Without a Net (31 page)

That was a kick to the guts. It made sense, both to preserve their testimony and to reduce the chance of someone tracking Ollie. Killing Travis wouldn’t do these dirty cops much good. If anything, it might remove a big question mark that the lawyers could use in the trials to cast doubt on the entire federal investigation. However, Ollie was the linchpin of the prosecution.

“I…I can’t say I like that, but it’s reasonable,” Ollie said slowly. He wanted Travis to pitch a fit, to protest that they should be together. He wanted some sign that their relationship had been as real and as intense for Travis as it had been for Ollie. It broke his heart to see the relief on Travis’s face when Ollie agreed. “I’m guessing most of these guys will turn on each other.”

Travis nodded. “Probably. Greyson thought the thin blue line would work on either side of the law, but the lawyers have been in and out of their clients’ cells a whole lot. I think there’s already trouble in Greyson’s paradise.”

Ollie felt like they were discussing all the things that didn’t matter and the only topics that mattered lay between them, ignored and neglected. His heart was starving. He wanted to say all of that, but not with an audience, and not when he was so damn unsure of Travis’s reaction now that they weren’t forced into working together. Ollie’s judgment had been compromised by weeks of Milan’s training, so maybe the easy connection between him and Travis had been all on his side.

Nothing was certain. However, looking at Travis, Ollie didn’t know how to say anything important. Their time was slowly slipping past, and the chance to hold on to what they’d had was sliding away with it.

“When this is all over, I’ll buy you a beer,” Travis offered.

“Yeah,” Ollie agreed weakly. That was what you did with an acquaintance, a buddy from work.

“Sleep tight,” Travis said, and before Ollie could say the same, Travis had disconnected the vid.

Ollie slowly put the pad aside before he could do something like throw it against the wall. He’d lost too damn much—his job, his apartment, his life, his damn running battles with Mrs. Dennison over the charging station. He’d lost all of that and managed to deal, but this rejection hurt. Ollie pushed his robe off and climbed into bed. If he slept for long enough, maybe he could make it all go away.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ollie wiped his hands on his jeans and considered his handiwork. The house he’d bought was in a good neighborhood, but it wasn’t exactly well loved. Ollie was covered in white drywall dust from replacing walls. The holes had been mute witness to some sort of domestic violence. Hopefully the holes punched in the walls meant that some person had avoided those same fists.

But Ollie doubted it.

His phone rang, and he wiped his hand again before he reached for it. It had taken him weeks to stop answering the phone with “Detective Robertson,” but he wasn’t a detective anymore. He was officially between jobs and living off the proceeds of a very nice lawsuit; it had bought him this house.

“Hello,” Ollie answered. When he’d still had a protective detail, they’d broken him of the habit of using even his name.

“Well, if it isn’t the boy I haven’t seen around for a while,” a familiar voice teased. Buck. Of all the people Ollie had met on his last case, it was Buck who had made a point of staying in touch.

“Given that you work at a club in another city, it seems like a long commute for a beer,” Ollie quickly said. “How the hell are you?”

“Not bad. I browbeat your address out of Travis, so how would you like some company?”

Ollie went absolutely still. Travis. It had been three weeks since the last trial ended with Kemboi’s conviction. Once Greyson had cut a deal to avoid the death penalty, Kemboi had been the biggest fish left to fry, and Ollie had enjoyed being there for every day of it. But when the trial was over, he had expected to hear from Travis. He’d left messages with Director Sewell letting her know that Travis could have Ollie’s new contact information, but he hadn’t heard a word. Buck’s admission he’d gotten the number from Travis was the first proof Ollie had that Travis had even bothered to look him up.

“Ollie?” Buck asked.

“Yeah. Sure.” Ollie propped the phone between his shoulder and ear, rubbed his hands on his jeans, and then grabbed his phone again. “When?”

“I’m sitting in your driveway, so I thought now might be nice.”

“You’re where?” Ollie hurried to the front window, and sure enough Buck was sitting behind the wheel of a white truck. He waved and got out.

“Unless you’re too busy to see me now,” Buck said after a long and awkward silence.

“No, of course not.” Ollie dropped the curtain and headed to the front door. He was having people come install a heavy-duty security door with bulletproof glass later in the week, but for now, one cracked and creaky front door was all that was between him and Buck—between him and his past life. It felt surreal as he pulled it open.

