“So what the hell do you think this Fabian guy is after?” Caden’s voice was soft.
Joey and Caden were in the way back of the van as Mac drove them back to the city. It was quite late at night. Frankie had taken the passenger seat so Indira could stretch out and fall asleep in the backseat. Mac and Frankie were in quiet conversation in the front, and Joey had spent the past twenty minutes trying to think of something to say to Caden. Everyone was pretty shaken up after the encounter in Yolanda’s yard.
“I mean…” Joey looked over at Caden, whose face was intermittently lit up as they passed by streetlights on the highway. “It’s probably something to do with the missing magical items, right? All the places we spotted him, that’s what they had in common. Or something, maybe, I don’t know.”
Caden was quiet for a moment, then observed, “You’re really harsh on yourself.”
“I, uh…maybe?” Joey shrugged, tucking his hand under his dreadlocks to rub his neck. “I’m just—I’m not cut out for this fieldwork stuff. I mean maybe I’ve done a little better lately, but…I was the Researcher. I miss being the Researcher. It was a lot quieter.”
“No, but listen,” said Caden, and put a hand on Joey’s knee where his legs were crammed up in the too-small backseat. Joey startled. “You rallied us when Mac wasn’t there tonight, and whoever—whatever—Fabian is, you held your ground. Even after he told us he killed someone.”
“I don’t—” Joey began to defend, but Caden raised his voice just enough to be heard from the front seat.
“Didn’t Joey do a good job tonight?”
Frankie’s smiling face appeared around the side of her seat. “Yeah, mate, you kidding? Joey crushed it.”
“Proud of you, kiddo,” agreed Mac, meeting Joey’s eyes in the rearview mirror. This was too much; Joey covered his face with his hands.
“You’re better than you think you are,” Caden said more quietly. Joey had his face covered, still, but he could feel the warmth of Caden’s hand on Joey’s knee, seeping through the leg of his jeans.
“I guess,” Joey said to his hands. He finally dropped his arms to his lap, saying, “Do you think Fabian killed that selkie?”
Caden’s face went solemn. “I think there’s a good chance. Unless there’s someone else out there stealing sources of magical power.”
“One would be enough, thank you.”
Joey’s heart squeezed when Caden chuckled at this. It seemed that all of Joey’s focus had narrowed to Caden’s hand on his knee, and he was in the process of double-dog daring himself to cover it with his own hand when Caden moved away. Damn.
“I think I’m going to try to sleep,” said Caden, and yawned widely. “Yolanda’s house took it out of me.”
“Too many crystals,” agreed Joey, and Caden huffed another soft laugh before struggling out of his jacket and putting it between his head and the window. It didn’t take long before his breathing evened out, then Joey was alone with his thoughts.
Fabian’s cold, dark eyes kept flashing through Joey’s mind, and the more he thought about the encounter, the more his palms grew clammy. Shaking, he wiped his palms against the rough fabric of his jeans and tried to focus on the world around him.
The moon was waning, just a crescent in the sky. As far as they were from the city, many more stars were visible than Joey usually saw.
There was truth to what Caden had said. Joey had caught a killer with his brush that night, however briefly, and he had actually taken charge of the others when Mac was in that closet. It had recently become clear to Joey that maybe he wasn’t crap at his job, but it was nice to hear it spoken out loud. Especially by Mac, who’d always meant a little more to Joey than perhaps an employee should feel for their boss. More of a mentor than just a supervisor.
That was the thing with their little group: with so little contact with Home Office, it often felt like they were just on their own. One team against all the paranormal troubles in Chicago—no wonder they would grow close.
Joey was startled from his thoughts by a soft impact on his shoulder, and when he turned, blinking, a passing streetlight illuminated Caden’s sleeping face. The hood of his sweatshirt was up, so he was only partially visible, but as Joey watched, stunned, Caden snuggled in a little closer to Joey’s shoulder, melting into his side.
Tentatively, so as not to wake him, Joey lifted his arm and draped it over Caden’s back, letting him fall closer into Joey. Joey breathed shallowly, trying not to disturb the other man, but Caden remained solidly asleep.
Would it be creepy to smell him? Yes, stupid, Joey admonished himself, and held very, very still for the rest of the ride home.
----------------------------------------
It was Thursday, and Mac and Frankie had gone out alone to handle the day’s assignments. (“Change of pace,” said Mac. “Can’t lose my edge.”) It was one of Caden’s off days, so that left Joey and Indira to open the antiques shop.
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Joey had settled comfortably into doing paperwork at the counter while Indira spent most of the day digging through the vintage junk in the store. “Are you…looking for something?” Joey asked her at one point.
“Maybe,” said Indira. “I’ll know it when I see it.” Her neon green mesh shirt, worn over a black tank top, seemed to glow under the dim light of the cloudy day.
Joey didn’t like to turn on the shop lights; it only encouraged people to come in.
Around 1pm, the sound of the back door opening echoed through the shop, and Joey looked up. “Back for lunch, I guess,” he said. About a half an hour before, Indira had settled on a musty orange couch with a book over her face, apparently dozing. Grumbling, she removed the book and craned her neck to look at Joey.
“You want me to check if they want sandwiches?”
Sighing, Joey said, “No, I’ll go. Watch the counter?”
