Reading Time: 111 Minutes

Title: Love Can Heal, Loving Can Mend Your Soul
Author: Bythia
Fandom: 9-1-1: Lone Star
Genre: Contemporary, Pre-Relationship, Romance
Relationship(s): Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Michelle Blake bashing, Discussion of Canon Addiction, Discussion of Canon Schizophrenia
Beta: starlitenite, librarycat9
Word Count: 123,500
Summary: On Iris’s birthday three years after she went missing, Carlos reaches the end of his rope with Michelle’s behavior. Complaining about it to a friend has much more far-reaching consequences than he could have anticipated.
Artist: librarycat9

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Chapter 01

Carlos rubbed a hand over his face as he stared at the display of his laptop and contemplated rejecting the incoming video call. Tony and he had a standing date once a month to discuss whatever movie they had agreed to watch, and usually, it was a welcome distraction from everything else going on in his life. Today, though, Carlos only felt exhausted.

Eventually, Carlos accepted the call and forced a smile on his face. The least he should do was apologize to Tony in person about blowing him off this month without any notice.

“You look like shit,” Tony said with a deep frown. “What happened? Did you get hurt on a call?”

Carlos shook his head. “I’m just really tired. I’m not up for talking movies tonight. Or for anything, really. I’m sorry I didn’t text you earlier to cancel. I completely forgot which day it was until you called.”

Tony leaned forward and stared at Carlos intently. “Tell me what happened, please. You look like you need someone to talk to.”

“I…” Carlos bit his lip, and then he leaned back with a deep sigh. “Iris’ birthday was two weeks ago.”

“Oh.” Tony sighed, and the frown on his face was replaced by deep sadness. “Those dates tend to be hard. I’m sorry I didn’t think about that.”

Carlos shook his head. “That’s not even … It’s hard, yeah. I wish she was here, or that I’d at least know … you know? But what’s going on is Michelle and her … I don’t know how long I can still do this. I don’t want to do it anymore, but I’m completely ignored every time I ask Dispatch not to send me when Dustin calls about her. And the worst part? I had a friend look into the records. She only bothers Dustin when she knows I’m on shift! There hasn’t been a single call from Dustin in the last three years when I wasn’t on shift.”

Tony lowered his gaze. “I think I’ve missed something. Or more likely, that you haven’t told me everything there is to know.”

Carlos flinched just a little. He had very deliberately not told Tony anything about Michelle and her antics because he had a good idea how Tony would react. He had met Tony during his last semester while working on his bachelors, when he still hadn’t been sure which direction he wanted to go. Following his father into law enforcement despite his very strained relationship with his parents had been the only thing Carlos had been sure about, but there had been different paths for that.

One of his professors had invited Tony to be a guest lecturer while he was in town. A question Carlos had asked during Tony’s lecture had somehow led Tony to seek him out later for a follow-up conversation. It had turned from the subject of the lecture to Tony’s own experiences in law enforcement, from starting out as a police officer in Peoria, to becoming a Detective and working undercover, to joining NCIS and later the FBI. It had helped immensely when Carlos had needed to decide where to go. Tony had kept in contact when he had returned to Washington DC, and they had slowly built a friendship through regular video calls and much less regular visits.

Tony knew how to bend the rules if it was necessary, but he also had a very firm set of boundaries he wouldn’t cross. It was something Carlos tried to emulate, and Michelle more than anything else was constantly testing those boundaries. Lately, it felt as if she was forcing him to break them. When Dispatch sent him to detain Michelle and escort her away from Dustin’s property and then every time also ordered him to let her go, it seemed as if no one in this town felt any responsibility to protect Dustin from something that could probably already be called stalking.

“Talk to me,” Tony said softly.

“I told you that Dustin got a restraining order against Michelle because she wouldn’t stop harassing him, right?” Carlos said. “And that she wasn’t impressed with that at all.”

Tony raised his brows and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “That was more than a year ago, I think.”

“A little more than a year and a half,” Carlos agreed.

He sighed deeply. A year after Iris had gone missing, he had made a decision for himself that he needed to move on. And that had included clearing out Iris’ condo and cleaning it up so he could rent it out. Carlos hadn’t been able to sell it, still hoping that despite everything he knew about missing person cases—especially missing women—she would eventually turn up alive and healthy and might want her condo back. He didn’t see how he’d ever stop holding onto it. Even the rent the condo earned was placed in a separate account, sitting there and waiting for Iris to return, only used if anything needed to be fixed in the condo itself.

Michelle and Theresa had not understood his decision and had both raged against him, arguing repeatedly that he had no right to make those decisions. Sometimes he even felt they were right, but Iris and he had never gotten around to taking care of the divorce, and so legally he had every right to take care of her possessions because if she was eventually declared dead, they would become his possessions. So he had ignored Michelle’s complaints for once and done what he thought to be right.

It had caused Michelle to spiral, and brought up all her anger and suspicion against Dustin again. Carlos felt bad for Dustin, and he had been relieved when Dustin had finally gotten a restraining order. It had been granted without any problem, mostly because Michelle had made a scene in front of Dustin’s old school, which cost him his job and had gotten Michelle in trouble with several parents because they perceived her as a danger to their children.

“She doesn’t care about it at all,” Carlos said finally. “And she never has.”

“The fines must be piling up for her then,” Tony said, his brows raised. “I’m surprised she hasn’t been sent to jail yet for repeated violation of a restraining order.”

Carlos wet his lip. “That’s the thing. It’s … She keeps harassing him. Especially on or around days like Iris’ birthday. Their mother’s birthday, their father’s birthday, or any other important day for their family. As long as it’s a day I’m on shift, apparently. And Dispatch keeps sending me there. They tell me to escort her from the premises and then let her go. There isn’t a single official arrest on file for her. The reports I produce are … filed away and ignored. My request to be kept away from calls involving Michelle has been completely ignored. I looked into it last week because I am so damn fed up with her.”

“So, someone is keeping her record clean and protecting her?” Tony asked darkly.

“Yeah, and it’s bullshit! Dustin was cleared of any suspicion. There is no sign of any crime involved in Iris’ disappearance. For all we know she just decided to leave her old life behind and take nothing with her. It’s not something I’d have ever expected from the Iris I knew, but sometimes people change. Or maybe she was abducted as Michelle suspects and is long dead, but forensics went through Dustin’s house, his car, Iris’ car because it was found in front of his house, and found no trace of any kind of crime at all. And still, Michelle keeps harassing Dustin, and apparently, he has no recourse to protect himself at all.”

Carlos had been trying for two years now to convince himself that Iris had left to search for another life. It was the best of the possible scenarios that may have happened. It might be completely out of character for Iris, but it was still the only possibility Carlos wanted to believe in. As long as he didn’t have proof of anything else, it was what he was holding onto, what he hoped for.

“And neither do you,” Tony said.

Carlos sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t even mind at first. I thought, at least I’d be careful with her, and she never resisted me arresting her. If I arrested her, I could make sure she wouldn’t get hurt. Who knows how she’d behave with strangers, right?”

Tony nodded and waved a hand, encouraging Carlos to go on.

“I don’t know what changed the week before last,” Carlos muttered, turning his gaze away from the laptop and trailing his eyes through his living room without looking at anything specific. “Something … I was sad because it was Iris’ birthday. I had … I hadn’t had a shift that day in the last two years, you know? I made sure I wouldn’t have to work. But I decided this year that I couldn’t … I can’t have this dictate my whole life, right?”

Tony smiled. “No, you really can’t. And I’m sure whatever happened to Iris, she wouldn’t want you to put your life on hold like this.”

Carlos nodded. He kept telling himself that, but somehow it was difficult to remember whenever he spent any time with Michelle. “So, I was working and hating myself a little bit for it. And then I had to go and arrest Michelle. And when she was sitting in the back of my car and I’d just told her she couldn’t go on like that, she asked me to let her out at the 126 so she wouldn’t be too late for her shift.”

Tony stared at him, his gaze lowered and his mouth hanging open slightly.

“I told her I’m not an Uber, but I still drove her to work,” Carlos murmured. “And I felt … I don’t know.” He had felt nauseous and unsettled for the rest of the day, but he didn’t know if that was something he wanted to discuss with Tony in detail. “I think something just broke. And then, just a couple of days ago, she invited me to lunch just to tell me that one of Dustin’s neighbors had just told her they saw Iris leave Dustin’s house and get into a blue pickup truck the night she vanished.”

“And why did that neighbor suddenly talk to her?” Tony asked skeptically.

“She helped his child,” Carlos said. “Aside from working for the AFD she volunteers with an organization that provides medical care for anyone who needs it but can’t afford it. I think she had helped that little boy originally when she was there on Iris’ birthday, and then the family called her when the problem got worse. And the father was so grateful that he finally told her what he’d witnessed three years ago and never told anyone.”

Tony nodded slowly. “So, probably not an outright lie. Still possible he misremembers. It was dark, right? That truck could have easily been any color. Did he at least get a partial license plate number?”

Carlos shook his head. “And still remember it three years later? I’d trust that even less than the color.”

“True,” Tony agreed. “Especially if he didn’t see anything suspicious in those events at the time. No reason to remember anything about it. And now what, does she expect you to find that truck?”

“She didn’t say that, but she heavily implied it.” Carlos rolled his eyes. “I think I’m pretty good at reading her intentions without Michelle having to ask for anything.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That she’d have more luck going to a curandera than to the cops,” Carlos said. “I don’t need to look the list up to know there are thousands of pickup trucks registered in Austin.”

Tony stared at him with an unmoving face. “Are you going to look that list up for her?”

“No!” Carlos said emphatically. “Of course not! I’m not … I have no business poking at that investigation, and Michelle has no business seeing a list of registered vehicles at all. I’m not enabling this madness!”

“But you have in the past,” Tony said with raised brows. “When you didn’t go through with arresting her for violating Dustin’s restraining order.”

Carlos flinched. “Yeah. And I … don’t even have an excuse for it. I thought someone else would take care of it.”

“And someone is, just not in the way they should,” Tony said darkly. “You said there is barely any record of Michelle breaking the restraining order?”

Carlos nodded. “I looked that up instead of the list of trucks. Called a friend at Dispatch to look up calls from Dustin. And I’m just … I’m so done, Tony. But I don’t know what to do!”

“Have you talked with a superior about it?” Tony asked.

“Not this time,” Carlos said slowly. “I have talked about being sent to arrest Michelle repeatedly, and that it shouldn’t happen as legally I’m still her brother-in-law. I’ve told various people up the chain of command at least a dozen times that I’m uncomfortable being sent on these calls. Last time my Captain told me to just suck it up and that politics are what they are.”

Tony scowled. “You know, that’s pretty much the reason why I left Peoria. And Baltimore.” He took a deep breath. “And NCIS, more or less. I hate this kind of thing!”

Carlos made a face. “I’m not sure leaving would be the best option for me.”

Tony smiled and shook his head. “We are quite different in that regard. It’s never been difficult for me to make a new life in a new place when the mood struck, or if it became necessary. But then, I didn’t have anything resembling a family back then.”

“How is your family?” Carlos asked with a bright grin, glad for the opportunity to divert their conversation. He didn’t expect any kind of advice from Tony, and maybe he would feel a little lighter in the morning just because he had been able to get all of it off his chest.

Tony laughed. “Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing. Henry has had his first date. Though, we are of course not allowed to call it that. I’d never realized how heartbreaking it is to see my children grow up and reach all these milestones. Soon enough he’ll leave for college.”

“That’s still six years out,” Carlos reminded him, amused. “And even longer for Michael and Clarice.”

Tony huffed. “Time flies when you have kids. It’s just … Sometimes it feels like only yesterday that JJ came home with Henry. Will agrees with me by the way, that our children are growing up too fast. JJ is just laughing at us, but I’m positive she complains to at least Penelope and Spencer about the exact same thing! She just doesn’t want to admit it to us!”

“Was JJ home for that first date?”

Tony nodded. “Thankfully. I know she’d have hated to miss it. She insisted on being the one to drive Henry to the cinema and then she took the two kids out to dinner afterward. Henry was very embarrassed about that last part, but Sophie has been here to spend time with him after school, so clearly she was neither thrown by JJ’s mother henning, nor by Henry’s unusual family situation. We are very happy for him, even if Will keeps arguing twelve is too young for a first girlfriend.”

“If Henry said it’s not a date, then there is no girlfriend,” Carlos said with raised brows.

Tony huffed and rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen them!”

Carlos grinned and folded his arms on the table, leaning forward. “I mean, maybe they’ll just turn out to be best friends. Doesn’t have to be their first great love. I was a little older when I met Iris, but we hit it right off despite her being two years older, and everyone thought we would eventually end up dating.”

“And you married her,” Tony said with raised brows.

Carlos shrugged. “Henry won’t have any reason to try to get back in your good graces with something like that. He won’t need to wait until college to meet people who show him it’s okay to be who he is. He’s growing up surrounded by good role models, and not even just you, JJ, and Will.”

Tony smiled sadly. “How is the situation with your parents?”

Carlos shook his head. “We’ve talked about my sad life enough. You wanted to tell me about your family! Tell me more about this Sophie. Or tell me about Michael and Clary. Or Will and JJ.” He’d much prefer to hear something about a family who was happy together rather than think about his own.

***

Carlos froze in his tracks when his doorbell rang, turning his head to look at the clock. It was too early for TK to be here. TK was working until 11 pm because he was filling in for an injured firefighter on shift. He hadn’t signed up for the whole shift though, only stepping in until someone else would be available and shouldn’t be here for another hour.

Carlos shook his head as he hurriedly closed the buttons of his shirt and ran down the stairs. Maybe TK had been able to leave early after all, though Carlos had to hope he wouldn’t mind watching him cook in that case. He needed the hour he should still have to finish their meal even if the prep work was mostly finished.

“Hey, I…” Carlos stopped and blinked. “Tony?”

Tony raised his brows and Carlos could feel Tony’s gaze trailing down his body. “You were evidently expecting someone else.”

“Should I have expected you?” Carlos asked.

Tony chuckled. “No, that’s true. I very deliberately did not tell you I was coming to Austin because I wasn’t sure if it would work out.”

Carlos shook his head. “Come in.”

“I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

“You can help me cook,” Carlos said. “TK should be here in an hour. Enough time for you to explain why you’re here.”

“TK?” Tony asked grinning. “I don’t remember you mentioning a TK. New boyfriend?”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “I don’t tell you about every single one of my hook-ups. And so far, that’s the only thing that’s happened between TK and me.”

Tony walked to the table and inspected the place settings Carlos had laid out, then turned to the kitchen to look at the chaos there. “That ‘so far’ will change tonight, judging by this.”

Carlos bit his lip. “I’d be open to that, I think. I mean, for a new friendship at least. Not sure what TK will think about that yet, but I’d just be happy with a calm conversation before we fall into bed again. If we make it to the bed this time.”

Tony laughed. “So, a really hot hook-up, huh?”

Carlos grinned bashfully as he felt himself blush. “Burning hot. Physically we just clicked, and I think we would in other ways as well.”

“If you took the time to talk and not just fuck,” Tony said with an amused grin. “Tell me where you need help with the cooking. And then tell me how you met.”

“The fish in the fridge is mostly prepared and needs to go in the oven as soon as it’s seasoned. The recipe is lying around over by the sink.” Carlos pointed in the right direction. “We met on a call actually. He’s a firefighter. They finally managed to put together a new A shift for the 126 and have reopened the house.”

“How long has it taken for the city to arrange that? Eight months?”

