Without a Net (33 page)

“Okay, that last one is valid,” Ollie said. “If the case had fallen apart, I would have felt a need to murder you.”

“Exactly,” Travis said, and he looked very smug about it, which didn’t make any sense. The man’s brain was not wired in any way Ollie could understand.

Ollie clenched his teeth in frustration. This was not an
exactly
sort of moment. When he spoke again, he worked hard to keep his voice even. “But the first part of that statement is pure bullshit. You were the man I had sex with, and I wanted a little comforting from someone I was emotionally and sexually involved with.” By the end, his voice was uncomfortably loud, and Ollie struggled to rein in his emotions. Shouting wouldn’t solve anything.

“I’m not sure you could call it emotionally involved,” Travis said slowly.

It was amazing how love felt like having your heart magically turned into a beer can and then crushed on some idiot’s head. “So you weren’t fully involved in what we did?” Ollie tried to stuff the pain under a layer of indignation.

“Christ! No!” Travis took several quick steps closer and then stopped. “No, I was involved, but you’d been so compromised by that time—”

“That you don’t trust me to know my own mind? Is that what you plan to say? Because I can forgive you the silence of the past few weeks. I can forgive you for being a better cop than a lover and putting the case first.” Ollie paused. “Actually, I admire that. But if you start telling me what I feel, I won’t be so forgiving.” Ollie curled his hands into fists, and for the first time in many months, he honestly considered causing someone incredible pain.

“I wouldn’t. I mean, I know you know yourself now, but back then, it was less certain.” Travis made a face. “And that doesn’t make sense outside my head, but I am trying not to assume your feelings are the same. I was a safe spot in a difficult situation. Now you have options.”

“So you think you’re not as good as my other options? So what? I’d prefer Buck?”

“I think Allemande might have something to say about that,” Travis said drily. “But you weren’t into shade before this case. I don’t want to assume anything.”

Ollie pulled out one of the chairs and sat. If he went into this with his feelings up front, he would say all the wrong things, but it was hard to say the right things when his emotions were all tangled in the truth. “You can assume I’m a shade sub. I went back to a control club hoping to take off the sharp edge of frustration, and it did not go well. I think the control clubs were enough until they weren’t. I am definitely into shade, whether or not you’re in my life.”

Travis physically twitched when Ollie mentioned not being part of each other’s lives. Hopefully that was a good sign. “Nothing wrong with shade, at least not when both partners are careful.”

“Careful and committed,” Ollie said, “and it’s the ‘committed’ part that I’m struggling with a little.” Nothing Ollie said seemed to be making a big impact, so Ollie decided to pull out the big guns, and with Travis, that was guilt. “I guess I’m saying that if I’m not good enough for you to make a commitment to, I need you to say it, not ignore me.”

“What?” Travis’s voice cracked with emotion.

“I know I’m new to the shade thing. I couldn’t handle the sorts of games Buck could.”

“Whoa!” Travis held up a hand. “Where did that come from?”

“From you not calling me after we were cleared by legal to have actual conversations.”

“I was giving you space.”

“I don’t need space!” Ollie was on his feet, leaning on the table and shouting. So much for calm.

Travis slapped his hands down on the other side of the table. “I’m trying to avoid being an absolute asshole here.”

“Well, you missed the mark by a mile.”

“Nice isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. I have a lot more experience with being a bastard, and maybe you don’t deserve to put up with that.”

“And there you go telling me how I feel again.”

“I am not!” Travis bellowed.

“Not to sound like I’m in second grade, but
am too
comes to mind. Don’t tell me what I deserve.”

“You don’t deserve to have me out of control.”

“You are never out of control.” Now both of them were yelling, and it felt damn good.

“I could have shot that bastard who blocked me from getting in the van to check on you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Trust me, I wanted to. And if I had, I would have fucked up the case.”

“Which is why you stopped yourself.”

Travis opened his mouth, closed it, and then sank down into a chair. Ollie could practically see him pull the tattered remains of his restraint around him. “I’m beginning to suspect Milan has the right idea with the self-castration,” he said with a grim laugh. “I don’t think this is a good time for this conversation. I’m clearly not in a mental space where I have emotional discipline.”

