Connor stared hard at Jamie, clearly debating in his head. “Am I right about you and Marc?”
“Right about what?”
“That you’re as nuts about him as I am about Nat, and the feeling’s entirely mutual?”
“Are you asking me if I love him, or if we’re together?”
“Both. Because I’m pretty sure that you love him, but the second bit is important if I’m going to tell you some stuff that I probably shouldn’t.”
Jamie chewed on his lip. They’d never labelled the whirlwind they’d found themselves in, but did that matter right now? Marc was his whole fucking world. If that didn’t make them a couple, not much did. “Marc’s everything to me. I don’t know what that means to you, but all I need to know is that he’s okay. Nothing else matters.”
It was, apparently, the right answer. Connor’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he necked half of his coffee. “There’s been a drama on an operation overseas. Nat and Marc have some good friends still in the field, and someone close to them has been badly hurt.”
Jamie sat down heavily. Marc didn’t talk about Army stuff much, but it had always been clear that his friends getting hurt was his worst nightmare. “He’s talked about Wedge. It’s not him, is it?” Connor blanched, and Jamie’s heart sank. Marc had mentioned Wedge only a handful of times, but it had been obvious that they were close. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know. Only that whatever’s happened was bad enough for Nat and Marc to go screaming off in Marc’s car.”
“Screaming off where? They’re not going out there, are they?”
Whereverthereeven was. Panic bubbled up in Jamie’s gut, but Connor shook his head before it could take hold. “I don’t know where they’ve gone, but Nat wouldn’t get on a plane without talking to me first, and Marc’s not enlisted anymore, so he wouldn’t get on a military plane at all. The best I can figure is that they’ve gone to whatever UK base that the mission was being run from. They won’t be able to do much, but it’s possible that they both have knowledge of the country Wedge was operating in, and Marc’s a field-trauma specialist, so...”
Jamie realised that Connor was clutching at straws. He put his hand briefly over Connor’s, then he rose to fetch more coffee, and the doughnuts Mrs. Valentino had left on the doorstep. He didn’t feel much like eating, and Connor didn’t seem to either, but the psychiatrist had warned him that low blood sugar could trigger anxiety, that in turn could trigger his OCD, and perhaps Jamie had at last learned to listen.
He dumped them on the table and forced himself to take one. “Does Nat know you’re here?”
“No. I should probably text him, actually, in case he comes home.”
“You’re clearly not expecting him to anytime soon, or you’d have stayed put.”
Connor’s face said it all. “He’s disappeared for a week before, but it’s been a while. I was hoping that we were done with disaster.”
“Maybe they’ll never be done with it. It’s who they are, right?”
Connor sighed. “I guess, and I’d never change that about Nat, but it’s hard to be on the outside, especially being the only gays in the village—literally.”
“Does Nat get shit for it at work?” Jamie couldn’t deny that he’d wondered about that as soon as it had become clear that Nat and Connor’s relationship was common knowledge.
“Nah. Nat’s badass, so it would be someone pretty fucking stupid who got up in his face about where he puts his dick. Marc’s never had a fella before, but I’d imagine it would be much the same for him. You don’t live through the things these guys have without garnering a little respect.”
Jamie absorbed that as he picked his doughnut apart and forced himself to eat it. He’d never asked Marc if he was out at the hospital, but he’d got the impression that Marc didn’t much care what anyone thought. And did other people even matter? Probably not. Jamie had fucked up so much that hiding his sexuality had always been the least of his concerns, but Marc wasn’t him. And Jamielovedhim. So there was nothing else.
With a heavy sigh of his own, Jamie sat back in his seat and regarded Connor, trying to remember him as he’d seen him just a few weeks ago, relaxed and laughing, a life raft for Jamie when Nat had regarded him with barely concealed suspicion. A decade had passed since the drunken three-way that Marc had made so light of.
Connor chuckled darkly. “Whatever you’re thinking about, share. I could do with whatever’s making you bite your lip like that.”
“From what I hear you’ve already had it.”
“That so?” Connor raised an eyebrow. “Now I’m intrigued.”
“Marc told me about getting freaky with you and Nat.”
Connor laughed for real this time, the tension in his face fleetingly melting away. “Man, that was a long time ago. And I was so fucking drunk I put a naan bread on the record player.”
Jamie snorted coffee up his windpipe and choked. “He didn’t tell me that bit.”
“I doubt he remembers. It was Wedge who got the hump about it. It was his record player.”
Andboomback to reality. “Marc said that my taste in music reminded him of Wedge.”