“Hey, boss.” Her eyes wandered to where Connor crouched. “My arm hurts like fucking shit, and I’m checking your boyfriend’s ass out. It’s a really fucking incredible ass. If that’s the last thing I see, I’m totally good with it.”
“Not my boyfriend,” he replied automatically. Her arm looked bad, dangling uselessly from her shoulder. Anything he might have learned from the safety videos Frank forced them to watch each year flew out of his mind, and a cold settled into Forest’s chest. His gums tightened over his teeth from the fear burbling up inside of him, but Forest swallowed the sensation down, forcing himself to focus on the one person he’d come to count on just as much as he’d trusted Frank. “Don’t die on me, Jules. What the fuck am I supposed to do without you? Who’s going to keep me company while I’m waiting for some stupid band to get their shit together to play?”
“Pretty sure your cop counts as company,” Jules snorted, then winced. “I’m not going anywhere. Might pass out, though. It really hurts, Forest. And I can’t die. Who the hell is going to make that man donuts?”
He missed anything else Jules might have said under the scream of emergency vehicles pouring into Chinatown. The thick morning traffic would mean a sluggish response, even if there were somewhere for drivers to pull over in the district’s tiny streets. He tried to remember if the parking lot was empty when he’d come down for his own coffee, but for the life of him, Forest couldn’t recall anything other than Connor’s long, hot body on his back as the cop protected him from the gunfire and the whimpering screech of constant pain coming from the injured around him.
Forest hadn’t really thought about his life until he’d first seen her lying slumped against the café table. Jules—the manager of the Amp—was the only person he really could call friend, and even then, they’d never done anything together other than walk to the street fair every other Saturday to gorge on street food. They sometimes held hands, mostly because she needed help stomping over the uneven cobblestones while wearing high-heeled boots, but he’d welcomed the touch. So few people touched him—other than casual lovers he’d picked up while playing in the studio or subbing in for a live show when someone’s drummer went missing. No, Forest couldn’t remember the last time someone’d just touched him for the sake of it—for the pleasure of feeling their skin glide together.
Other than Connor Morgan. He still burned in the places where that man touched him, and he felt a pang of guilt for having naughty thoughts when he should be focusing on Jules and her pain.
“Hold on, Jules.” He held her hand and squeezed—just like when they held hands and picked at the mounds of exotic fruits, looking for tarantulas or a new flavor to bring into the shop. She’d always returned the light pressure, her nose wrinkling when he reminded her he was gay and couldn’t ever really be in love with her.
Except this time, she didn’t squeeze back.
“YOU HAVE a gun,” Forest mumbled, his words nearly lost in the swaddle of Connor’s leather jacket.
Shock turned the young man’s lips nearly white, his brown eyes burned dark in his pale face. Connor’s thick black leather hung from Forest’s shoulders, making the lean, muscular man seem boyish. When he’d forced his jacket on Forest, Connor’d been taken aback by the power in the man’s arms and chest. Too used to the sheer bulk of his siblings and the other members of his team, Forest’s sinewy musculature proved as much of a shock as the gunfire storm hitting the Amp.
A storm fierce and brutal enough to leave four people dead in its wake.
“I’m a cop. We carry guns,” Connor said. He’d tucked his weapon into the shoulder holster he normally kept hidden under the jacket he’d given Forest to wear. It felt odd to wear it openly—brazenly so—but Forest needed the warmth a hell of a lot more than his Glock. “You okay? I’m going to talk to the inspectors, and then I’ll be right back.”
“I’m okay. I’m just… cold inside.”
Connor got a brief nod from the musician, and the barest of sighs slipped its way out of Forest’s leather cocoon. The blond looked lost and more than a little hurt, even though he’d come out of the fray intact. If one could count surviving the slaughter of innocent people intact.
Connor reminded himself to keep things cool between them. Even as some part of him wanted to take hold of Forest’s shoulders and stop the other man from shaking, Connor kept his arms to his sides. Touching the blond would be a mistake—he just didn’t know what exactly it would do to him, and Connor wasn’t so sure he wanted to find out in front of a sea of blue and badges.
There was barely anything left of the Amp’s dining area and even less of its customers.