It took Everett a second to process what Jayne was saying, but once he had, he took a step back and looked at Jayne with widened eyes. The relief on Jayne’s face was palpable. “What happened?”
“When he was brought in following his attempted assault on me, they printed him. Apparently, a while back, the arson investigation team in charge at the old Trefore apartment building recovered some fingerprints on the front door, which Bastian had busted down to get into the apartment in the first place.” Jayne fanned his shirt in an attempt to cool down from having sprinted to them. “Bastian’s fingerprints matched the ones they’d recovered from the scene of the break-in. Once they discovered that, the rest of the clues fell into place. There was DNA evidence that hadn’t been scorched to ash on the ground floor of the apartment—the investigators think Bastian cut his arm while trying to force the splintered door to come apart, and that he was dripping blood on his way out of the building. They also recovered security footage from a neighboring apartment shot from the lobby facing the street that showed Bastian walking by, right around the time they estimated the fire got out of control.”
“Holy shit,” Caleb uttered. He loosened his stance, but kept a protective hold on Parker. “Are you serious? They actually got him?”
“Yeah.” Jayne chuckled in the coarse, exhausted way that only haunted men could. “They did. And they’ve added drug charges, too, after finding them in his possession. I knew something was up with him when I saw how much he’d changed since I left, and it’s good to know that I was right. I guess when you can’t get your kicks from abusing your partner, you need to get them from somewhere. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all over now. He’s gone, and that’s all I care about.”
The pounding of Everett’s heart and the rush of his pulse in his ears made him more reckless than usual, and he choked out a laugh and tugged Jayne to him. Jayne made a sound of satisfaction and looped his arms over Everett’s shoulders, letting his hands dangle.
“How long?” Everett asked. He groped Jayne’s ass and was pleased to feel Jayne push greedily into his palms.
A telling smile spread Jayne’s lips—this was going to be good. “Fifteen years to life.”
“Oh, fuck yeah!” Caleb crowed. He punched the air with his fist. “Can I get a ‘fuck yeah,’ Parker?”
Parker made a string of noises that sounded nothing like “fuck” or “yeah.”
“Close enough.” Caleb presented his clenched fist to Parker like he was expecting a fist bump. “C’mon, dude, don’t leave me hanging.”
Parker did not leave Caleb hanging—he grabbed Caleb’s fingers and shoved as many of them as he could fit into his mouth. Caleb, taken aback, looked at the small child in his arms, winced, and let out a hiss of inimitable pain.
“First of all, ouch, you have the pointiest demon teeth in the world, and second, borrowing a line from your Uncle Shep,gross.” Caleb took his fingers from Parker’s mouth and shook his hand, sending a strand of baby slobber flying. Once Everett was sure he was safe from secondhand drool, he focused his attention on Jayne, who’d taken to rubbing his ass against Everett’s greedy hands.
“It’s over,” Everett whispered, keeping the words between them. “It’s done. You can go on with your life without having to worry about that asshole anymore. I can’t imagine how freeing that must feel.”
“I can’t imagine it, either,” Jayne joked. He laughed, and it was a quiet, airy, almost hesitant sound that encapsulated the depths of his contentment. “It doesn’t feel real. I didn’t realize how much he was impacting me even from afar, even knowing that the two of you would do anything to keep me safe. It’s like after all this time spent surviving, trying my best to get through the day, I can actually live. I won’t have to worry about what parts of the city I go to, or what might happen if I take the same way to work every day. I won’t have to worry about Shep or Parker being dragged into all of this.” Jayne sighed in satisfaction and let his shoulders drop. “If I randomly start laughing at any time in the next two weeks, know I’m not crazy, okay? All of this—meeting you and Caleb, the move, and now Bastian… it’s a dream come true. I feel like a goddamn fairy-tale prince.”
“Fairy tales have happy endings,” Caleb said as he joined them, kissing Everett’s cheek. Jayne lifted one of his arms from Everett’s shoulder and draped it over Caleb’s, drawing him into their circle. Everett was more than happy to grope Jayne with just one hand while he groped Caleb with the other. “Which… yeah. Looks like you fit the bill. Prince status, confirmed. Welcome to royalty. Are you ready for your christening?”
Jayne narrowed his eyes. “My what?”
In a flash, Caleb slid his hand into his pocket, then threw something into the air. Glitter of all colors rained down from above, landing in their hair, sticking to their clothes, and littering the pavement. A green fleck landed on Everett’s eyelash, and no matter how he tried to blink it away, there it stayed. Parker laughed in delight.
“I was going to save it to commemorate the moment the last box was unloaded, but I think the whole Bastian situation deserves a little glam.”
Jayne gave Caleb a hard look. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“No. It was the stuff that breaks down over time, if that’s what you’re worried about. You know, the eco-safe glitter stuff you always use? I ordered it from one of your cosmetic companies.”
“My friends call me GlitterDoctor,” Jayne said in a level tone of voice that barely concealed his impishness. “I’m America’s number one arms dealer when it comes to glitter. I’m building up stock for a war—a glitter war—and you, my friend, have just made a powerful enemy.”
Caleb gave Everett a look that said, “are you hearing this?” but no sooner had he than Jayne reached into his pocket as well and dumped a handful of glitter directly onto Caleb’s head. Caleb, stunned, blinked as shimmering silver flecks tumbled down his face and slipped beneath the neckline of his shirt.
“Rule number one in a glitter war,” Jayne said, dead serious, “never go anywhere unarmed.”
Stunned, Everett looked between his two lovers, both of them covered in glitter, and burst out laughing.
“Rule number two,” Everett added, taking his hand away from Caleb’s ass to slip it into his own back pocket while pulling Jayne that much closer. “Before you wage war, make sure you check who your opponent is allied with.”
Before Jayne could react, Everett dumped a fistful of his own glitter directly over Jayne’s head, subjecting him to the same fabulous destruction he’d inflicted on Caleb.
Jayne’s eyes flashed. He smirked. “I see how it is.”
“Do you?” Everett smirked back. “Because Caleb and I? We’ve got alonghistory with trouble. I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into, Biernacki.”
“And I think you underestimate me, Langston,” Jayne fired back, his smirk growing. Love flickered in his eyes, overshadowing the glitter that saturated his hair and stuck to his skin. “If you and Alcrest want a war, you’ve got it, but don’t come crying to me when you lose.”
Everett tried to hold back his laughter, but it squeezed in his chest and forced its way up his throat until it escaped as a nasally snort. Unable to resist, he let it out, laughing from his gut as glitter tumbled from his hair and came loose from his shirt. His life was changing in ways he never could have known to expect, but was made exponentially better for it, and all because of Jayne and Caleb.
