Noel could get used to waking up with Shane curled up close to him, gloriously naked and in his bed. He blinked at the sunlight streaming across the floor, then glanced at the alarm. Only a little after eleven. He’d barely slept, and he was still unsettled as hell.

Sunday’s were usually incredibly boring nights of riding around, parking, waiting for some type of call. While Benedict hadn’t acted much differently toward him since Noel dropped his bombshell last week, he did seem to talk a little less. Noel had also gotten a few glances in the locker room, but nothing threatening or nerve-frazzling. He’d hoped for a smooth transition from assumed straight to declared gay.

And then they walked back to the squad car after their usual break at Dixie’s to find the word fag written on the passenger side door in shoe polish. A heavy stone had dropped into Noel’s stomach. He refused to report it. He cleaned it while Benedict watched, and then they went about their night.

But the stone hadn’t gone away. Noel couldn’t get off duty and out of the locker room fast enough. He’d called Shane, even though it was seven thirty in the morning, and Shane had come over because Noel asked him to. Noel had been too tired and frazzled to get it up, so they got naked and climbed into bed. The intimacy of it—sleeping together without sex being involved—had helped dissolve some of the weight of that stone.

Some.

A bit remained in the midmorning light.

Shane snuffled softly and rolled toward him. Eyelids scrunched, then raised to show off chocolate-brown eyes that he’d come to adore so much. “Morning.”

“Morning.” Noel traced a line on his cheek left behind by the pillow. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Coming over when I called, even though I didn’t tell you why.”

“You sounded upset.” Shane twined his fingers in Noel’s. “What happened?”

“Someone painted the word fag on our patrol car last night.”

“What? Who?”

“I don’t know. It happened while Wade and I were on break, and there are no traffic cameras on that lot. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but it kind of shook me up.”

“I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

Noel tugged Shane into his arms and hooked a leg around Shane’s hips, in a full body hug that wasn’t enough. He’d been targeted last night, and so many ugly memories kept poking at his conscious mind, reminding him of the last time he’d let himself be a target. A word on a car was a far cry from a bashing in the city, but the fear was the same.

“Hey, you’re shaking.” Shane rolled them so he was on top, reversing the hug so he was the one cradling Noel. Petting him. Whispering gentle things.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Want to tell me about it?”

Noel didn’t want to talk about it, not at all. But didn’t Shane deserve to know? They’d known each other for over a month, even though they’d only technically been together for a week and a half. Shane had revealed so much of himself already.

He pulled one of Shane’s hands around and settled it over the rough patch of scars above his heart. “Thinking about these.”

Shane raised his head, curiosity all over his face. He didn’t say anything, though. Only waited.

“Remember what I told you about the night Tristan was bashed?”

“Sure. He was coming home from clubbing, and some goons beat him with a whiskey bottle.”

Noel’s heart twisted. “I was with him that night.”

Shane’s head jerked. “You were?”

From the moment his ringing phone startled him awake that morning, Shane knew something wasn’t right. When Noel asked him to come over without saying why, he hadn’t panicked exactly. He’d let his fear curl into a little piece of ice that dug under his skin and stayed put. He’d awoken to it a while before becoming aware that Noel was awake too.

It dug deeper with Noel’s confession.

“Yeah.” Noel’s eyes flashed with pain. “Took three of the four of them to hold me down while the one guy went after Tristan. I couldn’t save him. All I could do was struggle and scream and watch his head get smashed in.”

“Jesus Christ, Noel.” Shane’s eyes burned. He blinked hard. “Fuck.”

“They hit him until the bottle broke.”

Shane didn’t want to hear the rest. He dreaded it, even though he knew. The rough, ruined skin beneath his palm had already told him the end of the story, and his stomach clenched.

“Then the guy used the broken bottle to carve up my chest. I thought he was trying to cut my heart out. As I was losing consciousness, I remember thinking this is a fucking terrible way to die.”

Shane wanted to pull Noel into himself until those awful memories were washed away, gone forever, but all he could do was hold him. Hug him. Take every shiver and gasp that Noel released, and to give back as much strength as he had to share. The ice was still there, distant, horrible. But more than that, Shane was overcome by a wash of gratitude so big it made him tremble. Gratitude that someone had stopped the bashing and called for help. Gratitude that the nameless attacker hadn’t killed Noel.

He couldn’t imagine not having found Noel—even if he only got Noel for a little while.

“The surgeon put fifty-six stitches in my chest and neck, and I was in the hospital for a week. My parents came up from Arkansas. It’s how I came out to them. Told them I was gay bashed.”

It took Shane a moment to find his voice. “How’d they take it?”

