The entire ride to the place was done in absolute silence, and that was not the norm for the other man. If anything, Corbin liked to talk.
Ask questions.
Discuss things.
After getting the information from the homicide captain, Corbin went silent.
As in radio silent.
At that moment, he was staring out the window, and he wasn’t saying jack shit to Alex, which was freaking him out. He wasn’t quite sure what he did, but his partner was icing him out for some reason.
And he didn’t like it.
So, he went there.
He had to.
After being friends with Noah, and loving him so much that it hurt when he got married, he knew he had to fight hard for this partnership.
The bottom line was something happened to Corbin.
He knew trauma when he saw it.
This man was going through something, and as his partner, he wanted to help him out.
What wouldn’t he do for his partner?
“Are you okay?” he asked, breaking the silence.
Corbin was inundated with emotions, and the scent of Alex’s cologne had been the catalyst.
The last thing he’d expected was that hard punch to the gut, but the hits kept coming.
It was like something in him snapped open, and all of those feelings he’d bottled up for years began spilling free.
The cologne.
The way he laughed.
All of it unnerved him.
How did he ask the man to change his cologne without sounding like a fucking idiot? How did he ask him not to laugh? Even he knew how absurd that sounded.
It might be too late anyway.
Those feelings were waking up, no matter how hard Corbin fought.
Oh, Jesus.
He now understood the last two weeks of joy whenever he was around Alex.
He was attracted to the man.
Well, goddamn it.
His husband had been dead a long time, but it felt like yesterday, and an eternity all at the same time. It was like being held in statis, unable to break free from the nightmare, until that moment.
It always popped up on the oddest occasions, and he never knew when it would hit, but it never felt quite like this.
