Tag Team (10 page)

He heaved himself up off the bed and headed in to take a shower and get back to Bobby and Mason. He had some time to come up with something he could do for Max in return. Maybe a trip to see Jonas and his house of custom leather and unusual toys would be in order when he and Bobby returned to New York.

Rig smiled as he set the taps. Fuck, he and Bobby had the greatest friends. He shucked his clothes and entered the shower, still grinning as he thought about Max and his penchant for
unusual
toys. No way would he turn down a gift that was custom-made just for him.

M
ASON
was still sleeping when Rig returned from their bungalow. Bobby silently waved him toward the kitchen, not wanting to wake Mason. “Is he going to talk to him?” Bobby asked, keeping his voice low.

Rig leaned back against the counter and nodded. “Yeah—” The shrill chirping sound of Rig’s cell phone interrupted him, and he scrambled to pull it out of his pocket, cursing low when it got stuck. He finally pulled it free with a huff and flipped it open. “Hello?”

Bobby peeked around the corner to find Mason shifting on the couch, but he settled back and didn’t open his eyes. Every time he looked at Mason, warmth filled Bobby as the need to protect, comfort, and care for the smaller man kicked in. Mason had been through so much in his life, had so many obstacles ahead of him, Bobby just wanted to be able to remove at least one, or at the very least give him a steadying hand as he climbed over one.

He continued to stare at the sleeping man, not really paying much attention to the hushed tones behind him until he heard Rig say, “Okay, see you then,” and the click of Rig’s phone being shut.

Bobby spun around and faced his partner. “What do you mean, see you then?”

“Max will be here at ten,” Rig said with a wry grin.

“Are you serious? Jesus, Rig, I just wanted you to ask him to talk to Mason on the phone, not drop his whole life and fly down here.”

Rig shrugged, still grinning. “That’s what I told him, well, not in those exact words but close. He basically said we were idiots.”

Bobby frowned. “Why? Did you tell him the whole story?”

“Of course I did,” Rig grunted and waved him off. “I even told him about Mason’s mistrust of Max’s fellow docs. I’m not a complete fool, ya know?”

Bobby moved up close and grabbed Rig’s waist, curling his hands in the soft cotton of his T-shirt. Bobby placed a soft kiss to the side of Rig’s neck, taking in the scent of the sandalwood shampoo he’d used in his still-damp hair and on his warm skin beneath Bobby’s lips. “You sure about that?” Bobby asked and kissed him again.

A shudder went through Rig and he wrapped his arms around Bobby, running his hands down from Bobby’s shoulders to the top of his ass, then smacked it lightly, making Bobby press his face harder into Rig’s neck to muffle the sound of his laughter. “It’s debatable. After all, I have stayed with you all these years.”

“That’s one of the smarter things you’ve done in your life,” Bobby assured him. “But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why does Max think we are idiots? Did we do the wrong thing?” He laid his head on Rig’s shoulder, needing the contact, to feel the strength Rig represented, to help balance the worry he felt for Mason.

“No, he actually said we did good, but as wonderful as we think he is, or as cocky as that son of a bitch is, he said even he can’t be sure Mason isn’t a danger to himself with just one phone conversation. I think I may have just stroked his already out-of-control ego.”

“And so he does what?” Bobby asked, lifting his head to meet Rig’s eyes. “He just jumps on a plane to come help someone he doesn’t even know.”

“Nope.”

Bobby tilted his head, suspicious of the sparkle in Rig’s eyes. Rig just chuckled and kissed him on the nose before saying. “He’s doing this for us, and I’m thinking a trip to Jonas’s is going to be in our near future.”

“He’ll deserve it, that’s for sure,” Bobby agreed and laid his head back down on Rig’s shoulder. He was clinging, not something he normally did, but he couldn’t help it. Not only had it been difficult seeing so much anguish in Mason, it had brought his own pain and loss up from a slight throb to a full-blown heartbreaking ache.

