Page 32 of The Long Game

Vocation, indeed.

Jack squeezed Grady’s hand, drawing his attention. “Can I ask a weird question?”

Grady adopted a sympathetic expression. “Yes, Jack, the Habs suck.”

Jack shoved Grady’s shoulder. “Oh my god, you never give up. So salty my team is better than yours.”

Grady grinned. Some day he was going to write a book calledTrash Talk Therapy. It totally worked. “Okay, seriously, what’s your question?”

“What’s with your names? The two-name thing?”

Grady rolled his eyes. “It’s a church thing. Ridiculous first names best suited to romance novels, followed by something biblical. As kids we all hated it, especially because the other kids in school thought it was hilarious the way we always used both names when talking about each other, but it becomes habit. Also, the names repeat but the combinations change. So I’m Grady Samuel, and Colton’s brother is Jackson Abraham, but in the next generation there could be a Grady Abraham.”

“Aren’t there any women in your family?” Barnaby asked.

Grady looked at him. “What?”

“You haven’t mentioned a woman once. They aren’t cops? They don’t have the double names?”

Grady ran his free hand through his hair, dismayed to realize Barnaby was right. “Jesus, that place is like a poison I can’t get completely out of my blood,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said. “I shouldn’t—”

“No, you’re right, B. I didn’t mention the women, and there are plenty, of course. I have a mother—or I had one. Her name is Sarah. And two sisters, Rachel and Rebecca.”

“Very old testament,” Travis observed.

“You have no idea. The church is steeped in misogyny. The women get single names, and no way could any of them have jobs outside the community or any kind of independent incomes, let alone be cops. Total bullshit stuff.” Grady shook his head, mostly at himself. “And here I was talking like the women don’t exist, which is pretty much the norm there and the best example of that whole cult as you’re going to get.”

And, damn it, there was the bitterness again.

6

How couldanyone, let alone his own family, throw away a man as good and kind as Grady? Jack’s family wasn’t anything to write home about but, for all her faults, his mother had been there when he’d gotten out of prison and he’d been there for her since, whether she liked it or not.

But to throw Grady away? To put that sadness in his eyes, even all these years later?

It made the part of Jack that liked to help people, that liked tofix things, a little crazy.

He clung to Grady, aware it was weird and not the way two grown-ass men who are just friends normally supported each other. He wasn’t letting go, though. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across Grady’s fingers and ignored the way Barnaby looked ready to explode into a shower of sunshine and butterflies every time he glanced at their clasped hands.

Jack was going to have to talk to his friend about maybe finding an ounce of chill somewhere and hanging on to it.

At least Garrick wasn’t there to give him The Look.

They chatted for a while about less fraught subjects, and Grady’s shoulders came back down from around his ears. When Travis and Barnaby started cleaning up, Jack turned to Grady.

“Would you like to sleep together again tonight?”

Barnaby jerked upright, wildly juggling beer bottles and the bag of chips, only to have most of it end up on the floor. Travis, meanwhile, froze—mouth open, pizza in hand, half bent over the coffee table—like he’d been spotted by a bear.

Zero chill.

Grady cracked up. “You guys—your faces…oh my god.”

Jack sighed, exasperated, and eyed his idiotic friends. “You know perfectly well what I mean. Barnaby and I slept together just the other week.”

Travis jerked upright. “What?”

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