. At his signal, the two of us lay down a solid wall of fire on both sides, while Cooper fires through the broken window.

Using parked cars as cover, Jake and I work our way farther from the motel and closer to the pick-up. From where I’m crouching behind a rusty old station wagon, I can see one of the men lying flat on the pavement. Another one is sitting propped against the rear of the truck, clutching his belly. The third man, Billy Monroe, is still on his feet, hunkering down behind the pick-up. He appears to be unscathed. The asshole.

Monroe’s our primary target. He’s the problem we need to solve before the cops arrive.

Just as Jake and I prepare to make another go at them, three police cruisers pull into the motel parking lot, lights flashing and sirens ablaze. Damn it!

Monroe takes advantage of the distraction to jump into the driver’s seat of the pick-up and take off, abandoning his two fallen pals. As Monroe tears out of the parking lot, I aim for his tires, but the patrol cars enter my line of sight, and I have to lower my weapon.

Deputy Williams and several other officers exit their patrol cars, guns drawn, shouting at us to lower our weapons and step out into the open.

When he sees us, Williams holsters his revolver. His expression is part annoyed, and part something that looks an awful lot like amusement. “I figured you guys had to be involved. What the hell’s going on?”

“Monroe and his buddies opened fire on my motel room,” Jake says, stepping out from behind his cover and holstering his gun.

Cooper steps out of Jake’s room, his gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “Monroe attacked us. We caught everything on the surveillance cameras.”

Both of Monroe’s buddies are on the ground—one of them alive and wounded badly, the other one prone and showing no sign of life.

Deputy Turner checks the pulse of the second man. “Jesus, Denny,” Turner says, glancing up at his partner. “It’s Harvey Jackson. He’s dead.”

“I’ll need copies of the surveillance feeds,” Williams says to Jake. Then to Turner, he says, “Call the EMTs for Fisher and the coroner’s office for Jackson.”

Williams turns back to the three of us. “I’ll need statements from all of you.” He shakes his head as he looks at Cooper. “You sure are stirring up some shit in this town.”

* * *

I walk around the leased Escalade, counting the dings in the side and rear panels—at least a dozen. The paint is certainly destroyed, and there are two cracks in the rear window. The vehicle must be armor plated, because none of the bullets pierced the sides. “Who’s going to tell Shane he just bought a slightly used Escalade?” I say.

Jake just shakes his head.

It takes an hour for the deputies to finish up documenting the crime scene. One of Jake’s laptops survived the hail of bullets, so he was able to collect the video footage from the online server and e-mail it to the police station. After they took our statements, and after the EMTs carted away the injured guy and the coroner took away the dead guy, we were left alone.

Jake’s room is, of course, unusable, so he collects his gear and moves into our room. He sets up the remaining laptop on the little round table and configures the video feeds from the surveillance cameras, both of which survived the shoot-out.

“Let’s go home,” Cooper says. “We’ve done all we can do here. The rest is up to the local authorities and to the feds. We’ve given them all the evidence they need.”

“I’ll call Shane and order an evac,” Jake says, pulling out his phone. While he’s talking to Shane, at midnight, he dumps his duffle bag at the foot of the other bed and roots around inside.

“Looks like we’re sharing a room after all,” I say, grinning at the frown on Jake’s face as he gives his brother an update.

Jake gives me an annoyed scowl, so I head into the bathroom, where Cooper’s double-checking the lock on the back window.

“Hey,” I say, walking in. “Jake says the surveillance cameras are still working, and we’ve got one functioning laptop. We should be okay for the night.”

Cooper turns to look at me, his face ashen.

“What’s wrong, babe?” I ask him.

“I want you out of here,” he says. “Tonight was too close for comfort. You could have gotten hit out there.”

“I was just doing my job.”

He brushes my hair back. “I know. I just hate to see you in harm’s way.” He steps close and wraps his hand around the back of my neck to draw me close for a kiss.

At the touch of his lips on mine, I feel a kick of desire low in my belly. “Damn. We have a roommate tonight.”

Cooper chuckles. “Just think, by this time tomorrow we’ll be home sleeping in our own bed.”

When we head back into the room, Jake’s seated at the table, keying something into the laptop. “Shane will have the jet down here early tomorrow morning. We have to be at the airport by seven.”

“Good,” Cooper says. “The sooner the better. I’m ready to go home.”

Everyone’s in bed—Jake takes the other bed—and the lights are off except for the faint glow of the laptop screen. Any motion in the front or the back of our section of the building will set off alerts.

“No shenanigans, guys,” Jake says, as he settles into his bed. “This isn’t a frat house.”

Cooper laughs. “Don’t worry. I’m not an exhibitionist.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I’m okay with a little bit of exhibition.” I’m lying on my side, facing Jake’s bed, and Cooper’s lying behind me, his chest and hips pressed against my backside. He’s got briefs on, but I can still feel his erection prodding me from behind. His arm is over my waist, beneath the covers, so that Jake can’t tell he’s lazily tracing the outline of my rock-hard cock through my briefs.

“Good night, Jake,” I say into the darkness.

Jake sighs loudly. “Good night, Sam.”

“Good night, Cooper,” I say.

Cooper muffles a laugh. “Good night, Sam.”

“Now you guys say good night,” I say, managing to keep a straight face.

“Honestly, Cooper, how do you put up with him?” Jake says.

Cooper laughs. “He keeps me young.”