Page 30 of Follows with Intent

“You obviously need help. And I’m your friend, so I’m helping.” Then Nico smirked. “Besides, I notice a significant lack of real boyfriends.”

“You’re not wrong there.”

They crossed one of the old, graceful bridges, and Nico let his hand trail over the pebbled concrete of the parapet. The roughness of it, the cold, they seemed to wake him up. The sun slanted through the trees in long, pale shafts, and everything was still touched by that rose-colored light. It was like he hadn’t been awake in a long time.

“It’s hard, you know,” Jadon said, but it sounded like he was talking to himself. “Being police. Seeing the stuff I see. Bringing it home to someone else, making them share it.”

“Someone who loves you, someone who cares about you, you’re not making them share it. The right guy is going to want to share it, because it means sharing more of your life, and it means another way he can support you.”

Jadon made a noise that could have meant anything. “It’s the hours. That’s what it always comes down to.”

“I thought it was bringing bad stuff home.”

“The work never stops. Even when I take time off, I get calls, or I have to follow up on a witness, or a report is due. It’s not the right time in my life; I’m too busy.”

Nico didn’t say it, but it sounded like bullshit.

“Well, I don’t know why I’m single,” Nico said, “because I’m a gem.”

A huge grin spread across Jadon’s face.

“Something to say?” Nico asked.

Jadon shook his head. He even raised his hands in surrender.

Nico snorted. He stopped to lean against the parapet. Cold soaked into him, and even inside Jadon’s hoodie, he shivered. Jadon hadn’t complained about the cold, but he folded his arms, and his nipples looked dark and stiff under the athletic fabric of his tee.

“Do I have to?” Nico asked.

“What?”

“No, it’s okay. I have to.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I mean, I got so sick of it. Dating, I mean. And then even hooking up started to feel awful. I mean, there’s only so many times you can see a guy’s eyes light up because you tell him you used to model underwear and then, over and over again, see how disappointed he is when the fantasy doesn’t live up to the reality. Not to mention the whole I-give-high-maintenance-a-new-definition thing.”

He tried to smile, but he was surprised that his face felt stiff. The cold, maybe.

For what felt like a long time, Jadon looked at him. Then he said, “I don’t know. You don’t seem high maintenance to me.”

Nico’s eyes felt hot. The cold again.

“Really,” Jadon said to the silent question, and then he chuckled. “For example, you’ve never asked me to do a dopamine detox with you. And you never asked me to help you put together your hope chest. And you never once asked me to use my official police resources to investigate the Silicone Butt Plug Killer.”

Blinking his eyes clear, Nico loosed a wet laugh. “You’re making that up.”

“Hello, I dated Shaw. He got super high and watched something about Brazilian butt lifts. Don’t ask me how it turned into butt plugs.”

“I think I have an idea.”

That made Jadon grin. Then something else appeared in his expression; for lack of anything else, Nico would have called it surprise, as though something had startled Jadon—snuck up on him and caught him unaware. His face smoothed into troubled stillness.

“You can, uh, talk to me, you know,” Nico said. “About stuff. Work stuff.”

Jadon stared at him.

“If you want to talk to someone, dummy! Like, if you need to talk when you get home at night. I mean, I’m still awake, you know. And you still have my phone number.”

Down below, a flock of Canada geese shuffled along the edge of the stream, making geese sounds to each other, the whole lot of them sounding like malcontents. After approximately an eternity, Jadon nodded. “Thanks.”

“So, text me. Or call me. Or something. You know, so you don’t turn into a shambling disaster of a human being.”

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