Page 12 of The Wild Charge

“Run my own crew,” Reese deadpanned.

“Well, obviously not without help, you tit,” Tenny said, rolling his eyes – and then caught Reese’s small, but irrepressible grin. “That was ajoke. You werejoking, at my expense.” He sounded offended, and a little incredulous.

“I like it here,” Reese said, aiming for a soothing tone. “I like the Lean Dogs – I like being a Lean Dog.”

“You’ve been a Lean Dog all of two hours,” Tenny scoffed, without any real heat.

“So have you,” Reese countered. “If you didn’t want to be, you didn’t have to accept the patch-in.” His heart gave a few lurching bumps, and he was able to identify dread building in his gut. He shouldn’t invite Tenny to walk away, or reject the honor of being a Dog. He just might do it, and then he would be gone…

But stupidly, he said, his voice smaller than intended, “Do you want to leave?”

Tenny went very still; his gaze, only a glimmer of cut gems in the darkness, stayed fixed on Reese’s face. After a long moment, he let out a slow breath, and said, “I want…” Reese heard him swallow.

“What?” Reese prodded.

The door opened, emitting a long shaft of yellow light broken up by Mercy’s unmistakeable, hulking shadow.

Tenny sighed and muttered, “It doesn’t matter.” He turned away and dug out a fresh cigarette.

Mercy ambled up to join them. “Boys,” he said by way of greeting, leaning a hip against the end of the table. “You did well tonight.”

Tenny snorted. “We stood against the wall.” His voice had returned to its usual, in-front-of-others tone, that blend of derision and indifference.

Reese nearly smiled again.

“Right,” Mercy said, unperturbed. “Which is a lot more helpful than trying to stab people.”

Tenny snorted again – but scrubbed at the back of his neck, chastened, at least a little.

Reese still bore faint scars on his palms and arm from the last interrogation Tenny had assisted with. It hadn’t been the first time Reese had felt the sharp kiss of a knife – but it had been the first time the person who’d inflicted the damage had looked horrified, after. Had come to him, and carefully cleaned and bandaged his wounds, his head bowed, his fingers shaking.

“If Luis wasn’t yanking us around,” Mercy continued, oblivious to Reese’s memories, “then the girls are being kept in New York: it’s easier to hide people in a big crowd than it would be a smaller city.” He blew out a breath andtsked. “This is gonna get ugly.” He pushed off the table with a rap of his knuckles against it. “You two keep your phones turned on. I don’t know what the plan is, yet, but there’s gonna be one, you can bet.”

He bid them goodnight and walked to his bike – headed for home, and Ava, and his kids.

Tenny let out a loud, though not altogether unhappy breath and leaned back, hands braced on the tabletop, smoke curling up from the end of his cigarette. His posture relaxed once they were alone again; he yawned, hugely, without covering his mouth.

Warmth stole through Reese: a prickling, anticipatory heat. They were done for the night, with nothing else to do. It was dark. They were alone. And Reese’s nerves were still jangling from the combination of being patched in, and then watching Luis’s interrogation. He’d wanted to hit him, to hurt him – but now his urge to action had nothing to do with violence.

Tenny yawned again, though. This time, there was no party for cover, no brewing argument. If Reese leaned in to kiss him, would Tenny reciprocate? Or would it be another case of a muttered curse and a retreat?

Warring with himself, uncertain, Tenny made the choice for him. He stretched, climbed off the table, and said, “Well, goodnight.”

“Night,” Reese echoed, watching him walk back toward the door, bereft.

~*~

Tenny heeled his dorm room door shut, flopped down face-first on his bed, fully-clothed, and groaned into the covers.

Idiot, he scolded himself.You stupid fuckingidiot.

I want…to be wherever you are, he’d almost said, minutes ago. The crushing relief of not having said it was chased by an ugly, guilty twist in his gut, because he knew that Reese wouldn’t have reacted like a lovelorn character in a movie. He would have taken it in with a nod, and a quietokay, and he would have accepted it asright. Because he could feel it, too, Tenny knew, though he’d never voiced it: that they were of the same species. Of course they would stay together. What else would two outliers do but align themselves?

But to admit such a thing out loud was to be vulnerable in a way that went beyond sex. He’d taken Reese into his body, but he’d done that innumerable times before, on jobs, for fun…

This had gone beyond fun, he knew. This had been…everything. But he could pretend it hadn’t.

There could be no pretending once he’d confessed, though. Once he opened up the cold, tin shell of his exterior, pulled out his love and set it between them, defenseless, pulpy, ugly in its fragility, there would be no wall, and no mask behind which he could hide. He would no longer be a weapon, or an operative. He would be a sad, desperate creature who loved someone, and the idea still left him in a cold sweat.

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