“I was on a lot of painkillers but I remember my mom crying. My dad got real mad. He didn’t mention it again afterward, so I’m not sure if Dad’s really accepted it or not, but they didn’t freak. They wanted to take me home to recover, but I couldn’t leave Tristan. He didn’t have anyone except his friends from school.”

Shane put his head down on Noel’s chest, ear over his heart. The racing beat soothed his own. The skin was scarred and his soul was damaged, but Noel was alive and the heartbeat proved it. Noel sifted his fingers through Shane’s hair.

“The fact that they never did find the guys who did it?” Noel said. “That was the final straw that made me want to be a police officer. I want to be a detective one day. I know I won’t do as much good in a little town like this as I could in the city, but this is where I’m comfortable right now.”

“Even Stratton has its share of crime. You saved me the night we met.”

Noel didn’t respond. Shane’s heart fluttered with nerves. He couldn’t look Noel in the eye and say it.

“I usually have a rule about stripping,” Shane said. “No opened drinks from anyone while I’m at a party. But root beer is one of my weaknesses, and when Olivia asked if I wanted a drink, I saw it on her counter and asked for it. She’d paid for two sets, which are about ten minutes each, and I was in between them, taking a break. Didn’t think anything of it until I started getting dizzy near the end of the second set.”

Fingers stopped combing his hair.

Shane beat back a flood of shame. “Someone asked if I needed to lie down. Whatever she gave me didn’t last super long, but I was tied to that bed, gagged, and one of the women was stumbling drunk and touching me. At first I was more confused than scared, because who does shit like that?

“Then the music got quieter, and someone came and got the drunk chick. When they turned off the lights, though, that’s when I panicked. I was tied up, in the dark, at some stranger’s house, and I didn’t know what was happening. You came through that door like a fucking knight in shining cop uniform.”

“Damn it, Shane.” Noel surprised him by sitting them both up and cupping Shane’s cheeks. His eyes blazed with anger, and his cheeks were flushed red. “Why didn’t you tell me that back then? I’d have had that bitch arrested.”

“For what?”

“Assault, for one. Drugging you is assault, Shane. So it touching you without consent.”

“No. I didn’t want to dwell on it, I wanted to forget about it, and I still do. It’s fucking embarrassing.”

“It wasn’t your fault, babe. God, what if that neighbor hadn’t called in a disturbance?”

Shane shuddered. “It doesn’t matter, because they did, and nothing happened.”

“Something fucking happened.”

“No, it didn’t.” He wrenched away from Noel’s touch, scooting a few feet away. “Look, I didn’t tell you as a cop, I told you as my boyfriend. I don’t want this on the record, and I don’t want to press charges, okay?”

“Are you sure?”

“Fucking yes!”

Noel flinched.

I am such an asshole. I made this whole thing about me, when it’s supposed to be about him.

“I’m sorry,” Shane said. “I wanted you to know because you were there, but I don’t want anything done about it.”

“And what about the next time they decide to get drunk and hire a stripper? What if no one calls the police next time?”

Translation: what if someone really gets hurt because you’re too big of a fucking coward to step up?

“Can’t you figure out a way to warn them off without dropping my name?” Shane asked.

Noel shook his head, his anger melting into resignation. “I’m sorry, babe, but as a police officer, I’m kind of obligated to report this.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re turning me in?”

“I’m not turning you in, I’m reporting a crime. Shane, think about it. There is a chance she’s done it before, or is going to do it again, and I can’t risk that. I know what it feels like when your sense of safety is destroyed, and so do you. You want that to happen to someone else?”

Anger prickled Shane’s scalp. “Fuck you for using that against me. This is what I get for confiding in you?”

“Shane—”

“No, fine, whatever.” He scrambled out of bed and snagged his briefs off the floor. Set to the business of dressing. He was too damned naked right now, in more ways than one. “Well, let’s go then. Let’s go make your fucking report, so I can now be on the record as a fucking stripper. Your friends on the force are going to love that, aren’t they? Gay cop dating a stripper. You’ll be real popular after this.”

Noel actually looked a little green, but Shane wasn’t having any mercy. He was too pissed off. Tell a secret, take the punishment. Just like tattling on Thom all those years ago had led to the police taking Jason. He should have learned by now to keep his fucking mouth shut.

“This is your idea, Noel, so don’t pussy out on me. You want me to make the report? You’re coming with me, and if people ask why? You gonna deny what I am to you?” Shane was being a jerk, and he didn’t care. He was too fucking angry. Too fucking hurt. Totally over all of this honesty bullshit, because when had it ever done him any favors?

“You know what happened last night and that I’m working on coming out, and you’re throwing that in my face?” Noel asked, hurt and anger mixing to create a tone he didn’t recognize.

