Boys in Blue 04 - Knight's Fall (4 page)

“Whichever team makes it to the finish line first, wins the competition. You’ve been practicing all week as teams, this is your pop quiz,” the instructor quipped to the groaning men. “I’ll leave it to you to decide which partner has his hands tied behind his back, and which will be blindfolded.”

Liam eyed the course ahead, if it could be called that. They faced at least ten acres or more of wooded terrain, complete with shrubs, elevated roots, debris, and sink holes. The challenge course looked like hell.

“If we get out of this thing in one piece, I’ll be surprised,” Andy muttered for only Liam’s ears.
Liam’s thoughts exactly.
“What’s wrong, cocksucker? Too much wood for you?” James spat.
Andy barely glanced at him, and held out the blindfold to Liam. “Your turn to be in the dark. I did the test run.”
Liam scowled at James over Andy’s shoulder.
“Good idea. If he has his hands tied, he can’t cop a feel,” James said, laughing at his own joke as he walked away.
“Doesn’t that piss you off?” Liam asked, still scowling after James.
Andy shrugged. “I’m used to it. Guys like that are either homophobes, or in denial.”
“So you’re just going to let that shit pass?”
Andy eyed him with interest. “Yeah, I am.”
Liam shook his head. He turned Andy and tied his wrists at the base of his back. By the time Andy faced him again, Liam was already fitting his mask over his head and securing it. Andy carefully talked Liam to the starting line as the others were called to begin.
“I want good sportsmanship out there men. You have three clues to gather along the way. Once you reach the finish line, take the clues to your team’s table and work out a reasonable order of events,” the instructor shouted.
“Blindfolded?” someone yelled.
“Yes. Remain in your bound states. This is a communication exercise, like all the others. No matter what hindrances we have in the field, our departments can and will learn to work together.”
“I knew there had to be a teaching point,” Liam muttered.
The instructor blew the whistle.
Andy took a step to Liam’s side, letting his shoulder and arm serve as a guide to Liam’s blindness.
“There’s a tree about ten paces ahead,” Andy informed.
Counting off the steps until they got to the tree, Andy then directed him left. The first clue, flagged with their team colour, was almost too easy to get. He figured it out, though the next two were progressively more difficult. Nothing like the test run the day before.
After Liam pulled the flag and tucked it in his back waistband with the clue envelope, Andy glanced around at the other teams. James’ team barrelled ahead, hitting nearly every obstacle in their path. Another team had taken a face dive from a hidden root.
Liam stepped out ahead of Andy’s direction, impatient. “Well?”
“There’s a dip in the path ahead. The other teams are a mess. If we play this smart, we’ll be fine.” Andy glanced along their route, thinking several moves ahead. “It’s like chess. Gimme a sec.”
“I trust you.”
Andy shot him a glance. Those three words filled him with nervous anticipation. The last thing he wanted to do was let Liam down.
“Careful moving forward through the dip. It’s about a sixty-degree incline and there is loose gravel at the bottom. Stay with me.” Andy pressed his shoulder against Liam again and together they moved through the dip and the fallen log on the other side.
The second flag waved close by.
“Diagonal right three paces, about chest level on the tree is the second flag.” Using his leg alongside Liam’s, they easily made it to the second location.
While Liam collected the flag with its attached bag of clues, Andy glanced around again. James’ team had slowed, wisely. They remained just ahead as the only team still in a place to be actual competition for Andy and Liam.
James looked back at Andy and smiled ferally. “Are you checking out my ass, fag-boy?” “Yeah, you wearing a diaper? I think it’s changing time, buddy.”
“Andy, I want to beat that sonofabitch. Where’s the next flag?” Liam said through gritted teeth.
“At the end of the course. It’s going to be trickier than the last two.”
“Geez. Remind me never to go blind.”
Andy snorted.
He guided Liam to a level area, the only reprieve before the course went rocky. And by rocky, Andy noticed, it was more like dry land mogul hopping. Boulders littered the path ahead. This was going to suck.
A baseball-sized rock rolled to a stop in front of Liam.
“Hold,” Andy shouted.
Too late, Liam’s ankle twisted as his foot came down and both men fell. James laughed in the distance. When the second rock tumbled into view, James sent Andy a wink, his foot propped on a third one, ready to send it over with the others.
“Asshole,” Andy snarled.
“What the fuck happened?”
“Your homophobic pal thought we needed a challenge,” Andy answered.
“I’m gonna kick his ass,” Liam promised.
“Me first.”
“C’mon. Let’s finish this, and deal with him once and for all.”
