All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas (2 page)

Robin was in luck. There was no one in the taxi line, and a cab had just pulled up right in front of the hotel entrance.

His suitcase bumped and whirred as he wheeled it across the cobblestone sidewalk even as the doorman opened the cab's rear door for the exiting passenger. “Where ya heading today, Mr. C.?” he asked Robin in his emerald green brogue.

“Logan Airport, please, Mr. Dunn.” Robin surrendered his suitcase as he dug into his pocket for his cell phone, which was wailing the theme music from
Buffy the Vampire Slayer—
which meant it was Jules on the other end. Finally. For privacy, he turned slightly away from both the doorman and the cab. “Hey, babe. Damn, it's been a freak show and a half, trying to reach you today.”

“Robin, oh, my God.” On the other end of the phone, Jules started laughing. “Look up. To your left.”

Robin turned and…

Jules was standing on the sidewalk, right in front of him. He was grinning from ear to ear as he closed his cell phone and put it in the pocket of his pants.

He looked unbelievably hot. He had the whole rumpled FBI-agent thing going, jacket off and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Of course, Robin had come to associate both that and the loosened tie with the hey-I'm-home-from-work expectation that the entire suit would soon be coming off as Jules changed into something more comfortable. Which sometimes meant no clothes at all. Which translated to very hot, indeed.

But then Jules's arms were around him, and as Robin held him just as tightly, it wasn't about sex at all. It was about…everything suddenly being extremely right. He had to fight the nearly overpowering urge to burst into tears at the sudden supreme rightness of the entire world. “God, I missed you,” he breathed.

“I blew off the Secretary of Defense,” Jules admitted. “Yashi took the meeting for me.”

God bless Joe Hirabayashi. As Robin pulled back to look into Jules's face, into his incredible melting-chocolate brown eyes, he said, “My shooting schedule changed. I have the rest of today off instead of tomorrow.” Tomorrow's schedule was light, but crucial, which was a crying shame. “I was going to fly down to D.C. to see you—take the booty back in the morning.”

Between the pair of them, they'd racked up some significant frequent-flyer miles on the pre-dawn flight that Jules had so aptly nicknamed “the booty shuttle,” for somewhat obvious reasons.

Jules laughed as he gave Robin another hug. “Wow, I'm glad you didn't catch an earlier flight. We could've passed in midair.”

“That would've sucked,” Robin agreed. Jules would've been in Boston, and Robin in D.C. But it hadn't happened—they were both right here, right now. He could feel himself leaking happiness from every pore.

Jules backed off to look at him. “I like the hair.”

Robin self-consciously pushed it back from his face. “I don't know—they won't let me cut it, and it's getting to that obnoxious place—”

“It's hot,” Jules said, and their gazes locked. And yeah. It was definitely time to go inside the hotel.

No doubt about it, even though Robin was already having the best weekend ever, it was about to get significantly better. But then he realized that
weekend
was an assumption that he really couldn't make. Jules's work schedule was as crazy as his. “Can you stay until Sunday night?” he asked.

Jules gave Robin a sidewalk kiss—eye contact that dropped down to and lingered on Robin's mouth. But then he smiled as he looked back into Robin's eyes and gave him an even better gift. “I took Monday off, too. I'm here until Tuesday morning.”

A long weekend.

It was stupid as shit, but Robin's eyes actually filled with tears at the idea of four whole days with Jules.

Jules, gallant as always, pretended not to notice. “We're going to need his suitcase back out of the cab,” he announced, and then proceeded to tip both the doorman and the driver liberally. His hand was warm and wonderfully possessive against Robin's back as he ushered him into the hotel lobby, trusting Dunn to deliver their bags back to Robin's room.

“I've got to check back in,” Robin said, detouring to the front desk instead of letting Jules steer him to the elevators. “I checked out—I thought I was going to be in D.C. tonight.”

“Uh-oh,” Jules said.

“Uh-oh?”

“Let's just…check back in quickly,” Jules told him. “Rumor has it there's a hotel room crunch in Boston this weekend.”

Words that were tragically confirmed, mere seconds later, first by Melinda of the front desk, and then by the hotel manager, Mrs. Hanniford, who was a daughter of the American Revolution, related to John Adams on her mother's side, a PFLAG mom, and in possession of one of
the
most ridiculously broad Boston accents Robin had ever heard. He usually loved hanging with her, just listening to her talk, but today he didn't like what she had to say.

Not only were there no rooms in this hotel, but there was nothing available anywhere in the city, including Cambridge and various suburbs all the way out past Framingham. It was, Mrs. H. told him, parents' weekend at nearly all the colleges in the metro Boston area. During this one weekend in the fall and graduation weekend in May, there was always a hotel shortage in what was undeniably the biggest college town in the nation.

“Pretend I didn't check out.” Robin gave Mrs. H. his most win-some smile. “It's been, what? Ten minutes. I wasn't supposed to check out, and I'm coming back tomorrow. The maid probably hasn't even made up the room. I'll just go back in. You don't even need to change the sheets. We can just trade towels…”

“But you did check out. The computer already processed it.” Mrs. H. liked him. She did. She often worked the night shift, and had invited him into her office for tea on quite a few occasions. She obviously hated the fact that she was now royally fucking him. “We have a waiting list. I could put you on it…?”

“Mrs. Hanniford,” Robin said. “Betty.” He leaned closer. Lowered his voice. “See the incredibly gorgeous guy talking on his cell phone over there?” He gestured with his chin toward Jules.

Mrs. H. looked and then nodded.

