THE ONLY thing worse than hospital coffee was cold hospital coffee. There were two cups on the table at Rafe’s side. Finger-bent, battered cups filled with murky skinned coffee more bitter than a religious hawker set up on Pier 39 and just as palatable. He’d panicked when he couldn’t find Quinn following his cafeteria run, and his heart only just started back up again. Rafe didn’t know what he’d thought, only that his green-eyed magpie was nowhere to be found, and the place was filled with all manner of cop, all dead eyed and tense.
It was like he was a seven-tailed cat in a rocking-chair factory.
“Mum’s fine,” Quinn said for the fifth time since Braeden shoved him out of a nearby bathroom and into Rafe’s arms. Rafe caught him up, wrapping his arms around Quinn from behind, crossing them over his chest. “She’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah, baby, she is.” It was better to let him say it, something his family sometimes didn’t understand. The circular groove embedded Quinn’s words into his crinkled thoughts, driving down into his mind until they reached the skeptical core. Quinn needed the ritual—needed a routine—even as he tumbled headlong into his own chaos. There were rules. As odd as they might have seemed, there were rules.
“I’m tired.” Another repeat, this time laden with thick emotions. Quinn’s heart fluttered and skipped under Rafe’s touch, a frantic canary lost in the dark of his thoughts. “She’s going to be fine.”
“That’s what they said, baby.” Rafe tried to look through the uniformed throng around him but couldn’t see much more of the door than he had before. Stepping back, he pulled them back until his shoulder blades were up against the wall and Quinn was safe from the cops tripping over their feet. “Kane finally made you a cop, huh?”
“What?” Rafe’s question jerked Quinn out of his mental pacing, his eyes widening with confusion. Then he glanced down at his shirt when Rafe tapped his torso, tracing over the SFPD logo emblazoned over Quinn’s chest. “Oh. Yeah. Closest I’ll get, really. Should have gotten an SFFD one from Brae. Black sheep have to stick together.”
“You and Brae are so much the black sheep of this family.” Rafe laughed. “Maybe you guys will be lucky, and Ryan’ll become a public defender or something.”
“Bite your fecking tongue, Andrade,” Kane rumbled as he approached.
Horror flickered over the youngest Morgan’s face at Rafe’s words, and she pointedly flipped him off from her post a few feet away.
“The day a Morgan becomes a public defender is the day Da wears a thistle on his jacket.”
Rafe took a moment, turning Kane’s words over in his mind, then said, “I have no fucking idea what that means.”
“You’ll learn soon enough.” Kane nodded to the door they could barely see through the hustle of people around them. A nurse lingered at the threshold, impatience mottling her face. “Go on with her, Q. Mum’s awake and asking after you. Da said for you to go on in, but keep it short. She’s in and out right now.”
Quinn nearly tugged free of Rafe’s arms, but he held his lover close, turning Quinn around. Rafe teased out a kiss from Quinn’s pressed-in lips, coaxing a soft sigh from him. The stiffness in Quinn’s spine eased, and he leaned into Rafe, their hands clenched together as their kiss deepened.
“Sheesh, get a fucking room,” Ryan grumbled. “Bad enough I catch Mum and Da doing that in the kitchen, I’ve got to see it here too?”
“She’s just jealous because I love you,” Rafe reassured Quinn. “’Cause you know, I’m a rock star. Probably had my poster all over her walls.”
“Hah!” She tossed back her red curls, a nearly exact mimicry of her mother’s wicked sneer. “Miki and Damie, they’re my rock stars. You? You’re just Rafe.”
“Oh, the serpent we cradle to our breasts.” Rafe winked at Ryan, then let Quinn go. “Take your time, Q. I’ll be here.”
Rafe gave Kane credit. The keen-eyed cop waited until his brother was through the doors and then another four beats of time before he turned to Rafe and pinned him against the wall with a sharp glare. Throwing his hands up, Rafe threw out the one thing he knew would save him, a trump card he could always use when one of the Morgan boys set their sights on him.
“Hit me, and Brigid will come down on your ass so hard you’ll have four butt cheeks.”
It apparently wasn’t going to work this time because Kane shoved him lightly toward the hall.
“Dude, what?”
“I want to talk to you. Without the others hearing us. So keep your voice down.”
Kane turned slightly, blocking them from view. Rafe looked over Kane’s shoulder, satisfied he could still see the ward’s doors.