Carlos nodded and sat down at the table, content to let Tony take over his kitchen. “No one local wanted to touch it, as far as I know. There were even some voices demanding the house be closed for good and made into a memorial.”

Tony made a face. “Losing a whole shift in that kind of accident is always a tragedy, but that seems a little extreme. Where are your spices? What happened to the B and C shift of that house for the last eight months?”

“Cupboard to your right.” Carlos sighed. “And I’m not sure about the other two shifts, Michelle hasn’t talked much about any of it, and she is my closest contact in the AFD. I think at first, they were spread out through the city because the 126 had also lost both the engine and the ladder truck. But I’ve seen both vehicles on calls for at least four months now. I think they may have wholesale worked out of another station, sharing the space with the shift of that station.”

Tony huffed. “So, the coverage they provide is clearly needed in that part of Austin.”

Carlos shrugged. “I’m not privy to the inner workings of the AFD. Fact is, the 126 is open again and A shift is almost completely staffed with firefighters from out of town—out of state even. TK and his father, the new Captain of A shift, are from New York. The rest I’m not sure about.”

“It’s Michelle’s shift, isn’t it? Hasn’t she talked about her new colleagues?”

Carlos sighed. “EMS and firefighters don’t work on the same shift in Austin, but I think she does work with them more often than not. And no. She doesn’t share very much. She isn’t very interested in my life either.”

“You need other friends around here,” Tony muttered.

“I have other friends!” Carlos protested.

“Then you need to spend more time with those friends! And a lot less time with Michelle,” Tony stated firmly. “Her problems dealing with the disappearance of her sister are not your concern!”

“I owe it to her, though,” Carlos muttered.

Tony put down the can he was holding with a loud thud as he turned to Carlos and stared at him with a deep frown. “Come again?”

Carlos sighed. “If I had spent more time with Iris in the months before she went missing, maybe I could have changed something.”

“She was your soon-to-be ex-wife.”

“And also my best friend,” Carlos said forcefully. “That hadn’t changed at all! But between her last year in medical school and my insane work schedule, we barely had time to meet. I think in the last three months before she disappeared, I saw her maybe twice.”

“Sometimes that’s just how life goes, even with your best friends,” Tony said quietly. “There’d also have come a time when you’d have found more time to spend together again.”

“Except it didn’t because she vanished! And I didn’t know about whatever was going on in her life because I was more concerned about making a good impression on my new Captain than taking time for my friend.”

Tony blew out a breath and shook his head. “That’s bullshit, Carlos.”

“She called the night she vanished,” Carlos murmured, staring at the empty plates on the table. “And I missed it because I had been pulled onto a second shift and I was going crazy over viewing security camera footage while trying to stay awake and not miss what I was supposed to look for.”

Tony bit his lip, grinning. “That’s the worst kind of shift.”

“Yeah. Anyway. I missed the call because my private phone was off and in my locker. Michelle outright ignored Iris’ calls. If either one of us had been more…”

“Did she tell you that?” Tony interrupted him.

Carlos shrugged.

Tony shook his head, turned back to the fish, and worked on it silently for a little while before putting it in the oven. Then he came over to the table and dragged a chair around so he could sit in front of Carlos. Carlos watched him with raised brows while Tony just stared back at him silently.

“You didn’t answer my question. Did Michelle Blake tell you that you are in any way at fault for Iris’ disappearance?”

“She really doesn’t need to tell me any of that,” Carlos said. “It’s something I have thought about all on my own. I don’t need Michelle to feel guilty about what happened to Iris.”

Tony sighed. “But she’s been encouraging those thoughts.”

“So what?” Carlos asked.

“So I’ll just assume my suspicion is right and she has been using and manipulating you,” Tony said. “Because that’s the impression I got out of our last call and part of the reason why I’m here now.”

Carlos frowned. “You haven’t actually told me why you are here yet.”

“Officially, to consult with a local FBI team who have been asking for help concerning two cases for a while now. I hadn’t followed through their request before now because I don’t know how much I would be able to contribute to the cases. Unofficially I am here, because you are clearly in distress, if not outright in trouble, and need someone to have your back in this situation. Because your boss clearly doesn’t.”

Carlos sucked in a breath. “Because it will look so good for me if my friend the FBI agent snoops around the missing person case I was once a suspect in.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I’ve been in this game for 25 years, Carlos. Have some faith in me that I’ll manage to make the locals believe they want me here, and even asked for me even if they haven’t.”

Carlos couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you take on every assignment like it’s an undercover op?”

“Most of the time that’s a good approach.” Tony grinned brightly. “Even if I was asked to come for a consult, sometimes the locals don’t remember that once I’m there. And it keeps me in shape. Just in case I actually do need to go undercover again. I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

“JJ and Will would be opposed to it,” Carlos said.

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. The only downside of having two spouses with high enough security clearances to know exactly what I got up to in the past.”

Carlos grinned. He didn’t know any details, but Tony had been very open about the fact that he couldn’t talk much about some years because he had made a career out of working undercover for a while. It wasn’t something Carlos could imagine for himself at all, but he had some colleagues, some he would even call friends, who were regularly sent on such assignments. He knew from them how exhausting it could be, and especially how big of a strain it could put on personal relationships.

“I’ll be here for three weeks, probably,” Tony said. “Except weekend after next. I’m flying home for two days because I promised Henry I wouldn’t miss his game.”

Carlos smiled. “That’s important.”

Tony nodded. “Will has a shift that day he couldn’t switch, and we never know when JJ will be called out on a case, so at least I need to be there. Have you talked with Michelle again since you sent her to a curandera?”

Carlos shook his head. “Not really. We met on a call during a shift, though, and she asked if I’d had any success with looking into the pickup trucks already.”

“So, she does expect you to look up that list,” Tony said darkly.

Carlos shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.” He lowered his gaze. “Venting to you did me a world of good, I think. I’m not sure … if I had been alone with my thoughts I may have given in eventually if she asked often enough.”

“Because that’s what happened in the past?”

Carlos sighed and shrugged again. He would like to deny it, but he really couldn’t. It had never been as big a request as looking for the pickup truck, but he had still crossed lines for her that he knew he never should have crossed.

“I think you need to take a very hard look at your past interactions with Michelle, and try to find out when your friendship was lost,” Tony said. “Because what I’ve heard from you over the last three years has nothing to do with friendship.”

Carlos bit his lip. “The thing is, we weren’t really friends before. Iris was my friend. Michelle was just her big sister. She’s ten years older than Iris. That makes her twelve years older than me. There was nothing to connect us at all.”

“Until Iris went missing.”

“Exactly. We were both excluded from the investigation, so we went looking on our own, together. Talked to Dustin, talked to other friends Iris had, talked to her professors. Talked to her neighbors, to Dustin’s neighbors. We spent three months coordinating our free time so that we could go out together to look for Iris.”

Tony blew out a breath. “What changed after three months?”

“Lots of things,” Carlos murmured. “She started harassing Dustin. Or at least, I noticed that she was doing it. Maybe she had been doing it all along. My Captain told me I needed to get a grip on my private life before it started to affect my work. Theresa had a mental breakdown, and in the process accused me of some very ugly things. Michelle took a little time to take care of her mother. When she returned from that, we just never picked back up where we had stopped months before, instead just meeting mainly once a week to talk about Iris and the progress we had made. Or hadn’t made.”

“Has she asked you to use police resources for this in the past?” Tony asked.

Carlos shrugged. “She has brought up looking at Iris’ case file pretty regularly. I never did it. I’ve talked to the Detective a couple of times when we crossed paths at the station, though. She never tells me much.”

“One of the cases I’ve been asked to assist with is about a missing woman, mid-twenties. So, it won’t be suspicious if I pull up cases of other missing women in their twenties. Don’t expect me to share much information either, though. I hope I’ll be able to ‘stumble’ over the information concerning Michelle’s harassment of Dustin that you told me about.”

“To what end?” Carlos asked.

“It’s a shitty position you’ve been put into,” Tony said. “My main goal is to stop whoever is protecting Michelle. So Dustin can finally use his restraining order to force Michelle to leave him alone, which will also make life a lot easier for you. If I find any leads about Iris in the meantime, that’d be great, but it’s not my main focus. You are my main focus, Carlos. Helping you out of this situation you are clearly not able of get out of alone.”

Carlos blew out a breath and closed his eyes. He was surprised by the feeling of relief he was overwhelmed with. There hadn’t been anyone in the past who had cared what he thought about this situation with Michelle, and especially no one who had told him he was right to feel uncomfortable about it. “Thank you.”

 

Chapter 02

TK didn’t even wait for so much as a hello when Carlos opened the door. He pushed Carlos back and turned them as soon as he was far enough into the house to close the door behind them. He held Carlos against the door and kissed him, only fumbling with the buttons of Carlos’ shirt for a moment before he lost his patience with it and ripped it open.

Carlos chuckled and cradled TK’s face with both hands but pushed him away instead of pulling him in for another kiss. “Easy, tiger,” Carlos murmured grinning.

“Hey, you’re the one who asked me to come over after my shift!” TK said, pushing the rest of his body against Carlos.

He had been looking forward to this ever since Carlos had called earlier in the evening, and at that moment he had really regretted that he let himself be talked into another half shift. Carlos was hot, and the sex was not only phenomenal but also exactly the kind of distraction he needed. Having someone to hook up with regularly was so much easier than finding a new stranger every night in TK’s opinion.

“I did, yeah,” Carlos said. “But you’ve just gotten off a shift, and I thought you would like something to eat first.”

TK frowned, and then flinched when somewhere behind him someone said, “And I clearly should have left ten minutes ago. If you clear the door, I’ll be gone!”

TK whirled around, finding a stranger leaning against the stair railing and watching them with a bemused smile. He was tall and dark-haired and something in the way he was holding himself made TK’s inside tighten up in dread.

“Who are you?” TK backed away from Carlos. “This is not the kind of thing I’m into!”

The stranger laughed. “My name is Tony. And there is nothing to be into here. I dropped in on Carlos without warning. I didn’t know he was waiting for a date.”

“It’s not a date,” TK muttered darkly.

Carlos sighed deeply. “You wanted to leave, Tony. I think now is a very good time for that!”

“And I should probably leave, too,” TK said through gritted teeth. “I’m not here for any kind of date.” He turned his gaze away from Tony and frowned over at the table that was clearly set for a romantic evening. His mouth watered from the delicious smell in the house that he had barely registered previously, but he wasn’t here for anything but sex.

Carlos sighed again and dragged a hand through his hair, stepping aside from the door. “It doesn’t have to be a date. It can just be a meal. You’ve been on shift for 39 hours, you can’t tell me you aren’t hungry.”

TK crossed his arms over his chest. He really should leave, but somehow his feet wouldn’t move. “I was off for four hours in the morning before I was called back, so technically it’s only been 11 hours.”

“Because four hours off makes such a huge difference when you are putting in an extra shift,” Carlos muttered and rolled his eyes. “I’d just like to sit down and have a conversation with you, TK.”

“I’m not doing that kind of thing,” TK said, gritting his teeth again.

He still hadn’t moved to the door to leave, and wondered what exactly it was about Carlos that made him reconsider his stance right now. Meaningless hook-ups, a way to let out his pent-up energy and frustration was all he was looking for. TK had made a resolution when he had moved to Austin not to fall into the same kind of trap again as he had with Alex.

“Having conversations?” Carlos asked with raised brows.

TK glared at him. “The sex isn’t good enough to get involved in any kind of drama.”

Carlos had the audacity to grin. “It is that good, at least from my point of view.”

“Nope.” TK shook his head and finally pushed away from the wall he was backed up against. “Next time you call me you had better not waste money and time preparing a meal.” He gestured at Tony, who still hadn’t moved even though the door had been free for several minutes. “You clearly have someone else to share your meal with!”

Carlos stepped in his direction and reached out one hand, but he didn’t touch TK, didn’t come near enough that TK would feel crowded. “I’m sorry. I … This wasn’t supposed to mean anything more than either of us would be comfortable with.”

“Sitting down to eat together always means more,” TK said lowly, and then he turned and left the house.

He felt like an idiot and more frustrated than he was before. TK had believed Carlos and he were on the same page, but clearly, that wasn’t the case. He didn’t even know why he had left the option open for Carlos to call him again.

Once he reached his car he slammed the door shut with more force than necessary, then he pulled out his phone to bring up Carlos’ contact. He should just delete and block it so that something like this wouldn’t happen again. But in the end, he did neither, threw the phone on the passenger seat and started the car.

TK felt too keyed up to go home, so he ended up just driving through Austin, getting to know the lay of the land. Every street, every corner was still so foreign, and it made him itch every time they went out on a call. The captain of B shift had asked him if he wanted to drive the engine on one of their calls, and while TK loved to drive both engine and ladder truck, he had known it wouldn’t be a good idea. Even with the GPS running he didn’t know Austin well enough to get them to their destination as quickly as possible.

TK drummed his fingers against the steering wheel before turning back in the direction of the 126. They were not too far away from the edge of town, near enough to be sent on call-outs in the surrounding area as well. He knew even less about that space than about the city surrounding their station, and he also felt strangely uncomfortable there. He was used to the high rises of New York, had barely been outside of the city. He missed home, now more than ever.

In New York, he’d know where to find a hook-up for the night, but here he would need to search for a place first, and he wasn’t in the right state of mind to go to a strange place. He didn’t trust himself not to give in to the temptation a bar would provide, and he was furious that Carlos put him in this mindset. By this point, TK had expected to leave Carlos’ place feeling satisfied and settled down, instead he was driving mindlessly through a city he wasn’t even sure he wanted to become familiar with.

***

“Great.” Carlos sank down to his couch and pressed his hands over his face. “Fuck. That went horribly!”

Tony chuckled. “You could say that again.”

“Why are you even still here?” Carlos spat. “You had ample opportunity to go before TK left!”

Tony raised his brows and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t want to interrupt your little exchange, so I decided to be quiet and not draw attention to myself. I’m sorry we forgot the time and I hadn’t already left.”

Carlos huffed. “I don’t think that would have changed anything.”

“It probably wouldn’t have changed much,” Tony agreed. “Next time, you should ask him if he wants to eat as well as fuck before you make plans.”

“If there is a next time,” Carlos muttered.

Tony laughed. “He very clearly left that option open. And maybe he’ll change his mind about the meal when he hasn’t just had a 39-hour shift. He stepped in for someone who got sick?”

“Someone who got injured on a call in the morning,” Carlos muttered, staring at the ceiling. “He said he’s on the list to be called in for something like that.”

Tony sat down in the armchair. “Do you want there to be a next time?”

“You have seen him, right?”

Tony laughed again. “You’re smitten. That’s cute. Though, you’ll have to do a lot of chasing if you want to catch him. I’d say he must have come out of a bad experience recently to be this spooked by a meal. Aside from being surprised by me in the beginning, he wasn’t very bothered about me in the grand scheme of things.”

“I noticed,” Carlos muttered.

“It’s the day of you not answering my questions, huh?”

Carlos sighed. “I hate doing the chasing.”

“Could be worth it, though,” Tony said.

Carlos shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t … I don’t know why I can’t get him out of my head. This is not how this works for me.”

Tony chuckled. “Sometimes we just meet that kind of person. How long have you known him?”

“Less than a month. We met at a bar. His whole crew was there the day after Iris’ birthday, and that’s the first time he came home with me. This would have been the fifth time.”

Tony whistled lowly. “Five times in three weeks with the kind of schedule you both work? I see what you were talking about when you said the sex was good.”

