Question Mark (38 page)

“Who says we’re going to
do
anything?” Reid asked, looking offended. Man, his brother was good at making people feel bad. “It’d only be right to return his things to him.”

“And I will,” Mark agreed. “I don’t need your help to do it.

“We’re leaving town with you tomorrow and we need to eat again. Why don’t we drop it off on the way to get some food?” Reid kept his words very reasonable and calm, which was exactly how Mark knew he couldn’t be trusted. There was nothing reasonable or calm about Reid. There was also no way to get to Rafe, barring Mark sneaking out through his window in the night, without his brothers tagging along. It was the quick thought of Zane that had him agreeing, though. He wasn’t going to put himself in an awkward position that would make Zane question what he was doing.

“You can go with me,” Mark held up a hand when they started to interrupt him. “You can go, but you have to stay in the car and you can’t say anything to Rafe. At all. Not a single word. We’ll swing by and if he’s not there, we’ll leave it on the doorstep.”

“Mom thinks it’s rude not to call first. You should call,” Reid offered, still cradling the soccer bag in his arms.

“Mom’s not here, Reid! Quit trying to piss me off.”

“Who’s trying?”

Ten minutes later they were climbing into Mark’s Ford—Reid practically bouncing into the back seat like a giddy child—and pulling out of the driveway. We do need to eat, Mark thought, hastily checking his phone again in hopes that Zane didn’t call while they were on this devil’s errand. With weekend traffic they made it to Rafe’s in fifteen minutes and as they pulled up Sean let out a low whistle of admiration. Reid craned his neck around Sean’s seat and gaped.

“Whose Barracuda is that?”

Mark let his head fall to the steering wheel and tried not to scream. Jeremy was home. So was Rafe. Their cars were parked side-by-side in the driveway.

“It’s Jeremy’s,” he finally answered, wishing he’d given back that damned bag ages ago and that he’d hired movers who didn’t care that he had an ex-boyfriend.

“Who’s Jeremy?” Reid asked and for some reason Mark shushed him like someone would hear.

“He’s Mark’s boyfriend…”

“Is he short and fat?” Reid grinned, elbowing Mark. Sean was still mumbling about the amount of money that must’ve gone into the car’s restoration and Mark was debating the benefits of a public meltdown.

“Give me the fucking bag,” he hissed, pushing Reid into the back seat.

“Hands!” Reid cried and pulled the bag to his chest at the same time he opened the back door and shot out of the car. Sean followed him and they both started hustling toward the Barracuda in the driveway. It reminded Mark of that old scene in
Jurassic Park
where everyone climbs out of the car to see the triceratops. Most of the people in that movie got eaten. Mark didn’t think this would even go
that
well.

He flew out of the car after his brothers, feeling like he was chasing wild rabbits, when the front door opened and first Rafe, then Jeremy appeared in the doorway. Reid saw them at the same time and made an immediate detour towards the front porch and Sean managed to pull himself out of his muscle car trance to do the same.
Hell!

Jogging to catch up, Mark managed to cut off Reid and Sean as he was abruptly brought face to face with a man that had practically haunted him for a year and a half. “Hey,” he said, a little out of breath. Reid and Sean stopped right behind him on either side like a couple of disobedient body guards.

Rafe gave a half-smile, his ice blue eyes flashing with curiosity while Jeremy sort of hovered in the background, not looking particularly threatening but not looking welcoming either. They were both still gorgeous and Rafe’s hair was longer than Mark had ever seen it, but it was nice on him. With locks like that, why not show off?

“Hi,” he said again, then made a face as he remembered he already said that. “I—or we—found a bunch of your old soccer stuff at my place and thought we should bring it by. I-I’m moving and didn’t want to donate it. Looks like you could still use it.”

Rafe actually gave him a full-on grin as his eyes darted between Sean and Reid. “All
three
of you wanted to drop this off?”

