Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

It was a stunning picture, the cut fruit, bread, and flowers done in a sort of Gothic style that verged on being eerie but didn’t go quite that far.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” I assured him, turning with a smile.

“If I want to sleep with someone else before I get married, is that bad?”

It took me a second, because I was in “admire the art mode” and he dropped me into “camp counselor mode,” and it was a jump.

“Miro?”

I knew why this question was being leveled at me instead of Ian. If he’d asked Ian, Ian would have just called for me. My partner took care of shooting people and saving them. I did the talking.

“Is this a rhetorical question or do you have someone in mind?”

He coughed. “I have someone in mind.”

I nodded. “Okay. Well, if you do it and don’t tell Drake first, then yeah, that’s bad. If you tell him and he’s okay with it, then you’re good.”

“But what if he thinks I don’t love him because I just want to see?”

“Then you explain it to him over and over until he gets it, and if he doesn’t, then you break up.”

“But what if I don’t want to break up?”

“It doesn’t matter what you want if you also want to sleep with other people. Or, just one, as it seems like.”

“Yeah, just one.”

“Even one, though, it’s better that you guys part ways than you cheat on him.”

He didn’t look convinced.

I shrugged. “He might wanna sleep with someone else too.” His eyes got huge. “It goes both ways, right?” I continued. “He may be curious as well.”

“But I don’t want him to sleep with anybody else.”

“You’re both really young, Cab. Neither one of you has ever been with anyone else. It’s natural to wonder, but you can’t be naïve and think you’re the only one.”

He swallowed hard, I heard the gulp, and he looked like he was going to barf.

“Cab?”

“I don’t think I’ve thought this all the way through,” he rasped, his breathing rough.

“Sure,” I said gently, hand on his shoulder. “Because right now you’re thinking about some other guy’s hands all over Drake, but you also have to realize that, that thought can’t be what keeps you in this thing with him. Best thing to do is talk to him about everything and see where his head’s at. For all you know, his headspace could be the same.”

“That he wants to sleep with other people?”

I shrugged. “I know talking’s hard.” I really did. It was a horror at times. “But you have to do it.”

He cleared his throat. “So what time should we come over on Thursday?”

Apparently we were tabling the sex-with-strangers discussion.

“Whenever you want, just not like seven in the morning.”

He smiled wide.

I heard a loud thump and, in the living room, found Drake on the floor looking up at Ian, who was standing over him, arms crossed, looking bored.

“What happened?” I asked, chuckling.

Drake heaved out the words. “I’ve been taking tae kwon do lessons. I wanted to see if I could, you know, take him down.”

Ian’s arched eyebrow was diabolical. “He’s not quite ready yet.”

“To take on a Green Beret,” I teased. “No, probably not.”

“Bring rolls for dinner,” Ian commanded the prone man beneath him.

“Yessir,” Drake agreed, exhaling deeply as Cabot started giggling.

Ian offered his hand and Drake reached for him without hesitation.

Outside on the sidewalk, after reiterating to the boys to not show up at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving, I smiled at Ian.

“What?”

“You were very good with them.”

“I have my moments,” he said, throwing an arm around my neck and pulling me close to him. “And now I just wanna go home.”

“I should call Aruna and ask her to keep Chickie until we get back from Vegas. No reason to bring him back and forth.”

“I agree and that way, you know, we can just go home.”

Home would be good. It was all I wanted, to be there with him alone.

THE HOME part was not to be. We ended up having to go back to the office for Ian’s laptop that we’d both forgotten to have him grab when we were there the first time. It was procedure to leave it at the office whenever he deployed, and it was also required it be in his possession as soon as he returned.

Once we were there, I saw Kage was in his office, which was weird since it was late on a Sunday, and he normally kept his weekends free for his family—except for the times his marshals found themselves in a life-threatening clusterfuck.

Like today.

While Ian checked his e-mail, Kage called me in to talk to him.

“Sir?”

“Jones, I’m flying out to Raleigh in the morning to speak to the family of Carrington Adams.”

This was news. I’d had no idea he’d be the one going. I was surprised that the chief deputy would be involved.