“Shut up,” Carlos muttered, blushing.

Tony chuckled. “So, clearly interest in at least sex from both sides. I think it could be worth it if you went on that chase. If he truly has no interest in getting to know you even as just a friend, he’ll have blocked your number by now and you won’t hear from him again. Trying again won’t do any damage.”

“You sure about that?” Carlos asked. “I wouldn’t want to … if you are right about TK having a bad experience, then I wouldn’t want to push him too much.”

Additionally, Carlos really wasn’t sure if he wanted anything more than friendship and sex from TK. If he was even ready for more. He felt his life was too chaotic mess to bring any new people into it.

“When’s the last time you were out looking for a date instead of a hook-up?” Tony asked.

Carlos sighed and closed his eyes. “The week before Iris went missing.”

“Ouch.”

Carlos heard Tony move, but he didn’t look at him.

“So, aside from letting Michelle guilt trip you into enabling her behavior, you also put your own life on hold for the last three years. Didn’t you say you cleaned out Iris’ apartment because you didn’t want to do exactly that?”

“I’m not ready to file for a divorce in her absence yet,” Carlos whispered. “I … It just feels wrong. We had planned to do that together, the papers were already drawn up, and we were just waiting for her exams to be finished. But I can’t do it alone. I can’t … give up that connection. It’s the only thing that gives me the right to be informed about news of her case. If I give this up, I’m dependent on Michelle and Theresa to learn about any changes.”

“And you don’t trust either of them with that.”

“Of course I don’t trust them!” Carlos sat up and glared at Tony. “Theresa hates me, she hated me long before Iris and I got married. And she never understood that her behavior was the biggest reason for Iris to marry me, so she had a reason and the necessary support to leave her mother’s house. Or maybe she understood and hated me even more for it. If it weren’t for Dustin, I’m sure Theresa would have insisted that I had something to do with Iris’ disappearance! I mean, she already did, she just didn’t put her whole heart into it.”

Tony sighed. “And Michelle has been using you anyway without giving you the tiniest amount of support or consideration, so there is no reason to believe she’d tell you anything if you weren’t informed by the detective on the case.”

Carlos sighed. “Right. So, filing for divorce is not an option. I don’t think… I can’t let go of Iris in that way. I’m not sure I’ll ever file for a divorce if we don’t find her. And not just … not just because of the information. I wouldn’t trust her mother or her sister to be considerate of her possessions, especially with her money. I have Iris’ power of attorney for all her accounts, and I’ve been taking care of the investments as best I can.”

He would still have that responsibility even after the divorce because Iris had insisted on preparing the necessary documents. Under no circumstances had Iris wanted her mother to have any kind of control over her, and Carlos would have been happy to carry that burden for her. As long as they were still legally married it wouldn’t be easy for Theresa to contest Iris’ wishes.

“She was going to medical school and you had just finished your first year on the job, how much money could there be?” Tony asked skeptically.

Carlos blinked and then a grin spread over his face. “I never told you about Vegas?”

Tony frowned. “Vegas? As in Las Vegas?”

Carlos nodded. “We went for my 21st birthday. We had been planning that even before we got married. We put aside money just so we could waste it in a casino in Las Vegas. Then … when everything with my parents happened, we decided to marry and make our way through life together. We were determined to make our way alone, so every time either my parents or Michelle tried to support us by giving us money, we put it into our Vegas fund. In the end, we had saved just over 6k. Half of it went into the travel and hotel, the rest we planned to blow completely in a couple of casinos.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his forehead. “But you didn’t lose.”

Carlos laughed. “Oh, at first we did lose. That’s how the games are built right? In the long run, you’ll always lose and the house always wins. And we didn’t expect anything else. We just wanted to have fun and not feel like our families had any financial hold over us, so we didn’t care if we lost it all. We went from one game to the next, just to have the full experience. Right at the end we went to some slot machines. You know that scene in Ocean’s 13?”

“When they start the winning streak for the players through one of those? I suddenly start to see why you love that movie.”

Carlos nodded, grinning brightly. “Brings those memories back every time. We hit the jackpot at two machines pretty much simultaneously. We went home with a little over three million together. So, yes, there is a lot of money that would be split up in a divorce.”

“You own this house,” Tony said flatly.

“And Iris’ condo. And my car.” Carlos shrugged. “We also paid off both our student loans and invested most of the rest in case we ever needed a nest egg. The first thing we did when we decided that our marriage wouldn’t serve us long-term and that we both deserved to find happiness outside of it was talk about how we’d handle the money. The lawyer we saw to draw up the divorce papers was really surprised by that.”

“Probably a once-in-a-lifetime event that his clients aren’t fighting over money, especially that kind of money.” Tony sighed. “You think Iris’ family would misuse the money if the management of it fell into their hands after a divorce?”

“I’m sure they would,” Carlos said quietly, rubbing his hands over his thighs. “The only reason Michelle is still working is that she needs money to fund her search. If she had access to Iris’ money she’d use it to fund her life and her search for Iris. And Theresa … was of the opinion that she deserved to get part of it from the very first moment.”

Tony made a face. “Lovely woman.”

“Anyway, to come back to your initial question. I can’t very well start looking for any kind of serious relationship if I’m still married, can I? And I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I guess … In four years, Theresa will probably have Iris declared dead. Michelle will protest against it of course. But I probably won’t.”

“Because you want to move on,” Tony said quietly.

Carlos shook his head. “That, too, yeah. But I know the statistics about missing women. It’s—” He had to clear his throat. “Realistically what are the chances that Iris is still alive? That we won’t at some point find a skeleton somewhere that turns out to be Iris?”

Tony sighed and left his place to sit down beside Carlos and wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Sometimes people defy statistics.”

Carlos shook his head. “I can’t … hold onto that hope, Tony. It’s … It would drive me crazy. The same way it’s driving Michelle crazy. Seeing what that kind of hope is doing to her just shows me all the more that I can’t go down that path.”

Tony sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

***

TK’s next shift started a little over a day after the strange encounter at Carlos’ place and after he had spent the rest of the night first driving and later walking through the streets surrounding the 126. He still didn’t feel any less anxious than when he had left Carlos’ place. He didn’t know how to get rid of the anxiety or who to ask for help.

Additionally, their first call was a catastrophe and left TK unsettled and missing New York even more. He hadn’t ever heard of walking the corn before, and after their call he thought it was utter bullshit. He didn’t ever want to repeat the experience, of a teammate vanishing into that corn or being pulled into it himself. It had turned his anxiety into a very different kind of emotion, but one that didn’t make him any less jumpy.

TK wasn’t surprised when Judd pulled him to the side as soon as they were back, but he was surprised by the thrill he felt while Judd towered over him, clearly using his height to get his point across. He suddenly felt completely calm, despite the fury over the things Judd was telling him. Being the captain’s son had never been to his advantage, it had always been a disadvantage. But he wouldn’t expect someone like Judd—who was clearly used to taking one look at a situation and then holding onto his snap judgment for the rest of time—to get that.

When Paul interrupted their argument before it seriously could turn physical, TK stormed off, heading for the bunk room. He still felt that strange calmness, and he wanted to bask in it in solitude for however long it would hold. Maybe Judd had just shown him what he really needed to get out of the mood that had overcome TK since he moved to Austin.

“You are an idiot.”

TK jumped up and turned to Paul, his heart racing. He wasn’t sure how long he had been alone exactly, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. “Yeah? For trying to help Marjan?”

Paul rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean you trying to fight a guy who is more than a head taller than you and suffering from PTSD. Are you crazy, man?”

TK huffed and flopped back down on the bed, mourning the loss of the peace he’d been basking in before Paul had shown up. “You would have done the same if you’d heard his high-handed attitude.”

“He was the one in command up there,” Paul said.

“And I’m just supposed to trust him?” TK asked. He jumped up from the bed again and started to pace around the room. “He comes here and expects everyone to cater to his whims just because he’s the one who lost his team and was here before us. He keeps talking about his old team as if we aren’t even here, as if we aren’t of any value at all, but he expects us to trust him? I didn’t know about any kind of backup plan out there. Did you?”

Paul sighed and leaned against the wall beside the door, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t either. He has to have talked about it with Cap while we were preparing the harnesses and lines. And it’s something we’ll need to address, I agree with you. But you aren’t addressing it by fighting Judd. For one, you have probably no chance against him. And second, that’s not the kind of atmosphere we need on our team.”

TK closed his eyes and inhaled and exhaled deeply. “He was calling me the coach’s kid, as if I ever chose to have Dad as my captain, either in New York or here.”

Paul stared at him. “You didn’t choose to come here?”

“I…” TK turned around and rubbed his hands over his head. “Doesn’t matter now.” Judd wasn’t the only one he didn’t trust, and he wasn’t about to tell Paul the truth about why Owen had dragged him down here.

Paul sighed. “I think it does, but I won’t push. If you need to talk, I’m here though. About what happened at the silo as well.”

“When Judd ordered me to stand back when Marjan was trapped in the corn, I thought … I didn’t know if he was intending to even try to save her. And that was infuriating. I … Am I the only one who thinks Judd wouldn’t care if any of us died on the job?”

Paul sucked in a breath. “I think you are. Because honestly, he isn’t … it’s his grief talking when he’s pulling away from bonding as a team. He is clearly not ready to let new connections go beyond being colleagues. I’m not sure he’s even ready to be on the job again, but that’s up to either of us.”

“Dad lost his team on 9/11, you know that, right?”

Paul nodded slowly. “I heard about it.”

“I turned seven that year,” TK muttered. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember exactly how it changed him. And he didn’t just lose one shift. Every single firefighter in all of Manhattan was called in that day, and because his house was … right around the corner from the towers, the whole house was there. All three shifts. And Dad was the only one who was pulled out alive when the tower collapsed above them.”

Paul winced. “That’s tough. I’m surprised he returned to the job.”

“He returned with a vengeance,” TK muttered. “He got promoted to Captain, got tasked with rebuilding the whole house. Hiring the other two captains, hiring every single person for all three shifts. And he got protective of every single one of these people instantly. It’s the complete opposite of what Judd is doing.”

Owen had become so protective of everyone in his house that he had practically abandoned his family over it. TK had been angry about it for a long time, but he had begun to understand it after he was put on his father’s shift right out of the academy. He hadn’t wanted to go there, but the choice hadn’t been his, and he had reluctantly come to appreciate the people Owen had gathered around him.

“So, are you measuring Judd by your Dad’s scale?” Paul asked with raised brows.

TK scowled. “So what?”

“That’s a pretty high scale,” Paul said. “And not everyone reacts to grief and loss the same way, so it’s also unfair. We as a team are a work in progress, and I think the call today highlighted that. And it’s good that it was highlighted in that way, especially with no one getting hurt in the end. It’s shown us a lot of things we need to work on as a team.”

“Like what?” TK asked.

“Communication first and foremost,” Paul said. “Because I fully agree with you, everyone in that silo should have been instructed about the backup plan and about how to behave if one of us stepped onto the corn. Judd should have the right to expect that everyone will follow his orders when Cap puts him in command, but he can’t expect us to trust him when he doesn’t give us important information.”

TK nodded.

“It’s also taught us about Marjan’s boundaries,” Paul continued. “I know that covering her hair, wearing the hijab, is important to her. But I didn’t even think about reacting in any way or covering her until Cap ordered us to. Every single one of us should have done that immediately.”

TK closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”

He hadn’t noticed that Marjan had lost her hijab until Owen had ordered everyone to build a wall around her, too caught up in his own relief at having come out of the corn alive. But he remembered their probie’s wonder and excitement, and someone needed to have a word with Mateo about it. TK just wasn’t sure if they should leave that to Marjan or if someone else needed to step in.

“And, as you already said, it’s also taught us that we really need to work on our trust in each other,” Paul said. “We can’t go into a situation like that or into a fire with you doubting whether Judd will have your back, or anyone else’s back. I trust him in that, I trusted him to come up with a solution when you and Marjan were pulled under. But I was still put out to learn that he already had a backup plan I didn’t know about.”

“And what are we doing about that now?” TK asked.

“We’ll sit down together as a team and talk about it. If Cap hasn’t called us together in half an hour to do that, I’ll go to him and suggest it. We all need a little bit of time to calm down first, though.”

“Yeah, good idea. I’d also appreciate not being asked to do it.”

“Because Judd said you are the coach’s kid?” Paul asked with raised brows. “I don’t think he meant it the way you took it.”

TK huffed. “Oh, he meant it exactly the way I took it, he didn’t leave any room to doubt that. He believes being the captain’s son equals getting handed everything on a silver platter.”

“And it doesn’t?” Paul sounded inquisitive instead of judgmental, which was the only reason that TK didn’t lose his temper again.

“The hell it doesn’t,” TK hissed. “Because of people like Judd who act according to what they think. And maybe it’s that way for many people who come to work with family, but Owen Strand doesn’t accept someone not giving their best from anyone.”

Paul sighed. “I can see that.”

“I have known people like Judd all my life,” TK said. “That he lost his friends isn’t an excuse for shitty behavior in my book. It’s especially not an excuse to take one look at a person and believe he knows everything there is to know about that person.”

“Haven’t you done the same with Judd, though?” Paul asked with raised brows.

TK frowned. “What?”

Paul shrugged. “Just saying, man. The two of you have been rubbing each other the wrong way since he came back to work. It’s not only Judd who’s been starting arguments between you.”

“I … really?”

“As I said, we still have a lot of work to do on this team. And we should start today,” Paul said. “I’d just appreciate it if you don’t try to brawl with Judd again. That will just end with one of you being put on another shift. And as things stand, even if you don’t like it, people will believe Cap would fight more for you and they’ll put Judd somewhere else without a discussion. He really doesn’t deserve that. He’s lost enough already.”

TK closed his eyes. “I’ll stay away from Judd as far as I can, promise.”

Paul hummed. “You want to talk about what made you search out a fight with Judd?”

TK swallowed and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Was a moment of bad judgment.”

Paul watched him with a frown, but eventually, he nodded. “Alright. But I’ll say it again. You need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

 

Chapter 03

“Where are we going?” Carlos asked.

Tony had only been in town for not even two full days yet, and while they’d had dinner together again the previous night, he hadn’t talked much about how looking into Iris’ case had gone so far. Carlos hadn’t wanted to prod him about it, firstly because Tony was here for other cases, and secondly, because he still didn’t know how comfortable he was with having practically dragged his friend into it. But half an hour ago Tony had picked him up from the station, just as his shift had ended, and told him they had plans for the rest of the day, but not what those plans were.

“We are going to talk to Dustin,” Tony said after a moment. “I want to know what he knows about Michelle being protected, if anyone warned him off. And I don’t believe he’ll talk to me if I show up alone.”

“I’m not sure he’ll be happy to see me,” Carlos said. “He has to believe that I’m part of the problem, that I’m involved in protecting Michelle, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Tony agreed. “But you aren’t. And in the end, you are as much a victim of what’s going on with Michelle as he is. I hope bringing you at the same table might unearth some connections I can follow up on.”

“Have you already accessed Iris’ case file?”

Tony sighed. “You know I can’t tell you anything about that.”

Carlos nodded slowly, accepting that answer as an affirmation. He stayed silent for the rest of the drive, worrying his lip between his teeth. He hadn’t talked to Dustin directly in nearly two years, and he didn’t know what to expect. Iris had never kept it a secret from Dustin that she was married to her best friend and would stay that way until she finished medical school for various reasons. They had gotten along fine, even though Carlos wouldn’t have called them friends. But that had changed after Iris disappeared, and Carlos knew it had a lot to do with the scrutiny Dustin was forced to endure because Michelle had started accusing him of murdering her sister less than a day after Iris had been last seen.

