Avery Beckett Books

The safehouse smelled like mildew and old cooking oil, which meant it was the same as every other safehouse Finn had ever spent a night in. He’d stopped noticing those smells years ago. What he noticed now was Marc.

Specifically: Marc’s shoulder, three inches from his own, in the dark.

They’d gone to radio silence at twenty-two hundred. Knox and the rest of the team were staged two blocks east, watching the south entrance. Finn and Marc had the rooftop across from the warehouse’s loading dock — a corrugated iron lean-to that the building’s super apparently used for storing broken appliances. A gutted washing machine sat between them and the door. The surveillance window was a six-inch gap in the sheeting. Cold air came through it in a thin, steady blade.

They had been here for four hours. They had, at minimum, three more to go.

Marc shifted. His arm pressed against Finn’s.

Neither of them moved away.

That was the thing about new — about this new, specifically. It lived in the inch between them. In the deliberate non-casualness of contact that should have been casual. Finn had been hyperaware of it for two weeks, ever since the night after the Harwick job when they’d ended up in Marc’s kitchen at two in the morning, and Marc had kissed him like he’d been thinking about it for a long time, and Finn had kissed him back like he had too, which he had.

They hadn’t talked about it. There hadn’t been time. The op had rolled straight into a debrief, into prep, into wheels up.

So now they were here, in the dark and the cold, with their arms pressed together and three hours to go, and Finn’s mind was doing things it had no business doing on a surveillance op.

Marc tilted his head, very slightly, toward Finn’s ear.

“Stop thinking so loud,” he murmured.

“I’m not thinking anything.”

“You’ve checked your sightline six times in the last four minutes. You only do that when you’re restless.”

Finn turned his head just enough to look at him. Marc’s face was a study in patience — relaxed jaw, eyes forward, the absolute stillness that was either his greatest professional asset or the most infuriating thing about him, depending on the day.

“I’m doing my job,” Finn said.

“Mm.” Marc’s arm shifted. It was a small movement, deliberate, and now their forearms were lined up wrist to elbow. “So am I.”

The loading dock was quiet. A light above the south door hummed orange. Somewhere below them, a cat was picking through a dumpster with professional focus.

“Marc.”

“Finn.”

“This is — ” He stopped. Tried again. “We should probably talk.”

“Probably.”

“About — “

“I know what about.”

The cat found something and retreated with it into the dark. The orange light hummed. Finn watched the loading dock and tried to decide what he was trying to say, which turned out to be harder than usual because Marc’s thumb had moved, barely, against the inside of his wrist.

“When we’re back,” Finn said.

“Yeah.”

“I want to — I mean, I’d like to — ” He exhaled through his nose. “I’m not usually this bad at sentences.”

“I know.” And there it was, that low, even warmth in Marc’s voice that Finn had been trying not to think about for two weeks. “You’re usually very good at sentences.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Finn looked at him again. Marc was still watching the loading dock, but the corner of his mouth had moved. Just barely. Just enough.

“When we’re back,” Finn said again, “I want to take you somewhere that isn’t a debrief room or a safehouse.”

Marc was quiet for a moment. Below them, nothing happened at the loading dock. The light hummed.

“Okay,” Marc said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” His thumb moved again. A slow, unhurried stroke. “I’d like that.”

Finn turned back to the window. The cold air came through the gap in steady, even increments. He was aware of everything: the weight of his kit, the seam of the corrugated iron above them, the distant sound of a truck on the road two blocks over, and Marc’s arm against his, Marc’s thumb against his wrist, the four hours already behind them and the three still ahead.

He checked his sightline. Clear.

“For the record,” Marc said, very quietly, “I’ve been thinking about it too.”

Finn didn’t look at him. He was smiling, so he kept his eyes on the loading dock.

“The kitchen,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You planned that.”

A pause. Then: “A little.”

“How long.”

Marc considered this with the same patience he brought to everything, which Finn was beginning to understand was not the same as slowness. It was the patience of someone who knew how to wait for exactly the right moment.

“A while,” Marc said.

The radio clicked twice — Knox, checking in, all clear. Marc clicked back. They settled into silence again, professional and steady, watching the loading dock do nothing.

Another hour passed. Maybe more. The cold deepened. The cat did not return.

Then, below them, a light came on in the warehouse’s upper window — their signal. Thirty minutes to go. Finn reached for his radio, and as he did, Marc caught his hand.

Just that. Just his fingers closing around Finn’s, briefly, in the dark.

Finn went still.

Marc leaned in and pressed his mouth to Finn’s temple — soft and unhurried, the kind of kiss that had no agenda except to say I know, or maybe I’m here, or maybe something that didn’t have words yet because they were still too new for words. His lips were warm against Finn’s cold skin. It lasted only a moment.

Then he let go, and they were both watching the loading dock again, radio in hand, professional and steady.

Finn’s heart was doing something inconvenient.

“When we’re back,” Marc said quietly.

“Yeah,” Finn said. “When we’re back.”