DorkFish 3- Alls Fair in True Love and War

Patience and Fortitude

10:45 A.M.

Jared opened his door before Misha finished knocking. “Thank you for getting here so quickly.”

He shot Jared a hard look as he crossed his threshold.

“Good thing it’s a holiday weekend, or I’d be on the range with our boys in Origami River right now.”

Jared watched him pull off his heavy woolen overcoat and throw it none too gently onto the back of his couch.

“Did I pull you from something important?”

“No,” he clipped. “There is nothing in my life more important than you. I just have a feeling I’m not going to like what’s coming.”

Jared swallowed. “Coffee?”

“That depends,” Misha countered. “Am I going to want something stronger?’

Jared shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Is it something you did?”

“Yes.”

Misha’s lips set in a tight line. “Nix the coffee. What have you done?”

“First you need more backstory on recent events.”

Misha’s gaze sharpened. “You told him about Murray.”

Jared nodded.

“What else did you tell him.”

Instead of answering him, Jared retrieved Jensen’s gift from his coffee table and set it with import on the breakfast bar between them.

Misha’s attention barely strayed from his face. “He’s sent you another package.”

Jared nodded again. “Check the card.”

“I noticed,” he said. “Appropriate for him, hmm?”

“That’s exactly what I thought. Go ahead and read it.”

Misha slid the card toward himself and lifted the corner as if it were a playing card in a poker game. His expression didn’t change, his face staying as blank as any high stakes Hold ‘Em pro; only his blue eyes lifted to his, the intensity in them held him pinned his place.

“He’s referencing his ‘I love you’ that you mentioned in the car the other day.”

“Yes,” Jared replied, then he used his index finger to push the jewelry box across the table to him.

Misha kept his flinty gaze on Jared while he flipped open the lid, he merely glanced down at its contents before shutting the box again with a resolute snap.

“Interesting choice,” he said.

“I had to look it up,” he admitted. “I found only two things remotely relevant; one, they’re good luck charms favored by pregnant women and Carriers as well as nursing mothers and Carriers. Not to mention married couple wear them to keep peace in their marriages. You and I both know it can’t be the first.”

“Which brings me back to Janus,” Jared continued. “I don’t think he’s trying to mock me, which was my initial reaction. Janus was the god of transitions, of beginnings and endings. Therefore, he had jurisdiction over conflict, and the Romans kept the doors to his temples open during times of war and closed in peace.

“Common thread here, then,” he concluded, “is peace. He and I got into a huge fight over those three little words of his, I think he’s trying to tell me to accept it and accept him, so we can move on.”