“Edwin,” Tech cried to him.
“It’s okay, just let it happen,” Steele whispered, rubbing his hands up and down Tech’s back. “You’ll feel better after.”
“Oh my god. I’m crying like a damn pussy,” Tech said between hiccups.
Steele couldn’t help but chuckle. He slicked Tech’s hair back and buried his lips just beneath his ear. “You know, as smart as you are, how do you not know what your body is going through right now?”
“What?” Tech asked, easing back to look in Steele’s face, his body flushed from the rush of stress tears, not the steam from the hot shower.
“Come on, that’s enough rinsing. Let’s get in bed.”
Tech tried to hide his face while he dried off. Steele took his hand and guided him back to the bedroom, the comforter still wrinkled and half hanging off the bed from earlier. Steel pulled back the heavy blanket and the sheet, helping Tech get settled underneath before he slid in behind him, pulling him into his chest.
It was dark in the room, quiet except for Tech’s occasional sniffs. “I was in Nahdah, Oman, the first time I fired my rifle at an enemy. We were doing a transport with a couple commanders that had to be escorted to a base in Yemen. We’d quadruple-checked the intel and then double-checked it again. Though we were always safe, I’d been itching for a fight ever since I’d enlisted. I was trained… ready. But it’s not until you’re in the thick of it that you realize your body is never geared for a fight. It acts on instinct. Sure, you can move fast and dodge hits, but the mind is always screaming to survive and it floods your body with what it needs to do just that.
“When we got out of there with our lives, leaving dead men scattered along the deserted road, we got the commanders into the base, and we headed to the nearest empty corner and cried like babies all over each other.”
Tech turned in his arms to face him, a slight frown line between his eyes. “Why? Were you scared? Did you feel bad for killing them?”
“No. None of us felt bad. It was them or us. And the reaction is the body’s way of bringing you down. Technically, they’re called florid tears, infused with endorphins, charged with a kind of calm down cocktail. That’s why I was telling you to let it happen, not fight it. It literally has nothing to do with being a wimp or a pussy. Your amazing brain sent those tears to help blunt the situation and bring you down. We used to call it the battle cry. Whenever it happened to any of us, I just held on to my brother or they held me until it passed. We’d rumble a gruff, ‘Thanks, Jar’ and move on.” Steele grinned, thinking back on it.
“Wow.” Tech stared at him, those beautiful eyes pulling at Steele’s heart every time. “I was trying to let the water calm me, but I felt myself getting more and more wound up.”
Steele kissed Tech’s pouty lips. “The more you fight it, the harder you’ll cry. I bet you feel better now, don’t you?”
Tech waited a few seconds before looking back at him. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“Good.” Steele pulled Tech’s long leg up on his hip and sealed their pelvises together, fitting them together like an erotic jigsaw puzzle. He kissed Tech on his forehead and closed his eyes, sleep claiming them both in a matter of minutes.
Day
It’d been several weeks and he and God were pulling all-nighters trying to tamp down the shit storm that had become their – now delayed – trial after someone tried to knock off their primary witnesses in the case they’d worked on for seven months last year. They’d gotten the dickheads – well, Tech had – that were hired to take the witnesses out, but the DA had to work fast and get the case transferred to another jurisdiction, somewhere out of the powerful kingpin’s reach, before he got that close again. More and more thugs were popping up, trying to find their witnesses, hitting old safe houses. They were getting too close. God and Day didn’t know who was on the inside helping them, but it had to be someone with access to their databases. That was for the cyber crimes department to handle, all God was focused on was keeping his star witnesses safe. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a headache they needed right now, with their wedding only a couple weeks away.
The case was a slam-dunk on the narcotics distribution, but they had two witnesses to testify to six or seven murders, as well. They wanted this guy away for life, not just fifteen to twenty. Of course, the kingpin’s lawyer was fighting the motion for a change of venue.