“Talk to you soon, man,” Owen said as he prepared to
hang up.
“Is that Vic?” Vic heard Shane’s distant voice ask.
“Yeah,” Owen answered.
“Let me talk to that bastard,” Shane demanded, and Owen
handed over the phone without another word. “Vic!” Shane’s
voice boomed into Vic’s ear, making him wince and grin at the
same time.
Shane had grown up on the South Carolina coast, near
Charleston, whereas Vic was a displaced Yankee from upstate
New York. When Vic had first met Shane, he’d kept asking him
questions just to hear him answer them in his genteel, coastal
Southern accent. Vic didn’t even know how to describe the
accent, other than it was a strange and wonderful thing that
sounded like something out of Gone with the Wind. He only
pronounced his R’s if they were followed by vowels. He made
words with two syllables into words with five. He drawled and
12 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
spoke slowly enough that you hung on every word waiting for
the next. Vic absolutely loved to hear Shane speak. Everything
he said sounded both classy and antiquated at the same time.
Even if he was cussing a blue streak as he watched baseball.
“Hello, my shiny thing!” Shane said happily. “I thought I
told you to leave Owen out of this. It was just going to be you
and me and a romantic moonlit dinner at Subway,” Shane
mused teasingly as Owen sniggered.
Vic snorted in amusement.
“Candles, wine, squirty vinegar,” Shane continued in a
grand manner. “Groping in the bathroom. Turn here, kid.
Aphrodisiacs of your choice. I tell you what, buddy boy,” he
said to Owen without taking the phone from his mouth. “A
handful of M&Ms and Vic will follow you anywhere.”
Vic was laughing silently and trying to catch his breath
without letting Shane know that he was actually laughing. That
was true, really. Give Vic chocolate and he was yours for the
night at least, if not more. How Shane knew that, Vic couldn’t
guess.
Shane was an interesting character, shy and reserved and
modest and just about the most humble person Vic had ever
known. Until you got to know him. Then his true intellect, wit,
and, quite frankly, weird sense of humor shined through and
you began to see an almost completely different person. He was
still modest almost to a fault and he was easily embarrassed
when in front of strangers, but in private he was morbidly
humorous and a little crazy. He and Vic played off each other
well, when Vic was right in the head.
This greeting of Shane’s was fairly typical, though Vic and
Shane had never shared even so much as a kiss in their five or
so years of knowing each other. Shane enjoyed teasing Vic and
Vic quite honestly enjoyed the teasing. He was a well-respected
13 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
and successful public prosecutor; not many people had the
stones to tease him about anything.
Vic didn’t even know if Shane was gay or not. Every now
and then Vic would get a sense that he might be, but he could
never be certain and he certainly never planned on asking.
Shane knew that much about him, and if he’d wanted to share
he would have by now. They rarely talked about things like that
anyway. Shane had never been married, and occasionally
would mention a disastrous date, but never the gender of the
person he’d been seeing. If Vic was a betting man, he’d have
said Shane was gay.
But there was a reason Vic had never been to Las Vegas.
“M&Ms, huh?” Owen questioned as Shane laughed.
“How was your trip?” Vic asked with a little laugh.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve got drunk enough to handle
remembering,” Shane said with a groan. “Owen’s flailing. Hold
on,” Shane said with a sigh, and Vic could almost see the man
taking the phone and holding it to his chest as he continued to
speak. “Why do you not know where you are?”
“I’m out of my district, man,” Vic heard Owen respond.
“You’ve lived here all your life!” Shane protested. “Turn
there.”
“Here?”
“I don’t know. It looks familiar, though. Jesus Christ, I
hate this town, Vic,” Shane lamented as he brought the phone
back to his mouth.
“You’re lost, aren’t you?” Vic asked with a laugh.
“Yes. I would be worried, but Owen has the survival
instincts of a cockroach,” Shane murmured into the phone.
“I heard that,” Owen said petulantly.
14 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
“Of course you did. You’re sitting right there,” Shane told
him.
“You could at least try to whisper it,” Owen responded.
“Then it wouldn’t be half as fun to say,” Shane pointed
out.
Vic grinned and took a deep breath of the cool air rushing
in through his open car window. “I’ve got to drive. I’ll see you at
the courthouse in a bit,” he said as his chest tightened with
excitement and his head began to feel a little light at the
thought of seeing them both.
He saw Owen maybe once a week, if he was lucky. In a
way he dreaded those moments. He almost always got his heart
trampled over when he spent any amount of time with Owen,
but Vic had come to accept that as inevitable. Perhaps what
made it worse was that Owen didn’t know he did it.