“I don’t think more emotional discipline will solve this,” Ollie said.

Travis gave him a cold look. “Well, I do.” He headed for the door, and something inside Ollie snapped.

“Great. Here we go again with you making all the rules. You don’t care if I was falling in love with you. You don’t care that I spent months sorting out my feelings. You completely dismiss the fact that I admire you as a cop and as a Dom and as a person. No, you push everything I feel away as unimportant because of how you feel and your almighty need to be fucking right and fucking in control and just fucking. It’s all you, isn’t it? That’s what makes you an asshole—your choices. Don’t blame this on what Milan did or the fact that you think I’m emotionally compromised or the relative location of the moon and fucking Mars. Admit that your choices and your ability to be the center of your own universe make you the asshole in this situation.” Ollie stopped, his breath coming hard as if he’d been running, and for one moment he stared at Travis. He willed him to do something—to say something. Travis stared at him mutely, and Ollie couldn’t take it. He couldn’t stand to look at Travis one more second.

After turning on his heel, Ollie walked out and slammed the door behind him.
Well, that went well.
As much as Ollie wanted to sink down to the floor and cry, he had a life to get on with. He forced one foot in front of the other as he headed to McGraw’s desk. Maybe he’d invite her out for lunch instead. At the very least, he could warn her to avoid Hurricane Goode.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ollie hurried as the bell chimed for the third time. “Jeez, I’m coming,” he said as he opened only the inner door, leaving the security door in place.

Travis was standing on his front porch. Ollie stared, not sure what to do. The anger from their last meeting had faded, leaving a raw and gaping sense of loss and guilt. Travis hadn’t been the only asshole in the room that day.

Travis offered him a small smile. “Are you going to let me in?”

Ollie mentally shook off the shock. “I don’t know. Are you going to talk to me instead of avoiding anything important?” He was too tired to fight again. In the past two days, he’d replayed their fight over and over until he tortured himself with what-ifs and might-have-beens.

“Yes,” Travis said firmly. He had an expression like a man walking into a gun battle, but at least he was here. Ollie unlocked the security door, and Travis pulled it open.

“Nice place.”

Ollie almost pointed out that small talk didn’t show any willingness to deal with real issues, but he didn’t want a fight. He wanted Travis to have his say and leave. Maybe Ollie could go to the Happy Whip. It was a three-hour drive, but he didn’t mind the solitude. “It turns out that civil lawsuits against asshole millionaires have a nice payout.”

“Greyson?”

“Yeah. When it came out his wife was keeping the books for his sun dealings, I decided that neither of them deserved to keep that money. I got a chunk of it, and a joint coalition of sun-recovery centers got another big chunk. Greyson’s never getting out of prison, but when his wife does, she’d better be willing to get a job. There’s not much left to her name.”

“Good,” Travis said fiercely, and Ollie got the impression Travis would have preferred a more direct form of revenge. “I’m surprised you didn’t get a place back home.”

“Do you think I want to work with any of those guys?” Ollie asked. He swung the inner door shut and headed into the living room. “And none of them want to work with me. Guilt tends to undermine any sort of working relationship.” Ollie sat and gave Travis a cold look.

“Okay, I might have let my guilt get ahead of my common sense. Your point is made.” Travis leaned against the wall.

“Is it? Because I’m pretty tired of fighting.”

“Yeah, you made that clear. You also made it clear that I’m an asshole, a conclusion Buck and even Sewell were very happy to agree with. Hell, even the shrink the doctor forced me to go see talked about how I was fucking up by holding on to guilt that you weren’t assigning me. He said it undermined your agency and autonomy.” He grimaced. “I didn’t think that’s what I was doing, and I definitely thought psychologists were supposed to be more circumspect. When they decide to give up on professional ethics and just call you a fuckup, they can pull out the big guns.”

Ollie got up. Sitting while Travis hovered felt weird, so he retreated to the half wall that separated his living room and dining room.

“So, why settle in Richmond?” Travis asked.

