3

Tommy wrote his first letter to Lawson the night he left Eastman. He wrote it in the back of a car, tears coursing down his cheeks, using a handheld book light to see the notebook, and snapping furiously at Noah when he asked what he was doing. Noah found out, because he was bound to, the two of living in close quarters: as teens, as young adults, as recruits, as rookies, as newly minted officers.

He was twenty-one when Frank found out about the letters.

He and Noah shared a shitty second-floor walk-up with one bedroom and one bathroom. Because Noah was larger – and damn if that knowledge didn't chafe every day – Tommy slept on the fold-out couch. He used the tiny kitchen island as a desk, and was working on his latest letter before he got a call from the desk sergeant about a shift that needed covering, and he went to shower.

He was in the shower, rinsing, when he heard a muffled shout of, "Boys?" from the living room. Frank's voice was unmistakeable, even through a door and the hiss of falling water.

"Out in a minute!" Tommy called, and finished up.

When he emerged a few minutes later, clad in nothing but sweats, and toweling his wet hair, he saw Frank standing at the island, thumbing through the notebook there, and his guts turned to lead.

Frank turned toward him slowly, clutching a handful of looseleaf pages. His brows were up, his eyes big in a pointed, aggressive way. "What," he said, slowly, lifting the pages, and rattling them, "the fuck. Is this?"

Tommy started across the room – and Frank lifted the paper overhead, a childish play at keep away, his face adult and severe in its rage.

Tommy stuck out his hand. "Those are mine."

"They're incriminating evidence. They're – they're fucking confessions. Are you insane?" Frank fumed. "You can write all the dumbass love letters you want, but you can't talk about your job, Thomas. Who the fuck is" – he tipped his head back to consult the paper he held aloft, while Tommy's heart tried to beat out of his chest – "Lawson?" he spat. "Is that that fucking lieutenant who keeps making eyes at you?"

"What? No. No one's – Lawson is Lawson. From Eastman. My Lawson." As wrong as that was – Lawson wasn't his anything, not after the way he left – it sent satisfaction zipping all the way down to his toes to lay claim like that. My Lawson. His boyfriend. His lover. His…everything.

"Eastman?" Frank said, stunned. "Are you – are you kidding me? You're jeopardizing your whole career for some little boyfriend you had in Eastman?"

Fury whipped through him, snapping pain along all of his insides. He lunged, jumped, and snatched the paper out of Frank's hand. He heard a tear, and let out an involuntary cry of dismay as he settled back on his heels.

Frank gripped his shoulder hard and dragged them in face-to-face. "Look at me, you little shit. I need you to tell me that you aren't telling the goddamn world about–"

Tommy knocked his hand away and bowed up his back. Shouted, "Shut up!"

He'd never done such a thing before, and it shocked Frank into silence.

"I'm not sending these anywhere!" He was still shouting. He found that he couldn't stop shouting. "I'm keeping them – I'm holding them until I can give them to him in person when all this awful shit is over!"

Frank gaped at him. "What are you–"

But Tommy was on a roll. "I left him! I fucking left him! Without an explanation, without even telling him I love him, and – and I can't – I can't even tell him that I still do because–" He shook his fistful of letters. "So I'm writing it all down, and I'll give it to him one day. When I'm done. When I go home."

Frank's face goes incredulous. "You are home. You were born in New York. Eastman was just a diversion."

"Home is wherever he is," Tommy spat. "Do you not get that? Lawson is home. Lawson is where I'm going after this."

"Jesus Christ," Frank sneered. "It was high school kid shit. Get over it."

Tommy didn't hear the key in the lock, didn't hear Noah arrive, but when he lunged at Frank, strong arms gripped him around the waist and dragged him back.

"Whoa, whoa!" That was Noah's voice, Noah's breath rough and uneven in his ear as Tommy fought to get loose and take another run at Frank. "What's going on?"

"He saw my letters," Tommy seethed through clenched teeth, and redoubled his efforts to get loose. Noah was too strong, though. "He read them!"

"Oh shit," Noah muttered.

Frank looked gratifyingly rattled. He pushed a hand through his hair and said, "Are you serious right now? You're gonna take my head off over some boy you let bend you over in high school?"

"Damn," Noah muttered, and his grip tightened as Tommy cursed, and spit, and kicked, and struggled. He was no longer in possession of his body, nothing but blind rage and fingers curled into claws. All of this was Frank's fault, all of it – save the part Tommy himself had played, when he'd fled from Lawson's car, and – and…

It wasn't until Noah said, "Shh, okay, it's okay, calm down," that Tommy realized he was crying. Hot tears pouring down his face and ugly, jagged sobs catching in his throat. His legs gave, and Noah held him up.

Above the awful, animal sounds of his own grief, he heard Noah say, "Frank, come on. Don't fuck with him about Lawson. He's – it's serious, yeah? He's keeping the letters. He's not doing anything wrong."

But he had done something wrong, hadn't he? He'd run away from Lawson without telling him anything, and now he might never get the chance – or Lawson might have moved on – or he could–

The arms shifted, turned him, held him close. It wasn't the chest he wanted to bury his face in, but it was still familiar, and comforting, and a place where he could hide while he gathered his composure.

Noah rubbed his back. "I'm sorry."

And Tommy was sorry, too.

Far distant, he heard Frank murmur a quiet curse.