If Vic had suspected that Owen knew he loved him and
still treated him like a casual fuck, it would have given Vic
reason to stop the cycle, to tell Owen that he couldn’t be used
like a helipad for whenever Owen needed to land somewhere
and just move on and be happy.
But Owen didn’t know how Vic felt. He thought Vic did the
same thing he did—enjoyed the fleeting moments and moved
on—and so Vic let him in and out of his life as he pleased,
hoping to one day have the other man see differently. Vic
couldn’t fault him for not knowing if he’d never had the nerve
to tell him.
What that left Vic with, however, was heartache of the
highest order. The plus side was that Shane was always good
for comfort, the few times a month Vic saw him. His presence
soothed the ache, probably because his presence often involved
alcohol of some description, but Vic didn’t care. He would face
15 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
the heartache for the rare chance of enjoying time with his
friends. He would face it for the rest of his life for those
precious few stolen moments of almost love.
“Hey, Vic, can you give Shane a ride back?” Owen asked as
they stepped out into the cool air of evening. The day had
dragged on and on and lunch had been a crusty sandwich out
of the vending machine. A nice dinner out with friends had
been a welcome change.
Shane stepped to the side to light up a cigarette, and he
looked away tactfully as Owen and Vic stood talking.
“I thought you were on escort
duty,” Vic responded in a
low voice.
“Only to the courthouse,” Owen said with a shake of his
head. “Can you get him back?”
“Sure,” Vic answered, hiding his disappointment skillfully
and smiling as Owen gave him a brief farewell hug. He watched
as Shane shook Owen’s hand and said goodbye, and Vic and
Shane stood side by side as Owen walked quickly to his
cruiser, breaking into a jog as he crossed the side street they’d
parked on. His shift started in an hour and in Charlotte, he
was at least that far away from his district. He would need to
hustle to get home and change in order to make it. Vic had
hoped he’d be able to see him after his shift ended, but Owen
hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort.
Vic supposed he’d just wait until the next time Owen
pulled court duty.
16 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
Shane handed his half-smoked cigarette to Vic and Vic
took it without even thinking, taking a long drag and then
handing it back to Shane.
“Thought you quit,” he said to Shane with a little smile as
he blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth.
“I could say the same,” Shane remarked with a raised
eyebrow as his eyes traveled from Vic slowly back to Owen as
the man waved at them once more from his car before pulling
away.
Vic turned and stared at Shane. Shane met his eyes
expectantly. He was about Vic’s height, but broader along the
chest and shoulders. His eyes were a deep green, striking
against the tan of his skin, and his dirty-blond hair had begun
to gray slightly at the temples. Vic heartily approved.
“What do you mean?” he asked him in an almost-normal
voice.
“Do you really think I don’t know, Vic?” Shane asked
incredulously.
Vic blinked at him and Shane sighed and threw the
remainder of his cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out
with his toe.
“Litterbug,” Vic mumbled automatically.
“Doormat,” Shane retorted as he took Vic’s elbow and led
him toward the car.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vic muttered as
he walked up to the driver’s-side door and unlocked the little
blue hybrid.
“Uh-huh,” Shane answered as soon as he got into the car.
“If you don’t want to talk about it then we won’t,” he said,
looking out the windshield of the car thoughtfully.
17 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
Vic looked at him carefully then decided to take the out
he’d been offered and started up the car. “You coming home
with me?” he asked.
“My hotel smells like feet,” Shane answered. Vic snorted
before he could stop himself. “So if you don’t mind the
company,” Shane continued hopefully.
“Love to have it,” Vic assured him.
They drove in silence for a while, Shane rubbing the pad of
his index finger thoughtfully across his eyebrow as Vic drove.
“This one of those solar-powered hybrids?” he finally asked.
“Yeah,” Vic answered suspiciously as he glanced at his
passenger.
Shane was frowning down at the vents thoughtfully.
“You really don’t want to talk about it?” he finally asked as
he looked over at Vic dubiously.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Vic affirmed without
taking his eyes off the road.
“Good idea,” Shane finally decided. “I’ll just wait ’til you’re
drunk,” he added happily.
Vic couldn’t help but smile.
It was several weeks after Shane’s visit that Vic’s phone rang
in the middle of the night. He rolled over and raised his head
groggily, peering at the clock on the bedside table. It really was
the middle of the night this time, just a little past three a.m.