“You got it.” Andy awkwardly got to his feet with Liam’s hand holding Andy’s elbow for support. “Thanks.”
“I’d hold you a lot closer if we weren’t in the middle of an obstacle course and I wasn’t ready to teach James some manners.”
Andy smiled. “Re-ally?” He drew the word out to convey interest.
“Competence is really sexy on you,” Liam said, smiling too.
“You can’t see me.”
“I don’t have to.” Liam leaned near, speaking loud enough for Andy to hear his husky voice. “The blindfold, you brushing up against me, the confidence in your instructions—I’ve been hard since your first direction.”
Andy looked down. “Shi-it. Why’d you have to go and tell me that? Now I won’t be able to think about anything else.”
“You mean the way I’m struggling to avoid taking your ass right here, right now?”
“I’m going to remember the blindfold thing,” Andy breathed.
“Let’s take it with us after the challenge.”
“Okay.”
“Take your wrist ties, too.”
Andy swallowed hard. His thighs tingled and his cock swelled at the mental picture Liam provided. “Gawd!”
Liam laughed. “Let’s go, hot stuff.”
Andy focused hard and directed Liam over the final stretch. James and his partner beat them, though Andy couldn’t guess how with their run-into-everything technique. Still, Liam and Andy were on their heels when they emptied their cache on the team table for sorting.
Crime scene pictures, suspect photos, and brief accounts by fictitious neighbours were all they had to go on. While the clues were obvious, the main difficulty was communicating which item to pick up for Andy to look at and how to describe the visual clues in the photographs for his blindfolded partner.
Finally, they organised a reasonable order of events. Strategically placed cards, photos, and Liam’s sloppy scrawl told their version of the story. Liam picked up the bell and rang it for the instructor to check their results.
Another bell rang a split second later. James. The instructor cleared Liam and Andy as the winners. James’ team also scored correctly, the short lapse between their two wins only seemed to make James angrier.
“I don’t think James is a very good loser,” Andy noted.
Liam yanked off his mask, shoved it into his pocket, and carefully untied Andy’s wrists. “You’re skin looks sore,” he murmured.
Andy kept a wary eye on James. “I’ll be fine, but somehow I don’t think James will be. We’re going to need to watch our backs.”
Liam looked to James. “He won’t lay a hand on you. He has to get through me first.”
Andy’s chest tightened with emotion. His eyes might have moistened, too, but he chose to chalk that up to a random, brief, allergy attack. Fortunately, he didn’t have to explain it, because Liam hadn’t seen Andy’s wobbled smile and rapid swallowing. No one had ever stood up for him before. Not about his right to his sexual orientation.
In the ranks of the FBI, his work was respected. As a co-worker, his partner treated him as an equal with an analytical mind for reading between the lines. As a man, his sexual partners left happy. When it came to letting someone in close enough to see all those parts together, Andy shied away from honest feeling.
Until now, it had worked. Until now, no one had questioned the sincerity of the person he projected at any given time. Liam had cracked the code effortlessly.
It terrified Andy and humbled him. It charmed him, while still making Andy feel like he was on a slippery slope, and it was just a matter of time before Liam saw too much. Liam might decide against taking the chance at a relationship with him.
If Liam saw all of him and rejected him…
“What’s that look about?” Liam asked him.
“I can’t believe you’d be willing to take the heat for me.”
“Then why does it look like you just swallowed a horse pill and it got stuck?”
“Do you remember when I said I didn’t know what to make of you?” Andy asked.
Liam sidled closer, his quirky grin turning naughty. “Completely fresh in my memory.”
A blush filled Andy’s cheeks, yet this time, he didn’t drop his gaze. “I know what you are now and it scares the shit out of me.”
Confusion dimmed Liam’s smile minutely. “What am I?”
“A witch,” Andy proclaimed with a half smile.
Liam’s laugh drew curious eyes. “How do you figure?”
The last time Alex had shared his heart, telling his family and friends he was gay, telling them he loved them and respected them enough to share that part of his life with them, they’d broken all contact. It had been a crushing lesson in how easily a solid seeming foundation could be ripped from beneath him. Loyalty and love weren’t as unconditional as he’d been brought up to believe, and he’d had no reason to fear losing his family. Family was forever, right?
Yet here stood Liam. Were his affections as seasonal? Would his promises be as fragile?
“I’m like Dorothy’s inner boy. Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?” Andy shook his head, slowly. “If you have any doubt that you’re interested in me, please, please, don’t encourage me any further.”
