Page 62 of Love at First Rep

“Okay, but I might be asleep if you take too long,” Garrett responded, the bliss of his pleasure still clouding his thoughts.

Rafe smiled as he grabbed his phone and hurried out of the room.

Garrett exhaled heavily, ready to drift off into dreamland after one of the best orgasms of his life. Instead the sound of his back door softly opening and closing reached his ears. He’d completely forgotten he’d opened the window before Rafe entered his room with all his supplies.

He grunted softly as he rolled out of bed to close the window, but Rafe’s hushed voice stopped him in his tracks.

After struggling to make out the words, Garrett realized Rafe was speaking Russian.

Why is he speaking Russian? And to who?

It must have been a language he learned in their decades apart. Rafe was a polyglot and skilled at mastering new languages. Moving as quietly as possible, Garrett perched on the edge of his bed, leaning toward the open window.

Garrett didn’t know a lick of Russian, except for the few words he picked up from watching a popular gay romance hockey show on TV, but those words didn’t help him at all.

Since he couldn’t understand, Garrett tried to focus on Rafe’s tone. Rafe sounded frustrated, angry. Or was that what talking sounded like in Russian?

Rafe barked out the word nyet. Garrett at least knew that meant no, and Rafe repeated it twice, angrier each time. After a long pause, he switched to Spanish.

Who the fuck is he talking to?

Garrett’s heart rate increased as he tried to stay calm, focusing on Rafe’s words. Spanish was a little easier, but not easy enough for him to understand any of it. He rushed over to his jeans, piled near the bed, and pulled out his phone, then froze. Was recording Rafe an invasion of privacy? Was this how he wanted to treat someone who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with?

“Fuck it,” Garrett muttered as he opened the recording app on his phone. Rafe was hiding something from him, and if that something put him or one of his friends in danger, Garrett needed to know.

Garrett hit record and held the phone near the open window, hopefully picking up Rafe’s words. He wished he could hear the person on the other end of the line, but this would have to do.

Lo amo.

No puedo. No puedo.

Si le haces daño, te mataré.

Vete a la mierda, cabrón.

A moment later, the back door opened and closed softly again. Garrett hurried to save the file and stuffed his phone back into his jeans pocket, then quietly shut the window enough that it wouldn’t click, but it would appear closed. Since he couldn’t fall asleep now if he tried, Garrett strode into his en suite bathroom to take a piss as he thought of an excuse for his racing heart. As he washed his hands, he yelled and made himself jump slightly, in case Rafe caught him. By the time he walked back into the room, Rafe had returned.

“You okay?” Rafe asked. “I heard you yell.”

Garrett huffed and threw his hand to his chest. “Yeah, thought I saw a big spider, but my eyes were playing tricks on me. Geez, my heart is racing now. I think you fucked me so hard you messed with my eyesight.”

Rafe chuckled, the stiffness easing out of his body. “You’re so good for my ego.”

As Garrett pulled back the covers and crawled into bed with Rafe following, he asked, “Everything okay? The phone call seemed urgent.”

Rafe pulled Garrett against his side, and Garrett rested his head on Rafe’s shoulder, his hand over his chest.

“I thought so, but nah,” Rafe said, his voice strained. “It was an old friend from the CIA checking in on me. He’s in a different time zone and didn’t realize how late it was here.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

Did Garrett imagine it, or did Rafe’s heart rate pick up under Garrett’s hand as he spoke? He was Rafe’s kryptonite when it came to spotting his lies, but what was Rafe hiding?

As much as Garrett wanted to put all his faith in Rafe, he had to investigate to keep him and his friends safe. His mind whirled with ideas on how to get the information he needed, and he groaned internally as he decided he’d need to call in some favors from friends.

20

“I HAD A FEELING you’d be back,” Riley said as he ushered Garrett through his and Josh’s condo, placing a kiss on top of Josh’s head as he passed behind him.