“Gentlemen, I need?—”
“Does it even matter? Let’s just check in and get to our damn gate before?—”
“Gentlemen!” the cop shouted in that cop voice. The one that would shut most people up. “I need you to?—”
“For fuck’s sake!” Cole kept right on ranting at Will as if the cop wasn’t even there. “We can’t check in for another hour because you insisted on being here four hours early instead of?—”
“Because last time, you thought forty-five minutes was enough, and?—”
The cop threw up his hands and stalked away.
Will and Cole continued arguing for a minute or two, to the point Cole was actually starting to get irritated with Will’s insistence he’d booked with the wrong airline. Then Will glanced around.
“Okay. We’re clear.”
The shift in his demeanor startled Cole. Oh. Right. It was a diversion, not an actual argument.
He shook himself. “For now. We need to get the hell out of here, especially before someone starts checking security cameras.”
Will nodded sharply. “Downstairs?”
“Yes. There’s a taxi stand down there. We casually get in one, get out of here, and have them drop us off safely away.”
Will blinked. “Oh. Shit. That’s kind of genius.”
Cole smirked and smacked his arm. “You sound surprised.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.” He reached for Cole’s waist, but hesitated. “Can you walk to the elevator on your own?”
“Uh. Slowly?”
“That’s fine. But if they see you leaning on me…”
Ooh, good point. He’d been leaning hard on Will on the way inside. And limping.
The elevator wasn’t far, fortunately. Still, this was going to suck.
“Go really slow,” he reminded Will, and they started toward the elevator. Their progress was agonizing, Cole’s knee vehemently protesting every step.
“How can you fucking lose them?” someone barked. “They weren’t exactly inconspicuous!”
Cole turned to see two cops running back this way, scanning their surroundings.
One of them was so caught up in searching for Will and Cole, he clipped Cole’s shoulder and knocked him aside.
“Sorry!” he shouted as he kept running.
Cole’s eyes watered as his knee screamed with fresh pain. Will kept hold of him, kept him from falling all the way to the floor, but there was nothing Cole could do except ride out the wave of agony.
“Come on,” Will said gently. “I know it hurts, but we gotta go.” He tugged him upright. “They’re going to figure out it’s us sooner or later.”
He didn’t bother letting go of Cole this time. They were nearly to elevators, and he seemed to intuit that Cole wasn’t going to be able to make it the rest of the way. Not now.
As soon as they were close enough, Will jabbed the call button. A moment later, the doors opened. As they stepped inside, shouts rose. The cops were angry. Arguing, by the sound of it.
Completely unaware that the men they were looking for were on their way down to the Arrivals level.
“Can you make it the rest of the way?” Will asked.