“That's Jules.” He'd talked and talked and
talked
about Jules during their tea parties. Mrs. Hanniford could have been given a pop quiz on All That Was Jules, and gotten an A-plus. “I checked out of the hotel because I couldn't bear to be away from him for another minute, only he surprised me by flying up here to see me. I'm pretty sure that one of the things I'm going to do tonight is ask him to marry me. Please don't make me do that while we huddle together for warmth in the train station, breathing through our mouths to avoid the persistent and incomparable stench of urine.”

“Laronda's got nothing,” Jules said as he came toward them, smiling a warm greeting at Mrs. H., despite his obvious frustration, disappointment and fatigue.

Robin looked at Mrs. H. and briefly put his finger on his lips. She nodded, wide-eyed, but then shrugged apologetically, shaking her head. She still couldn't help him, regardless of how much she wanted to.

“Laronda is Jules's boss's administrative assistant,” Robin explained to the hotel manager. “She's, like, the queen of his office. If there was a room in Boston, she would have gotten it for us.” He knew Laronda well. Some days he spoke to her on the phone more often than he spoke to Jules.

“Sometimes the…organization has a hotel room on reserve, but not tonight,” Jules explained, obviously not wanting to say
the Bureau
or
the FBI
in front of Mrs. H. He was clearly tired and even slightly pale. What he needed, Robin knew, was about eighteen hours in bed.

Robin needed that, too, but not because he was tired.

“Laronda also told me there's a run on rental cars,” Jules continued. “Apparently a semi went off a bridge onto Amtrak's main tracks to New York. Trains are shut down. She couldn't even rent us a moped. I was thinking we could drive up to Manchester, or out to Hartford if we could get a car.”

“We have sister hotels in both Manchester and Hartford,” Mrs. H. said helpfully. She went tappy-tap on her computer. “There are rooms available in each.”

“But no cars to get there,” Robin reiterated.

More tapping and…

“None available from this hotel,” Mrs. H. confirmed. “I'm sorry. Maybe there's a car service that could…?”

“I already tried that,” Jules told Robin quietly, shaking his head as Mrs. H. bustled back into her office to answer a phone call. “But everything's booked. I was trying to think outside the box. A limo. You know, at the very least take a lengthy ride around the city.”

Robin had to laugh, in part at Jules's subtle yet suggestive eyebrow waggle. The first time they'd hooked up, they'd been in a limo, privacy shield up and radio blasting. But apparently
that
wasn't even an option today.

“I completely screwed us,” Robin whispered. “Didn't I?” Jules had left him a voicemail saying that he was coming. If he'd taken the time to go through the twenty-something messages that had cluttered up his cell phone, and if he'd done it
before
he'd packed his bags and checked out of the hotel…He and Jules would've been up in his room, right now, exchanging long, slow, deep kisses…

“Actually,” Jules pointed out
sotto voce,
laughing at the absurdity of their situation. “I'm feeling extremely unscrewed.”

It was hard not to laugh, too, when Jules was laughing. Still, Robin shook his head. “Maybe we could catch the shuttle to New York, get a room down there—”

“And wake up at three thirty to get back to Boston in time for you to get to work?” Jules countered.

“I'll get up at three thirty,” Robin said. “You can sleep in, catch a later flight.” Jesus, Jules looked so tired.

But he was shaking his head, no. “I wanted to go with you to the studio,” he said. “I mean, if that's okay with you.”

Robin's heart flip-flopped. It was amazing. His relationship with Jules had lasted longer than any other relationship he'd ever had, yet the man could still make him feel like a giddy kid with a crush. “Really?”

“If it's okay,” Jules said again. He touched Robin's hand, interlacing their fingers. It was a daring public show of affection for Jules—considering they were well outside of the South End, Boston's gay neighborhood. “The unscrewed thing was just a joke. You know that, right? Sweetie, I love making love to you, but…right now I'm just ecstatic we're in the same city. We can go have dinner and…It'll be tomorrow before we know it.”

And it wouldn't be the first time they'd talked through the entire night.

Mrs. H. had come back to the desk. She was hovering uncertainly, desperate but powerless to help.

“Hey, Mrs. H.,” Robin said, his eyes never leaving Jules's. “My life partner's a little shy, but I'm feeling a righteous need to kiss him. Do you mind if we step into your office for, oh, two minutes?”

Mrs. H. was silent, and he finally turned to look at her. She was obviously thinking…

“Mind out of the gutter,” he chastised her, laughing. “Two minutes? I'm good, but I'm not that good.”

Jules was laughing, too, but he leaned forward and kissed Robin. Right there in the lobby. His mouth was soft and warm and so, so sweet…

“Come on,” Jules said, with so much love in his eyes that Robin's heart nearly burst. “Let's check our bags and find someplace quiet to have dinner.”

“We could get take-out,” Robin suggested, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans as if it were cold out. With the wind sweeping in off Boston Harbor, it
was
a little nippy, but Jules was warm. Maybe too warm.

“And take it where?” Jules asked.
Find someplace quiet to have dinner—
hah. The city was overrun with students and their parents, all dining out. They'd walked all the way down to the waterfront, by the Aquarium. And now they couldn't even find an empty cab to take them…Where indeed? Was there really any point going back to the hotel, where they didn't even have a room?

God, he needed to sit down.

Somehow Robin knew that, and was there, helping him toward a bench.

“Let's just get in line at the Union Oyster House,” Jules said. The wait there was over ninety minutes, but the food and ambiance would be worth it. Besides, it wasn't as if they were rushing to get anywhere else.

“You're sweating.” Robin's tone was accusatory. He'd been asking Jules if he was okay ever since they'd left the hotel. “You've been lying to me, haven't you?”

“I'm fine,” Jules lied yet again. But it wasn't just to Robin, it was to himself, too. He didn't want to be sick. He couldn't be sick. Not this weekend. He'd wanted this to be special…

“Jesus, Jules, you're burning up.” Robin's hands felt like ice against Jules's forehead.