Page 192 of A Matter of Time

“How do you mean?” Sam asked, smiling at him, closing the door gently behind him.

“Don’t fuck with me!”

Sam nodded, walked over, and took my hand. I couldn’t stop staring at him.

“I’m keeping him, Dom. I got no choice.”

“Why?” his friend raged, charging back to the door, then crossing the room again, beginning to pace, his face reddening as he clenched and unclenched his hands into fists.

“I love⁠—”

“No, wait, don’t tell me, just—are you kidding with this shit? Sammy…” He was desperate suddenly, and I heard it in his voice. “You can’t be a cop like this. There’s no way you’re gonna give it all up for a fuckin’ piece of faggot ass.”

Sam dropped my hand and charged over to his friend. He grabbed his jacket tight, his knuckles white. “You don’t get to say that shit in front of Jory. You wanna be gone, go, but you don’t get to be here in my house and fuckin’ insult him. That’s not gonna happen.”

They stared hard at each other for long moments before Dominic shoved him back.

“You don’t fuck men, Sam. I would’ve known that. There’s no way I wouldn’t know that.”

Sam sighed heavily, raked his fingers through his hair. “Listen… I tried it how everyone wanted me to be. How you and my family and the guys and Maggie and everybody else thought I should be. I was trying so hard, every day, turning myself inside out…and it was awful. It was the worst. It was fucked up, and I felt like shit all the time. It never went away,” he confessed, his voice ragged and brittle. “I can’t do that anymore, Dom. I can’t live like that just because it’ll make everybody else comfortable. I can’t.”

Dominic looked at Sam, then me, then back to Sam. “And I can’t be your partner anymore, Sammy. Not like this. I can’t watch you throw away your career over some fuckin’ faggot you brought home and got an itch for and⁠—”

“Get out!”

“You better put in for a change of partner tomorrow, Sam! Tomorrow!”

“Get the fuck out!”

Dominic stormed out the front door, throwing it open, letting it slam against the wall and vibrate to a half close. I watched Sam walk over and close it gently, click the dead bolt, and then turn off the light so that only the fire and the light above the stove illuminated the room.

“I’m so sorry,” I said softly. “What can I⁠—”

“Stop.” His voice had been broken, then filled with fury, and now it was tender and gentle, soothing. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

He walked to me, dropping to his knees beside the couch, letting me reach for him, pull him close, his face in my chest as I rested my chin in his hair.

“Sam, maybe I should⁠—”

“It’s like I thought it would be with him, J.” He sighed deeply, clutching me tight, lifting his head to kiss my throat. “There are no surprises with him. My family surprised me—they’ve been amazing, and more importantly, what I expected, right? What I hoped for. I mean, they’ve loved me my whole life. What kind of horrifying disappointment would they be if any of them actually cared who I love? You being a good person, that should be the only criteria anyone should care about. The rest of it, who you are, what sex you are, who cares?”

“People care,” I told him. “I have a lot of friends who don’t have parents anymore, don’t have siblings, because it mattered.”

“And I’m really sorry for them. I can’t imagine losing love over—no, that’s not true. I did conjure it up in my brain. But even scared, I knew, my mother, my sisters, there was no way they would ever turn their backs on me. That couldn’t happen,” he said with a catch of breath. “The only one I was really worried about was my father.”

I stared at him.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“Tell me,” I pressed, my fingers stroking over his jaw, up the side of his face to his hair. It was longer than I’d ever seen it, right below his ears, an artful mess, going in many directions at once. He looked rumpled, like he’d just rolled out of bed, and it was very sexy. I wanted to comfort him, yes, but I wanted to go to bed with him just as badly.

“You met my dad,” he said with a grin. “Can you imagine how pissed he would be if he knew I ever doubted him or his love?”

“That’s true,” I agreed, thinking of the loud, boisterous man I’d met who had hugged and kissed Sam many times during our visit.

“Yeah,” he rasped, his voice gravelly, a bit overwhelmed, thinking about his family. His eyes were welling with unshed tears, and looking at him, seeing how grateful he was but how sad at the same time, was breaking my heart.

“I’m sorry that you’ll lose some of your friends, starting with Dom.”