6 Tennyson

True to his word, Shane Matheson called Ronan after his shift at the mall ended. Ronan had invited the former police officer to dinner so that he and Fitzgibbon could lay out the Marsh case.

“You know, there’s a chance Matheson won’t want to work the case or will be too busy to help out while we’re here,” Ten said

“Why would you say that?” Jace asked, sounding exasperated. “We had this whole working on vacation thing sorted out, now you’ve jinxed us.”

“I didn’t jinx us,” Ten said, realizing he’d just done that very thing. “But in case I did, Ronan and Fitz already agreed that they were going to wait until after the Christmas Eve party at River’s house to have a sit-down interview with him.”

“Maybe,” Jace agreed. “It’s just that…” He didn’t look like he wanted to say more with the others in the room.

“Ronan, why don’t you guys go check the chickens?” He winked at his husband, hoping he’d get the message. Fitz had decided to make three chickens on the rotisserie for dinner. While he and the detectives manned the birds, Ten, Cope and Jace were in charge of the sides.

“Chickens are fine. We don’t need to baste them again for another fifteen minutes or so.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ten asked, shooting daggers at Ronan with his eyes. “I could have sworn I heard one of the clucking.” His husband was a brilliant man most of the time, but at the moment, was acting as dumb as a bag of stolen dicks.

“Clucking? Ten, the chickens are-” Ronan’s eyes widened. “Ah, gotcha. I thought I heard clucking too. I’ll just go check the chickens.” He headed for the deck, where Fitz and Jude were sitting and watching the kids on the beach.

“I love that man, but he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes.” Ten snickered. It was more than just sometimes, but Ronan’s heart was always in the right place, even if Ten was the one who had to lead him there.

“I’d put Jude in that category too,” Cope chimed in.

“I think all husbands fall into that category.” Jace grabbed the bag of potatoes, several peelers and the trash can. He passed a few spuds to Ten and Cope and started peeling the ones left in front of him.

“Do you think they say the same thing about us?” Ten asked, knowing for a fact that they guys were talking about them right now.

“Yes!” Cope and Jace said together.

“What were you about to say earlier about me jinxing the trip?” Ten asked. Jace didn’t have a lot of close guy friends, and Ten knew the man needed to talk about something.

Jace sighed. “When I called the property owner to see if this house was available to rent for the next two weeks, he told me he’s putting it on the market after New Year.”

“You’re kidding?” Cope asked.

“Nope. He said that thanks to the current political climate that he and his husband are leaving Florida and moving back to Connecticut. He thinks they’ll be safer up there.”

Ten couldn’t argue with that. The absolute last place he wanted to live over the next four years was in a red state. “I’ve never been so happy to live in Massachusetts than I am now.”

“Same,” Cope agreed. “I loved living in NOLA, but I don’t think it would be very welcoming now to people like us owning businesses and flaunting our love.” He rolled his eyes.

“You know, I almost went to NOLA when my father kicked me out of the house,” Ten said. “My choice was between New Orleans and Salem. Something told me to choose Salem.”

“You made the right choice,” Jace said. “Which leads me to my choice.” His eyes were fixed on his husband through the sliding glass door.

“What do you mean?” Ten asked. He quickly read Jace but got nothing. Whatever it was Jace was about to say was something he’d been keeping close to the chest.

“I want to buy this house. It’s perfect for us when we make these trips to Florida. We’re two hours from Disney. Three hours on the high speed ferry from Key West. Half an hour outside of Tampa. This place is a great fit, but the idea of putting both of our names on the title is daunting.”

“You don’t want to be targeted,” Cope said.

“Right,” Jace agreed. “Since we got married, Fitzy and I have bought everything we own together. Both of our names are on the house, the cars, the bank accounts and our investments. I’m afraid how he’ll react if I buy this house but put it only in my name.”

Ten knew how Ronan would feel if the roles were reversed. Ronan wouldn’t like it one bit and would probably wonder if Ten was going to leave him for another man. “Why don’t you create a trust? Call it the Aurora over Florida trust and add you and Fitz as trustees. The trustees are not a matter of public record in Massachusetts. We found that out when Ronan and I revamped our real estate trust after Ezzie was born.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Jace said.

“According to Google, trustees aren’t public record here in Florida either.” Cope held out his phone.

“Fitz loves it down here and with your brother being so close this house is perfect for all of us. At least now I’ll have a plan to lay out with Fitz. I asked the owner to make me an offer on the house and it’s a fair one for the location and the amount of square footage.”

“Do I even want to know that number?” Ten asked.

Jace laughed. “Let’s just say its eight figures.”

“Holy shit!” Cope let out a low whistle. “Are you thinking about retiring or was this house to good to pass up?”

“Yes!” Jace laughed. “I’ve been running the Tremont Street Mission for over twenty years. I love taking care of the people of Boston, but it’s starting to feel like its too much for me. There are so many people who need help and we all know things are about to get much worse. I’m not sure I can take seeing people suffer.”

“Are you going to shut it down or sell it?”