Ollie shrugged. “During the trials, half the meetings I had were with your field office, so it seemed easier to be here.”

Travis nodded like he’d expected the answer. “Sewell is impressed with you. She said that most of the cops she runs across are more interested in showboating than in getting the job done. I pointed out that cops who aim for promotions to the FBI are showboats.”

“Were you?”

“Me? No. They recruited me right out of my master’s degree program. I moved into fieldwork after being with the agency for a while. I have a talent for it, probably because Milan beat it into me that I had to pay attention to body language and understand what people weren’t saying.” Travis headed into the living room and sat.

“Are we going to condemn ourselves to small-talk purgatory? If so, I need something to drink,” Ollie said.

Travis pressed his eyes closed. “I should thank you.”

Ollie’s mouth almost fell open. That was not anywhere near what he’d expected. “Why?”

“Because I finally decided that if you could be that pissed and that direct with your insults, you didn’t need protection from me. You seem to hold your own and cut my knees out from under me at the same time. It’s a talent.”

“Anytime,” Ollie offered. And then the silence settled into every crack and empty space between them. It gathered and swelled until Ollie felt the pressure like a storm front. “Is that it? Are you here to thank me for a screaming fight, or do you have some point to make that you’re avoiding?”

Travis rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not handling this well, am I?”

“Not really. So what are you doing here? Apologizing? If so, you’re doing kind of a crappy job.”

“I am sorry,” Travis said in a slow and determined voice that made Ollie believe he meant it. “What Milan did screwed with my head pretty hard. He was a twisted and overly sexualized father figure to me, but the fact is that he taught me a lot about myself, and I suddenly started questioning everything.”

Ollie stared and waited for something. He didn’t know what.

“Milan is weirdly forgiving about the arrest,” Travis said with a laugh.

“He fucked up too.”

“Yeah, and he’s man enough to take his lumps, which is what I’m doing here. I thought I would apologize, and then you could get creative with your threats and insults. It might feel better.”

Ollie leaned back against the wall. “You apologize and then go right back to telling me how I feel. Use some of that great expertise that Milan beat into you and pay attention to my body language. How do I feel, Travis?”

Travis stared at him until Ollie frankly regretted saying anything. Travis answered. “You’re tired and closed off. You expect me to hurt you again. Damn it, you have no idea how sorry I am.”

“I don’t want to threaten you. I don’t like being the aggressive one in the relationship, but you refused to listen to me about what I liked. I guess I’ve decided you assume I was unhappy because you were.”

“That’s not true.” Travis kept eye contact. “I liked it too. A lot. And you deserved better than you got from me.”

“Yeah, I did,” Ollie agreed.

Travis flinched. “I felt bad that I couldn’t protect you.”

Ollie moved to his overstuffed chair, resting his hands on the tall back and keeping the bulk of it between them. He had opened himself up too much, and now he was raw. Travis could hurt him if he chose, and Ollie didn’t want to give the man that power. “I’m a cop. It was your job to make the arrest, to make the case, and to trust your partner to have your back. That was me. Having each other’s backs does not mean sheltering me.”

“Yeah. Got it,” Travis said. “I was out of line. But you were helpless when Greyson had us in that garage, and I didn’t do anything to defend you.”

“I wasn’t helpless. I had the law and an FBI investigation on my side. Greyson is in prison, in part because of how events happened in that garage. His friends are in prison or dead or on the run. I’m still standing here better than ever. So whatever you have going on in your head, let it go.”

Travis studied Ollie; he leaned back to see more of Ollie’s body language, but eventually he nodded. “I keep thinking that I failed you, but maybe not.”

This was progress. Maybe he could take a risk with a small piece of his heart. “Did you like the sex, or was it something that simply happened because of the circumstance?”

“Did I…?” Travis leaned forward, and his mouth literally hung open for a moment. “Do you believe…” He sighed. “Of course you think that. It’s not like I’ve been supportive. I loved what we did. I haven’t had a partner that compatible in a good decade. And it’s not about the sex, or at least not only about the sex. You’re a damn good cop—a fearless one.”

“I always thought of myself as an average one.”