“This isn’t Dustin’s house,” Carlos said with a frown when Tony stopped the car in front of a restaurant.

Tony laughed. “No, of course not. I called him and asked him where he’d be most comfortable talking to you and an FBI agent. I’m not surprised he didn’t want either of us at his house.”

“So, he knows I’m coming as well,” Carlos said, feeling a little better about the situation.

“Of course,” Tony said softly. “I wouldn’t blindside him. I’m not here to cause him more pain, Carlos. I’m infuriated that no one in this city is helping this man protect himself against a woman who should be classified as a stalker.”

Carlos nodded. “Okay, good.”

Tony nodded and left the car, Carlos trailing behind him slowly. The restaurant was nearly empty, and Dustin was already waiting at a pretty secluded table in the back, staring at him apprehensively as soon as he noticed Carlos. They got through introductions quickly and Tony and Carlos sat down opposite Dustin.

“I’m not even sure why I agreed to this,” Dustin said darkly. He glared at Carlos. “How did you manage to get the FBI into this? And why now?”

“Nothing is an official FBI case yet,” Tony said calmly. “Carlos and I have been friends for several years, and as a friend he complained to me about the situation with Michelle Blake.”

Dustin frowned. “What situation?”

Tony raised his brows and leaned back. “The situation that a restraining order doesn’t seem to be worth the paper it’s printed on in this town. Did you have your lawyer look into the fact that despite calling the police on Michelle regularly, she has never been arrested or fined?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Tony asked.

Dustin turned to Carlos. “You’ve been coming to arrest her every single time I call 9-1-1. Why don’t you explain to your friend why that’s never had any consequences for her?”

Carlos frowned. “I already did. The last time I complained about being sent to your calls at all and pointed out that something needed to be done about Michelle’s behavior, I was told to shut up. And it was implied heavily that this decision was above my paygrade and trying to complain again would be to my detriment.”

Dustin made a face. “Figures.”

“Do you have any idea who is protecting Michelle?” Tony asked.

“You’ll probably want to ask her mother about it,” Dustin said. “She’s the one with connections.”

Tony turned to Carlos, one brow raised in question.

Carlos shrugged. “It’s possible. I know she knows a lot of people, but no details. I think I’ve already mentioned she hates me, right? I’m pretty sure the only reason she isn’t leading a similar campaign against me as Michelle is leading against Dustin is because I have an ironclad alibi. The two Detectives who kept me for an extra shift that night went to the wall for me when I was questioned right after Iris was reported missing.”

“One time when I was questioned, they asked me if we had worked together,” Dustin said, rolling his eyes.

“Really?” Carlos shook his head. “No one ever even mentioned something like that to me.”

“As you said, you have people protecting you. I don’t,” Dustin said, sounding bitter and dejected.

Tony sighed. “Why haven’t you left Austin?”

Dustin’s face turned dark but his answer was delayed when the waiter brought the menus and took orders for drinks.

When they were alone again, Dustin blew out a breath. “Part of me is still hoping Iris will come back. Michelle likes to tell everyone we were broken up, but that’s a lie. We were in a rough spot in our relationship because Iris had … she had changed, had new friends I knew nothing about, but up until the day she disappeared I was convinced it was the stress of her exams. She had been erratic and unreasonable during exam time before because she would sacrifice sleep studying. But I’m convinced that we would have worked through that once her exams were finished and she was done with medical school. She hadn’t applied for a residency placement yet because she said she’d need a break. I was putting a lot of hope on that planned break.”

Carlos leaned forward. “What do you mean she had changed?”

Dustin blew out a breath. “It … I know you didn’t see her often in the last couple of months, but I also know she lied to you about why she didn’t have time. And I can’t really describe … she wasn’t the soft and joyful and dedicated woman I had fallen in love with anymore. There were moments when she was suddenly so angry or afraid, or even both together, and sometimes she said things that just didn’t make any sense. And like I said, she had new friends.”

“Did you tell Detective Washington that?” Carlos asked.

Dustin glared at him. “Of course. There was no reason to hold anything back. I want Iris to be found as much as anyone else! And I tried to provide all the information I had!”

“I read those notes in the case file,” Tony said. “And you couldn’t give any information about those friends.”

“She never introduced me to them,” Dustin said darkly. “Sometimes she would act as if she was ashamed of them, and sometimes as if her friends were none of my business. I regret that I never prodded to at least get names.”

Tony nodded slowly. “According to the notes in the file, no one could ever find these new friends, and no one but you seemed to know they even existed. So it was dismissed.”

Dustin huffed. “And I was accused of lying to hide my own guilt. Yeah, I know. I heard that line more than enough.”

“Do you know if any of them drove a blue pickup truck?” Carlos asked.

Dustin raised his brows. “I never saw any of them. Or their cars. A blue pickup truck?”

“One of your neighbors recently told Michelle that they saw Iris leaving your house and being picked up by someone in a blue pickup truck the night she disappeared,” Carlos explained. “I’m not sure we could trust that color though.”

“She’s bothering my neighbors now?” Dustin turned his head to the side, teeth clenched. “She just doesn’t know any fucking boundaries, does she?”

Carlos raised his hands and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Not in this case, at least. They called her for a medical emergency and told her about it after she had helped them.”

Dustin frowned and stared at the table for a long time in silence. “I guess I can draw my own conclusions about why they didn’t talk to the police three years ago, then. In the place of half of my neighbors, I wouldn’t have spoken to the police either. I even understand their apprehension a lot better now.”

“Carlos said Iris tried to call him and Michelle both that night,” Tony said. “Do you remember if she tried to call you?”

Dustin shook his head. “No, she didn’t. Though … there was a call from a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t answer it. I generally don’t answer numbers I don’t know and send them straight to voice mail instead. There was no message, but a while later I wondered … if maybe Iris had gotten her hands on a phone that wasn’t her own, you know? I tried to call the number, but it was disconnected.”

Tony frowned. “I don’t remember reading anything about that in the file.”

Dustin huffed. “I’m not surprised. It was a couple of weeks after Iris went missing before I even remembered the call. And the officer I told about it was very dismissive.”

“Who was that?” Carlos asked.

Dustin laughed mirthlessly. “Really, you expect me to remember the name of a single officer after I’d had to deal with several dozen different ones over the last three years? I don’t even remember their face, or if it was a man or a woman.”

Carlos rubbed a hand over his face. “Right, sorry.”

“Your friend is right, you know?” Dustin said, watching Carlos with an unhappy frown. “I should have been out of here long ago. And someday I’ll be able to let go of my hope that Iris will come home. My sister has been badgering me to move to Phoenix to be with her and her family. I still don’t know how you were able to let go of that hope just a year after her disappearance.”

“I forced myself to believe she left of her own free will and is somewhere living the life she dreamed of,” Carlos whispered, staring at the table. “I miss her, and I worry about her, but I can’t let this drive me crazy. It’s driving Michelle crazy, and … I don’t think it’s the healthiest choice for you either to hold onto your hope. Especially with the way Michelle is harassing you.”

“And is it really easier to deal with it that way?” Dustin asked with raised brows.

Carlos looked up and met his gaze, swallowing against the lump in his throat as he shook his head. “No, not really.”

Dustin nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. I mean, you even got the FBI involved now.”

Tony sighed and raised his hands defensively. “There’s no official involvement!”

“Even unofficial is more than we had so far,” Dustin muttered. He took one of the menus all of them had been ignoring so far and started to study it. “If you ask me, everyone involved in the investigation so far is in one of two camps. Either they believe Michelle is crazy, and there was no crime at all and no reason to look for Iris. And I even understand those people, because I know there is no evidence of foul play. Or they are convinced Michelle is right and I killed her. No one seems to have ever considered anything else. Except maybe that Carlos and I killed her together, of course. But I’ll still count those with the second camp.”

“And what do you think happened?” Tony asked.

Dustin shrugged. “I have no idea. But I don’t think…” He bit his lip and looked at Carlos out of the corner his eye hesitantly. “I don’t think she intended to leave, that it was her choice. Despite her strange behavior, she was still determined to finish medical school. Hours before we fought and she left my house, she had still been studying and told me she expected me to pick her up after the last exam and to have a table booked somewhere nice and fancy to celebrate.”

Carlos chuckled. “I can just hear the tone she’d have said that in.”

“Right?” Dustin grinned for a moment.

“So, you think there was a crime even without any evidence?” Tony asked.

“Or an accident.” Dustin nodded, putting the menu down and picking at one of its edges.

Tony hummed thoughtfully and pushed one of the menus over to Carlos while keeping the last one for himself. “We should really choose what we want to eat. And then I’d like to come back to Michelle. As much as I would like to help both of you get the answers about Iris you clearly need to move on, I’m not sure I can do anything for that case. It’s … Three years is a long time for something like this. And as I said, no one officially invited me to look into the case.”

“But you can do something about Michelle without being officially here for that?” Dustin asked with raised brows.

Tony grinned. “I’d just need to witness one altercation or be called by a friend after such an interaction to at least give me an excuse to ask uncomfortable questions. You have my number now. I’m in town for three weeks, and Carlos said she’s escalating, so that should be plenty of time.”

“I…” Dustin fisted his hand on the table and stared at a point somewhere between Tony and Carlos.

“You didn’t answer my question earlier about why you haven’t asked your lawyer to investigate why no one has bothered to enforce your restraining order,” Tony said.

Dustin shrugged. “I don’t believe it would do any good. For now, at least, she is always picked up when I call it in that she is harassing me. If I push it, it could easily turn into my calls all being ignored outright, couldn’t it?”

Tony frowned and leaned forward. “That sounds very specific and not like something you’ve come up with yourself.”

“The day I got the restraining order, Theresa was there with Michelle at the courthouse,” Dustin said hesitantly. “And there was a man with them. One who was clearly recognized by everyone wearing a uniform and who was very friendly with Theresa. I don’t know who he was, he didn’t introduce himself. I went to wash my hands because someone had run into me and thankfully only spilled their coffee over my hands and not my whole suit. The guy followed me, went to a urinal while I washed my hands, and told me exactly that while taking care of his business. He couched it as worry for the Blakes, of course. Haven’t Michelle and Theresa gone through enough already? Do I really need to put them through even more stress?”

“Asshole,” Carlos muttered.

Tony grinned coldly. “That’s what I suspected. Let’s start with a description of the guy. Either Carlos might recognize him, or we can go through some official city websites. The good thing about the internet is that so many people have pictures publicly posted these days.”

***

TK pressed the ice pack against his face while he tried to ignore the handcuffs and everything going on around him. Maybe his grand idea to reproduce the calm he had felt during his argument with Judd the day before hadn’t been all that grand after all. Seeking out strangers to brawl with hadn’t had the same effect in the first place, and second, being arrested had not been part of this plan at all.

TK flinched when something was dropped on the table beside him and he groaned in dismay as he looked up, ice pack still pressed against his eye, to see Carlos sitting down in front of him. “Seriously?”

“You didn’t exactly venture far from the area you are probably familiar with,” Carlos said. “If you didn’t want to see anyone you could also encounter on a call when being arrested for provoking a fistfight, then you should have chosen a bar on the far side of town.”

TK huffed.

„So, Tyler Kennedy.“

TK groaned and turned half away from him.

“Bummer about being arrested,” Carlos said, amusement lacing his voice now. “People might find out your real name.”

“No one calls me that,” TK muttered. “Ever. Should you be the one processing me? Has to be a conflict of interest.”

Carlos hummed and reached out, grabbing the handcuffs to open them. “There is no processing happening. The good news is that you blew a 0.0 earlier and your new friends aren’t interested in talking about your little altercation. Which means you aren’t even getting so much as a drunk and disorderly. You’re free to go.”

TK blinked dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected that. “And the bad news?”

“That you clearly made a very conscious decision to get beaten up tonight,” Carlos said darkly.

TK shrugged. He could hardly deny it, and he felt too exhausted to even try.

“My shift has technically been over for two hours,” Carlos said. “I should be out of here in ten minutes. You want to grab a bite?”

TK blinked and stared at him with his mouth hanging open. “What?”

Carlos sighed. “I’m sorry about the confusion the other night when you came over. I didn’t know Tony was coming to town and I got too distracted by our conversation to send him away before you showed up. I also understand that I may have made a major misstep with preparing a meal without asking you first.”

TK frowned. “I don’t do dates.”

He was aware that he was repeating this as much for his own sake as to convince Carlos, but Carlos thankfully didn’t know that. Carlos had said he was free to go, so TK should have long taken his wallet and keys and left. Once more he didn’t know what it was about Carlos that made him stay seated instead.

“Yeah, I got that,” Carlos said with a small grin. “And I’m not proposing a date. But I know I could use some new friends who don’t live hundreds of miles away. And I think you could, too.” His grin grew wider. “Even, or maybe especially, a friend who comes with very enjoyable benefits.”

Against his better judgment, TK had to laugh. “I’m not sure this is the right place to talk about those benefits. Enjoyable as they are.”

“So, do you want to grab something to eat or not?”

TK found himself nodding without having made a conscious decision. “Do you know a place that serves good Dim Sum around here? Or even just a passable one?”

I don’t have any idea about good Chinese places,” Carlos said with a sigh. “But I know where to get the best Pho in town. Probably the whole of Texas.”

TK sighed deeply. “I guess that’ll do for today. I’m not in the mood for another disappointing Dim Sum. And maybe you can be my buddy for trying out the Chinese restaurants around here. I haven’t found anyone who hasn’t bailed on me as soon as I proposed the idea.”

Carlos laughed. “Yeah, no problem. Though, you’ll have to be the judge of how good these places are. I don’t have any reference for that. I’ll go change and you can wait here or upfront if you want.” His gaze trailed down. “I might have a spare shirt, so you won’t need to run around in a bloody one.”

TK tugged at his shirt and looked down his front. He groaned when he saw the blood. “That would be appreciated. I’ll just wait here and continue to ice my face.”

Carlos chuckled and promised to hurry as he left TK to follow his own advice. TK stared at the chair he had vacated, pressing the ice against the side of his face and wondering what the hell he was doing. He knew himself well enough to know that this whole friends-with-benefits thing would only turn into a messy emotional chaos, but for the same reason he hadn’t deleted Carlos’ contact information from his phone he hadn’t been able to say no.

It took Carlos less than ten minutes to return, and TK silently mourned the loss of the uniform a little bit. The ridiculously tight button-up shirt was at least a suitable substitute, and despite Carlos’ clear preference for tight shirts, the one he lent TK felt ridiculously big on him. TK rubbed his fingers against the hem of the shirt as he followed Carlos out to his car and wondered if he could just forget to give it back without being caught out.

Half an hour later TK found himself sitting in a tiny hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant. The owner had greeted Carlos by name and had only taken TK’s order. It reminded him of the place he and his Mom used to go for Dim Sum back in New York and it immediately set him at ease.

“Do you want to talk about that stunt from earlier?” Carlos asked.

TK huffed. “Not really.”

“Okay.” Carlos nodded. “But at least think about talking with someone about it. Because that kind of self-destructive behavior isn’t good.”

TK flinched. That hit the nail on the head more than he felt comfortable with. Before he could come up with a reply, the owner came over to bring them their drinks, and TK only remembered that he hadn’t actually ordered something to drink when she put two bottles of beer on the table. She clearly had assumed from TK’s silence that he would have the same as Carlos.

