Page 27 of Under Cover
“I know you did. But it’s good to know our unit has ours.”
Garcia nodded and cast him a grin. “Do they have our back enough to let us stop for food? I’m starving.”
Crosby laughed a little because Garcia had embraced being the guy everybody either fed or ate with to keep company, and he kept his arm over those shoulders, staying close to that tight, muscular, compact body.
Garcia didn’t move away. Crosby’s insides were shaky from the terrible, terrible confrontation, from the fear of facing an opponent unarmed, and from the sheer awfulness of the morning.
Garcia’s warmth gave him hope.
Gail and Manny wandered over, and he dropped the arm, keeping it casual, just as Gail said, “For God’s sake, Crosby. I’ll give you a fucking key. If you’d been sleeping onmycouch, we could have let NYPD take care of this.”
“NYPD might have fucked it up,” Manny Swan said. “I mean—” He swallowed, trying, Crosby suspected, to be loyal to both units, and then flashed a quick grin at him. “—I trust Crosby to get those girls out more than my old unit mates, you know?”
“Carlyle made the shot,” Crosby reminded them as they turned away from the grim reminder of the worst part of their job.
“Yeah, but you kept his attention,” Carlyle said, joining him. Harding and Natalia were still working cleanup, and as a unit, they moved through the cemetery to their vehicles, waiting where they’d been parked.
“But,” Garcia added, lest they all forget, “can we get back to feeding me?”
“Sure,” Carlyle said. “But if we don’t bring Chadwick back some breakfast, that asshole’s so thin he may fly away.” There was a brief moment of quiet laughter. No, what had just happened was never going to be okay—and it was never going to be better. But if the team could huddle together for animal warmth, keeping their psyches grounded and as steady as they could get in their companionship, then that was going to have to hold them.
It was going to give them hope.
Miracles and Missed Moments
CHRISTMAS SEEMEDto hit them all differently.
Gid and Joey both had family—one in Philadelphia, the other in Boston. They both took three days off in the hope that nobody did anything bad and they wouldn’t have to be called back. Gail’s folks lived down in Norfolk, and she got a week.
Natalia had kids, and she lived in upstate, so she was off from three days before Christmas until the day after when she came in to relieve Harding. Same with Manny, except he took the train from Brooklyn.
Harding apparently sprang from a mushroom and answered to nobody because he volunteered to man the helm, do paperwork, and get quietly snockered after his official time on the clock was called—or at least that’s what Garcia supposed.
Garcia’s folks had moved to Florida with most of his family, but he didn’t visit often. He’d grown up in New Jersey and had loved visiting his Nana and Pop-Pop in Queens. Florida didn’t have the same vibe.
Besides, he wasn’t out to his parents and had no intention of ever being out to his parents and would as soon not sit through any more of his mother’s dinners while she told him he should find a nice girl and settle down.
And Crosby’s folks were in New Mexico, which left the three of them—Crosby, Harding, and Garcia—to settle in for a long, quiet day at the office, drinking eggnog, playing poker, and eating… well, eating a shitload of sugar. So much so that Garcia was wondering who did takeout on Christmas, because he was going to need some protein, dammit!
Crosby and Harding seemed to have a curious big brother/little brother relationship, and Garcia was pleased to see that warmth extended to himself. They took turns telling stories—Harding talking about his deployments overseas and some missions he’d run with some absolutely crazy assholes, in Garcia’s opinion. There was a guy named Lee Burton who figured big in a lot of his stories, as well as a Colonel Constance—Garcia heard enough absolutely batshit things about the two of them to wonder if they were real.
“So, that’s true?” Crosby asked, incredulous at the last story, which had the two men working a secret military op to recover homemade serial killers from the wilds into which they’d been released.
Harding lifted his shoulder. “Far as I know. That’s where Constance ended up, last I heard. Burton followed him. I guess Burton figured the whole thing out in the first place. Something to do with a target who became his boyfriend.” Harding smiled softly. “Sounds like a fairy tale, I know, but those are good to believe in sometimes.”
Garcia nodded, but inside he was thinking,He knows guys in the military—badasses—who have boyfriends. Maybe I can come out. Maybe it’s okay.
And the thought was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. He glanced at Crosby, who was frowning at his phone.
Crosby looked up and said, “Boss—so many questions. But my folks are calling. Gotta go be the good son, right?”
Harding nodded, giving a lopsided grin, and Garcia shook his head. He’d called his folks that morning, said a cursory hello to his sisters and their kids, and had then rung off, desperate to escape to this quiet man cave where they could play poker and tell stories and watch the snow fall from the big office window.
Something about Crosby’s pained grimace when he answered his phone told Garcia Crosby had it worse.
He hadn’t realized he’d followed Crosby across the office with his eyes until Harding said softly, “They keep begging him to come back to live near them. It’s hard on him, but I think he really likes it here.”
“He does,” Garcia said without a doubt. “I… I think he misses Chicago.”