Mark sensed Reid getting ready to speak and he raced to answer before he could. “We were on our way out to get some food and thought we’d stop by.”

“I actually came to see if I could use my rain check to kick your ass,” Reid inserted in that way he had where no one could tell if he was serious or not.

Jeremy
did not
like that. Stepping completely onto the porch, his tall frame was advertisement enough of his intention to
never
allow a Rafe ass-kicking to happen.

Mark gave Reid his best attempt at a wilting glare, but it had little effect.

Rafe surprised them all and laughed. “It’s okay, Jer. He’s joking. Can I have a look at the bag?” he asked as Reid smirked at Jeremy.

Mark snatched it out of Reid’s hands before he could do something awful like throw it in Rafe’s face, and handed it over with an apologetic expression. Even if Mark was still pissed at his ex, which he wasn’t, he wouldn’t ever bring his brothers over to fight him. This wasn’t some trash talk show.

Seeing Jeremy next to Rafe brought back a lot of memories for Mark and it wasn’t hurt that he experienced watching them. It was more like a painful twinge that he had ever been so caught up in it. He missed Zane badly in that moment. The bond and care between the men in front of him was the same as what Mark shared with Zane and right then, he would’ve loved to reach out and twine his fingers through his boyfriend’s—not in a
“See, I have a boyfriend, too,”
type of way, either. He wanted that support right next to him and that grounded sensation he had when Zane was at his side.

Rafe dug through the bag and Jeremy laid a protective hand on his shoulder. “Damn! I wondered what happened to these cleats!” His smile was big and he glanced at Mark again. “I thought they might’ve become victims—” Rafe cut himself off as he realized he was about to say something that might offend.

Mark blushed. Reid snorted sarcastically. Sean tensed. Super. Mark had never thought of himself as one of those guys who gets dumped and sets fire to his ex’s belongings but Rafe obviously didn’t think the same way.

Alright. Enough of this. It was totally time to get out of there.

“Well, glad you’ve got your shoes back. We’ll get out of—”

“Where are you moving?” Jeremy asked out of nowhere. “Are you transferring?”

Bewildered, Mark almost didn’t notice that Reid was about to answer for him. He elbowed him and shook his head. “I’m going back to California, actually. They let me go from the watch supervisor job a couple weeks ago.”

Rafe was clearly surprised—even Jeremy looked shocked. “Sorry to hear that,” Rafe said and Jeremy nodded.

Mark shrugged and backed up into his brothers who didn’t take the hint and stayed right where they were. Now he looked like he was wilting into his brothers for protection. “It worked out for the best. I’ll be job hunting in L.A. once we get back there.”

Jeremy and Rafe both did that awkward nod when conversations are coming to an end and no one seems able to split for real. Jeremy held out his hand and Mark realized with a jerk that they’d never shaken hands. Ever.

He remembered when Jeremy approached him in the break room at the police station what seemed like years ago and how Mark had tried to make the cop uncomfortable by flirting with him. Damn, that was so immature.

“Sorry for all the bullshit, Halliday. You guys seem like you’re doing well and I’m glad,” Mark offered.

Jeremy gave him a nod, still too entrenched in his “protect Rafe” mode to do much else. Rafe glanced at his boyfriend and some message was relayed between them because Jeremy flicked a half-hearted wave at Reid and Sean and stepped back into the house. Guessing that Rafe wanted to say something to him alone, he asked his brothers to go to the car.

Sean gave Rafe a parting glare but kindly grabbed Reid and pushed him to the car. Once they were closed inside Mark waited, his nerves rattling again.

“I told you it would happen for you,” said Rafe, stepping down the stairs until they were on the same level. “Was I right?”

The sheepish chuckle sneaked right out of Mark and he rubbed at his cheeks as they stretched into a wide grin. “Yeah…you were.”

“Good. That’s really great, man. You deserve to be happy and have someone special.”