“No beer for me, please.” TK raised his hands and leaned back. “I’d prefer water if anything at all.”

Carlos tilted his head to the side and grabbed both bottles to give them back to the owner. “I guess I’ll go with the same today. Sorry for the confusion.”

The owner smiled warmly. “No problem at all. I should not have assumed. I’ll be right back.”

“You had water at the bar as well,” Carlos said. “And asked me if I had anything to drink before coming home with me. That wasn’t just about me driving, was it?”

TK made a face and drummed his fingers against the table. “Being friends with a cop clearly doesn’t lend itself to keeping secrets.”

Carlos grinned but his answer was delayed by the owner returning with a bottle of water and two glasses. When they were alone again, he said, “I’m not sure about all cops. Many probably wouldn’t care.” His grin turned into a soft smile. “I care, TK.”

TK sucked in a breath and closes his eyes. His lips were moving before he even knew what he wanted to say, “I had a bad breakup before leaving New York. I mean, nuclear bad. And I relapsed.”

Carlos sighed. “And I take it that doesn’t mean I was the relapse.”

TK bit his lip and shook his head. His leg was bouncing so much it made the table vibrate and he pressed his hands against his legs willing them to keep still. “Opioids. I had been clean for years before that. I’m back to 96 days now … I couldn’t deal with the man I had just asked to marry me moving in with his gym instructor instead.”

Carlos winced. “That deserves the term nuclear.”

“You don’t need to abstain just because I’m not drinking,” TK muttered.

“I think I do need to abstain,” Carlos said softly. “And it’s no hardship at all.”

TK frowned, but he felt strangely moved, mostly because Carlos wasn’t making a fuss about it. There had been days in the past when he had felt so on edge that he’d had to leave even small gatherings if alcohol was served. None of his friends had ever understood it, and of his parents only Enzo had never questioned it, accepting and supporting his needs without any further comments. His mother had been skeptical and frowning about it, but she would at least put the alcohol away if he made her aware of it. His father on the other hand had always scoffed about it and still kept his drink, and complained when TK then had left. It was staggering to now have a virtual stranger rejecting a drink of his own because TK wasn’t having one himself.

“Thank you,” TK whispered, averting his gaze.

“Of course,” Carlos said. “Could I ask a question about that?”

TK shrugged. “Sure.”

“It was clearly very important to you that I hadn’t had any alcohol either. So, why were you in a bar at all when we first hooked up?”

“If you’d had anything to drink, I’d just not have kissed you. Which would have been a real loss.” TK grinned for a moment, proud of Carlos’ startled laugh. Then he exhaled slowly and made a face. “Captain Blake had invited us. And the team is so new I couldn’t … Skipping out on team bonding events is not a good idea right now. That we don’t really trust each other has already been a problem. Usually, it’s one or two people joining an existing team and finding their place inside that structure. Having a whole team come together at once is a very different experience.”

“Your team doesn’t know.”

TK huffed. “You heard the part when I said trust is in short supply, right? Dad’s the only one who knows and … he’s never understood that there are days when I should stay away from any kind of temptation.”

Carlos nodded and thankfully changed the topic. “After you left the other day, while I was talking to Tony, I was reminded why I’m not really dating either.”

TK raised his brows. “Yeah? Could have fooled me with the setup I saw on your table.”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “It was just a meal!”

“And candles and champagne.”

“That I thankfully also forgot to open. That would have clearly been the biggest misstep. But no, it really wasn’t supposed to be a date. I’m … I take care of people. That’s my thing.” Carlos shrugged and stared at the table.

TK chuckled, still not quite believing it. “Okay. So, why don’t you date, then?”

Carlos inhaled deeply and leaned his head back for a moment. “Technically, I’m married.”

TK froze. “What? What does ‘technically’ mean.”

“That the divorce papers have been drawn up for a long time,” Carlos said slowly. “But that filing that divorce is a little complicated.”

TK frowned but kept silent. Carlos leaned forward and braced his arms on the table, first pressing his hands flat against the wood, then starting to drum his fingers against the surface in an irregular beat. He was clearly struggling with his words. TK didn’t know how to put his own confusion and outrage into words either.

“I came out to my parents when I was seventeen. And it was … not great.” Carlos wet his lip. “I mean, it wasn’t bad. Not compared to how bad it really could have been, and has been for others. But I still … felt like I had lost my parents. I regretted coming out for a long, long time.”

“So, you married?” TK asked wryly.

Carlos shrugged. “Pretty much. My best friend was fighting to get away from her frankly overbearing mother. So, we came up with this plan, and as soon as I was done with high school, we married. Moved into a shared apartment, a tiny, horrible thing. And I might have anonymously reported the landlord right after we moved out, which even got him put in jail in the end.”

TK snorted surprised. “Wow.”

“Yeah, it was a really horrible place. But we couldn’t afford anything else because we refused to accept any support from either my parents or her sister.”

“You said she was your best friend. Did she know you were gay?”

Carlos nodded. “Of course. She was at my side throughout the whole drama of figuring that out for myself and freaking out about it because … let’s just say my family’s reaction wasn’t exactly a surprise, even if I had been more worried about everyone but my parents. I knew I could trust her and that she wouldn’t ever expect me to pretend anything else. It wasn’t … Our apartment had two bedrooms.”

TK nodded, feeling surprisingly relieved that Carlos hadn’t tried to pressure himself into something he didn’t want. More relieved than knowing that he hadn’t helped Carlos cheat even. “You said something about divorce papers.”

Carlos sighed and folded his hands. He lowered his head and shook it slightly. “She was attending medical school. And halfway through that, we both recognized that the marriage hadn’t been the bright idea we’d thought it was at 18 and 20 years old. But medical school was stressful, and I had just joined the police academy, so we decided to wait until after her last exams were done.”

Carlos fell silent and this time it was him nervously bouncing his legs that made the table vibrate. TK grabbed his water to stop himself from reaching out and closing his hands around Carlos’. That would only send the wrong signals.

“She went missing a week before her final exams,” Carlos whispered. “And we don’t have so much as a single trace of what happened to her or where she is now.”

TK sucked in a breath, put his glass back on the table, and reached over the table to take Carlos’ hands. “I’m so sorry.”

Carlos sent him a shaky smile and shrugged. “It’s been three years. And I’ve tried to tell myself I’m not waiting any more, but…” He shook his head and huffed. “Someone pointed out to me that I’m really only pretending. I am waiting, and … we might have a trace now. It’s nothing, really. I know nothing will come of it. And still, I’m stupidly hopeful.”

“Thank you for telling me,” TK whispered.

Carlos shrugged again. “It’s not actually any kind of secret.”

TK smiled softly. “Still. Thank you for your trust.”

Carlos opened his mouth and closed it again with a click. He dropped his head to lean his forehead against their hands. “Maybe Tony is right, and I do need new friends.”

TK laughed, startled. “What?”

Carlos took a deep breath as he sat up again. “I’ve recently come to recognize that … what I thought was a friendship with my sister-in-law based on … our shared grief and desire to find Iris, might not be a friendship at all. And all my other friends … I don’t think a single one of them understands why I haven’t filed for divorce long ago, why I even agreed to wait until she was done with school at all.”

“She was your best friend and medical school is stressful enough all on its own,” TK said with a frown. “You said you married to support each other. I don’t see why you should have stopped during such a crucial part of her education.”

Carlos sighed. “I’m just startled to not be questioned about it for once.”

TK shrugged. “That’s hardly my place. Anyone’s place but your own, really.”

Carlos smiled and squeezed TK’s hands. “Thanks.”

TK shrugged again, helplessly.

Carlos huffed. “Okay, let’s stop with the very depressing themes for tonight. At least we’re now sure we are on the same page about not dating.”

TK laughed. “Yeah, okay.”

He really didn’t mind turning the conversation to something lighter. For a little while, though, they settled into a strangely comfortable silence. TK felt emotionally exhausted, both from sharing his own story as well as listening to Carlos’. He didn’t draw back his hands, instead rubbing one thumb in little circles over the back of Carlos’ hand.

Their silence was only interrupted when they were served their food. TK inhaled deeply as soon as the bowl was in front of him, partly to distract himself from feeling a little lost about having to let go of Carlos’ hands. His mouth watered, and he hurriedly grabbed the chopsticks. He groaned in bliss as he savored his first bite.

“You didn’t lie,” TK muttered around a mouthful of noodles. “This has to be the best Pho in all of Texas!”

Carlos chuckled. “I’d never lie about Pho. So, let’s compare the craziest calls either of us have ever been on.”

TK grinned. “I’m from New York, you’ve already lost, Cowboy.”

Carlos laughed. “You ain’t seen anything yet, City Boy!”

 

Chapter 04

“I followed your insane advice,” Michelle said with a wry smile as she took the bottle of beer Carlos held out for her. “I went to a curandera. Something I never expected to do in my life.”

Carlos smiled warily. It had been a joke and mostly a means to distract her from the list of blue trucks she had been asking about. Tía Lucia might believe in that kind of thing, but he was convinced she had only found confirmation for it because she already believed in it. “How was it?”

He sat down beside her, and she turned to him, pulling one leg up onto the couch and bracing an arm on the backrest. Carlos mirrored her position and took a sip of his beer, watching her.

Michelle shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Strange. I’d call it all humbug, but … at this point, I’m ready to believe anything, try anything. She made me complain about Iris, venting some of that anger you probably find in every sibling relationship, and as soon as I was done, she somehow managed to let only one of the candles I had lit earlier go out. The black one, that stood for rage apparently.”

Carlos chuckled. “Or maybe it really helped you overcome some of that rage and there is something to it.”

Michelle frowned and leaned back. “Don’t tell me you really believe in any of that crap?”

“No,” Carlos admitted. “Though, sometimes I wonder. Other people believe in it, and it does bring change for them. What did she tell you?”

“She gave me a spell and told me it would somehow make me find a new trace.” Michelle scoffed.

Carlos raised his brows. “What kind of spell?”

“I shall burn a $100 bill under a picture of Iris while taking a bath in sage, bergamot, lavender, and chamomile. I didn’t even know what bergamot was until Captain Strand told me.”

Carlos frowned “And what does have Captain Strand to do with it?”

Michelle shrugged. “He was kept awake by a nightmare while we were on nightshift together, I was kept awake by this really strange experience. So, he told me it’s a citrus fruit and said at least I’d smell fabulous after taking that bath.”

Carlos snorted. “That’s probably true. Have you already done it?”

Michelle shook her head. “I don’t know if I want to do it. Am I really that desperate already?” She sighed deeply and leaned her head against her arm on the backrest. “I probably am. I at least have bergamot at home now.”

“Except for the 100 bucks it won’t cost you anything,” Carlos said. “And no one needs to know if nothing happens. Or even if something happens and you don’t want to tell anyone about following the advice of a curandera.”

Michelle laughed. “Can you imagine Mom’s face if I told her? Or Iris’ face?”

Carlos could very well imagine how Iris would have reacted to something like this, but he had no idea about Theresa. He had made it his policy long ago not to talk about Theresa with Michelle though, and so he just shrugged with a lopsided grin.

Michelle inhaled deeply. “Did you have any success looking for the blue truck?”

Carlos stared at Michelle, dread forming a heavy lump in his gut. He had pushed away his doubts after talking to Tony, both after the call and every time since it had come up since Tony had shown up on his doorstep. He didn’t want this suspicion about her to be true, they had gone through so much over the last three years. He had hoped she wouldn’t ask about it again, taking his silence as the answer it was.

“I told you I wasn’t going to look it up,” Carlos said softly. “For one, it wouldn’t turn up anything anyway. We can’t trust the color that the neighbor gave you. The truck could easily have been gray or green and it could have looked like blue in the dark. There are thousands of pickup trucks registered in Austin and the surrounding area.”

“We need to try at least!” Michelle insisted.

Carlos shook his head. “I have no business looking at those registries, and I have even less business telling you anything about it. I’m not snooping around like that. Go to Detective Washington with this new information and see if she can do anything with it.”

Michelle huffed. “That woman hates me.”

“You haven’t exactly been polite to her since she took over the case,” Carlos said. “It would go a long way if you’d show her some basic respect, you know.”

“She’s never taken Iris’ case seriously!” Michelle said angrily. “She dismissed everything I said out of hand.”

“How do you know that?” Carlos asked.

“She hasn’t found any leads, has she?”

Carlos stared at Michelle. “Are you listening to yourself? You can’t know if she ever had any leads that just didn’t pan out. And if missing person cases were solved that easily, there wouldn’t ever be any missing people.”

Michelle shook her head. “We’ve never heard anything from her if we didn’t go and ask first! And you know how she treated me!”

“I also remember very well that every single time I have seen you interact with her, you have insinuated that she either has no interest in doing her job or is completely unsuited for her job. In her place, I wouldn’t want to talk to you either if I didn’t have to. And she has no obligation to keep you posted on every single step she takes. She will have a ton of information she won’t share with you or me because it’s frankly unadvisable to share that kind of sensitive information with anyone not officially working the case. She may already know about the blue truck, or she might not but it could bring together some puzzle pieces for her if you tell her. Honestly, she doesn’t even have an obligation to tell you if she finds Iris, at least if she is alive.”

Michelle reared back. “What?”

“Iris is an adult,” Carlos said. “If she decided to just leave and start a new life somewhere else it would have been her right. And all Detective Washington would ever tell you in such a situation was that Iris didn’t want contact with any of us.”

“That’s bullshit!” Michelle said. “For one, Iris wouldn’t have just left, and you know it! And second, we are her family, of course we have a right to know where she is!”

Carlos sighed. “Anyway. If you want anyone to look into the blue truck, you need to talk to Detective Washington.”

“I don’t see why you can’t just do it!”

“I already told you. I have no right to look up that information. And I especially have no right to share it with a civilian. And I’m not letting you use me in that way, Michelle.”

“In other words, you are giving up on finding Iris,” Michelle said darkly.

Carlos groaned and rolled his eyes. “You accused me of that two years ago as well.”

“And I was right! You haven’t really helped me once since! I thought you might finally see…”

“I’ve helped you plenty,” Carlos said darkly. “Driving you to work instead of arresting you every time you show up at Dustin’s place? And sure, Dispatch is ordering me to let you go instead of bringing you to the station and processing you, but I’m still not sure how legal those orders really are. The number of times you have broken Dustin’s restraining order should have already put you in jail!”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “That whole thing is bullshit, and everyone knows it! I know he is somehow involved!”

Carlos sighed. “Contrary to all evidence?”

“There is no evidence!” Michelle shouted.

“Exactly! No evidence at all to implicate that Dustin did anything to Iris! That there was a crime at all!”

“He was ruining her from the first day they got together!” Michelle ground out through gritted teeth. “I regret the day she ever met him.”

“You misjudged her relationship with Dustin from the very beginning,” Carlos said quietly. “There wasn’t anything wrong with their relationship. I’m not sure if you just disliked Dustin from the start, or if this is your mother’s opinion talking through you.”

Michelle frowned. “What?”

Carlos glared at her. “Your mother hated everyone who helped Iris take a step away from her. I know she can stand Dustin just slightly more than she can me because, while he was all for supporting Iris’ independence from her as well, at least he didn’t marry her to accomplish it.”

“Leave Mom out of this,” Michelle hissed. “Your dislike and disrespect for her have nothing to do with this situation. I thought you were my friend! Why aren’t you interested in finding Iris anymore?”

