Page 45 of Manner of Death
“Ah, Boyce.” Sawyer had forgotten the man’s first name—none of the other officers used it when referring to the guy. Probably because he didn’t invite that level of intimacy. Or any level of intimacy, really. “He’s…huh.”
“Competent,” Bashir suggested.
“Sure, we’ll go with that.” Sawyer scooped up some lamb with a piece of flatbread. He’d have to brag to Nan about this amazing meal tomorrow. “Remind me to tell you about his last interaction with my current partner sometime.”
“I’m not sure I want to know,” Bashir said.
That might be for the best. Sawyer didn’t want to create drama where there was none. He finished his bite and reached for the cucumber raita, then winced as his injured side reminded him it existed.
“Are you all right?”
Sawyer nodded. “Fine.” Bashir looked far from convinced. “I mean, as fine as I can be. I really do feel a lot better, I promise. I think spending some time with you is just what the doctor ordered.”
“You know, if I was your doctor, I would probably have ordered you to go straight home and get some rest instead of coming over here.”
Sawyer grinned. “Good thing you only work with the dead then, huh?” If you’d asked him this morning whether flirting with Bashir would include references to dead bodies, he’d have laughed.
“I suppose it is.”
They finished the meal, sticking to light topics like Bashir’s family (he had some incredible stories about the shit his nieces and nephews had said) and Sawyer’s last job (in a town where smuggling moonshine was still a thing, and the only time he’d ever seen a vehicle actually explode was one that had been filled with jugs of the stuff). It was easy, warm—it seemed like once someone got past Bashir’s prickly exterior, he let them in without reservation.
Eventually the food and wine were gone, but Sawyer wasn’t ready for the evening to end.
“Let me help you clean up.”
“Sure.” Bashir welcomed him into his pristine kitchen and, at first, put him to work loading the dishes that he rinsed off into the dishwasher, but when he noticed Sawyer wincing every time he bent over he switched their jobs. Once the machine was loaded and running, Bashir reached out a hand. Sawyer took it and let himself be reeled in, nice and slow, until he was close enough to see the amber flecks in Bashir’s eyes.
“So,” Bashir said, holding him close but being very careful with where he put his hands. “I’d love for you to stay, but I don’t think that there’s much we can do tonight, given…” He glanced at Sawyer’s side, then kissed his cheekbone right beneath where the black eye started.
“I think you underestimate me,” Sawyer said, pressing a little closer.
“I kind of doubt that.” His look was mostly amused, but there was some compassion there too. “You’re probably going to have a hard time lying down tonight.”
“I’m really great at sitting,” Sawyer replied. “So great at it. I’ve won literal awards for my ability to sit.” That was truer than Bashir knew, but Sawyer didn’t want to get into the Oscars bullshit if Bashir didn’t know to bring it up. That could be saved for later, when he was ready to break his silence around his family and the crap his sister was trying to pull.
Bashir laughed, but that wasn’t what Sawyer was going for. He ran one hand into the short, thick hair at the back of Bashir’s head and pressed him forward into a kiss. It started gentle but didn’t stay that way for long, escalating into a heated, hungry exchange that made Sawyer fight to keep from making some truly embarrassing noises.
He finally leaned back and was gratified to see Bashir’s eyes had gone glazed, his mouth slack, and his hands a little less careful now than they had been. “Amazing at sitting,” Sawyer breathed. “Let me show you on the couch.”
“The—”
“Couch. Right now.”
Sawyer let Bashir lead him into the living room, but as soon as Bashir sat down Sawyer straddled his lap and wiggled around until he found an angle that worked for him. From this position he was a little taller than Bashir, and it made it easy to wind his arms around Bashir’s shoulders and pull him into another kiss. The fading buzz from the wine was replaced by a sweet flood of endorphins as Bashir’s hands found a spot that was definitely not injured in the fight earlier today.
“Oh, fuck,” Sawyer moaned when Bashir grabbed his ass and hitched him forward. He wasn’t so gentle there, gripping hard enough that Sawyer hoped it bruised. He wanted to be able to look at his butt tomorrow and see exactly where Bashir’s hands had been, and yeah, he wanted to be pulled in like that and he wanted to grind down like that and shit, he wanted to feel the ridge of his cock pressing against the fly of his jeans hard enough that Sawyer could fucking writhe on it, and—
His phone went off.
No! He wanted, desperately, to ignore it, but…what if it was Molly again? What if Kurt was going and doing something stupid again?
Sawyer broke the kiss with a grimace. “Damn it.” He disentangled himself from Bashir and reached for his—phone, jacket, where the hell was his jacket?—he got it just before the call went to a message. It was Nan. “What?” he asked, sure that he sounded pissed off but trying not to take it out on Nan any more than he already had.
“I’m so sorry,” Nan said, and to her credit she sounded it. “I know you’re on a date, but Felix is back. He’s demanding police protection and threatening to sue the department at the same time, and since you’re the lead detective on the case he’s involved in…”
Sawyer pressed the heel of his hand to his closed eye hard enough to make sparks fly across the darkness. “Felix wants police protection from whom, exactly?”
“Fuck if I know. He’s not talking but he says he’s got video proof that he’s being surveilled.”