Page 36 of Part & Parcel

Nick blanched as Kelly met his gaze, the spark of life seeping from his eyes until they were more gray than green. His hand dropped away from Kelly’s, and when he blinked he was no longer meeting Kelly’s eyes.

Kelly’s heart ached, and his stomach turned. He pressed a hand to the old bullet wound in his chest to make it stop tingling. He despised the moments Nick’s vivacious spirit drained from him, but they’d always been honest with each other. Now was no time to stop that, even if it hurt. It would hurt less later. “I guess it bothers me more than I wanted to admit. More than I realized, I mean. But I’m working through it. And this isnotyour fault.”

Nick’s lips were pressed tight together, and he merely nodded without risking looking into Kelly’s eyes again.

Kelly reached for him, but he stopped himself before his fingers could make contact with Nick’s cheek. He balled his hand into a fist and tucked it against his side instead.

“I need some air,” he whispered, and he moved toward the salon doors before he could be sick.

Kelly flopped down the steps from the flybridge, a scowl on his sunburned face. He’d worked through his issues with a cigarette and a beer and then another cigarette, and though he knew he wouldn’t be getting the image of Nick and another man out of his mind anytime soon, running away from the problem wasn’t going to help him. He and Nick had learned their lesson already about not communicating. Kelly wasn’t about to let this little blip erase all the progress they’d made, and he felt a little more relaxed already from his time alone to think about it.

He had discovered in the past year that it was best for him to walk away and calm down before getting into any sort of fight with Nick, especially since his first instinct was to be physical, and that was certainly the last method of arguing Nick ever used.

He opened his mouth to call out for Nick, then snapped it shut when he saw his boyfriend sitting on the couch in the salon, surrounded by bits and bobs, a letter in one hand, the other hand shielding his eyes as he read it.

“Nick?” Kelly called as he edged toward him. “What are you doing?”

Nick looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed and he wasn’t even trying to play off the fact that he’d been sitting there with tears in his eyes.

“Oh God, what is it?” Kelly blurted.

Nick waved the papers in his hand. “I tried the letters again.”

“What?”

“Fucking Sanchez,” Nick gritted out, his voice wavering. “I was trying to . . . I don’t know. Stay out of your hair.”

“And you thought reading that letter again would help?”

Nick shrugged and glanced around at all the possessions he’d pulled out of Sanchez’s box. He looked lost and alone, and Kelly moved to sit beside him, sliding his arm around Nick’s shoulders. It was just as much for his own comfort as Nick’s, though.

Kelly picked up the oversized manila envelope with Nick’s name scrawled on it. He knew from before that it contained the letter Nick had been reading. But he hadn’t looked at it very hard the first time Nick had dragged this stuff out. Inside he found more letters. “What the hell did he do, write a letter to everyone he knew?”

Nick laughed shakily and shrugged. Kelly pulled one of the envelopes out. It was sealed, with a number on the front in Eli’s handwriting. Kelly scowled and extracted a few more. They were all numbered.

“What are we supposed to do with these?”

Nick took a deep breath, then picked up the second page of the letter and read it out loud.

“I have instructions for you, and you have to follow them like a good little Marine or I’m going to haunt your Irish ass.” Nick rested his head in one hand, closing his eyes. It took him several seconds to regain his voice. “Step number one is to finish reading this fucking letter so you don’t fuck up any of the other steps.”

Nick and Kelly shared a glance. “He knew us so well,” Kelly said.

Nick nodded. “I may be dead,” he read with a hitch in his voice. “But I’m going to force you boys to love each other again. And it starts right here, right now. So take a week off work. Get your boots on. Prepare to be loved from beyond the grave.”

Nick had to stop reading. Kelly took the letter and scanned it, trying to find the spot where Nick had trailed off.

“Do you remember the trip we took after we were discharged?” Kelly read. “Remember it. How the fuck could we forget it? That was the end of us.”

December 9, 2002

Kelly fought through the hazy rush of panic and adrenaline that always came with waking up in a strange place. He wound up tossing the sheets off his body, crawling over his bedmate, and rolling gracelessly to the ground.

The floor shook with his impact. Table lamps rattled. Someone groaned.

Kelly sat up and pressed his back to the table behind him, hand groping for a weapon, eyes wild as he looked around. It was obviously a hotel room, and a nice one at that. It most definitely was not the hotel in which he’d closed his eyes. “Where the hell am I?”

A face appeared over the edge of one of the beds, and Kelly’s blurry vision saw it like someone peering down from a cloud. “Doc, you got to calm down,” Eli said.

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