Jace shook his head. “Neither. I’ll just stand down as the managing director. I’ll keep my seat on the board of directors, but will name someone trustworthy to head the Mission. That would give me free time to volunteer at Aurora’s school and to be able to go on field trips with her class and to be home when she get’s off the bus. The guys have been busier than ever with Cold Case and as wonderful as Kaye is, I’d like to spend more time with my daughter. Maybe take a cooking class or learn karate.” He made a wax-on, wax-off motion.

“He’s been watching Cobra Kai again.” Ten rolled his eyes.

“Me too!” Cope sighed. “John Lawrence could practice his crane technique on me any day of the week.”

“Same!” Jace chimed in. “What about you, Ten?”

“You can have the bad boy. I want the Karate Kid, with his dreamy dark hair and that New Jersey accent. Oh, baby!”

“Who’s got dreamy dark hair?” Ronan asked from the kitchen doorway.

“Busted!” Jace loud-whispered.

“We were discussing Cobra Kai . Jace said he was thinking about taking karate classes.”

“That’s a great idea,” Ronan agreed. “The three of you could use some self-defense skills. We could sign the kids up too. I bet Aurora would love it. I know Wolf would.”

“No doubt about that.” Cope laughed. “We’ve been thinking about getting him into something that would help him get rid of all his extra energy.”

“Just promise me one thing.” Ronan waggled his eyebrows.

“I promise I won’t switch to a rival dojo and screw up your chances at winning the All Valley Tournament.” Ten rolled his eyes.

Ronan burst out laughing. “I can’t be the only one who thinks, all this drama over a karate tournament that happened thirty years ago?”

“You’re not, the show is completely crazy, but now that I’ve started watching, it’s like I can’t stop,” Jace said.

“Can’t stop what?” Fitz asked. He walked into the kitchen carrying the turkey baster.

“ Cobra Kai ,” Ten supplied.

Fitz displayed the crane position. He kicked out with one leg and only lost his balance slightly.

“You looks more like a dilatated pterodactyl than a crane,” Ronan said.

“Bite me, asshole.”

Ronan looked as if he had a hell of a comeback to throw at Fitz, but the ringing doorbell stopped him cold.

“Can you all try to act like civilized people instead of cavemen. No more of this asshole stuff. I swear to god, I’m kicking the next person’s ass who says asshole.” Ten pulled open the door. Shane Matheson was on the other side.

“Does that line about assholes getting their asses kicked apply to the people in the house or guests too?” Shane asked with a grin. “Shane Matheson.” He held out his hand.

Ten shook it. “Just to my husband,” he said on a sigh. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Tennyson. You know Ronan.”

“Better than most.” Matheson shook Ronan’s hand. “Fitz, I thought that was you, but I wasn’t sure until I saw Ronan.”

“It’s good to see you, Shane. It’s been too long.” Fitz shook hands with the former cop.

“You’ve been out of the BPD for a while now.”

“Nearly six years,” Fitz agreed. I wanted to be with my daughter after we adopted her and with the amount of time I was spending in the office. I was lucky to have five minutes with her before bedtime.”

“Rumor has it that the two of you unretired to run the cold unit up in the Witch City.” Shane wore a grin that said he might be interested in doing the same thing.

Ronan nodded and motioned toward the dining room table. “We’re not on the kind of schedule we worked with the BPD. We take the cases we want and there’s no one breathing down our necks to solve them. “It gives all three of us plenty of time with our families.”

“Yeah, I didn’t recognize two of the other guys. That’s one of them out on the deck.” Shane pointed out the slider.

“That’s our other partner, Jude Byrne,” Ronan said. “He was working as a PI when I first met him. He’d hooked up with a big shot Boston defense attorney who was trying to get an innocent client out of life with no parole.”

“Did he?” Shane asked.

“With a little help from me,” Ronan laughed. “The other guy we were with today, the one with the infant, is Ten’s brother River Ramsay.”

Shane’s eyes narrowed. “That name rings a bell, wasn’t he brought up on murder charges last year?”

“In February, actually,” Ten said. “I didn’t know he was my brother at the time.”

“I knew River and Bart. Their company was contracted to fix up my neighborhood several years back after a nasty hurricane. Good people. I was shocked to see the headline that he’d allegedly killed his partner.”

“Ten and Ronan figured out who really killed Bart and the charges against River were subsequently dropped,” Fitz said.

“Oh, are you a detective too, Ten?” Shane asked, as Ronan set a bottle of water in front of him.

“No, I’m a psychic medium.”

“Oh, that’s right. I remember reading about you hooking up with Ronan to solve that Frye case several years ago. I thought Fitz was crazy to let you in on the investigation, but it all worked out in the end.”

“Speaking of cold cases,” Fitz said. “There’s something we’d like to talk to you about.”

“That’s our cue to leave.” Ten got up from his seat. “We’ll go watch the kids and will send Jude in so you can talk about this before dinner, okay?”

“To hear is to obey, dearest.” Ronan blew Ten a kiss as he left the room.

Ten could have stuck around and helped Ronan and the detectives explain the case to Matheson, but he was done with murder for the next two weeks. There would be plenty of cold cases waiting for him when he got back to Salem.