Page 68 of Part & Parcel

The music skipped and stuttered, and Nick banged on the dash. “Helen!”

The music stopped, leaving them with the sound of the tires on the road and nothing more. When it started again, the song was in Spanish, the Pandora app playing away happily even though Nick had made a point to have one of his iTunes playlists going instead.

Digger picked up the phone, pursing his lips. “I can fix this, you know.”

Nick snatched it out of his hands. “You set fire to my phone, I set fire toyou.”

Digger was nodding, his lips still pursed, considering. “That’s fair.”

Nick was fighting sleep when he pulled over on the side of the road and got out of the car to walk around. The others took the opportunity to stretch, and Ty let the kitties out to use a patch of grass. Nick was pacing back and forth along the pavement, his head down, when he saw a coin on the ground. He stopped and frowned down at it for a few seconds before picking it up.

“What’d you find?” Ty called to him.

“It’s a dime.”

Ty threw both hands up. “We’re rich!”

“Shut up and get your damn cats in the car,” Nick grumbled as he trudged back to the driver’s side. He dropped the dime in the cup holder, waiting until Ty had the kittens in the Suburban before he turned it on and got them back on the road. Whoever sat in the passenger seat had to talk to Nick to keep him awake after that. It was hard not to notice that Kelly stayed in the back.

They stopped for the night at the first large town they saw, which happened to be Rock Springs, Wyoming. Again. This time Kelly was grateful for the hotel Owen made them find, because the beds were soft and the shower had excellent water pressure and there was a bar in the lobby that was open until midnight.

Kelly spent his entire time in the shower trying to decide why he felt off. He knew the lack of contact was one thing causing him problems. He’d been relieved by Eli’s instructions separating the teams, at first. The rules he and Nick had set for themselves—no touching, no sharing a bed—were all being made official by Sanchez. It eased some of his guilt, because he couldn’t remember a time when he and Nick hadn’t touched. He just couldn’t put his finger on the rest of it, other than knowing that it was getting harder for him to work up the nerve to talk to Nick, and he decided he needed to nut up and talk to Nick about it before it became something too big for them to deal with together.

When he got out of the shower, there was a note from Ty on the desk saying they’d gone down there, and when Kelly joined them, they’d find dinner.

He got dressed quickly and headed down to the bar. It was surprisingly crowded, and Kelly stood at the entrance, scanning for his boys. He found them in a round booth in the far corner. All of them but Nick. Maybe Nick had taken the last shower as well and just wasn’t down yet.

As he threaded his way through the diners, he happened to glance toward the bar, and he stumbled against a vacant chair when he saw Nick standing there. He would recognize those broad shoulders and auburn hair anywhere. He seemed to be waiting for a drink order, both elbows on the bar, leaning his weight on one leg to give him that insolent hitch to his stature that always seemed to hit Kelly deep in his gut.

As Kelly stared at him, Nick took a sip from a beer mug and nodded to something the man beside him was saying. The guy was maybe in his late twenties, light hair, a ragged Boston Red Sox hat on. Whatever he was saying had him excited, and he was using his hands as he talked, patting Nick’s arm and back, grabbing his shirt and shaking him as he said something that made Nick chuckle.

Kelly smiled when he saw the laugh lines on Nick’s profile. But then, against his will and against every instinct Kelly had in him, his mind flashed to that video he had found on theFiddler, the one of Nick and a fireman from Boston named Aidan.

It was like a lance to his heart, and he had to turn away before the images in his memory could blend any further with Nick standing at the bar. He staggered through the dining area, shaking it off as he got to the table where the others all were.

“Hey, Doc,” Zane greeted with a smile. He slid over, shoving his shoulder into Ty’s as he made room for Kelly. “You okay? You look a little . . .”

“Rough,” Ty said when Zane couldn’t seem to find an appropriately sensitive word for it.

“Eh,” Kelly offered as he threw himself into the booth. He glanced off toward the bar, but thankfully he couldn’t see Nick or the kid he’d been talking to. There was no way in hell he was going to allow himself to become a jealous person. It just wasn’t going to fucking happen.

A few minutes later, Nick returned to the booth with an armful of glasses. Owen stood and helped him unload them, laughing at Nick as he put his lips to one of the overfull drinks and tried to sip enough out of it so it wouldn’t spill.

By some miracle they managed the feat without a drop being wasted, and Nick was grinning at Kelly when he finally sat. Kelly couldn’t help but return it.

“What the hell took you so long?” Ty asked, sliding his drink closer to him.

“Kid at the bar,” Nick said with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “He heard me order and lost his shit, said I was the first person from home he’d met on his trip. He wouldn’t stop talking, Jesus.” He took another careful sip of his drink. “Fuck, this is wicked strong.”

“Mine too,” Digger said gleefully. He leaned as far as he could, pushing on Owen’s shoulder to give him some leverage. “Which bartender made these?”

They laughed their way through dinner, and then dessert, sharing stories about Sidewinder and Eli. Kelly was glad Zane had tagged along; it gave them ample excuses to reminisce, and they’d been taking advantage of it.

Despite the fact that Zane was a recovering alcoholic, he’d insisted that he didn’t mind them drinking, and though Ty stopped after one drink, the others didn’t.

Kelly had intended to. But he was trying to wipe his mind clean, and he and Nick went round for round, drink for drink. Something that wasn’t usually advisable for anyone, considering how well Nick could handle alcohol.

By the time midnight rolled around, the bar area had cleared out, and the lone bartender remained, waiting for them to pack it up so she could go home. Kelly noticed all of this only peripherally, of course, because he was hammered.Hammered.

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