“You okay?” Rig asked and hugged him tighter.

“I’m just tired,” he admitted. It wasn’t a lie; he was tired in his bones, in his head, and in his heart. “How about you? Did you get any sleep last night?”

“I’m good. Why don’t you go take a nap with Mason,” Rig encouraged. “It’s going to be another long night.”

Bobby patted Rig’s chest before pulling free. “I think I’d rather keep myself busy.” He didn’t want to close his eyes and see the beautiful face long lost to him. “I’m going to go take a shower before Mason gets up. Figure out what we’re going to have for supper. I’ll put on a pot of coffee before I go.”

Rig grabbed his hand as Bobby reached for the can of coffee Rig had brought over with the breakfast foods, stopping him. “I can do it.” Rig looked him up and down and then sighed. “Go shower. You look like hell.”

Bobby started to protest, but his entire body ached from head to toe and his thoughts were a jumbled mess of anger and despair. He simply couldn’t find it in him to argue. “You’ll be okay?”

“Jesus, you sound like a mother hen,” Rig grumbled. “Will you just go before I have to bend you over my knee and remind you just who I am? I got this.”

“That’ll be the day,” he snorted in indignation, but turned and silently made his way to the front door. He paused to look back at Mason, at the even rise and fall of his chest and the peaceful look on his face. Bobby looked back up at Rig, who was leaning against the wall to the kitchen. He glared back at Bobby and pointed, a low rumbling warning sound emitting from him. Bobby rolled his eyes, turned, and stepped out, shutting the door behind him.

The sun was bright in the perfectly blue, cloudless sky, and Bobby shielded his eyes from the harsh glare. He could hear the roll of the tide, and somewhere in the distance he heard children laughing, a dog barking. He reached up to pull down his shades, but they weren’t on his head. His footsteps faltered when he remembered it had been dark when he’d made his way here the last time. The darkness had followed him into the little house and stayed with him. Now, the gorgeous, bright day was so out of sorts, it momentarily shocked him. A wave of vertigo rattled Bobby’s head, and his feet froze in their tracks. After all the dark ugly things they’d all encountered overnight and throughout the morning, the afternoon with its bright sun and laughing children seemed wrong. The world had just kept right on spinning, oblivious to what he, Rig, and Mason had been forced to face behind the closed doors and drawn window shades.

But that was the way of it, wasn’t it? He’d learned that after Stephen died. People went on; they went to work, ate, played, breathed, lived. Even when you stood before them, right there in front of them, dead, they just fucking went on, and eventually you did too because life didn’t wait; it just kept on going and going, clicking one moment off the clock after another. Sometimes you could walk among them—hell, you could even manage to begin to live with them and find happiness for a while. But once you’ve felt death, once you’ve had someone who meant the world to you, who you loved and lived for, snatched away in one cruel twist of fate, the darkness that had been buried deep within always came back to visit. It was a constant just as sure and steady as the clicking seconds of time.

Bobby looked back at the house where a big piece of his heart was and a broken boy laid, and it hit him that the good and the bad went hand in hand and in order to truly live, to understand if only for a moment what it meant to be human, one had to experience both. His own experience with that ugly side of life was what brought him here, what compelled him to check on Mason, and it would hopefully give him the power and the understanding to help Mason start living again when it seemed hopeless.

He got his feet moving again and sprinted down the stairs and onto the tree-lined path. Maybe some good would finally come from Stephen’s death.

Bobby was out of breath when he pushed open the door to the bungalow. He wasn’t in the best of shape; he’d gotten… complacent the last few years. Okay, he had gotten a little lazy and cooked a little too much, but dammit…. He pushed the door closed and just barely contained the urge to roll his eyes at himself. He had no excuse but pure laziness for the lack of stamina and pudge around his midsection.

