Page 6 of Parting Shot

“It’s like a confessional,” Danny added. “You go ahead.”

“We had one more leak,” Sam informed me then. “But we’re all good now, obviously.”

“What if you lose him again?”

“My team has Salcedo in custody,” Sam assured me. “Mine. You understand? Next stop for him is a cell in a maximum-security prison, where he’s looking at years of alone time.”

I was quiet, the pain getting to me. “Okay.”

At the hospital, I was treated, admitted, and was in my own room, and still, Sam stayed with me. I hadn’t expected that. We were friends, yes, but him remaining at my side was above and beyond. Hospital time was endless, and as the hours rolled by, as I got eighteen stitches down my left side over my ribs, as the drugs made me a little loopy, and as a full inventory of cuts, bruises, and a split lip was taken, Sam stayed.

“Why are you here?” I finally asked him.

“’Cause nobody else is,” he said frankly, one eyebrow lifting like I was stupid.

And because he’d made me feel like crap with that answer, I took a shot at him. “So, how does Jory feel about you working with your ex?”

“I’m not working with him, asshole. I was recapturing him since the Feds clearly had some trouble holding on to him. And when I get home and tell Jory what happened, he will be very pleased that Salcedo is back in custody.”

“And that’s all?”

“He knows me, Duncan. He knows who I love and who I don’t give a shit about.”

I squinted. “Yeah, but you and that Salcedo guy, that was on like Donkey Kong in Colombia, huh?”

He was horrified. “What did they give you?”

It must have been something strong, because I was smiling like an idiot and using Nintendo references. My instinct for self-preservation was MIA. I waggled my eyebrows at him.

“And no.” He shook his head, rebutting the premise of my original question. “My relationship with Dr. Kevin Dwyer, as I knew Salcedo by then, has been wildly exaggerated.”

“Oh yeah? I heard different,” I huffed out. “You were with the good doctor for a year while you⁠—”

“For your information.” Sam cut me off, his voice low and dark, making me just a little nervous. Yes, we were friends—good ones, great ones—but the man was menacing, no way around it. “I screwed the doctor for three months. Three months only before ending it. And keep in mind that Jory and I were apart. It never meant shit. If I could take it back, would I? Oh hell yeah, I would, but not for the reason you think.”

“What do I think?”

“I never thought of it like cheating on Jory,” he explained. “A year had gone by. He was sleeping around by that time, but the reason I wish it hadn’t happened was because of how it made me feel.”

“How’d ya feel?”

“Like crap,” he barked at me. “You know when you confessed to me that you screw guys at bathhouses and places like that?”

“Thanks for bringing that shit up,” I groused.

“Just—do you remember?”

“Yes, I fuckin’ remember!” I snapped at him.

“You know how gross you feel when you do it?”

“Yep.”

“It was like that,” he confessed. “I didn’t care any more about Kevin Dwyer than you do about all those guys you fuck and forget, but⁠—”

“Even from the little I know of Jory, I bet he doesn’t think it was nothing.”

“Because it lasted longer than one night,” he grumbled. “Jory fucked a ton of guys while we were apart, but the one he spent any time with⁠—”