Sluggishly, Indira hauled herself to her feet and slouched over to the counter, collapsing into the wooden chair, and flopping over onto Joey’s neat stacks of paperwork. Joey opened his mouth to protest, then took a deep breath of the fusty air, forcing himself not to worry about it.
Opening the door to the back room, Joey called out, “You guys are back early.” No response, but the light in Mac’s office was on. “Guys?”
It wasn’t Mac or Frankie Joey saw when he rounded the doorframe, but Caden, who looked up from the book he was holding, startled.
A smile grew on Joey’s face. “Hi.”
“Hi,” said Caden, with a wan smile of his own. How did this guy manage to look so handsome in just a plain hoodie and t-shirt?
“Um, I thought this was your off day?”
“It is.” Caden glanced down at the book then shut it hastily. “I was just…wondering about the music box. In the safe,” he clarified.
“Oh.”
“I was just reading up on it at your wonderful Chicago Public Library, so I thought I’d see if there was more detail here at HQ.”
Books were the way to Joey’s heart. “I have a couple of books that might help.” He bit his lip. “I could…tell you more about it, maybe?”
“Actually, I’d quite like to see it again.” Caden blinked slowly up at him. “If that’s alright.”
“Sure,” said Joey. His voice came out a little hushed in the quiet office. Brushing past Caden, he went to the safe and touched the handle, feeling that little buzz as it unlocked. As soon as he swung the door open, the music box started playing Smooth. When he turned back to look at Caden, the other man was right at Joey’s elbow, so Joey jumped a little. “Oh, here.” Joey stepped back a bit so Caden could get into the safe.
Caden reached in. His hand hesitated briefly over the pendant, then the watch, before daintily plucking up the music box with just a thumb and two fingers. The music box twinkled merrily away and Joey could hear the lyrics in his head. Played by Carlos Santana.
Depositing the music box in the palm of his other hand, Caden cradled it, and Joey watched the little turning drum for a moment. Then his eyes flashed upward and he realized that he was standing very close to Caden, almost as close as they’d been the other night in the van. That night when they’d arrived at HQ, Caden had startled awake at Frankie’s call for all of them to move out, and Joey had watched Caden’s face flush bright red when he realized where he’d been sleeping. Neither of them had said anything about it, though.
Now they were so close that Joey imagined he could feel the heat of Caden’s body radiating toward him, smell Caden’s—what was that, deodorant? Cologne? Whatever it was, it smelled like musk and spice and everything alluring. As Joey watched, Caden’s eyes dragged up Joey’s body until their gazes met. Joey’s breath caught as Caden’s eyes flickered to Joey’s lips and then back up to his eyes.
“Hi,” breathed Joey, and Caden bridged the distance between them, surging up and capturing Joey’s lips with his. Swaying into the kiss, Joey’s hand buried itself in Caden’s hair of its own volition, strands soft on Joey’s fingers. Finally, every cell in his body sang, but then abruptly Caden pulled away.
Caden’s eyes were wide, brow drawn. He cursed quietly, almost to himself, and said, “I can’t.” He shoved the music box at Joey, and Joey accepted it with fumbling hands as Caden shoved past him, muttering, “I’m sorry.” Before Joey even knew what was happening, the back door was clanking open, then shut, and Caden was gone.
Joey stood for a moment, shocked and almost numb, still facing the open safe. He could taste Caden on his lips: tea and something sweet. The music box in his hand began playing Unbreak my Heart. “Oh, shut up,” he told it, placing it back into the safe and closing the door, leaving the empty office silent.
It was unclear how long Joey stood there, hand on the safe and staring at the wall, but it couldn’t have been too long. It felt like forever, but his heart was still going a mile a minute when the back door clanked open again and Joey flung himself into the office doorway to see if Caden had come back—
But no. It was just Mac and Frankie, bickering as if nothing was wrong. As usual, Frankie settled in her chair to clean her machete, which was covered in some kind of blue goo, and Mac hung his bow and quiver on the wall before looking up at Joey. “What’s with you, kid? You seem spooked.”
Shaking his head, Joey retreated into the office, turning away. Mac followed, putting a hand on Joey’s back. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Mac asked, voice dropping low.
To his embarrassment, Joey felt himself getting choked up, and he swallowed down a lump in his throat before saying, “Yeah, I don’t think Caden and I are gonna work out.”
“Oh,” said Mac after a minute. He dropped his hand from Joey’s back and the desk chair creaked as he sank into it. “You know, I reached out to Home Office about him right after faxing about Indira, but they haven’t sent his personnel file yet. Weird, right?”
“Yeah. Weird,” said Joey, hollow inside.
“What do we even know about this guy, is the point.”
“I mean, we went out that—we went out that time, and we talked.”
“You talked?” Mac encouraged.
“Well, I mean, I talked a lot, and he…” Joey’s brow furrowed. “He didn’t really say much about himself.”
“This is what I’m saying,” said Mac, with a quiet slap of his hand against the papers on his desk. “He’s playing it cool, he’s playing it mysterious. I hadn’t wanted to say anything ‘cause you like him so much, but—”
“No, you’re right,” said Joey. “I thought I knew him, but I don’t.” The words fell heavily from his mouth. “I gotta go…do paperwork.”
Mac still looked concerned, but Joey turned and drifted back into the shop, not in touch with any part of his body at all.