Miami Blues 3
By J.D. Rush

That earns me a smile.  "Nah. . .I swam under the pier until Yves and that goon went away, then I made my way to shore.  I waited for you guys for a while, but you never showed up, so I followed SOP and made my way back here."

I slap myself in the head.  Of course.  Our Standard Operating Procedure:  If we get separated, go back to home base, and wait for the others.

"The least you could have done was contact us, you imbecile!"  Frohike blubbers.  "Let us know you weren't fish food!"

"I tried. . .but my transmitter got damaged in the fall, and your cell phone wasn't responding."

I sheepishly dig into my coat pocket and take out the waterlogged, useless cell phone that I had forgotten to remove when I jumped into the water.  
"Oops."

"Dude, I'm not paying to replace that," Langly smirks, and I'm reminded of how much I love this man.  And how much I almost lost.

Dropping my sodden bundle on the floor, I step towards my embracing partners, and stand along side Langly.  We just stare at each other for a moment or two--I can't believe he's there.  It's like a miracle.  My fingers reach out and casually comb through his long blond hair, and as I sense the tears 
stinging my eyes, I vow to never take moments like this for granted again. Leaning in close, I kiss him softly, chastely almost, and I'm suddenly flying high with the feel of my lover's lips against mine once more.

Pulling back, my fingers still entangled in his silky mane, I gaze into those sparkling gray-blue eyes of his, and smile.  "God, I love you, Ringo."

"Prove it," he dares me with a grin.  

Never one to back away from a challenge, I snake my free hand around his neck and pull him in for another kiss, this one a proper kiss, with lots of lips and tongues and fluids.  I feel like I'm drowning, but this is a good kind of drowning, and I don't ever want to be rescued.

When lack of oxygen becomes a serious concern, I break away from his hungry mouth, and trail a line of butterfly kisses across his chin, along his cheek, and up to his earlobe; I thrill to the shivers that ripple through his body and smile to myself, that I can reduce this man to a quivering mass so easily.  
"Love you so much," I whisper in his ear.

"You said that already," he whimpers, as I start nibbling on that tasty spot right under his left ear.

"Get used to it," I tell him.  "You're going to hear it A LOT!" 

"I can live with that," he gets out before I claim his mouth again, staking out my territory, branding him mine and no body else's.  

He extricates his right hand from around Frohike and wraps it around my waist instead--it doesn't take long before it's heading south, sliding past the elastic of my baggy pants, and cupping my bare asscheek.  "Mmmmm. . ." he purrs.  "Why don't we get rid of Melvin and you can give me a full medical 
exam, DOCTOR Byers?" 

"That's the best idea you've had in ages, Ringo," I sigh, happily.

He taps our still sobbing friend on the shoulder and says, "You heard the man, Frohike--vamoose."

"Guys?" Jimmy calls out, as he picks that moment to enter the room.  "Where do you want all this stuff. . .hot damn!  Langly!"  Next thing we know, Jimmy's dropped all the equipment and he's rushing towards us.   He skillfully tackles all three of us and we go flying onto the bed behind us, 
which immediately collapses under our weight.

"Jimmy?" Frohike grumbles from the bottom of the pig-pile.    "I can still fire you, you know."

+++++++++++++++
9:36 AM

Things are starting to get back to normal.  I'm finally dressed in my own clothes; Jimmy is flipping through the static-y channels trying to find something to watch.  And of course, Langly and Frohike are arguing. . .

"What are you doing?" my lanky lover demands.

"Calligraphy," comes the snotty reply as our old friend throws some clothes into his knapsack.  "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Giving up on finding any reruns of 'Gilligan's Island', Jimmy asks, confused, "We're going home?"

"No, we're not going home!" Langly answers, decisively.  "We're onto something big here."

But what Langly wants isn't what Langly is going to get, if Frohike's continued packing is any indication.  "Well, whatever we were onto was last seen headed towards the Bermuda Triangle at full throttle.  Now we're onto El Bupkas Grande.  And I for one am getting the hell out of Miami."

Langly snags the knapsack and savagely throws it behind him; it nails Jimmy right in the solar plexus.  "No you are not!  Not after I nearly died last night."  Oh great.  He is NEVER going to let us forget THAT one.

It's obvious Frohike's not going to be so easily manipulated.  "Well, whose fault was that, Aqua Man?  Look, we took a shot, we lost.  We'll get her next time."

Langly turns to face me.  Oh no.  Not that look.  Not that pleading, wheedling look that  always causes me to cave.  "Well, back me up here."

I think back over the last few hours, when I thought I has lost him forever. 

Nothing is worth going through all that again---no story, no amount of reward money.    I know he's going to be upset with me, but I have to go with Frohike on this one.  "You're lucky to be alive," I tell him sincerely.  "Maybe we should cut our losses."

"Maybe it serves us right, guys," Jimmy pipes in, adding his two cents.  "You go in with bad intentions, only bad things can come from it."

"What are you, a fortune cookie?" Langly sneers, as there's a knock at the door.  "I can't believe you three.  Yves is out there somewhere plotting and scheming, and you guys just. . ."

Whatever else he was going to say is interrupted by an irate Yves barging in, full of sound and fury.  She grabs our startled partner by the lips and pushes him back into the room.

Glaring at him with sheer hatred, she snarls,  "You're alive.  You have no idea how unhappy that make me."  With that, she shoves him backwards onto the bed we had just managed to fix before turning her anger on the rest of us.

Uh-oh. . . I think the shit is about to hit the fan.

The End