As he made his way through the house, he began to chuckle. He wasn’t the only one who hadn’t liked the idea of leaving Mason and had been in a big hurry to get back. The door hadn’t been closed all the way in Rig’s haste to leave, and each room had more telltale signs. The paper that had been on the coffee table was scattered across the floor of the living room. In the bedroom, clothes hung from open drawers, and still others were strewn across the bed. He burst out laughing when he entered the bathroom. There were wet towels on the floor, Rig’s shaving kit and all its contents spread out on the counter, and he hadn’t even taken the time to let the water out of the sink where he’d apparently been shaving. Rig wasn’t a complete and utter neat freak like Bobby was, whose motto was a place for everything and everything in its place. However, Rig wasn’t normally quite this bad. The disarray was proof of just how out of sorts and panicked the man was. Bobby didn’t blame him in the slightest.

He didn’t even bother with trying to put things to right; instead, he took a shower in record time and padded to the bedroom still dripping wet and drying as he went. He struggled to pull on a pair of tan cargo shorts and a green T-shirt, the material sticking to his wet skin, and he cursed when he realized he’d put the damn shirt on backward.

Bobby tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling and took a couple calming breaths before readjusting the shirt and stomping off to the kitchen, still drying his wet curls. After rummaging through the cupboards and fridge, he found enough ingredients to make a simple meal of spaghetti, and he piled them in a tote bag, grabbed his keys, and left, making sure to pull the door shut behind him and check that it was locked.

“Motherfucker,” he bellowed when he stepped off the porch and his bare feet sunk into the hot sand. “Ow! Shit! Ow! You have got to be kidding me,” he groaned and dashed for the porch and the cool, shaded wood to bring some relief to the burnt underside of his feet. Unlocking the door, this time he didn’t even try to hold it back and rolled his eyes at himself as he slipped into his shoes.

“Alright, old man, calm the hell down. Do we have everything this time?” he asked himself aloud. He was dressed—although he looked as if he’d showered in his clothes—shoes on, dinner makings in hand, keys…. He spotted his wallet sitting next to Rig’s, grabbed them both, shoved them into the side pockets of his shorts, and stepped out again, closing and locking the door behind him—this time with everything and no chance of cooking his feet.

Chapter 9

G
RANT
M
AXWELL
, or Max as he’d been introduced, sat across the kitchen table from Mason with a large smile on his face, showing off rows of perfectly straight and bright white teeth. The expression on the man’s face was open and warm as he continued to ask benign questions about Mason’s job, hobbies, and how he liked the weather this time of year. Mason couldn’t help but shrink just a bit into himself. Max was one hell of an imposing figure. Dark brows, brown eyes, much darker than Mason’s own chocolate brown, so brown in fact they were nearly black. This close, Mason could see the man had recently shaved, but it looked as if he had a perpetual five o’clock shadow on his strong jaw and cleft chin. Max’s black hair was shaved close, and he was big. Like six foot three or four, broad shoulders and kind of huge chest. His biceps bulged, stretching the sleeves of his plain white T-shirt. Mason had met many men throughout his life he’d instantly had been able to identify as Dominant, but Max not only screamed dominance, respect, and power, he commanded a room by his very presence.

“When did you begin to have suicidal thoughts?” Max asked.

Guess the simple questions were over.

Mason shifted in his chair and picked at the label on his soda bottle. “About two days ago,” he answered without looking up.

“And how long ago was it your Doms died?” Max asked gently.

“Just over a month,” he gasped as a jolt of pain hit him in the chest. He hated reliving this over and over.

“And their death is what precipitated the suicide attempt?”

“It wasn’t an attempt,” he said adamantly.

“Okay, I apologize. The
thought
of suicide,” Max corrected.

“I thought about it for couple days, seemed like the only way I could stop the pain. But I didn’t do it.” Mason shifted again and began bouncing his leg as the unease surged through him. “I thought about it, but I didn’t attempt it.” He was proud of how strong his voice sounded, considering he felt so weak inside.

“Do you still feel like you want to hurt yourself?”