His stomach flipped as he reached for the phone. His job
didn’t require off-hours calls. This had to be something bad.
“Bronsen,” he answered, his voice rough with sleep.
18 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
“Hey, Vic,” Owen greeted quietly. “I know I woke you. I’m
sorry,” he said quickly. “But I was wondering: have you been
over at my place recently?”
“Your place?” Vic repeated in confusion. He rubbed at his
eyes with the heel of his hand and pushed up onto his elbows,
shivering as the cold air hit his bare shoulders.
“Did you come to my apartment for something?” Owen
asked slowly.
“No. Why?” Vic answered in growing concern. He couldn’t
actually recall ever having been in Owen’s apartment.
“Someone’s been here,” Owen told him in a low voice. “I’m
calling around, making sure it’s not someone I know.”
“Someone’s been there, like, broken in?” Vic asked
worriedly.
“I gotta go, Vic,” Owen told him, and Vic heard the very
distinct sound of his gun being drawn from its holster.
“Owen, wait,” Vic said quickly. “Call for backup first!”
“I’ll call you later, man,” Owen told him. Then the call
clicked off.
Vic looked down at the phone in his hand with a sinking
An hour after being so rudely awoken by Owen’s call, Vic sat
staring into the distance from the balcony of his condo. He
wasn’t really seeing anything because he was too tired to make
his eyes focus, but he was also too tired to move or blink, so
there he sat.
19 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
He had been waiting for the promised call from Owen, and
he was afraid to go back to sleep for fear of missing it. Deep
down he knew the call wasn’t coming, but he couldn’t force
himself to not hope that it would.
Owen was… easily distracted. Vic had lost count of how
many times he’d said he’d call and then the next time Vic
heard from him was when Owen caught court duty again.
“Hope springs eternal,” he murmured bitterly as he
watched the shaky rays of the sun illuminate the east. But it
was enough to keep him staying awake instead of going back to
sleep like he desperately wanted to.
The cell phone in his lap began to vibrate and ring and he
started violently, having forgotten that it was still there. He had
been clutching it ever since Owen’s call, hoping that it would
ring and he would hear Owen’s raspy voice again, telling him
that he was safe. He fumbled with it and sent it clattering to
the floor and almost under the railing of the balcony and over
the edge.
He scrambled to retrieve it as hope fluttered in his chest,
but then he sat back and stared at it morosely as it rang when
he saw on the display that it was Shane Simpson calling him.
He’d called Shane earlier in the evening about a last-minute
invite to a summer conference that was coming up in a few
days. The man hadn’t answered, and Vic hadn’t left a message.
That had been hours ago, though. Why Shane was just calling
&nbs
p; now, Vic couldn’t say. He flipped open the phone.
“Vic? What’s wrong?” Shane asked as soon as Vic hit the
speaker button.
“Hey. Nothing’s wrong, man,” Vic answered with a little
smile. “I was calling about the conference,” he said as he
stretched and grunted quietly.
20 Unrequited | Abigail Roux
“Conference,” Shane repeated in a flat voice.
“It was around eleven or so,” Vic told him, knowing exactly
what Shane was thinking. He’d probably woken up to go take a
piss or something and seen the missed call blinking on his
phone. He would only have called back at this time of night if
he’d thought Vic called recently, thinking it was an emergency.
He had no way of knowing Vic was waiting up like a fool for a
call that wouldn’t come.
“You shithead,” Shane said with a sigh of relief, and Vic
heard him grunt as he flopped down onto something. Probably
his bed. Bed sounded good. “You’ll give a man a heart attack
doing that.”
“No reason to do that until I know I’m in the will,” Vic said
flatly as he hefted himself up and moved back inside.
Shane offered a tired little chuckle, but he remained silent,
waiting for Vic to come out with the reason he was awake at
such an hour. Vic walked carefully through the dark room,
shuffling his feet to avoid running into anything. He failed
miserably and cursed colorfully when his toe made contact
with the leg of a table. He continued to curse and grunt as he
moved around, and he could almost hear Shane’s frown.
“You all right?” Shane finally asked worriedly.
“Yeah. I think I just broke my toe, though,” Vic said
absently as he reached the bed and sat down gratefully. He
pulled his foot up close to his face to examine his mangled toe
in the darkness as he held the phone to his ear with his
shoulder.
“No, I mean… it’s four in the morning, man. Why are you
up?”
“Oh. Oh! Yeah. Sorry, uh… I got a call from Owen about
an hour ago. His apartment was broken into. He was calling to
21 Unrequited | Abigail Roux