Liam grabbed Andy’s hand and dragged him towards the cabins. He didn’t stop there, he kept walking until the cabins were far behind and the sounds of the campground were lost to the wind. Arriving at whatever invisible spot he’d intended to find, Liam pushed Andy up against the nearest tree.
“Explain what you mean and don’t, for the love of God, hide behind a veneer to downplay your first true confession to me.”
The need in Liam’s voice rocked Andy. Liam’s dark brown eyes probed his with thinly veiled urgency.
Andy felt tired. Hiding didn’t even present an option to him anymore. Hiding was like a game, and this particular game felt wearisome. The fear of almost having Liam only to discover he’d been fooling himself, weighed heavily on him. He’d never know unless he spoke up.
His pulse raced and actually made his veins ache. The silence of the woods fell heavily on them. Andy licked his lips. He needed to know.
“You get inside me, Liam.”
“Not yet, but I’d like to be. Soon.”
Andy shoved his shoulders, pushing him back. “This is serious. You’re in my head, in my gut, in my lungs. If you aren’t going to want me, stop trying to understand me.”
Liam dropped his hands to his hips. “I want you.”
“For how long? Through the end of tomorrow, when we all go home? Through the week? What do you want?”
“Unless
you
ends with the next week, and
you
has a time limit, the answer to
I want you
, is I haven’t put a kill-date on a possible relationship with
you
.” His brow furrowed.
God, even that is sexy. How can he be sexy when he’s annoyed? How was that fair?
“Possible,” Andy echoed. “Possible means you aren’t convinced you want a relationship with me. Possible means room for error. It sure as hell makes me think that staying away from you would be self-preserving.”
“So you want proof that I’ll stick around, but you won’t accept what proof I offer. You’re kind of burning the candle at both ends, don’t you think?”
“You’ve offered proof? I missed that part,” Andy remarked.
Liam sighed with apparent exasperation. “All I have is my word and the fact that up until this second, I’m the one who’s been putting on the breaks for exactly the same reason.”
“I know,” Andy agreed.
“Make up your mind, because right now you’re practically screaming that I’ve been nothing more than the recipient of your teasing. Someone to get into bed until I decide to see how serious you are. Is that what’s going on here?”
Andy dropped his head back against the rough bark. He closed his eyes. Everything was happening so fast. “No,” he whispered.
Liam’s feet scuffed the ground as he moved in. His breath feathered across Andy’s upturned mouth. “I know you’re scared. I don’t know what the hell happened to you, or who hurt you so bad, but give me a chance to prove we aren’t all assholes.”
His lips brushed both eyelids in turn, dragged seductively along Andy’s cheekbone to his ear.
“Would it help to know that I’m scared too?” Liam asked.
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
Andy couldn’t resist the lure of his warm body so near his own. Looping his arms around Liam’s waist and exchanging rough bark behind his head, to sturdy, warm shoulder pressed to his forehead, Andy’s defences melted.
“From where I stand, you’re a loose cannon. You flirt, you tease, you slip easily from one situation to another without investing yourself. What happens if I let myself go heart and soul, while you continue to coast on the surface of a true relationship?” Liam explained.
Andy lifted his head, meeting Liam’s steady gaze. “You’re worried about that?”
With a shy, self-depreciating laugh, Liam nodded. He buried his fingers in Andy’s hair, trapping his head as securely as Andy suspected Liam had already trapped his heart.
“Tell me what happened,” Liam encouraged.
“My family happened. They’re supposed to be my safe place to run to when the world goes shitty. When I came out to them, not one of them understood. Not one of them wanted me around, either. Phone calls, holiday gatherings—they all became off limits to me.” Andy searched Liam’s sympathetic gaze. “If family is supposed to love me unconditionally and does crap like that, how can I be sure that a man I just met won’t do the same?”
“Because this one thinks you’re worth knowing.”
“You have family that love you,” Andy redirected.
“They think my lifestyle is a distasteful phase.”
“How can you understand the kind of rejection I’m talking about if you’ve never experienced it?” Andy pressed.
“Yeah, my experience is different, but it’s rejection of who I am nonetheless. If I came out to the station, not one of them would believe me. My insides don’t match the presentation I give. At least you don’t walk around feeling dishonest just for being yourself, Andy.”
Like a shot of clarity, Andy winced with understanding. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I’m doing it to you. I’ve been moaning about my family not accepting me for being gay, when you are going through the same thing, and I haven’t accepted you.”
Liam wore a bemused smile. “Ah, so we’re starting to see eye to eye, are we?” His hands slid down Andy’s neck, to his shoulders, then over his pecs.