Page 23 of Part & Parcel

“Knock it off, Irish. We’re goddamn heroes.” Ty nudged him with his elbow. “Go O’s.”

“Not in this house,” Nick growled, and he jabbed Ty’s foot with the end of his cane, smiling when Ty howled.

April 15, 2013

“Hey,” Owen said as soon as Skype loaded. He was wearing a suit and tie, an expensive one, and it was a little odd considering that Kelly was used to him in jeans and a T-shirt. His face was washed out, and Kelly turned the computer until the sun no longer obscured half of the screen. He wondered how long he’d last in the glare on the deck before retreating back inside.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Pretty good. Got another raise, few extra weeks of vacation. I think they’re realizing the benefits of keeping me around even if I do occasionally disappear and get blown up on company time. How’s Lucky?”

Kelly winced. “He’s in Boston.”

Owen scowled and leaned closer to his laptop’s camera. He was in his office, which was stark and modern with wide windows that showed San Diego behind him. “Where areyou?”

“Colorado.”

“Why?”

Kelly shrugged and winced harder. “Let’s just say he’s doing well enough to need some space.”

Owen frowned at him for so long that Kelly tapped at his keyboard to see if the program had frozen.

“You two have a fight?”

“Little bit. That’s not why I came home, though!” Kelly was quick to add. “We had a fight, and it was so fucking dumb. We both just stopped mid-yelling and realized we were like caged dogs or something, fighting because we could.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Kind of? Are you busy?”

“It’s my lunch break,” Owen said, and then waved a bowl in front of the camera. “Tell me about it.”

“Okay. Well, Nick wasn’t really handling any of it well, you know? The recovery, and then his dad went and fucking died on him, and he’s just not the sameNick. I guess it throws me off. I’m not used to seeing something that can shake him. So I guess I kind of went into Doc mode. And last week he seemed more miserable than normal, and he said something that made me realize I was treating him like a recovering Marine.”

“Heisa recovering Marine.” Owen raised a forkful of what appeared to be salad.

“Yeah, but he’s also my boyfriend.”

“Weird,” Owen muttered around his mouthful of food, eyes on his bowl as he pushed things around with a plastic fork. “Yeah, no, I get it. You were being the Doc instead of a boyfriend. That’s not surprising, considering how many times you’ve nursed one of us through a recovery, though, dude.”

“That’s what Nick said too. That’s not why we fought.”

“Okay, so we’re getting the long version?”

Kelly snorted and propped one foot on his chair. Damn it, watching Owen eat was making him hungry. He retrieved a pack of cigarettes from the side table and slid one out. Owen waited patiently as he lit up.

“We had a date night kind of thing to see if we could rewire ourselves to think romance instead of teammates,” Kelly said, smoke accompanying his words. “I got a hotel room, we got ready separately and all that. It was kind of fun.”

“You guys have never done that. I mean shit, you lived together for five years before you ever thought about dating; it’s kind of a different dynamic.”

“Yeah. It went pretty well. It was fun. And Nick is a smooth motherfucker on a date, I’ve never really gotten the full effect before.” Kelly took another drag as Owen shook his head. “We went back to the hotel at the end of the night. Had a . . . really nice evening.”

“Thank you for the euphemism,” Owen grumbled. “Are you saying you got into a fight on date night?”

“Basically.”

“Before or after the sex?”

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