I shook my head because I wasn’t sure how to make him hear me.
“Listen, I don’t fuckin’ care about this right now, we can figure the kid part out later—”
“Ian, I’m not dying to be a father or—”
“Again, this is not my immediate concern,” he said, his voice rising ominously but not yelling, back to pacing. Apparently he was done shouting. “What I do care about is the fact that you are not going to work in Custodial WITSEC, and that’s final.”
I crossed my arms, watching him move back and forth like a caged animal. “Is that right?”
“Oh fuck yeah,” he warned, his voice all steely and honed.
“And why not?”
“I forbid it.”
I wasn’t certain I’d heard him right. “I thought you said you didn’t drink last night,” I challenged, half of me pissed he thought his word had suddenly become law, half of me mollified by knowing all of his bluster had to do with being scared to death that I would get my heart eviscerated every single day. It came from a place of love, but he was being an ass, and I had to get him out of protective mode and back to the rational man I knew.
“What?”
“I thought you said you—”
“I had two drinks to your nine or whatever,” he retorted, the judgment there in his cutting tone. “And what the hell does that have to do with the discussion we’re having right now?”
“Because clearly you’re drunk,” I apprised him, trying for playful, hoping maybe that would work.
“What did you say?” His voice went way up.
“Forbid me?” I repeated, shaking my head like he was nuts. “The hell is with that?”
“Miro.” He huffed a breath like I was trying his patience to no end, jolting to a stop in front of me. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious, and don’t treat me like an idiot.”
“Then please, love, stop acting like one,” he said softly, lulling, his tone, everything, shifting to coaxing, wanting me to hear him, to listen, and using the depth and resonance of his voice to soothe me.
“Ian—”
He shook his head. “You’re not listening to me, and you’re hearing it like an attack, and it’s not,” he said, shivering with the emotion, his hands trembling as he took a deep breath. “Please just listen to me.”
I took a step closer, but he took one back, hand up to keep me away from him as he turned and walked to the bed and sat down before lifting his eyes to me.
“We’re made different. You need more than just me to take care of, and I get that, I do. So when the boys trickled in, as Cabot and Drake got closer because we’re all they’ve got—I was okay with that. When you added Josue last year—again—made sense. But now you’re talking about going beyond the occasional witness pickup to being a surrogate father to hundreds of kids. I just don’t see how that ends well.”
“It won’t be like that,” I assured him, walking over to take a seat beside him. I got close, but I didn’t touch him, unsure if he would want that.
There was resignation now, almost like he was grieving, and honestly, that was worse. The fight in him had drained away, leaving only defeat. I almost preferred the yelling to Ian ever being hurt, and especially by me. “I think you’re being really naïve.”
He was killing me. “Ian—”
As he turned to face me, the sadness in his eyes made my stomach hurt. It hit me then that he was absolutely terrified.
“I’m not gonna leave you.”
He nodded, but I could tell from the response, automatic, that he didn’t believe me.
“Ian—”
“You have to imagine, for a second, what does our family become if you keep trying to add to it? And if you work in Custodial, will I ever see you again?”
“I—”
“No, you really need to think about this now,” he stressed, holding my gaze. “What does you working there do to us?”
It would be the same as what I did now. Yes, the things I did would be different, the people I saw, what I dealt with on a daily basis, but it would still just be me being a marshal. I shook my head. “I truly think you’re making too much of this.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t want anything to come between us. I picked you; I want you. If you persist with this, then you’re telling me that I’m not enough.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I bit off because, all of a sudden, this felt like blackmail. If I didn’t follow him to SOG or wherever else, then he was going to question my commitment to him? It was ludicrous! I was in love with him, but I knew where my strengths lay, and they were not in kicking down doors and arresting people. “Ian, you need to—”