Ball & Chain

Zane smiled. “That’ll just have to wait until after your little surgery, now won’t it?”



Nick rolled his eyes and took a sip of water. He was donating his liver to a father who had terrorized him all his life. He was a better person than Zane, that was for sure. Zane would’ve sat back and watched the man die.



“We’ll investigate from our end,” Ty said, sounding determined and a little scary. Zane liked it. “To get to de la Vega, we have to get to the mole. That’s our first move.”



They all nodded, glancing around at each other.



“Does that mean you’re coming back to the FBI?” Zane asked Ty.



Ty shook his head. “We both know I can’t. I think what you call me now would be the Wild Card.”



Zane met his lover’s eyes, thrilled to see the life back in them. Whatever had happened to Ty and Sidewinder out there, it had sapped the joy out of all of them, taken the very thing that made them capable of walking through Hell and doused it. But now, looking at these three men, with a purpose given to them once more, with a mission, Zane could see that fire returning.



De la Vega had poked the wrong hornet’s nest this time.



Nick fought to open his eyes when he heard voices. He finally managed to make his head fall to the side and peered through his eyelashes to see who was in the room. The motion must have drawn attention, because the voices stopped and the room fell silent.



Nick closed his eyes again.



A moment later a cool hand was on his forehead. “Nick?” the voice whispered. “Wake up, babe.” When Nick finally got both eyes open, Kelly was smiling down at him. He grazed his fingers along Nick’s cheek and bent to whisper in his ear. “Lots of people here to see you.”



A separator curtain screeched as it was pulled across the room to give them a little more privacy. He was still groggy as hell, and it took him a long time to focus, and an even longer time to understand what was going on. He’d given a piece of his liver, one he’d managed to keep healthy by some miracle, to his father. It hadn’t even really been a choice for him. As soon as the tests came back saying he was a good match, he knew he had to do it.



His father would live on, whether he deserved to or not. Nick’s conscience was clear, and the missing piece of his liver would eventually grow back. He hoped.



Almost a dozen people were crowded around, all holding some form of “special delivery” baby presents.



He started to laugh but had to stop when pain threatened. “Assholes.”



Ty and Zane were both there, as were Owen and Digger. Nick had known they would be, though, because they’d flown in last night to be with him before the operation. Digger stood at the foot of the bed, and Owen was sitting in the corner holding a huge teddy bear that hid most of his body. When he realized Nick was awake, he stood and placed the bear in the chair to move closer.



“How you feeling, O?” Digger asked.



“Like less of a man,” Nick said, drawing laughs from the others.



“You look it,” Digger told him, and held up a jar filled with liquid and some sort of . . . stuff.



Ty quickly grabbed the jar and hid it from sight. “Dude, no.”



“Gator livers!”



“No.”



“They’ll help his grow back faster!”



“Definitely no.”



Nick groaned and tossed his head to the side, trying to purge that visual from his mind before that visual purged his stomach.



“So gross,” Ty muttered, and he left the room with the jar under his arm.



The rest of them were still laughing when Ty returned, and Nick finally managed to look back to the foot of the bed without feeling the need to throw up.



Kat and Erin were standing there, both of them with bouquets filled out with baby’s breath, little pink daisies, and balloons. They giggled as they placed the dainty arrangements on the table near the wall. Even Nick’s oldest nephew, Patrick, had come with them. He was snickering gleefully when he handed Nick a card that everyone had signed. It read, “Congratulations on your special delivery.”



“What’d you guys do, send out a memo?” Nick asked, still trying to avoid laughing.



“It seemed appropriate,” Ty said. He held up a bouquet of cookies on sticks, all of them in the shape of baby bottles, shoes, and bonnets, then set it down on the table next to Nick. The vase read “For the Little One.”



Owen tapped Nick’s foot, then gestured between him and Kelly. “You two got some ’splainin’ to do, Lucy.”



Nick’s stomach dropped. “Who told you?”



