Page 84 of Under Cover
Crosby nodded, and then, to Garcia’s horror, two silvery slips of water slid down on either side of his nose.
“Oh, papi,” he whispered. Oh, baby. What they’d done to him—oh hell.
“Just… just stay,” Crosby whispered back. “For a while. Just stay.”
“’Course, Judson.” Garcia snuggled in tighter, mindful of the bruises and the fact that Crosby’s body probably felt like a jigsaw puzzle in a box right now. “God, I missed you.”
“Every minute of every day,” Crosby confirmed, and while his arm relaxed around Garcia’s shoulders, his words held him tight as he dozed off on Crosby’s much thinner chest.
Garcia got up an hour later to put on pajama pants and use the bathroom. Crosby started to thrash around in his sleep before he got back.
Garcia slid next to him again, soothing, calming, making sure his IV was still in place. He paused for a moment to smooth Crosby’s shaggy hair back from his forehead and wondered how soon he’d start demanding to get a haircut, because he usually wore it pretty closely cropped. Not shaved, just tight on the sides and a little longer on top.
Maybe he wouldn’t, Garcia thought, a lump in his throat. It might be hard for that version of Crosby, with his broad chest and his quiet swagger, to emerge from this one, his face still battered from his run-in with McEnany, if Junior’s story was to be believed. But it was more than the long bandage on his arm, the swollen eyes and jaw, the broken nose, the bruises blooming everywhere on his chest—it was that he’d lost maybe forty pounds in the last two months, and he held himself, even in sleep, like he was warding off a blow.
“How bad’s the face?” Crosby asked, startling Garcia because he’d thought Crosby was still sleeping. It was hard to tell. One eye was completely swollen shut, and the other one was just swollen, as was his jaw.
“Remember the end ofRocky?” he joked weakly.
“Which one?”
“Two,” Garcia said promptly, because that was the one where Stallone’s face had looked the worst.
“Ugh, I’m a troll. How can you stand me?”
Garcia laughed softly. “Don’t get all vain on me now, Cowboy. All this humble shit. You gonna tell me that was for show?”
Crosby’s cut and swollen lips twisted. “You can be humble and still want to make a good impression,” he said, and Garcia had to smile, albeit bitterly.
“Impression made,” Garcia whispered. “Or did you think I told just anybody ‘I love you.’”
Crosby made a sound almost like a sob. “God, I was hoping that was real. You wrote it, and I thought, ‘He’s gonna walk that back. I can’t let him. I need that too much.’”
Garcia groaned in embarrassment. “I didn’t want to saddle you with that shit, Crosby. Jesus, how embarrassing—”
“Naw.” Crosby took a happy breath. “It kept me sane. It did. The whole day was a shitshow from first to last. Right up until I woke up here, and you were with me, and I was okay. But those words—if you hadn’t given me those words, I might have given it up before Junior and I got to the street.”
Garcia’s eyes burned. “I love you, Judson Crosby,” he whispered. “I love you when you’re not scaring the hell out of me, but I still love you now.”
“Love you too, Calix. Now would you stop looking at me like I’m dead?”
“Sure.” Garcia took a breath and tried to remember how to treat his lover like he was whole and well. “You know, pretty soon everybody’s going to want to come here to make sure you didn’t die. Really pisses me off that we don’t get no sex between now and then.”
Crosby squeezed his eyes shut and made some rusty hip thrusts on the bed from his prone position. “Yeah. That was it. My sex drive. What a shame.”
Garcia couldn’t help it—he laughed. “You’re shameless.”
“Yeah, well, last time I was home, it was a lot more fun, you gotta admit that.”
“But it was too long ago, baby. You need to be here more so you got the fun and the regular and sometimes even the shitty. I’m told that’s how relationships work.”
“You sound really wise here,” Crosby told him. “Tell me more about relationships. It seems I’m in one.” He grunted. “By the way, Iliana almost blew my cover today to tell me I should go home and get laid. That was great.”
“Oh God. Tell Gail to stop talking to her roommate.”
“You tell her,” Crosby returned acerbically, and then he let out a long sigh. “I miss Elsa. God, I miss everybody. I only get so much out of you on text. You sure I’ll see the unit tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” Garcia took a breath. “We might even convince Toby to come.”