“I’d love nothing more than to find her,” Carlos said. “But I’m sick of having my integrity compromised by you and whoever in the department is protecting you. Dustin has every right to force the issue about the restraining order against you, and one day he’ll do it! One day you’ll step over a line he won’t be able to accept being broken.”

“If he were innocent, he’d help me!”

“Because it’s all about you?”

Michelle jumped up from the couch and dropped her bottle, the beer spilling out over the floor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” Carlos leaned back on the couch, looking up at her. “Every single thing is about you. When is the last time when we met like this that you even asked anything about me? I’m at the end of my rope with you, Michelle.”

“No, I think it’s all about you!” Michelle said, vibrating in anger. “It was always about you with Iris. You pressured her to marry you, you convinced her to wait on the divorce, and now you’re holding onto a marriage that was a farce from the very beginning. You have no right to her at all! Is the money the reason you don’t want to find her?”

Carlos took a deep breath as he felt something inside him break. “Please leave, Michelle.”

“You owe it to Iris to help me find her!” Michelle said. “She sacrificed so much for you!”

“Iris didn’t sacrifice anything for me,” Carlos said. “I owe you nothing, and what I owe Iris is between us.”

“You’ll regret this,” Michelle spat and stormed out of his house.

***

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Tony said.

“I met with Michelle earlier,” Carlos said quietly, tapping his fingers against the table and staring at a point beside Tony.

Tony had brought take-out when Carlos had called and asked him to come over, and they had eaten in silence. Carlos was still floored by the turn his conversation with Michelle had taken, and while he felt he needed to talk about it with Tony, he had no idea where to even start.

Tony whistled lowly. “And that made you look like this?”

Carlos shrugged. “I have been going over the last three years in my head. I think today was the first time I outright said ‘no’ to her. Even when I was cleaning out Iris’ apartment and storing away her personal items, I always evaded Michelle’s questions or demands instead of telling her no. She wanted to have so many of Iris’ things, and I managed to avoid a confrontation about it by telling her we’d sort it out later, I put everything in boxes instead of putting anything aside for her. All of it is up in my attic now, in the hopes that I’ll eventually be able to return it to her.”

“I take it she didn’t help clean out the apartment.”

“Of course not,” Carlos muttered. “That would have been real work, wouldn’t it?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “That might be too harsh. I believed her when she said it would be too hard for her. And I was glad she wasn’t there, to be honest, because I didn’t know how comfortable Iris would have really been with Michelle going through her things. Michelle is very much idealizing their relationship in her head now.”

“That’s common for the people left behind,” Tony said quietly. “It’s probably something you’re doing as well. We don’t even notice that kind of thing in ourselves.”

Carlos shrugged. “I know. But I think both Michelle and Theresa are a little bit extreme in this.”

“So, what happened after you told her no?”

“She blew up on me,” Carlos said. “Accused me of not wanting to share the money. And of using Iris, of pressuring her into marrying me. I wonder how long she’s thought that way.”

“Maybe always?” Tony suggested. He leaned back with a sigh and tilted his head to the side. “Michelle has clearly been using you for these three years. It’s not uncommon for people to reflect their own behavior on others. So, you clearly need to have had the same motives she’s had for at least the last couple of years. Or maybe she was always a user.”

Carlos made a face. “You have made me question most of my life for the last three years since I vented to you, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said softly. “But getting a wake-up call about this kind of behavior is important. Sooner rather than later it would create a very bad situation for your mental health. And I think it already has. So, I’m very grateful you vented your frustration to me, and that you … didn’t outright reject the possibility that this relationship you share with Michelle might not be the best for you.”

“Yeah.” Carlos rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m glad you’re here. I still think it’s overkill for you to re-arrange your entire work schedule for me, but I’m so damn grateful that I don’t have to deal with this alone anymore. I hadn’t even noticed how exhausting dealing with Michelle has become.”

“So, is that friendship over now with this confrontation?” Tony asked.

Carlos shrugged. “Is it bad that I still hope she’ll see my point and we’ll eventually reconnect? I don’t know how I could have come through that first year without her, really. I needed someone to keep my hopes up, and while I hated how she behaved with Dustin, her fierce conviction we’d find Iris also made me … It gave me the strength to move on, and not to get lost in any … I mean, we both know what horrible things could have happened to Iris. Sometimes it’s difficult not to get lost in the horror of imagining what happened.”

“But that relationship is no longer a help to you anymore,” Tony said. “It’s even become damaging. Maybe it was damaging from the beginning, even if it was helpful at the same time. I don’t recommend trying to mend fences with Michelle, but it’s your choice of course.”

Carlos hummed quietly. With her parting words, he wasn’t even sure if mending anything was possible or if he would join Dustin on the list in her head of the main suspects for Iris’ murder.

“Did you tell her that I’m looking into the case?”

“No. I didn’t … I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t approve. Because she doesn’t know you, and she doesn’t have a chance to even try to micromanage you. That’s what she has been trying to do with Detective Washington. Only, Detective Washington has no patience for that kind of thing, which has made Michelle detest her. She believes Detective Washington never took Iris’ case seriously because she didn’t do exactly what Michelle demanded of her.”

“Many family members of missing people get that kind of impression because they don’t know what kind of work is put into their loved one’s case. For good reason, of course, but that leaves them with a void concerning information that can be as hurtful as the void their loved one left in their life.”

Carlos huffed. “I know all of that. I did go to all the damn seminars you sent me to, you know? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re trying to pave my way to the Detective’s exam. I’m not sure I want to pursue that road, though. I’m happy with being on the streets for now.”

Tony grinned. “But you’ll be prepared if you ever change your mind. And even as a patrol officer that kind of knowledge is helpful.”

Carlos rolled his eyes but returned the grin. “It’s come in handy a couple of times. But my captain keeps questioning my career plans and is disappointed when I repeat over and over again that I’m not interested in pursuing the Detective’s exam for the moment, despite going to all these extra classes. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t been on the job that long. And not everyone is like you trying to beat records wherever they go.”

Tony laughed. “Hey, my gold shield record was pure accident!”

“Sure,” Carlos said, exaggeratedly drawing out the word.

“Don’t worry so much about Michelle,” Tony said. “She shouldn’t be your focus. You need to focus on yourself.”

Carlos shrugged. “I don’t think I have done much of that in the last three years. Not sure I still know how to do that.”

“I know,” Tony said quietly. “And I’m sad I didn’t notice earlier. Our once-a-month video calls are clearly not enough. I’ve already proposed a family vacation to JJ and Will next summer here in Austin. They are both in favor of it. And we’ll convince you to visit us more regularly so that you can get out of here once in a while.”

“Really?” Carlos asked grinning.

“We’ll task the kids with convincing you if you turn out to be stubborn. You can’t say no to them, we all know that, and we are all prepared to use it!”

Carlos laughed. “You fight dirty.”

“That’s the only way to do it,” Tony said with raised brows. “How are things going with TK?”

Carlos choked on air. “That’s a turn in the conversation.”

“I’m curious! And I’m tired of talking about a person you clearly need to cut out of your life.”

“We found some common ground.”

Tony leaned forward, grinning brightly. “What kind of common ground? I mean, except for the phenomenal sex I already know about?”

Carlos shook his head, laughing. “Will you ever let that go?”

“You were both so focused on it, so, no, no chance.”

“He is new in town and needs local friends, I clearly just learned I need some new local friends as well because Michelle isn’t a friend at all and everyone else … I was so startled when TK didn’t judge me after I told him about Iris. I think that was a complete first. Even you were very judgmental when you learned about it.”

Tony raised his brows. “That was more about your parents and driving their teenage son into that kind of decision. You really told him about her?”

“Shouldn’t I have? He told me why he doesn’t date, and I told him why I’m not really dating either. Seemed only fair to put that out on the table, especially as…” Carlos bit his lip and frowned. “His ex cheated on him, so I didn’t want him to think he was in a similar situation with me now, only in place of the other guy in the relationship, you know.”

“That’s why he doesn’t date?”

Carlos nodded. “It was very recent. Just before he came out here. I suspect it’s part of the reason he moved here with his father in the first place.”

“There is more to that story than just a bad break up for him to put more than 1700 miles between himself and his ex, isn’t there?” Tony asked.

Carlos shrugged. He wouldn’t go into any details about the things TK had trusted him with. He had only recognized after the long hours they had spent talking that night how much TK had revealed to him about his trust issues. It was something Carlos knew he would need to be very careful with if he wanted to keep his new friendship.

“You don’t need to tell me,” Tony said after a moment.

“I think we could become good friends,” Carlos said. “We have plans to try out all the Chinese restaurants around town because I couldn’t tell him where he could get decent Dim Sum. I think he might have held that lack of education against me. Though, I hope showing him the best place for Pho redeemed me a little bit.”

Tony smiled warmly. “I’m glad things worked out for the two of you. I was a little worried I had ruined your chances.”

Carlos made a face. “I think if you hadn’t been there, it could have been even worse. Surprising him with dinner might have just completely blown up in my face, especially with the kind of fancy dinner I chose.”

“It was very fancy and very delicious.”

Carlos rolled his eyes.

“I really hope you’ll cook again for me while I’m here,” Tony said. “TK has no idea what he missed. And I enjoyed not having to cook for once. Let me tell you, it’s a real hardship to have two spouses who cannot cook more than the most basic things!”

***

Carlos grinned as he put the cup with coffee in front of TK, who was nearly falling asleep again. TK was clearly used to long mornings in bed when he wasn’t on shift, and Carlos had barely managed to get him out of bed half an hour ago. Sadly, Carlos’ shift started just after lunch and he still had some things to do before that, so he had needed to roust TK out of bed.

“Mornings are evil,” TK murmured.

Carlos patted his shoulder. “Not half as evil as you believe. How do you manage this unwillingness to get out of bed with your job?”

“When I’m on the job it’s different. When we are woken up by the alarm it’s always an adrenalin rush. There is no reason for adrenalin on a perfectly normal morning. You could have warned me that you had a shift today.”

“I hope making you breakfast is enough of an apology for the not really that early morning,” Carlos said grinning.

TK huffed. “Maybe. Watching you in the kitchen might be enough reward all on its own.”

“You have a shift tomorrow?” Carlos asked.

TK sighed deeply and stared into his coffee. “Yeah.”

“Not happy about that?” Carlos asked worriedly.

“Things are a little strained,” TK muttered. “I told you about the argument with Judd, right?”

“You did.”

“Last shift, Judd never even looked at me. It was strange.”

“Have you tried to talk to him?” Carlos asked with raised brows while he got eggs and bacon out of the fridge and grabbed a couple of tomatoes as well.

“I’m not sure I even want to talk to him. And yes, I know, he’s my teammate, and we need to clear this up. I don’t really want to talk about this right now.”

“Okay. But if you need to talk, I’m here.”

TK nodded slowly. “Paul said the same.”

“So there’s at least one person on your team you get along with?”

“I’m getting along just fine with everyone. Except for Judd. And that’s not only about the silo call. But weren’t we going to stop talking about this?”

“Sorry,” Carlos said sheepishly. “Not getting along with people you work with sucks. I have enough of those colleagues as well, but at least I’m not stuck with them 24 hours out of every three days. Some of them I only see when something really big is going on, and even then, chances are high I don’t really have to interact a lot with them.”

“Do you get along with your patrol partner?” TK asked.

“We have a group of six of us that rotate through pairing up with each other, and yes, I’m good with all of them. There was this guy I had to drive with during my first year, though, I was thankful every time a shift was over. I threw a small private party with Iris when he retired.”

TK grinned. “Wow. He had to have been a real asshole.”

Carlos shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t get along with him. Sometimes two people rub each other the wrong way for no reason at all.”

“And sometimes people are assholes.”

“True. How do you like your eggs?”

“Soft scrambled. And the toast not too dark. Thanks for making breakfast. I’ll cook some time as well, but in the morning I’m more likely to burn your kitchen down than anything else.”

“I like taking care of people,” Carlos reminded him. “Especially those I care about.”

TK hummed. “Can I ask something about Iris? Because I keep thinking about it. But I wasn’t sure you’d be comfortable talking about it.”

“Sure. If you ever ask a question I don’t want to answer, I’ll just tell you.”

“Why exactly did you marry her? You said your parents reacted badly to you coming out to them. But my head can’t get from there to marrying your best friend.”

Carlos sighed deeply, glad he was standing with his back to TK for the moment. “I thought marrying a woman would … repair my relationship with them. That they would … look at me again, instead of through me. My whole life they had been talking about how I would build my own family in the future, have a wife and kids. I thought I would give them what they wanted this way, you know?”

“Not really.”

Carlos sighed again. “Yeah, didn’t work out anyway. And looking back now I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea.”

“Being 18 means we do stupid things that we’ll regret the rest of our life. Is your relationship with your parents better now?” TK asked quietly.

“No. I’m over to visit them regularly, but … we aren’t really a part of each other’s lives. It’s like this complete disconnect. I always had trouble talking with them, but it’s become even worse after I married Iris. Which was partly because I was too stubborn to accept their support since the whole thing hadn’t brought the miracle healing I had envisioned, so I only drove them further away.”

TK groaned. “I have no idea why parents have to be this complicated.”

Carlos snorted. “I’m pretty sure my parents think the same about me. From what I’ve seen, your relationship with your dad seems pretty good.”

“You’ve only seen us on calls, though,” TK said darkly. “He isn’t my dad there, he’s my Captain. Those are two distinctly different relationships. Although, people usually don’t get it, so I don’t fault you.”

Carlos cocked his head thoughtfully and turned halfway to TK, watching him for a moment with a frown without taking his eye off the pan for too long. “How is it different?”

“He doesn’t act like my dad when we are on a call. Most of the time not even when we’re at the station, though it’s a little blurrier there. It’s always been that way, honestly. And I can’t imagine working with him and it being different. I can’t be treated differently than any other firefighter under his command while we are out on calls, that would put everyone in danger. And I can’t treat him differently than the others do either. Though, thankfully that overlaps more often than not because Captain Strand tends to make the station into his family, so if he does something stupid everyone tends to lose their mind over it.”

Carlos chuckled. “He does that often?”

“More often than I’d like. Much more often than a captain should,” TK muttered. “He sometimes doesn’t know when to let someone else do something. And so far, it’s always worked out, so no one ever questioned it. At least not openly. I know I have questioned it sometimes in private, and I think others in New York did, too. Sooner or later the rest of our new crew here will be comfortable enough to do that as well.”

“I really can’t imagine it,” Carlos admitted. “Sometimes I cross paths with my dad during work. He’s a Texas Ranger. But he is always my father first in those moments, which makes it really difficult to work with him. I turn right back into the five-year-old boy failing at lying about stealing the fresh cookies before they could even cool down. Or the eleven-year-old who got into really big trouble for stealing the horses with his cousins and then getting lost during a storm.”

TK chuckled. “I guess it’s different for different people. I don’t think I even had to work to separate those two roles. Of course, Captain Strand tends to go hard on probies in certain situations and especially their first couple of days, and he did so with me as well. He said he’d rather have a new firefighter learn the hardship of the job right away than to help them through their probationary period only for them to then learn they aren’t made for the job.”

Carlos shrugged. He still didn’t quite understand what TK was talking about, but maybe he didn’t need to. “So, I’ve only seen you with your captain when we met on calls, not with your dad.”

“Yeah.” TK sighed. “My dad’s the guy who doesn’t understand why dragging me into a bar isn’t helping me at all when his whole reason for dragging me to Austin in the first place was to keep me sober.”

Carlos made a face, carefully hiding it from TK. He had forgotten about that one for a moment. “Have you talked to him about that?”

