Unrequited Read online

  Shane beside him. The man sat with his chair canted to the

  side, almost facing Vic so he was halfway beneath the shade of

  the umbrella, and he might have been looking at Vic from

  behind his sunglasses, but he might have been simply staring

  off into the distance or even asleep.

  “What?” he asked as soon as Vic looked at him.

  “You okay?” Vic asked softly.

  “I feel like I have the Grand Canyon etched into my back,”

  Shane said gruffly. “Though I can’t say I regret how it got

  there,” he mused with a lazy smile.

  Vic wished that he could see the other man’s eyes. A grin

  from Shane was never complete without the sparkle of his eyes.

  “You look happy,” he murmured to Vic after several

  moments.

  “Shouldn’t I be though?” Vic asked with a grin, thinking of

  the night before and how he didn’t mind how sore he was this

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  morning. Just the thought of Shane inside him, holding him

  close as he gasped his name still made Vic grin like a fool.

  Shane didn’t answer. He just nodded his head and turned

  to look at Owen as the younger man let out a squawk and

  flailed a little, trying to get away from a large wave that

  splashed at his calves.

  “Jesus, you guys said the water was nice!” he cried as he

  came thumping back up to sit on his towel.

  “It is nice. Look how beautiful it is!” Vic said contentedly.

  “It’s like fucking ice water!” Owen griped as he flopped

  onto his back and closed his eyes against the sun’s rays.

  “It’s not that bad once you get past the breakers,” Shane

  said in a low mumble that made Vic shiver with delight for

  some reason. Vic could sit and listen to Shane talk for hours if

  the other man were so inclined.

  “So what have you two been up to, huh?” Owen asked

  lazily as he reached his hand out blindly for his beer. Vic

  leaned forward and picked it up, placing it in his hand for him.

  “Thanks,” Owen said happily.

  “Uh-huh,” Vic responded as he leaned back and stretched

  his toes out into the sand. He watched Owen drink without

  ever lifting his head, and wondered how in the hell the younger

  man did it without spilling it up his nose like Vic always

  managed to do.

  “Oh, you know,” Shane answered. “Old man stuff. Sit on

  the beach. Drink. Go inside. Drink. Come back out. Drink. Go

  to bed at nine o’clock ’cause you’ve run out of beer to drink.”

  “Sounds heavenly,” Owen said with a grin.

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  “It certainly was,” Shane murmured softly, and Vic cut a

  sidelong glance at him and frowned. Shane either had his eyes

  closed now or was ignoring the concerned look Vic shot him.

  This wasn’t going quite as well as he’d hoped. Shane had

  deflected Vic’s attempts at talking quite easily, and Vic didn’t

  plan to disrespect Shane’s obvious wishes to keep things quiet

  by discussing them in front of Owen.

  Several hours and six-packs of beer later, Vic was

  surprised to find that he had fallen asleep on the beach. He

  was going to feel like burnt toast by nightfall. He raised his

  head to find that Owen was facedown on his towel beneath the

  umbrella, and that Shane was nowhere in sight. Vic sat up and

  looked around, glancing up at the sky and estimating the time

  to be around four in the afternoon.

  “Hey,” he said groggily, kicking sand at Owen and earning

  a perturbed glare for his trouble.

  “Jackass,” Owen said matter-of-factly.

  “Where’d Shane go?” Vic asked as he eased himself to his

  feet. He wasn’t as burned as he thought he would be, but he

  was definitely stiff from sitting in the little chair for too long.

  “Went inside about an hour ago. Said he was burning.”

  “Should have woken me,” Vic mumbled as he looked up at

  the cottage and wondered if Shane was even then looking out

  at them. The glare on the sliding glass was too strong to see

  anything.

  “You going in?” Owen asked as he got to his knees and

  stretched a little before sitting back on his haunches and

  looking up at Vic.

  “Yeah. Think I’m done cooking for today,” Vic answered as

  he stretched and then yawned widely.

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  “Wanna go for a walk or something?” Owen asked. “I’m

  getting twitchy.”

  “Why don’t we go in, see what’s for lunch… dinner…

  whatever…. See if Shane wants to go too, huh?” Vic suggested

  distractedly as he gathered up his stuff.

  “Okay,” Owen responded, his tone hesitant and rather

  curious. “Are you okay?” he asked as he stood and brushed off

  the errant sand on his arms and chest.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just… you seem off,” Owen observed as he looked Vic up

  and down. “Relaxed. You’re not high, are you?” he asked flatly.

  “That gets really awkward for your law enforcement friends,” he

  advised.

  “No,” Vic answered with a laugh. “It’s a vacation. You relax

  on vacations.”

