Page 3 of Shock & Awe

Nick glanced over at him as he slid the lamp away from the bed and laid out Kelly’s pill bottles, bandages, and other necessities. “What’s what like?”

“Being with a guy.” He looked Nick up and down, trying to imagine. Would Nick be the same with a man as he was with a woman? Because Kelly had seen that, and it had looked fun. “Is it different?”

Nick shrugged and nodded. “Sort of, yeah. Physically? Definitely. Relationships, though, it depends a lot on who you’re with.” He glanced at Kelly and raised an eyebrow, smiling. “You a little bi-curious, Doc?”

Kelly laughed again, holding his side in a wasted attempt to keep it from hurting. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Nick teased. “Either you’re curious or you’re not.”

“I guess. I mean, I like sex.”

“Granted,” Nick mumbled, still smiling.

“I never thought about it before.” That was a damn lie. “But hell, if you can do it, so can I, right?”

Nick placed his hand on Kelly’s forehead, holding it there briefly before patting him and then moving away. He headed for the bathroom, probably making sure the path from Kelly’s side of the bed was clear.

“And a beautiful person is a beautiful person, so why not open up that door to more opportunities?” Kelly called after him, desperate to have him return so they could continue the conversation.

“I think you’re omnivorous,” Nick said, his voice echoing off the tile and into the bedroom.

Kelly laughed again. He rested back to watch Nick move around the room. He was like a mother hen, prepping the nest. He moved the chair from the corner to the middle of the room, a convenient place for Kelly to get to and rest if he needed to. He went to the armoire beside the bathroom door and pulled out several extra pillows, putting pillowcases on them and tossing them on the bed. He was going to use them as a barrier between himself and Kelly as they slept, to protect Kelly’s wound from any stray limbs.

Kelly found himself wishing those pillows wouldn’t be there tonight. He didn’t know why. Painkillers? Knowing Nick was bi and having the nerve to ask questions? Watching Ty and Zane and the connection they obviously shared while in New Orleans? Kelly had never felt that with his ex-wife, not once, but he’d certainly felt it with brothers-in-arms. Maybe it was a perfect storm of factors, but Kelly was definitely curious. Asking Nick these questions had given him a little rush too. Nick gave him a little rush.

He had always been closest to Nick. Nick had been Kelly’s best man at his wedding. He’d also been the one who’d taken him in briefly after he’d divorced. They were very much alike in temperament, compared to the others who were all fire and stone. He and Nick were water and smoke: patient and nebulous and easy.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Nick said as he threw the last spare pillow on the bed. “You want anything from downstairs first?”

Kelly’s breath quickened, and he blurted it out before he could think twice. “Why Ty?”

Nick stopped short and cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard right. “What?”

“When you came out to me, you told me you’d been in love with Ty,” Kelly explained. He held his breath, telling himself the answer would probably make his wound throb again and he didn’t really want to know. “Why Ty?”

Nick blushed and lowered his head, chewing on his lip. He shrugged. “He was . . . like this big shining beacon. For a long time I was a little in love with the idea of him. The idea of that kind of loyalty and trust for the rest of your life, you know? I think it was mostly just being young and wanting to believe in something. You know Ty. He was easy to believe in.”

Kelly nodded. “Are you still in love with him?”

Nick was already shaking his head. He came around the other side of the bed and sat, leaning against the headboard so Kelly couldn’t see his face without twisting. “We went through too much. Nothing romantic about it. And the night I kissed him, the night I told you about everything, there was nothing there. We would have worked if we’d wanted to, I guess, if we’d never found anything else. But . . .” He shrugged and shook his head.

Kelly turned to try to see Nick’s face. “So there’s nothing left there?”

“Nah. It’s kind of a relief. Life changes what love means, you know? What I felt about Ty, it was a different kind of love.”

“Have you found something else?” Kelly asked carefully, surprised by how nervous the question made him.

Nick looked at him oddly. “I don’t know. Why are you asking me these things? This isn’t some sort of post-gunshot meltdown, is it, ’cause I’m not built to handle those.”

Kelly began to snicker, holding his chest so it wouldn’t hurt. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“If it is, we’ll call Owen; he’s good at the meltdown stuff.”

“I’m not having a meltdown,” Kelly assured him. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Nick was silent, sitting there and looking confused for a few seconds before answering. “Sort of. We haven’t had a date or anything, but we’re . . . actually, I’m not sure what we are.”

The indecisive answer bolstered Kelly’s courage and relieved him, which was an odd sensation. “Hey, Irish?”