“You know I don’t want to be in a police file as a stripper, and you’re throwing it in mine. I grew up in this town. People know what went down with my stepfather, and now they’ll have something else to whisper about the trailer park trash kid who got his brother sent to prison.”

“They won’t—”

“Yes, they will. I’m leaving now, and you’d better be there behind me. I’ll wait ten minutes and then we’re through.”

Shane took great pleasure in slamming the door behind himself.

* * *

Noel dressed by rote, not even sure which articles of clothes he grabbed, stunned stupid by the way a generally nice morning had taken such a nosedive into misery. Sharing his pain with Shane had been huge for him, and Shane had used that to share something painful of his own, and what did Noel do? Turn on the inner police officer and switch off boyfriend mode.

He understood Shane’s hesitancy to report the incident, and the case wouldn’t likely go anywhere. Olivia would deny it. Even if they searched her apartment, chances of finding whatever she drugged Shane with were slim, and they didn’t have a toxicology report on file for Shane. Her friends would likely deny it too. Olivia’s word against Shane’s, and Shane didn’t have the best reputation. Even Shane’s words to Noel the night of the party wouldn’t help his case.

But this was about more than Shane’s peace of mind. Predators didn’t often strike once and let it go. Noel’s job was to solve problems and help people, and if rattling Olivia’s cage—if letting her know that the police knew she’d crossed a line—kept her from trying again? It had to be reported. He was pretty sure Shane understood that too.

Didn’t make Noel’s betrayal hurt less, did it?

Maybe the whole thing would help Shane decide to quit stripping altogether, especially if he got the job at Big Dick’s. He’d still have the extra income without the dangers of being mostly naked inside of a stranger’s house.

He hit the sidewalk and headed for his car, casting a forlorn look at Dixie’s Cup as he passed. He’d kill for a big cup of coffee right about now, but Shane would kill him if he showed up with one. Station coffee would have to be good enough. Sometimes it wasn’t bad. It always depended on who made it and how long it had been sitting in the pot turning to sludge.

Coffee thoughts consumed him, and he nearly ran into a larger figure. Noel jumped back, pulse racing, one hand curling into a first until he recognized the two people in front of him on the sidewalk. Officer Samuel Briggs had transferred to the force not long after Noel joined, but with five years of added experience. He was also built like a football player and had an imposing stare that dared the seasoned officers to haze him—or to give him any shit about being gay.

“Carlson,” Briggs said. “You’re going to walk into traffic if you’re not careful.”

“Hey, sorry,” Noel said. “Lost in thought.” The third person in their little circle was a dark-haired pixie of a girl. “Hi, Faith.”

Faith Jones was the biological daughter of Briggs’s husband, Rey King. The pair had taken custody of her last Christmas. Noel had first met her in February when she’d run away in the middle of the night in a fit of grief over her late grandfather—ran all the way to a car parked in the driveway. The incident had given both of her dads a two-hour panic attack.

“She might not remember you,” Briggs said. “Faith, this is Officer Noel Carlson. He’s a police officer like me.”

Faith turned a wide-eyed smile on him that made Noel feel like he’d won some kind of awesome prize. “You’re one of the good guys too.”

Noel grinned. “Yes, I am.”

“Hey, Faith, why don’t you run inside and give Grandma Dixie a hug?” Briggs said.

“Okay!” Faith darted inside the diner.

The way Briggs’s face went from amused to serious set off alarm bells for Noel. “So Benedict has been running his mouth.”

“Great. That’s nice of him.”

“Look, Rey’s more of the ‘let’s talk it out’ person than I am, but I know what it’s like to be a gay cop. So my door’s open. So to speak.”

Noel was surprised at the offer. Briggs had always seemed…not uptight, exactly, but certainly not the type to solicit someone else dumping their crap on him. “I appreciate that, thanks.”

“You getting any trouble so far?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You know the department has a zero-tolerance policy, right?”

“Yeah, I know that. Having a policy and enforcing it are two different things.”

“Well, I’m on your side, and Benedict may be an old gossip, but from what I’ve seen he’s a decent guy.”

“Sure. Hey, how’s Faith adjusting?”

Briggs grinned at the direction of the diner. “She’s doing great. No more running away episodes. Sometimes she asks about her grandfather and heaven. And with school over for the summer, I get to see her a lot more.”

“Good. Listen, I have to be somewhere but thanks for the offer.”

“Not a problem.”

“Oh, and congratulations on your marriage.”

“Thank you.”

They shook hands as casual acquaintances did. Then Noel turned the corner and sprinted toward his car, terrified he’d passed his ten minutes to catch up with Shane at the station.