I saw his quick intake of breath and watched as he debated how to answer me. He was opening his mouth to reply when an arm was suddenly slung around my neck in a strangling hug and my torso was bent over as a big hand smacked across my abs.

“If it ain’t super cop. Long time no see, Dom. We miss you around the station, dude. When you getting your lazy ass back to work?”

I grunted and straightened up to see a couple of my fellow patrol officers dressed down and off duty, clearly here for the game as well. The one that had jumped me was Devin Shea and the other was his partner, Diego Ramirez. Both had been in the academy when Royal and I had been going through the paces and both had been there the night I got shot and fell. They were good guys, good cops, and part of the brotherhood I missed so much I could taste the bitterness of the loss on my tongue.

I rubbed my stomach like the smack had hurt worse than it did and gave the men a scowl. “I’m working on it. How about you take a header off a ten-story building and see how quickly you bounce back, hot shot.” I narrowed my eyes playfully. “Dick.”

He laughed and then got serious. “Heard about your girl and the accident. Sucks to have you both down for the count. We’re short staffed as it is, and it isn’t like the bad guys don’t already outnumber us.”

I hooked a thumb at Orlando, who was watching the exchange with a guarded expression and had taken a few steps away from my side. “Thanks to this guy and his magic I’m hoping to be back before you know it. Devin, Diego, this is my physical therapist, Orlando Frederick.”

The three men shook hands as Lando offered up a reserved hello. Devin’s eyes widened and I thought he was going to make a smart-assed remark about me sleeping with the guy responsible for getting me back to work but instead he asked Lando if he was the guy that had handled the rehab of some professional snowboarder that I had never heard of. Lando nodded and before Devin could launch into fan-boy mode I grabbed my guy’s hand and dragged him toward the rink with a shouted good-bye over my shoulder.

I could feel the tension coiled tightly in the hand I held and I could see it on Lando’s face. Something had just gone really wrong and we were in an arena with hundreds and hundreds of people, so I couldn’t exactly ask him what was up. I made it to the first intermission between the first and second period with the Avs up by a point before practically dragging Lando out of his seat and back towards the parking lot.

He blustered and asked what in the hell was going on the entire way but I wanted to know the same thing, and inside the arena surrounded by strangers was no place to go digging inside of that complicated head of his. I stopped when we got back to the low-slung car and pushed him up against the side of it with a hand in the center of his chest. He was so startled that he finally stopped arguing and just stared at me.

“Okay, Lando, it’s just you and me now. Why in the fuck did you go ice cold when I introduced you to the guys from the force? I know you don’t like my job, I get that the idea of fixing me up so I can turn around and very possibly get broken again pisses you off, but those are good guys, friends. So what’s the deal?”

His mouth opened and closed like he was a giant redheaded fish caught on a line. He put his hand over mine and moved it so that I could feel his heart beating through the heavy fabric of his coat. “You introduced me as your trainer. Not your friend, not your date … I wasn’t sure what kind of role you were expecting me to play with the people in your real life, Dom. I was just being careful. I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up until they almost touched my hairline. I let out a deep breath and took a step closer so that we were almost touching. I put my other hand on his hip so that there was no doubt I was holding on to him, embracing him.

“All the people I work with know I’m gay, Lando. Every single one of them. I didn’t hire out a sky writer and have the words ‘I prefer dick over pussy’ written across the sky, but I think the fact that my partner is the most beautiful girl in the entire world and there is zero sexual chemistry between the two of us is a pretty big hint. I’m not big on talking about my personal life at work because cops gossip like a bunch of girls, but everyone knows. Some are cool with it, some aren’t, but I don’t give two shits either way. I’m not embarrassed or concerned about who I am or who I choose to spend time with, and I would never ask you to be careful or be anything other than who you are when we’re together. You’re a good-looking guy, it’s not a stretch for a couple of trained cops to figure out we were on a date and as for introducing you as my trainer …” I shrugged. “I want to get back to work and you have been key to making that happen. That’s where my mind was at when I was talking to Devin. Nothing more or less.” I shook my head and leaned forward so that I could rest my cheek against his. His skin was always so soft. Even when he was rocking a five-o’clock shadow the color of mahogany, it was still baby soft and silky against my skin.

“The only impression I care that anyone gets is that we are enjoying each other’s company. We like one another. We are choosing to be together for as long as it lasts and that’s it. If anyone else has anything else to say or think about the situation they can fuck off.”

His hand rose up and wrapped around my wrist and before he blinked those wintery-looking eyes I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of emotion bright enough and hot enough to manifest into tears in that gaze. “I’ve never been with anyone like you, Dom.” His words were a whisper that floated right into the center of my chest. A punch: I could see coming that and duck and maneuver to evade. But those light words carried by murmurs were sneaky and got inside of me too fast to dodge.

I leaned forward so I could kiss him, so I could show him that I didn’t care who or what or why just as long as it was me and him. He kissed me back, but it was softly, reverently. It was a kiss that said thank you for something I didn’t even know that I did. I slid my hand over the sharp curve of his waist until I could reach his ass under the hem of his heavy coat. I gave the firm globe a playful squeeze and pulled back.

“I’ve never been with anyone like you either, Lando. You have a good heart, a soft center, but the parts that are hard – that you protect like I might try to steal them away from you – they have some really sharp and ugly pieces to them. I don’t know who made them that way but whoever it was wasn’t worth it.”