“Doc couldn’t stop pacing in the waiting room. Finally, he just blurted out that he needed a hug because he loved you and he was freaking out.”



Nick managed a warm smile. “You okay with it?”



Owen nodded, pursing his lips. “Okay enough to provide hugs in waiting rooms, I guess. I’ll reserve my final judgment for the whole story. Assuming I’m going to get it?”



Nick nodded. Digger wrapped an arm around Owen’s shoulders and patted his chest like he was proud of him.



Kelly chuckled. He held to Nick’s hand tighter. “When Nick can have a beer again, we’ll sit you down and explain all you want.”



Owen seemed satisfied with that. Nick found his throat getting tighter. He no longer had any secrets from any of them. His conscience was clear again, and it was a massive weight off his mind and soul. All he could do was nod and blink back tears of relief.



The only thing that didn’t fit the theme was the gift Zane had brought him. It was a box of shotgun shells, the right kind for Nick’s Ithaca 37 pump action. They were green-tipped, though, with little radioactive symbols etched on them.



“Zombie rounds,” Zane told him, tongue in cheek. “In case you came out of the surgery mostly dead.”



This time Nick laughed even though it hurt. He held to his side gingerly, trying to keep from laughing harder. “These should come in handy, Garrett. Thanks.”



“I also brought you season one of The Walking Dead. We’ll sit and watch while you recover.”



“Is this . . . zombie bonding?” Ty asked.



Nick grinned up at Zane, nodding. “A man after my own heart.”



“I thought zombies were after brains,” Kelly said wryly. He pointed at Zane. “You stay away from his heart, that’s mine.”



The group chuckled. Nick rolled his eyes and closed them again, still smiling. And while he could hear the others shuffling around and murmuring quietly, he couldn’t force his eyes back open. “Thanks for coming guys. I’m sorry I can’t . . . stay.”



Kelly’s hand came to rest on his forehead again, then slipped down to cover his eyes so he’d stop struggling to try to open them. “They’ll be back when you’re not out of it, okay? Sleep.”



Each visitor came up to the bed and gave Nick some sort of touch before leaving, whether it was a kiss on the forehead from his sisters, a squeeze of the shoulder from Owen, or a gentle fist bump from his nephew. They all seemed to know what the contact would mean to him regardless of whether he could drag his eyes open to see them again. Ty leaned over him and hugged him tightly, pressing his cheek to Nick’s and calling him brother, telling him he loved him. Zane petted his head affectionately.



He heard them file out until the room felt empty.



Kelly’s fingers drifted down his arm, making Nick smile. “The surgery went well,” Kelly told him. “Your dad’s in ICU, but he’s doing fine. They’ll be bringing him in here later on, so don’t be surprised if he shows up.”



Nick nodded. He could honestly say that he didn’t care how his dad was doing. He’d done everything in his power to give him a fighting chance, and the man was on his own from now on. Nick was done with him. He squeezed Kelly’s hand and took a deep, painful breath.



“Did you really mean it when you said you were done carrying a gun?” Kelly whispered.



Nick forced one eye open. A frown marred Kelly’s features, and his eyes were sad and sympathetic. He leaned closer to Nick.



“I don’t want you to give up something you love because of me. And I’m worried that’s what you’re doing.”



Nick forced both tired eyes open and blinked hard, trying to keep them from watering. “Kelly.”



“Is that what you’re doing?” Kelly asked. “Because in a few months you’ll be mostly healed up. In a year you’ll be whole again. The Boston PD would take you back in a heartbeat, and you’re one hell of a detective. You’re a better detective than you were a Marine, and Nick, that’s saying something because you were one hell of a fucking Marine.”



“Doc.”



“That’s saying a hell of a thing, you know? And you don’t just give up on something you’re that good at, Nick, you don’t.”



“Kels.”



“You’ve always liked your job. And you love a mystery. You’re not happy without a mystery to solve.”



“You’re a mystery,” Nick said. He reached up to trail his fingertips down Kelly’s face. “I’d have you.”



