“This feels like a calm before a storm,” Aaron said quietly, his words tickling Quinn’s chest.
Quinn huffed. “Yeah. It’s the exact way I’ve been feeling since I got into town, and I didn’t even know why.”
“God, I can’t even imagine what your job must be like.”
“It’s…it’s a lot of being fake. Being someone I’m not. At all times. Sometimes….”
When he didn’t continue, Aaron looked up. “What?”
Quinn smiled tightly. “Sometimes I think I used the drugs so I wouldn’t think about how I wasn’t sure who the real me was anymore.” He’d said as much to the therapist at rehab who had agreed.
Aaron pressed his cheek against Quinn’s chest again and squeezed him tighter.
A car drove past the house, the hum in the morning surprisingly loud, but then again, the house was practically attached to Main Street.
“I feel like you were the only person who ever really saw me,” Quinn whispered eventually.
Aaron stayed quiet for a bit, then said, “Same. Well, and Charlie of course. But that’s not a basis for…this.” He lifted his hand where it was on Quinn’s stomach under the blanket and let it drop again.
“I don’t know how this whole deal ends. With Jimmy and the Skulls I mean. I don’t want to get hurt again, but that might happen. If I get caught in it somehow, I can’t promise I’ll walk out of there.” Quinn put into words what he knew Aaron had been thinking. He’d seen it in his eyes, just like he always saw it in his mother’s eyes or even Day’s when he headed somewhere dangerous.
“I know.”
“But if it goes well, if I can follow you wherever you guys go, then….” He hoped but he didn’t believe enough to say it out loud.
Aaron had the bravery to put it into words. “Then maybe we see where this goes now, as adults?”
Quinn nodded. “I think, once this is done, I’m done with undercover shit. I’ve spent my whole career in it so far and I’m so over it.”
“How did that even happen?”
Quinn sighed. “I’m not sure if you noticed but my badge says Byrne, not MacGregor?”
“Yeah, I saw. Isn’t that your mom’s family?”
“Yes, and that’s what I use now officially. Except here.”
“Right.”
“Well, one of my instructors realized where I was from, happens to have a friend who is from Crystal Springs, and also a cop.” He shrugged.
“And cops love to talk,” Aaron concluded.
“Yeah. So he knew there was this family in Spruce Creek and he asked. I ended up having several meetings with people before and after I graduated and well, the rest is history. They needed to put a fresh face in a gang in Denver, so I was there for a year, barely got out alive.”
Aaron tensed, then sneaked his fingers under Quinn’s side, unerringly finding the scars there. “That’s where you got these?”
Quinn wished he could’ve said yes. “No, those came after. In the next place. Chicago was my third assignment and the longest.” He took Aaron’s hand and put it on the scar on his lower abdomen. It was small and hidden by a tattoo of a Japanese phoenix. “Knife wound.”
“I like the ink.” Aaron stroked the phoenix with his fingers. “And the meaning.”
Quinn hummed. He didn’t have many tattoos, but they all held messages of courage, hope, and rebirth. He’d figured the reminder wouldn’t go amiss.
The cuddling turned into slow, tender lovemaking that somehow made everything better and worse at the same time. It gave Quinn that pesky hope that if he managed to survive this, there would be better things ahead, but it also meant that if he died, Aaron would be hurt again.
This time, Quinn moved inside Aaron, his hips rocking ever so slightly as they held each other close. Quinn had never made love like this, and he knew that he never would again if he lost Aaron.
“Isn’t it fucking silly,” he managed to speak just barely, “that we met as kids?”