Buck stood on the porch and smiled. “Sweet house.”

“It’s a fixer-upper, but that gives me something to do.” Ollie gestured toward the building supplies stacked up against the wall on the far side of the living room. His only furniture right now was a folding table, two chairs, and a television propped on an old stool. It wasn’t a palace.

“Yeah, nothing worse than boredom. I got myself in the worst trouble when I didn’t have anything to keep me busy.” Buck pulled out one of the folding chairs and sat. “So how are you holding up?”

“I have a psychiatrist I see every three months and a psychologist who tells me how emotionally flexible and resilient I am.”

“And what do you say?”

Ollie sighed. He’d forgotten how intense Buck’s stare could be. “I say I’m doing okay generally, with bouts of absolute insecurity and other days when I forget that I’m even screwed up. So I think I’m feeling normal.”

“Happy?” Buck still had that intense stare going, and Ollie shifted uncomfortably. The fact that one of Travis’s friends was asking didn’t make this easier.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug.

Buck narrowed his eyes.

Ollie defended his answer. “My life has been stuck in neutral for a while. There’s not much to be ecstatically happy about.” He walked over to the other folding chair and sat. “So why are you here? And don’t tell me you were in the neighborhood.”

“Wasn’t going to. I’m trying to figure out if you’re as miserable as Travis before I decide whose ass needs kicking.”

“Travis is miserable?” The second the words came out, Ollie hated the horror in his voice. He shouldn’t feel horror. He shouldn’t feel anything when it came to Travis. Travis didn’t care enough to call, and Ollie couldn’t stop wanting the man to be happy. There was something dysfunctional in that, even if Ollie’s psychologist told him he was processing his emotions normally. What did that man know about normal? He had a pet capybara in his office.

“Travis is a fucking mess,” Buck said.

Ollie crossed his arms over his chest. “Good.”

Buck gave him one look and snorted. “If you were glad for it, I’d go back, tell Travis to get his head out of his ass and move on. Then I’d aggravate him into taking a whip to my backside until he felt better.”

Ollie ignored the hot bolt of jealousy over the idea of Buck and Travis together in a scene.

“But you’re as miserable as him, so that probably means you two need to talk to each other.”

“He’s had his chance to call me,” Ollie said. He even managed to shove all the hurt down into a corner of his heart so he sounded firm and not whiny and insecure about it.

“And he couldn’t call for all those months of the trial. He got his head on so backward he went back to stay with Milan, and let me tell you, we all worried about how that would go. But it’s been so long since Travis could talk to you that he’s turned around about whether he should. If you want something, you have to let him know. He’s twisting himself up trying to do the right thing here, trying to respect your wishes,” Buck said.

“I don’t know what I want,” Ollie said. He wished to erase large swaths of his past, but he’d be happy if Travis showed up at his door with a six-pack and an offer to fuck him. Ollie wanted to walk down the street and not wonder if the cop driving by was dirty. And he had no idea which of those were actual wants and which were his personal demons haunting him. He was fairly sure the fear that all local cops were dirty was imagination.

Buck gave him a worried look. “That sounds healthy.”

Ollie offered up a crooked and grim smile. “Yeah, that’s me. I’m real healthy,” he said sarcastically. “My shrink even says so. How many people are on a first-name basis with a shrink who can guarantee they aren’t absolutely fucking nuts?”

For a long time Buck stared at him. It was so long that Ollie started mentally calculating square feet for new carpeting. “Your sarcasm is showing,” Buck eventually said.

“Yeah, it has been for a while.”

Ollie was focused on the far wall, so when Buck grabbed his wrist in a firm hold, Ollie jumped. “Shit!”

“Tell me, what do you want?” Buck asked. Ollie pulled at his hand, but Buck was too damn strong.

“I want to go back to before—back to when I was blissfully ignorant,” Ollie blurted. Buck released him, and Ollie nearly tipped over backward in his chair before he could right himself.

“Ignorant about yourself, or are you trying to forget Travis?”

Ollie felt that like a good swift kick to the nuts. Did he want to forget Travis? Sometimes. Forgetting him would be easier than missing him. “Thanks for pulling your punches,” Ollie said drily.