  “Uh-huh,” Owen responded disbelievingly. He looked at Vic

  for another minute and then shrugged in acceptance of the

  answer anyway. “And what happened to Shane’s back?” he

  asked as he bent to pick up his towel. “He looks like he spent

  the night with a Singapore whore,” he said carelessly as he

  shook his towel and began folding it haphazardly.

  Vic barely managed to cover his surprised laugh with a

  cough as he dealt with the umbrella. He covered his mouth and

  lowered the material of the umbrella around himself so Owen

  wouldn’t see as he tried to compose himself. When he was sure

  his voice wouldn’t tremble with laughter, he said, “Water’s

  rough. We think he did it when he got pulled under yesterday,”

  he lied handily as he took the umbrella down and tossed the

  pieces aside.

  He glanced up at Owen to see if the story would fly,

  knowing that if Owen asked outright about him and Shane

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  then he wouldn’t lie to the man about that. He didn’t want to

  lie about Shane. It felt too right to have to lie about it.

  He was startled to find Owen watching him with narrowed

  eyes.

  “What?” Vic asked with an innocent shrug as he turned

  away to pick up the cooler.

  “Something fishy,” Owen said with a suspicious wag of his

  finger. “I’ll figure it out, though,” he said confidently. “You

  cagey bastards can try to snuff it all you like. I’ll figure it out

  anyway,” he said playfully as he grabbed up what remained of

  their things and began hauling everything toward the relative

  shelter of the little deck.

  Vic watched him go, smiling slightly.

  “Does this sofa pull out?” Owen asked as he looked down at

  the couch and cocked his head to the side. He poked it with his

  foot and shook his head dubiously.

  “
No way are you sleeping there,” Vic said immediately.

  “That thing would kill your back.”

  “I’m not taking over one of your beds, though,” Owen said

  with a frown as he looked over at Shane and Vic, who both still

  sat at the little dining table staring at a jigsaw puzzle morosely.

  “You can have the back room. That mattress is hard as

  brick, just like you like it,” Vic told him as he picked up a piece

  and turned it over and over trying to figure out what the hell it

  was. He looked up at Shane when he felt the other man’s eyes

  on him, and his eyes widened at the pointed stare Shane was

  giving him. “Hmm?”

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  “Why don’t you two take the good mattress?” Shane

  suggested as he plucked the piece from Vic’s hand, looked at it

  briefly, and then placed it immediately into a hole near the

  corner of the puzzle. “You didn’t get enough puzzle time as a

  kid,” Shane told him off-handedly. “You’re shit at this.”

  “Yeah,” Vic agreed distractedly as he picked up another

  piece.

  “By ‘good mattress’ you mean soft, I assume?” Owen asked

  as he came back over and sat down, picking up a piece of the

  puzzle and frowning at it. Shane nodded wordlessly and Owen

  said, “Can’t do soft. Hurts my back sometimes. Who will I be

  displacing with the hard mattress?”

  “No one,” Vic answered immediately, not worried that it

  would sound suspicious. “I couldn’t take more than a couple

  nights on it.”

  “Ah, I see!” Owen said sagely with a nod of his head and a

  wink as he placed the piece into its rightful spot. “Been double

  bunking, huh?”

  “It was that or sleep on the beach with the crabs,” Vic said

  wryly as Shane hummed thoughtfully over a new piece. “So I

  just picked a crab that didn’t come with sand,” he added with a

  snicker. Shane glared at him briefly, and Vic added, “Besides,

  Shane’s been keeping the nightmares away.”

  “Nightmares?” Owen asked in confusion.

  “He’s been trying those melatonin pills,” Shane said

  without looking up.

  “Ooh, yeah, those things can give you some wicked real

  dreams. That sucks that they’re bad, man,” Owen said

  distractedly as he placed another piece.

  “Not so bad anymore,” Vic said as he looked from Owen’s

  bowed head to Shane’s. They were both chewing on their lips in

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  thought, their heads resting in one hand as the other held a

  puzzle piece, mirroring each other, and Vic smiled fondly at

  them both. He was glad he hadn’t let his irrational anger drive

  Owen away. He was even gladder, though, that he and Shane

  had discovered something down here, something that would be

  special if they let it.

  Shane looked up at him and blinked when he found Vic’s

  eyes on him, and he cocked his head and frowned a little.

  “I think I’m ready to turn in,” Vic said with a slow smile,

  not looking away from him.

  Shane looked away, his gaze focusing on the glass tabletop

  briefly before glancing at Owen. “You sure you don’t want the

  good bed?” he asked uncertainly, looking at them both in turn.

  Vic raised an eyebrow at him, wondering why he wasn’t

  just taking the offer to go to bed and running with it.

  “You two take it,” Owen said with finality as he looked up

  at Shane with wide blue eyes. “No point in either of you

  sleeping on a hard mattress when you have to share a bed

  anyway, you know?”

  “Right,” Shane said slowly.

  “Who the hell buys a puzzle with popcorn on it anyway?”