“I don’t even know anymore how often. It’s like pulling teeth because he doesn’t want to talk about it. I think he believes if we don’t talk about it, it will eventually go away. He doesn’t get it, he won’t ever get it. He expects me to deal with it in a certain way, and I don’t think he can see that he could be wrong about that. That I need my own way of dealing with my addiction.”

“What would help you if you can’t get out of going to the bar with the rest of the team?” Carlos asked. He pulled out two plates and loaded them with toast, eggs, bacon, and tomatoes.

TK shrugged when Carlos turned to him and started to eat silently as soon as the plate was in front of him. Carlos watched him for a little while, wondering if TK didn’t have an answer or just didn’t dare to voice his ideas.

“I could come as well,” Carlos suggested after a while. “Do you think that would help, having someone there who knows and who can keep an eye on you? No one would even question it if I just dragged you out at some point if it got to be too much for you.”

TK froze with the fork halfway raised to his mouth and stared at Carlos. “I … that sounds pretty good, actually.”

Carlos nodded with a smile. “Then you’ll call me the next time your team is going to the bar. Chances are good I’ll already know about it anyway. For some reason, Michelle invited me the last couple of times as well even though she had no intention of spending time with me.”

TK frowned. “You know Captain Blake?”

Carlos blinked surprised. “Oh. I don’t think I told you that part.”

“What part?” TK asked with a frown.

“Michelle is my sister-in-law. Iris is her younger sister.”

Now it was TK who blinked, and he slowly put his fork down. “You said your sister-in-law had turned out to be pretty awful. Or is there another sister-in-law?”

Carlos sighed. “I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t talk like that about someone you work with.”

TK huffed. “No need to be sorry. I can handle it, and you aren’t telling me anything I didn’t already know concerning Captain Blake being kind of horrible.”

“You got a bad impression of her?” Carlos asked surprised. “After such a short time working with her?”

TK shrugged. “It’s been long enough to see her handle her team and the patients. I was certified as a firefighter-paramedic in New York, I know how you should behave with patients. It’s … I think this might be one of these cases where two people rub each other the wrong way. But she is also very harsh on the job. Especially with Nancy and Tim, and I haven’t ever heard her address either of them by their given names even once. And she tends to be either nearly late to a shift start or leaving early, leaving Nancy and Tim to take care of cleaning and restocking the ambulance. They said she volunteers with some welfare organization, but that’s no excuse not to do the job the AFD pays her for.”

Carlos chuckled and shook his head. “Okay, I see that I really can’t make your opinion of her worse.”

“To be honest, I couldn’t stand her before I saw any of those things, and I can’t even tell you why. Most of the time her head doesn’t seem to be on the job. Though, she manages to get a grip on herself when her patients are in danger, at least. I guess otherwise she’d have already ended up in big trouble. Why is she awful to you? You said you thought you were friend but weren’t.”

Carlos shrugged. “I think most of our friendship was based on her hoping I’d help her get information about Iris’ case. And help her with her own investigations. Getting her a list of a certain kind of car registered in Austin and that type of things. It’s the reason Tony came here, to be honest.”

TK frowned, shaking his head and leaning back. “I don’t understand. What does your friend have to do with it?”

Carlos blinked dumbfounded. “Oh, Tony is an FBI agent. And he was pretty put out when I vented to him about Michelle’s behavior a while ago. So, he arranged to consult on a case here. He said he isn’t here for Iris but to look into some things Michelle has done. I think that’s only half the truth, though. He has asked too many questions about Iris for that.”

“Do you think he’ll find something?”

Carlos shook his head. “I keep telling myself that hoping for anything will just hurt me in the end.”

TK sighed and reached over the table to grab Carlos’ hand. “That situation is so fucked up. But if you ever need to vent about Captain Blake, I’ll be happy to listen and may even join in!”

 

Chapter 05

TK threw the last dart and huffed. He wasn’t really putting anything into the game, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t put out by his aim. Carlos laughed as TK walked to the board to get his darts back and TK rolled his eyes. He was relieved that Carlos had kept his promise to come to the bar when TK had called him earlier. It wasn’t a good day, and TK felt itchy, but when he had tried to bow out of the evening at the bar with the team, his father had made it very clear that staying away wasn’t an option.

“Mind if we join you? I mean, your flirtation seems to have withered away anyway.”

Carlos laughed when TK turned toward Paul and glared at him. He pressed a hand against the small of TK’s back and said, “Someone isn’t in the mood to flirt at the moment.”

TK huffed, but the warmth of Carlos’ hand on his back took away the snappish reply that came to mind first. He really wasn’t in the mood to flirt, or play darts, or be in this place at all.

“Let’s make this a proper competition,” Marjan said. “Maybe trying not to lose spectacularly against us will distract you from your sour mood, TK. I even volunteer to keep track of the scores!”

“You just want to show us all up,” TK murmured.

Marjan grinned. “That’s half the fun, so maybe. But I have as much anger to work through as you do, so maybe it will help us both.”

TK frowned and passed her the darts when she held out her hand. “What kind of anger? Did something happen with someone on shift?”

Marjan rolled her eyes. “You and Judd are the only ones arguing on shift. No, I was told by someone at my mosque that I should look for another place of worship.”

“Because you lost your hijab in an accident?” TK asked incredulously. It was the first thing that came to mind because she had clearly been struggling with that during their last couple of shifts.

Marjan shrugged and took aim. “Because I’m too proud. It’s not even the first time I’ve been accused of that. I don’t know why it’s hitting me harder this time.”

Paul patted her shoulder after she had thrown the last dart. “You’ve been in a vulnerable place the last couple of days. Your place of worship should be a place of support, not one where you are shamed.”

“I know, I know. I’ll get over it.” Marjan sighed and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper to note down her points, making a column for each of them on the paper in the process. “Paul’s up next.”

“You’ll do what I said, right?” Paul asked.

Marjan grinned. “Yes. I’ll go back to the mosque, holding my hijab up high.”

Paul nodded before he took the darts.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with awful people,” TK said and leaned against the table beside Marjan. “It sounds like it wasn’t really about the hijab, but about you taking pride in the calling you’ve found for yourself. Might as well be jealous that you reached for your dreams, maybe?”

Marjan laughed. “Maybe. And you are right, it might not have been about hijab gate at all. It was great how you all reacted by the way. It’s not the first time I lost my hijab in an accident. It’s a risk I became aware of very early on at the academy. But it was the first time my team shielded me when it happened. So, thank you.”

“That was mostly Cap,” TK said. “You should thank him in person, too.”

“I already did,” Marjan said. “So, is your bad mood really still about Judd?”

TK groaned and threw his head back. It wasn’t even half of it, but it was a handy excuse. “Oh god, yes! I don’t know who he thinks he is calling me the coach’s kid! He really had the gall to insinuate I only got this job because of my father!” He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Carlos throw his darts. “And sitting down to talk about that fucked-up call didn’t help anything either.”

“I think it helped plenty,” Paul said.

“Yeah?” TK took the darts from Carlos and threw them again with too much force and not enough aim. He wasn’t really into the whole competition Marjan had proposed.

“It didn’t solve that argument you had,” Paul said. “But it put the other problem we discussed on the table. And if you remember, both Marjan and I agree with you that Judd should have given us more details. In contrast to Cap, I read the whole handbook, and for happening relatively often, that type of call is strangely missing from the manual. So, we had no chance to learn about it.”

“What kind of call?” Carlos asked. “TK has only complained about Judd and their argument. He didn’t tell me about a bad call.”

“Kid stuck in corn after he tried to walk over it in a silo,” TK said.

“Oh.” Carlos sighed and shook his head. “Won’t be the last time you’ll have that to deal with it. It’s a common practice, despite being stupidly dangerous. Too many people die every year doing it.”

“Judd said the same,” Paul muttered.

“Marjan, Paul, and I went up there with Judd to save the kid. But he forgot to tell us about the backup plan. So when Marjan’s line snapped and she was suddenly sinking in the corn as well, I ignored Judd’s order and tried to grab her.”

“So you were pulled in, too,” Carlos muttered with a frown and eyed TK from top to bottom.

“Don’t worry, all of us got out of it just fine,” Marjan said, patting Carlos’s shoulder as she passed him the darts. “But it was scary as fuck being in the corn without knowing how or when they’d get us out. They cut open the silo and we took a tumble out the bottom of it.”

“How did your line snap?” Carlos asked.

“Rubbed against the edge of the silo lid. I went in last and didn’t check, or maybe they moved while we were working inside. Anyway, the rope was cut.”

“And as soon as we were back at the station, Judd accosted TK because of him diving after Marjan instead of retreating,” Paul continued. He grabbed his beer shaking his head. “They nearly got into a fistfight like two schoolyard boys.”

Carlos stared at TK who only shrugged uncomfortably. When Carlos had picked him up after TK had been arrested, Carlos had been great for not asking about it. TK wondered if those questions would come now when Carlos could put together the timeline of the silo call and that very ill-considered nighttime adventure.

“We’ve had three shifts since, and they still aren’t talking and instead just glare at each other,” Marjan said exasperated.

Carlos raised his brows and TK huffed, deciding to ignore him.

“I apologized for not following his orders when we talked about it later that shift. I’m not the one who started that argument when we came back! Honestly, where does he come off to judge me on my job performance just because I’m working with my dad?”

“You mentioned that you didn’t come here voluntarily,” Paul said, leaning against the table right beside TK.

TK sucked in a breath and Marjan turned to him wide-eyed. He should have known Paul wouldn’t let it go, and he wished that bit of information had never slipped out.

“Why are you here then?” Marjan asked quietly.

TK pulled his lips between his teeth and averted his gaze so that he wouldn’t have to look at either Marjan or Paul. After a moment his gaze landed on Carlos instead, who sent him a reassuring smile and mouthed a silent, ‘Trust them!’

TK closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He wrapped his arms around himself and said quietly, “I had a relapse. I’ve had a problem with drugs since shortly after high school. I had been clean for years. Then I learned my boyfriend, who I had just asked to marry me, would rather move in with his gym trainer and I … couldn’t deal.”

Paul’s warm hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed tightly. “Thanks for telling me, man.”

TK felt Marjan move on his other side, but he didn’t open his eyes even as he felt her shoulder press against his arm. For some reason, now that he had started to talk, it was much too easy to continue. “I accidentally OD-ed. I hadn’t … considered that my tolerance was no longer as high as it was … before rehab. I wanted … doesn’t matter, I guess. What I didn’t want was to kill myself. Even if Dad thinks otherwise.”

Marjan took his hand and laced their fingers, but thankfully no one said anything.

“Dad found me and saved me. He hadn’t agreed to the invitation here originally, but he changed his mind after that. And his condition for not recommending a suspension was that I had to come here with him, no matter what I thought about it. I don’t think I could have dealt with being grounded from work. Not when half my friends knew Alex was seeing someone else and never told me. Work was pretty much all I had left.”

“Brought you away from the temptation, though, right? And far away from your asshole of an ex,” Paul said quietly.

TK sighed and opened his eyes. He found Carlos standing much nearer than earlier and watching him with a soft smile. He barely knew any of these people, and they had been less judgmental and more supportive than he had ever experienced before.

He cleared his throat. “It also took me away from the support system I built for myself after rehab. A junkie can find drugs anywhere when he wants to. A support system is something you need to build carefully. Dad wasn’t part of that for a reason.”

“A support system doesn’t bring you to a bar when you’re struggling,” Marjan said softly. “You’ve been on edge since we arrived here and it doesn’t have much to do with Judd, does it?”

TK shrugged.

“Oh.” Paul huffed. “You want to get out of here?”

TK shook his head. “We’re here to bond as a team.”

“And Cap is bonding just fine with Captain Blake. Probie has found a date and probably already left, and Judd is here with his wife and doesn’t care much about bonding with us anyway. We can find another place to bond at,” Paul said. He raised his brows and looked from TK to Carlos. “That is, if the two of you don’t have plans.”

Carlos raised his hands and shook his head. “I’ve been here as support from the beginning. We don’t have plans and I’m happy to change location.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to try out Chinese places?” Marjan asked. “We could look one up close by and start with that. I could do with something to eat.”

TK laughed, feeling stupidly relieved. Barely anyone on his old team had known about his addiction, even after he had been off work for nearly two months when his mother had dragged him into rehab kicking and screaming. He hadn’t trusted them, and for the first time since coming to Austin, he thought that his father might have had the right idea about bringing him here.

“Yeah, okay. That would be great, actually.”

***

TK was exhausted when the shift was finally over. It had already started out being exhausting with Judd pulling him aside to apologize first thing. He wasn’t sure what to think about it, mostly because Judd’s argument that he had been afraid of losing someone on his team again didn’t sit right. TK was prepared to give him some leeway, though, mostly because of his PTSD, and hoped that the conversation they’d had would start to mend the team a little bit more.

Other than that, they had spent most of the night on some inane calls that could have been easily prevented if the people they ended up helping would have just followed simple safety guidelines. At least none of those calls had turned into any big fires, but it had still kept them awake and moving most of the night. So, all TK wanted to do when he left the fire station was to go home and face plant into his bed, but that plan was derailed as soon as he approached his car.

TK felt his blood go cold as he saw the man he had briefly met the other night at Carlos’ place leaning against his car. “Did something happen to Carlos?”

The man—Tony, if TK remembered correctly—went pale and shook his head wide-eyed. “No, everything is fine with Carlos! I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d jump to that conclusion.”

TK sighed relieved. “That’s good. I just … don’t know any other reason you would come looking for me.”

Tony grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. There could be plenty of reasons.” He sighed and his gaze drifted over TK’s shoulder to the fire station. “May I invite you to breakfast? I’d like to talk to you about something, but I didn’t want to ask Carlos for your number.”

TK frowned. “About what exactly?”

“Did Carlos tell you I’m an FBI agent?”

TK shrugged. “He mentioned it, yeah.”

“I got a call last night, one that might have some troubling consequences for your father,” Tony said. “Because you are Carlos’ friend and because of some things I suspect about you, I thought I should warn you and tell you a few details, even if Carlos shared some of this with you already.”

“Dad’s in trouble?”

“Not yet,” Tony said. “There is an investigation he’ll be involved in, though. There’s a diner not too far from here that I stumbled over the other day. They have decent coffee and really good pancakes. I’ll even pay.”

“Should I call Dad to…”

“No,” Tony interrupted him. “This conversation will be in confidence, if we have it. I’m only speaking to you because I feel your friendship might be the first good thing that’s happened to Carlos in the last three years, and I don’t want you to be blindsided by your father’s stupidity.”

TK sucked in a breath and turned his head to look back towards the entrance of the 126. There wasn’t anyone coming out right now, which wasn’t a surprise. TK had been the last to leave except for his father, who was still doing paperwork. Finally, he sighed and turned back to Tony.

“Okay. I won’t say no to a free breakfast.”

Tony chuckled. “That’s always a good resolution. I’m sorry to bother you with this right after a shift, but I assume Captain Strand will be called in for an interview later today and I didn’t want you to be blindsided by this.”

TK frowned. “You seem awfully worried about me.”

Tony hummed but only answered after they had gotten into TK’s car and left the parking lot. “I think we should talk about that after we have ordered food. I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about it while you’re driving.”

TK huffed but accepted the reason given for now. He wasn’t keen to talk about something upsetting either. “Carlos believes you are here to investigate Iris’ disappearance.”