Mark stared down at the ground and scuffed the toe of his sneaker on the pavement. “I’m sorry for all the drama. I swear I didn’t know I had that stuff and I didn’t let Reid booby-trap it or anything.”

“Yeah, well, Jeremy will probably have our dog give it a sniff or two after I go in anyway.”

“
You
got a dog?”

Rafe smiled. “People change, right? He’s a quiet old guy.”

They stood in silence for too long and Mark offered his hand. “We’re going to grab some food. Best of luck to you guys.”

Rafe took his hand and pulled him into a hug and they ended up holding each other for a long moment. “Make sure he treats you better than I did, yeah?” Rafe gave him a parting squeeze.

Mark nodded, unable to speak, and crossed the grass to his car. A weight he didn’t know he was carrying lifted from his shoulders. As he slid in behind the wheel under the concerned eyes of his brothers, his phone sounded in his pocket. Zane’s ring.

***

Rafe walked back inside the house and Jeremy pushed off the back of the couch where he was waiting. He took the bag from Rafe’s hand and set it on the floor next to them, pulling him into a tight hug. Their dog, Ringo, gazed at them lazily from his pillow in the corner.

“That was unexpected,” Jeremy murmured.

“Hmm.”

“You okay?”

Rafe ran his hands up Jeremy’s back until he was touching his shoulders. That familiar scent of his skin was all around him and he sighed. “I’m happy, love. So damn happy.”

Jeremy tipped his chin and gave him a light kiss on the tip of his nose. “That makes two of us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Zane was trying his damnedest to be sneaky, a job made much more difficult when hampered by a picture snapping entourage. He made up a story about some final on location shots that would keep him from the phone, when in reality, he was heading back to L.A. on the first available flight. Keeping this a secret from Mark was making Zane insane because if the wrong camera caught him on the go and somehow the picture got out, his surprise would be totally ruined. It didn’t help that Thanksgiving was tomorrow and he was getting photographed what seemed like every step of the way home. Mark’s family had their work cut out for them in keeping the guy away from magazine racks and entertainment news shows.

The frenzy surrounding the whole kiss with Christian had quieted down weeks ago after Mark was seen in Zane’s company so often in England. Mark stayed out from under the eye of the paparazzi as much as possible and it was like no one had registered that he wasn’t living in New Mexico anymore.

Zane had fallen asleep for weeks to thoughts of Mark’s face beaming in surprise when he opened the door at his knock. If some shitty tabloid ruined that for them, he was going to be furious. Zane had only been back to L.A. once in October to do five different talk shows and a dozen interviews with online entertainment websites promoting
Buckland’s Hill
. He and Mark had been apart so long that Zane was almost finished filming
Sacrifice
. He had one last trip back to England and the film was set to wrap mid-December. Zane couldn’t wait.

Now was definitely a good time to get away from set because Pete Goddard was sniffing around, what with filming closing out. Just the sight of him made Zane want to growl obscenities.

Mark made it through the move in early October without any big problems—the Westside Story bit that his brothers tried to pull on Mark’s ex not included—but the job search hadn’t yielded much. He’d been to a couple of interviews that he thought might bring offers, yet after Mark had time to think about the jobs, he wasn’t sure they were the right fit. He didn’t want a demotion and Zane couldn’t blame him. They weren’t worried yet. Something would turn up and though Zane wouldn’t ever say it, even if Mark never worked again, he’d take care of him. It’s what people did for the ones they cared about.

There was one more interview Mark set up for the following Monday that was for a job equivalent to what his old boss, Marty, did back in Albuquerque. It was with the L.A.P.D. Mark didn’t talk too much about it, so Zane knew it was important to him and that he was anxious. He was just glad he could be in town to support
Mark
for once. Tie his tie or whatever—untie it and strip him naked, too, if that helped.

Zane was in town for a week and he wasn’t going to waste a second. Production was shut down for the holiday because so many of the cast and crew were American and cared about missing out on their turkey and mashed potatoes. And they wanted to see their families, too, of course.