  Owen asked as he stared at another piece and turned it end

  over end.

  Shane snorted and shook his head, trying not to smile.

  Vic stood and stretched. “I’m gone. Too much sun and

  beer,” he said as he stepped away from the table and started

  for the front bedroom.

  “Gonna finish this,” Shane said thoughtfully as he

  watched Vic. Vic looked at him long and hard and then nodded.

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  “Night, Vic,” Owen said without looking up from the

  popcorn puzzle.

  Vic smiled at them both and then disappeared into the

  bedroom. He was so tired he didn’t think he would be able to

  stay awake until Shane got there. Hopefully, though, Shane

  would wake him. They desperately needed to have a

  discussion, and it was high time that Vic told Shane how he

  thought he felt. The word “love” might not yet enter the picture,

  but the words “desire” and “need” certainly would.

  Vic heard the heated argument from the bedroom even before

  he was completely awake, and it took him quite a bit of

  fumbling and stumbling through the dark rooms before he

  found it. Owen and Shane were both down on the beach,

  apparently having gone there in order to keep from waking him

  and not knowing he’d opened the window in his bedroom. In

  the light provided by the enormous moon over the water, Vic

  could make them out quite clearly. They were squared off

  opposite each other, Shane standing with his fists balled up

  angrily at his sides and Owen with his arms crossed stubbornly

  across his chest.

  “I’m not stupid, Shane. It took me a while but I finally

  figured it out. It’s so obvious what happened here you may as

  well be wearing a flashing neon sign on your asses!”

  “And what is it you think happened, Owen?” Shane asked

  him. “And tell me, please, how it’s any of your fucking

  business!”

  “It’s my business if he gets hurt! You keep ignoring it and

  he will! Why are you so blind that you can’t see it?” Owen was

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  asking harshly as Vic pushed the doors open and stepped out

  onto the deck to look out at them in the moonlight.

  “I’m blind?” Shane asked in an incredulous growl. “You’re

  one to talk about not seeing!” He continued shouting, but the

  roar of the waves momentarily drowned out his words and Vic

  couldn’t hear them.

  Whatever he said made Owen pull up short.

  “What are you talking about?” Owen asked in confusion.

  Shane took a few impetuous steps toward him, his feet

  going deep in the soft sand as Owen backed up a little in

  alarm. Vic’s eyes widened in panic as he realized that Owen

  could quite handily tear Shane in two if he felt so inclined, and

  he hesitated briefly before running down the short walkway

  and jumping down into the soft sand. Vic was far too sore and

  stiff to be doing that, he realized, as his ankles and knees

  protested the landing.

  He wasn’t about to let them start fighting, though.

  “Shane!” he called out in alarm.

  Shane stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at

  Vic, and Owen warily looked at them each in turn as he

  continued to back away.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Vic demanded of them

  bo
th.

  “Trying to pull his head out of his ass!” Shane yelled.

  “Wait a minute. My head out of my ass?” Owen asked

  incredulously. “That’s what I was trying to do to you!” he said

  indignantly as he pointed at Shane.

  Vic looked between them in confusion. He couldn’t imagine

  how a popcorn puzzle had turned into this.

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  Shane pointed a finger at him warningly. “Don’t test me,”

  he said in a low voice.

  Owen closed his eyes and put up both hands in a

  placating gesture. “Okay, calm down,” he requested. It seemed

  the policeman in him was trying to take over, making sure

  cooler heads prevailed. Vic was relieved to see it.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to intrude in your private business,”

  Owen told him slowly, as if trying to reason with a charging

  bull. “I just… I wanted to tell you that if you two are happy

  then that’s good,” he assured Shane. Then he looked to Vic. “I

  told him as long as he was good to you then I was happy for

  you,” he insisted. “Then he started yelling at me!” he said

  accusingly as he pointed at Shane again.

  Vic looked between them and shook his head helplessly.

  Now he sort of knew how Shane felt on the bench when there

  were bickering lawyers and he had to call for order. Sort of like

  a mother breaking up a fight on the playground.

  “Idiot,” Shane hissed angrily. He looked at Vic and sighed

  sadly, as if apologizing for what he was about to do, then he

  looked back at Owen and his features immediately softened.

  “He loves you,” he told Owen in a soft, defeated voice as he

  gestured toward Vic.

  Vic stared at him in shock, hoping that somehow Owen

  hadn’t heard over the sound of the roiling ocean.

  “He’s loved you for years,” Shane told Owen, his voice

  growing angry once more. “What will it take for you to see

  that?” he asked in frustration.

  Vic could feel Owen’s shocked eyes on him now, but he

  couldn’t tear his own gaze away from Shane long enough to

  look at the other man. Vic had never felt quite so betrayed in

  his life. Why would Shane tell Owen that, knowing that it