Kelly snorted.



“I want us to start something, Kels. You and me. Something we’ll live through. Something we’ll grow old doing. We can’t do that if I’m a cop.”



Kelly bit his lip, and his eyes were just as misty as Nick’s. “Are you sure?”



Nick didn’t answer. He was staring at Kelly, completely smitten, wondering why it had taken him so fucking long to realize he loved the man.



“I’d do anything with you, Kels. Anything you wanted.”



Kelly grasped Nick’s face in his hands. “I’ve been trying to figure something out. You see, I can tell you I love you, and it’s the same words I’ve always said to you from the first day I realized you’d have my back in a firefight. I love you, brother. Those are the same words I say to Six and Digger and Ozone. You know? They were the same words I said to Eli the last time he called. They were the same words my parents said the night they left and died in the rain.”



“Kelly,” Nick managed to say as tears began to fall for some reason. He pressed his hand to Kelly’s cheek. A tear hit his thumb and he realized they were both crying.



“But I don’t understand why those are the same words I have to use for a feeling that’s not the same anymore,” Kelly continued, his voice lower, more intimate and more confused. “I . . . I need you. I adore you. I want to wake up every morning and make you fix me breakfast so I can watch you cook. I want to . . . I want to spend the rest of my life with you doing things that make life worth living. I want to make you smile. I want you to take me to every baseball stadium out there and teach me every single little thing you know about the game because I love the way your eyes light up when you talk about it. I want to . . . what words do I use for this feeling if ‘I love you’ has already been used?”



Nick tried to swallow against the lump in his throat and couldn’t. He shook his head, at a loss. He stared into Kelly’s eyes for long moments before finally attempting to speak. “How about . . . marry me?”



Kelly smiled and wiped at his eyes. “Okay.”



Kelly bent to kiss him, his lips barely grazing Nick’s. Then he kissed him harder, stopping only to sniffle and wipe his cheeks again, using Nick’s hospital gown to do it. He rested his head on Nick’s shoulder, and Nick wrapped a clumsy arm around his neck.



“I love you, Nick,” Kelly whispered. “No matter what those words meant before, we know what they mean now. They’re ours now. Just ours.”



Nick whispered the words in Kelly’s ear, feeling a new weight to them. Instead of a sense of panic like he’d half expected, he felt nothing but calm. He could marry Kelly tomorrow and never look back, never regret the decision. He and Kelly could spend their lives together—as boyfriends, as husbands, as partners-in-crime, as any damn thing they wanted—and there wasn’t a thing about that prospect that made him nervous. He buried his nose in Kelly’s messy hair and closed his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer with Kelly’s scent engulfing him and lulling him to sleep.



Kelly kissed him gently one more time, then placed something in Nick’s hand and positioned his thumb over a button. “Rest, babe. Here’s your morphine drip. Enjoy it for me. I’m going to go get food with the others, okay?”



Nick managed a smile, and Kelly kissed him once more, but he still couldn’t drag his eyes open as Kelly left the room.



Marry me. It made him smile as he drifted off to sleep.



He floated in and out of awareness for a while. He wasn’t really in pain, but it wasn’t a restful sleep either. The beeps and shuffling footsteps and whispered words of the hospital were soothing in a way, and eventually even the steady breathing of his father in the next bed after they moved him into the room was something that eased Nick’s mind.



He wasn’t sure what it was that disturbed him, but his eyes were open before he realized he was awake. A male nurse stood next to his bed, checking his vitals and messing with the machines. Nick looked him up and down, moving nothing but his eyes to do it. Then, for some reason, his mind began casting around for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon.



He tossed his head like he was suffering through a restless sleep and then rolled, edging toward the table where Ty’s heavy crystal vase of joke cookies sat. A hand shot out and gripped his wrist, wrenching his arm until he whimpered. Another hand landed on his incision, making him cry out and curl into a protective ball. He grabbed at the man’s arm, trying to push it away, trying to get away from the agony.