“Screw that. Nothing gets solved without honesty. So, which is it?”

“Both,” Ollie said. “Maybe. I don’t know. Fuck.” He stood and headed for the columns that divided the living room from the tiny dining room. They were solid wood, and sometimes Ollie fantasized about being tied to them. But then in his dreams, sometimes that fantasy twisted into a nightmare where Greyson tied him between the two columns. The silence got to be too much, so Ollie finally admitted, “I used to be able to go to control clubs and take the edge off, and now…”

“You went and didn’t get your rocks off?” Buck asked with sympathy in his voice.

“Something like that. Some Dom with a contract fetish might have called me a dysfunctional shithead who tried to top from the bottom.” Ollie laughed. The last thing he wanted was to top, from the bottom or otherwise, but this guy couldn’t find his way to Ollie’s libido with a map and a flashlight. He didn’t trip a single trigger, and some of the things he’d done should have had Ollie hard and aching.

“He was an asshole,” Buck said dismissively.

“Worse, he was right,” Ollie said miserably.

Buck rocked back in his chair. “Sometimes the head gets rewired and you can’t go back.”

“Yeah, but I don’t particularly want to hang out at the Happy Whip. The first time some guy I don’t know wants edge play, I might pull a gun. I’m a little twitchy.” Ollie knew that made him sound like he was mentally unstable, but honestly, his psychologist trusted him more than Ollie trusted himself. Edge play might be fun with someone like Milan or Travis or Buck, who proved they had control over themselves, but Ollie was painfully aware the world of shade Doms had just as many twisted bastards who dressed abuse up in the guise of submission and fucked with people’s heads. What happened to Anthony Reeves proved that. He was a big man, and a man claiming to practice shade Domming had held him captive and tortured him for months. Ollie couldn’t risk it.

“Which leaves you caught in the middle,” Buck said softly.

“And leaves me horny,” Ollie added. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You talk to your shrink about this?”

Ollie laughed. “He says I have to give myself permission to be fucked-up.”

“Well, that’s one way to look at it.” Buck let the front legs of his chair hit the floor hard. “Personally I think you’re in love.”

“What?” Ollie yelped. Oh, no. No fucking way was Buck pulling out that word. That was like bringing a nuclear weapon to a knife fight.

“You heard me. Don’t play stupid.”

“There’s no way. Nope.” Ollie shook his head as if that could push the possibility away. Love wouldn’t hurt this damn much.

“Really? Because Travis is looking like someone shot his dog, and you’re in so much pain you can’t even say it out loud. And Milan seems to think you two not only matched kinks, but that you trusted each other.”

“It’s not like that,” Ollie said.

“Huh. So, you trust Travis, he trusts you, you have mutual kinks that make you happy, and you’re miserable without each other.” Buck ticked each item off on his fingers. “Yeah, can’t be love. What was I thinking? I mean, just because he’s tearing himself apart with guilt and his first thought after a firefight was to check on you, that doesn’t imply that he cares about you.”

“He didn’t check on me at all!” Ollie snapped.

Buck drew in a quick breath. “Is that what you think?”

“I was there.”

“So was I,” Buck shot right back. “The paramedics whisked you away because your blood pressure was up, and then the field commander ran interference between us and the van. Travis got so aggressive the asshole threatened to handcuff him. Travis finally went haring off to arrest Milan because if he didn’t do something, he was going to explode and possibly kill one of his own guys to get to you. He was totally out of control, and he hated himself for it.”

Ollie didn’t want to hear any of this. He had built a mental category where he put everything he believed about Travis, and this didn’t fit in the Travis-shaped box in his head. “Seriously, stop.”

Buck looked at him with disgust. “I never thought you were a coward.”

“Excuse me? Fuck you.” Ollie leaped to his feet. “You know what? Just fuck you.”

Buck leaned back and grinned at him. “I’ll leave that to Travis. But if you don’t pull your head out of your ass and do something, that won’t happen. People think love is some cute baby in diapers with a toy bow and arrows. Let me tell you, love is a badass fucker in leather, and he’s a hard-core sadist to boot. The man doesn’t fire arrows; he launches intercontinental missiles. Love is scary as hell, but man up and deal with it.”