Love Me Again (Stonewall Investigations Blue Creek 1)

“I wouldn’t say all that.”

Charlie laughed, moving closer into me. I made sure not to press against his shoulder too much, knowing that it would hurt him.

“I get what you mean,” he said. “And it does make me feel a little better. Not a whole lot, but better.”

Charlie found the perfect nook on my shoulder to rest his head. It was comfortable, and it threw me right back to the old days. As nineteen-year-olds, when we’d come up here for a weekend and do the exact same thing. Charlie had always loved resting his head on my shoulders, always said they were the perfect headrests for him.

“You have really good shoulders,” he said, and I couldn’t help but smile so wide my cheeks hurt. “They’re like perfect for this.”

“I’ve been told.” The next action came without thought. I craned my head a bit and kissed the top of Charlie’s. “By you, actually.”

We fell into a few moments of loaded quiet, the romance of the night slowly being leeched by the talk of murder and suspects. I mulled over the question Charlie had posed, wondering who had the biggest motive to push him to his death.

“Could it be Hank?” Charlie suggested, breaking the silence. “Maybe something went wrong with whatever we were doing. With our ‘Operation Rome’… Austin—” He sat up, the weight of his head no longer a comfort. “What if it’s me and Hank that were doing something bad? What if Hank wanted to get rid of me because I turned into a liability for some reason?”

“That’s impossible,” I said, immediately shooting down his idea. “I’m over a hundred percent sure that you weren’t involved in running a sex-trafficking ring. I would never even entertain that theory for a second.”

“Right, I agree on that, but what if Hank and I were doing something else? Something criminal adjacent?”

I shook my head. Even though my instinct as an investigator was to consider all the possibilities, no matter how out-there they seemed, I just couldn’t bring myself to think Charlie had his hands involved in some criminal activities that were big enough to get a hit out on him. It didn’t make sense, and I wasn’t going to give it my energy.

“What’s more likely, considering the surveillance information and the cherry picker, was that you were trying to bust someone else. I just need to find out who. I already scouted out the location you were found at; nothing. Just an abandoned road. ”

Charlie exhaled. He moved so that he could drape a leg over mine. It felt like coming back home, even though we were miles away. I realized then that a large wall I had built between us seemed to have crumbled the moment we started kissing tonight. I didn’t realize it in the moment, but a domino had fallen, and my heart no longer felt gripped by thorny vines.

We lapsed into more silence. This time it was an easy kind of silence, broken only by the sounds of us getting more comfortable on the couch, the fire beginning to die down but still washing us in warmth. The combination of Charlie snuggled against me and the sounds of the fire eating away at the logs made my eyelids grow heavier and heavier.

“Thank you,” Charlie said in a soft voice. Sleep must have been knocking on his door, too.

“For what?”

“For coming back.”

I didn’t answer with words. Nothing would really be sufficient. There was so much loaded into that short exchange, so much honesty and truth and pain and relief. Yes, I had come back, but it was at the cost of losing Dean—my other half. And although I could never, never, be happy about how my Dean was taken from this world, I found that I could be happy in the days after, in the waves of change that his death brought crashing onto my shores. There was a time when I was sure I’d never be happy again. The bleak and empty nights were filled with tears, crying until I couldn’t cry anymore. I’d be holding on to an old shirt of his and wishing, praying, shouting that he’d come back, that I wouldn’t only have a piece of unwashed fabric to remember him by, only to be completely spent the next day so that I could start the cycle anew once night fell. I refused to sleep in my own bed for months, sleeping on the couch instead. It would keep me from turning over and expecting to see him.

All of that excruciating pain led me to think that the world had nothing else to offer. That I had nothing and would never have anything ever again.

But I came back to Blue Creek, and Charlie was back in my arms, and I wasn’t in constant pain anymore.

I should be thanking Charlie. Instead of saying anything, though, I answered him with another kiss on his head and a tighter hold on his body. I wasn’t sure how long it was after that exchange, but before the fire dwindled down to embers, my eyes shut, and for once in what felt like years, I didn’t have any nightmares, only dreams.