“I think I get a say in that.”
What are you doing?he asked himself, with a mentally delivered slap to the back of the brain.Why are you arguing?
Javi didn’t know the answer to that, but he’d already started and he didn’t want to back down.
“Dragging it out doesn’t make sense,” he said.“It’s better to bite the bullet and accept that—”
Cloister pushed him down into the sand and swung a long leg over to straddle him.
“We can meet in the middle,” he said.
“Nevada?”Javi asked.He wasn’t sure why he said it with such contempt.
“Or Idaho.”
“That’s worse.”
Cloister leaned down and kissed him.His mouth was seasoned with sweat and a hint of something lemony sharp on his tongue.
“People make long-distance relationships work,” he said.“We can…fuck other people when we’re apart and—”
Javi curled his lip and growled, a throaty, wordless noise of disapproval, at that idea.He flipped Cloister over—the taller man not strugglingmuch—and pushed his shoulders down against the soft bed of sand.
“The fuck you are,” he said.
Cloister smirked at him.The asshole had made his point, Javi supposed.He sighed and raised an eyebrow.
“Long distance?”he said.
Cloister ran his hands up Javi’s hips and under his shirt.The graze of his fingers over Javi’s ribs made him take a shaky breath.
“We can sext,” Javi allowed.
“Weekends,” Cloister offered.
That was optimistic.How many days off did they currently get?How many dates had actually just been crime scenes and food?Still, how many weekends did you need for it to count?Once a month?Bi-monthly?
Javi supposed he didn’t care.
He leaned down, his mouth hovering over Cloister’s.“You want to try?”he asked.“You’re sure?”
There’d been a time when Javi thought Cloister’s wide, easy smile made him almost beautiful.He’d no idea where the almost had gone.
“About you?”Cloister said.“Absolutely.”
Epilogue - Six Months Later
Yardley,Montana,wasashitshow.
That wasn’t unexpected, given Kincaid’s hand in securing Javi’s placement here.
It turned out it was the exact sort of shitshow where Javi thrived, but that wasn’t the point.
He stripped off his wet-weather gear at the back of his car.Water dripped down his neck as he stashed the sodden slicker in the trunk.
“Not a bad result,’ Sgt.Moira Grant noted laconically as she walked over to him.She propped her hands on her hips and squinted against the rain as she watched her people break down the mobile meth lab for transport.“Can’t fault your people, Merlo.”
Javi wiped his hand down his face, stripping the water off.“Your people nearly let our subjects get away.They should have been ready to intercept three miles back.”