Tony laughed. “That wasn’t the plan when I came here. But I might have let myself be sucked into the case a little. It’s a deeply painful situation for Carlos, and if I can help resolve it and take this burden from him, he’ll finally be able to move on. But the main focus of my private reason to be here is Michelle Blake. I also have an actual official work reason to be here.”

“The horrible sister-in-law,” TK muttered.

“Yeah, exactly,” Tony chuckled. “I’m honestly surprised Carlos told you anything about Iris. He has become very reserved about the whole topic over the last year or so.”

TK shrugged silently. Carlos had probably only told him because he had revealed his own relationship disaster first, but he wasn’t about to share that with Tony. The following silence was uncomfortable, but TK was also relieved that Tony didn’t try to fill it with meaningless chatter.

They reached the diner in less than ten minutes and TK ordered the first thing his gaze landed on when looking at the menu. As soon as they were alone at their table, TK folded his hands on top of it and stared at Tony. “What did Dad do?”

“Two nights ago, he was at a bar with Michelle Blake, and got pretty drunk in the process.”

TK nodded. “We were all there. Though, Marjan, Paul, Carlos, and I left pretty early and had very disappointing Chinese for dinner.”

Tony laughed. “Oh, yeah. Carlos seemed a little worried you’d hold his lack of education about proper Dim Sum against him.”

“I might,” TK said primly. “But that can be fixed. We just need to find a good Chinese place here first. Otherwise, I’ll have to drag him to New York for that.”

“There has to be at least one proper Chinese restaurant in this town!” Tony said amused.

“The problem is finding it!”

Tony chuckled. “True. Anyway, Captains Strand and Blake. She apparently told him about Iris, and also about her strife with Iris’ boyfriend Dustin. Who has a restraining order against her.”

TK groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. “Please tell me he didn’t do what I think he did.”

“He showed up at Dustin’s place,” Tony said. “First he berated him, then punched him, and then choked him while threatening him to change his mind about helping Captain Blake. In the end, he vomited on Dustin’s front porch and left.”

“How drunk was he?” TK asked with a long-suffering sigh.

“Not drunk enough that his speech was impacted,” Tony said. “And also, not drunk enough to be pulled over for suspicious driving. It will be difficult to determine because it’s too late for a blood test now. Did you notice anything when you came on shift? Unofficially of course. Though, you might be asked this again later by the police.”

TK took a deep breath and leaned back. “I don’t remember anything. Not at home either, though he had barely gotten out of bed when I left, nor at the station later.”

Tony raised his brows in surprise. “The two of you live together?”

“More convenient to only look for one place while relocating our whole lives,” TK said. He had come up with an excuse long before anyone had brought up the question because he had expected it to come up eventually. He wouldn’t admit to anyone that his father had practically forced him to move in with him. “I had an appointment before shift, so I left roughly one and a half hours before him.”

Tony nodded slowly. “A meeting?”

TK flinched. “Did Carlos tell you?”

“No. He didn’t even hint at it. But I’m glad you told him. It was an educated guess based on some of your behaviors I’ve witnessed. I probably only noticed because I have a friend I’ve witnessed that same kind of behavior from.”

TK fisted his hands and pressed them against his legs. “Like what?”

“You scratched the crook of your arm several times when we met. You’ve been fidgeting since you saw me earlier in a pretty specific way. You are going from pressing your nails against your wrists hard enough to leave indents to pulling your sleeves down to hide them. How long has it been?”

TK lowered his gaze and shrugged.

Tony sighed. “This suspicion I had about you is the reason why I’m here to talk to you about the trouble your father has brought on himself. Again, going by experiences with my friend who had a difficult time dealing with this kind of information for a while.”

“How is your friend?” TK asked quietly.

Tony smiled brightly. “Good. He’s been clean for over a decade.” He was interrupted by their food being delivered, and carefully rearranged his plate before he continued. “I won’t lie, he still has bad days. A bad case or sometimes things happening in his personal life can be triggering. We have built a tight support system around him, and no matter what, he always has someone to support him in those moments. It very strongly depends on his mood who he goes to.”

“It’s been 109 days since my relapse,” TK admitted, ignoring his own plate. Eating was the last thing on his mind now, and he didn’t even know if he’d be able to keep anything down. “Before that, it had been two years and three months.”

Tony raised his brows. “That would have been just before you moved here, right?”

TK shrugged. “Dad’s solution to the problem was to relocate and to take control over all of my recovery.”

Tony watched him intently, but ate for several minutes in silence before he asked, “And is that helpful? That your father took that control?”

TK shrugged and turned his head to look out of the window. “I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?”

“Has he taken that kind of role in the past as well?” Tony asked.

“It’s the first time he has taken any interest in it at all,” TK said darkly with a bitter edge. “He never cared about it in the past. Never wanted to talk about my recovery at all. Though to be honest, it was also the first time he found me passed out in my apartment and had to perform CPR on me.”

Tony made a face. “Ouch. So, he’s probably dealing with some trauma of his own about that situation. Which doesn’t mean you have to accept him taking control of the situation if that doesn’t help you. Especially if it’s more a hindrance than anything else.”

TK shrugged. He had no interest in discussing any of this with someone he barely even knew the name of, as grateful as he was for Tony going out of his way to prepare him for whatever fallout his father was facing. “What’s coming Dad’s way concerning the assault he committed?”

“We’ll see,” Tony said. “It depends on several things, and I can’t anticipate any of them.”

“I’m surprised no one came by yesterday to at least request a blood sample from him if not outright pull him off shift for an interview,” TK said.

Tony sighed. “That’s the ongoing problem that brought me here in the first place. Dustin didn’t report the incident until late afternoon yesterday. And even that was only because I called him to ask for some information in the morning and noticed that something was off. He might have a restraining order against Captain Blake, but for some reason, he has never been able to enforce it. So, he didn’t believe this would be any different. It took me hours to convince him that he needed to go to the police and report the assault.”

TK flinched a little. Part of him immediately resented Tony for what he had done, but he also knew that his father would just have to deal with the consequences of his actions. And maybe it would do him good to finally face such a situation. There were certain things in his father’s behavior that sometimes made it difficult to like him very much, TK had been uncomfortable about that since he had been old enough to recognize it as problematic.

It wasn’t the first time Owen had punched someone, but back in New York, he hadn’t even received a slap on the wrist. Owen Strand had standing in New York, was a living legend in certain circles, and he had never made a big enough mistake to tarnish that image. He didn’t have that kind of protection here in Austin.

“What’s the problem with the restraining order?” TK asked.

Tony shrugged. “I’m here to figure that out. Watching the fallout from your father’s actions might just give me the clue to solving that mystery.”

“Someone is protecting Captain Blake,” TK said thoughtfully.

“That’s my guess as well,” Tony agreed. “The question is who. You should eat. It’s really good.”

TK sighed and stared down at his plate. His appetite hadn’t returned yet, even though he had been looking forward to the food when he ordered it. He was hungry, though, and he knew from experience that he should eat when he had an opportunity.

***

When TK came home, he already knew he shouldn’t expect his father to be back for many hours to come. He had dropped Tony off at his hotel after breakfast, which had somehow turned into a very pleasant conversation after the unpleasant start, and they had even exchanged contact information. TK suspected Tony was the kind of person who just kept in contact with the people he had met, and he would be one of them going forward.

He had checked his phone after saying goodbye to Tony and found a text from Owen informing him that he needed to take care of a situation that had come up. TK had felt a little nauseous again after seeing the text, but he tried to remind himself that there was no reason to be concerned about his father. He would be able to handle the situation just fine, no matter what consequences would arise out of it.

TK went up to his room and fell onto his bed without bothering to take a shower first. He’d had one back at the station when he had still thought he and Owen would go home together, or maybe even have breakfast together. Owen had informed him after his shower that he needed to stay for paperwork, and TK wondered if he had already known that the police wanted to interview him and the paperwork had only been an excuse. TK knew there were things his father hadn’t been telling him since they had come to Austin, so it wouldn’t be the first time Owen had come up with that kind of excuse.

For a while, TK lay on his bed, his eyes closed just waiting for sleep to come. He had been so exhausted after the shift, and he still felt tired, but he was also anxious now. His thoughts kept circling around to what Owen might be facing at the moment and also around the things Tony had said about his recovery and Owen’s role in that. TK had been trying very hard not to think about it, but Tony bringing it up seemed to make it impossible to push them away again.

Eventually, TK sat up with a groan and grabbed his phone, texting Enzo and asking to call him when he had a little bit of time to talk. In the beginning, TK had detested that there had been a new man in his mother’s life, but he had soon learned to trust Enzo. In many ways, he had turned out to be the parent TK had really needed. If TK needed someone to talk to, Enzo was the one he could depend on, and between Owen practically living for the 252 and Gwyn pushing her career as a lawyer to ever higher goals, that was something TK hadn’t known until Enzo.

TK rolled his eyes when his phone rang not three minutes later. He took the call and said, “Please tell me you haven’t taken a break at work just for me, Papa.”

Enzo chuckled. “I haven’t. I happen to have a free day. Though, you know I’d always take a break for you. Especially if you are asking for an unscheduled call.”

TK sighed. He should have probably thought of that. Since he had come to Austin, he had talked to Enzo twice a week. They had agreed on that schedule as soon as TK had known he was leaving New York. Owen had barely left him time to say goodbye to anyone. Gwyn had been out of the country on a business trip at the time, so TK hadn’t been able to see her, but he had at least been able to share one last breakfast with Enzo.

“What’s going on?” Enzo asked.

“Do you think it was a mistake to just give into what Dad demanded of me?” TK asked quietly, flopping back on his bed.

Enzo sighed. “What brought this on?”

TK frowned. “Is that a yes?”

“I asked you if you were sure about leaving for Austin, TK. And I told you I would support you any way you needed if you stayed, whatever it would take to help you get through the suspension. You didn’t want to consider it then.”

“So yes, you think I shouldn’t have come here.”

“I … feared it would make your situation worse, yes,” Enzo said softly. “But over the last couple of weeks, something has clearly changed for the better.”

TK smiled. “I think so, too.”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

TK sighed. “Someone told me today that just because Dad found me and has to deal with his own trauma about it that I’m not obligated to let him take over my life.” He bit his lip, and added in a whisper, “Especially if it’s not working for me.”

“I fully agree with that,” Enzo said. “Who bestowed that wisdom upon you?”

“A friend of Carlos who invited me to breakfast to warn me about some trouble Dad caused.”

“What did Owen do?” Enzo asked exasperated.

“He drove to a stranger’s house while drunk to threaten and punch him because our paramedic captain has a problem with the guy,” TK said with a sigh. “A very, very long story I’m not comfortable talking about on the phone. Anyway, that friend … made an educated guess about my addiction and recent relapse and now I can’t…” He trailed off with a groan and rubbed his free hand over his forehead.

“It’s not working for you, is it?” Enzo said quietly, with clear worry lacing his voice.

TK shrugged and closed his eyes tightly. “The guy Dad chose as my therapist is … I’m running circles around him. And I’m not even sure if that’s because we just don’t click or because he’s incompetent. I really tried, in the beginning. I hate that … God, I hate myself so much that I let Alex’s stupid behavior drive me back to this shit. I thought I was … It had been two years, Papa. I thought I had worked through the worst.”

Enzo sighed. “And you did. It’s terrible that you had a weak moment and turned back to drugs instead of me or any of your friends who weren’t caught up in the situation with Alex. But you got back on your feet right away after that, you didn’t let the craving get the better of you again. And I know you keep fighting every day. I’m very proud of you, son, you know that, right?”

TK sucked in a breath. “Love you, too.”

Enzo chuckled. “So, your therapist sucks. And the meetings you are going to?”

“They’re good,” TK murmured. “They help a lot. And I’m getting along well with the people I’ve met there. I think they might even be better than the meetings I went to in New York, but I can’t put my finger on what the difference is.”

“That’s something good at least. What other things aren’t working? And what things are working?”

“I…” TK rolled onto his side and stared out the window at the sky. “You know how the whole team goes to that bar for team bonding time outside our shifts?”

Enzo huffed. “I still can’t believe Owen doesn’t see the problem with that!”

TK shrugged. “I … told two people on my team about my addiction. Carlos encouraged me to trust them, and I think he was right. They decided to get me out of the bar, and we went to the nearest Chinese place. Which was a horrible experience!”

Enzo laughed. “I can just imagine. I’m glad your colleagues reacted positively to your trust in them.”

“So, that might be working really well, I think. And the friendship with Carlos, too. He suggested I call him whenever Dad decided to drag us all to the bar once again so he could be there as a deterrent for me.”

“I haven’t met the guy, but I already like him.”

TK smiled. “I have two people on shift now who know and who I can turn to on bad days.” There wasn’t any way he would ever feel comfortable with turning to his Captain for support on bad days, even though as a captain Owen was a little better at dealing with his addiction and actually being supportive of his recovery than as a father.

“I’m very relieved to hear that,” Enzo said quietly. “Bad days during a shift have been the biggest worry for me. I can’t even imagine how putting together a completely new shift even works. Especially with so many of your teammates being from out of town.”

“It’s difficult,” TK agreed. “But I think we’re getting there. I had a good conversation with Judd yesterday. These people are all good firefighters. We just need to grow together and learn to trust each other. That wouldn’t have ever happened in just a handful of shifts.”

“You’ve been there much longer than just a handful of weeks, TK.”

“I know. But we have made real progress now.”

Enzo sighed. “Those are the things that work. Tell me about what’s not working aside from your therapist.”

TK was silent for a long while, watching the clouds move through the sky. Eventually, he said, “Living in the same house as Dad as well as working with him is … suffocating. I’m not … The best sleep I’ve gotten lately was the night I spent at Carlos’ place, and I don’t think I know and trust him well enough yet to be even able to really sleep restfully in the same bed as him.”

Enzo was quiet for a moment, then he sighed. “That’s not good, TK. And I agree with Carlos’ friend, you shouldn’t let Owen dictate your life even the slightest bit, especially if it’s harming you. And it clearly is. Is there more than those two things?”

“I don’t think so,” TK muttered.

“Okay. Then, what problem is more important to solve? Don’t think about it, just trust what you feel about it.”

TK turned on his back to stare at the ceiling and concentrated on his breathing for a little while. “I don’t know. Both?”

Enzo huffed. “Figures. Which do you think is easier and faster to deal with?”

TK groaned. “Neither? Dad won’t be happy when he learns I’m looking for a new therapist or for an apartment of my own. And … what if he suspends me, after all?”

“On what grounds?” Enzo asked darkly. “Because his adult son isn’t doing exactly as he says? He reported the incident here in New York as an accidental overdose, he can’t take that back without getting in a lot of trouble himself. And you said he’s already in trouble right now.”

“It was an accident,” TK whispered.

“I know, son,” Enzo said quietly. “And I believe you.”

TK closed his eyes tightly. Sometimes he wondered why he had never heard those words from Owen about anything in his life, but most of the time it hurt too much to think about it.

“Your mental health is more important than Owen’s sudden recognition that your addiction is an ongoing problem and his inability to deal with it,” Enzo said firmly.

“The therapist will be easier, I think,” TK whispered. “Looking for a new one sucks, but it’s still … less frustrating than apartment hunting.”

“Okay. Then I expect you to have at least looked up a list of new therapists before we talk again, alright? And I’ll arrange to come visit soon, so that we can tackle the living situation together.”

“Papa…”

“No protests!”

TK sighed. “Thank you.”

“I can hear how tired you are,” Enzo said softly. “Go take a nap, and then you have a task to fulfill. We’ll talk again tomorrow evening, alright?”

TK blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

 

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