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When Carlos finally arrives back at the loft with TK, he’s so exhausted he can barely muster the energy to fit the key in the lock. It had been just about the most terrifying day he could ever imagine — the dread of not knowing if the asteroid would be a direct hit, his heartbreak at being separated from TK in what might very well be their final moments, the horror he experienced as he listened from the dispatch center to the firefighters’ desperate attempts to hit the scram button before a nuclear meltdown destroyed all of Texas. Worst of all was knowing he was stuck all the way across town, unable to help, just listening to the countdown clock tick down… down… down…
And all that had only been before he’d gotten the call from TK that most of their friends had been rushed to the hospital with severe injuries from the explosions. After finally being reunited with his husband at the hospital in a bone-crushing and tearful hug, they had waited there anxiously together for news about their loved ones. It had taken several hours before they got the first batch of updates. They learned that Marjan, Paul, and Judd had thankfully gotten only minor injuries. They had all been stitched up and would only have to stay overnight in the hospital. Tommy had been stabilized and would have to be hospitalized for at least a few days, but Carlos felt much better knowing she would be getting constant care from doctors. Owen and Mateo had suffered the most severe injuries and had both been rushed into emergency surgeries right away. The sky had gone dark and it was nearing midnight before Carlos and TK had been approached by an exhausted-looking doctor and told that both Owen and Mateo had made it through surgery and were expected to make a fully recovery.
They had gone home after TK got to visit Owen briefly. He was still sleeping, but TK had needed to see with his own eyes that his dad was alive before they could leave the hospital. Now it was almost two o’clock in the morning and all Carlos wanted to do, as he finally managed to unlock the door with a hand that was still shaking a little from both adrenaline and exhaustion, was to collapse into bed with his husband and sleep for about twelve hours straight. Everything else could wait until tomorrow.
Carlos stepped into the loft and flicked on the light switch, pausing in front of the door to lock it and put down his and TK’s work bags. TK, meanwhile, had stepped in front of him and had started to make his way to their bedroom, tripping over his own feet in fatigue, when he froze.
“Uh oh,” TK said. He suddenly sounded a lot more alert.
Carlos’s head snapped up, his heart beginning to hammer in his chest. “What is it? What’s happened?”
But as he lifted his head to look past TK, Carlos saw what his husband’s gaze was trained on. The large tank in their living room that housed Lou II had fallen off its table, the glass shattered into hundreds of splintered pieces all around the floor. And worst of all…
Carlos gulped.
Worst of all, the lizard was nowhere in sight.
Carlos took a step back until he was pressed up against their front door. He could practically feel the blood beginning to drain from his face. Was it just him, or was the room suddenly freezing?
“Baby,” TK was saying, his hands coming up to cup Carlos’s face. “Baby, it’s okay, it’s okay! The impact from the asteroid probably shattered Lou’s tank and he got out, but don’t worry, we’ll find him. He couldn’t have gotten out of the loft. I’m sure he’s all right. There’s no blood on the glass or anything. He probably just hiding because he got scared.”
Carlos sucked in a breath and tried to focus his racing thoughts. He decided not to tell TK that his main concern was not for the lizard’s safety and wellbeing, but the horror of knowing that the scaly, creepy little reptile could be crawling around anywhere in their home at this very minute.
“This,” he managed to choke out, “is a disaster.”
TK began to giggle. Maybe the adrenaline from the day had finally caught up with him, because Carlos couldn't see why this was a laughing matter.
“TK,” Carlos said slowly, trying to impart the seriousness of this catastrophe to his husband. “He could be anywhere. This is, by far, the worst thing that’s happened today.”
Now TK was laughing hysterically. Great. Only Carlos seemed to understand the enormous gravity of their situation. His husband seemed to have lost his mind.
TK doubled over, laughing. “Baby,” he wheezed between fits of giggles, “Baby. This is the worst thing that's happened today? Worse than the asteroid? Worse than the nuclear apocalypse? The worst thing that happened today is that Lou got out of his tank?”
Carlos just stared at TK. “He could be anywhere,” he choked out, horrified.
That just got TK to start laughing again.
It took another ten minutes before TK was able to compose himself and they could make a game plan. Carlos gathered food from the fridge that might be used to tempt Lou II out from his hiding place — a few yellow peppers that TK insisted he liked, pieces of sweet potato, some leaves of kale. TK, meanwhile, was in charge of getting out the big guns — Lou II’s favorite, the mealworms. Carlos was not going to touch those.
TK started his search for the missing lizard around the living room — flattening himself on his belly to look under the couch, peering under the coffee table, checking under the rugs. Eventually, when he had done a thorough sweep of the area, TK turned to look at Carlos, who was still standing stiff as a board by the front door.
“You’re not going to help?” he teased softly, trying and failing to tamp down a huge smile.
“Oh, no,” said Carlos firmly. “This is your lizard son, you can look for him.”
“You don’t even want to check the bedroom?”
Carlos did not grace this ridiculous question with an answer. He pretended not to hear TK mumbling something about his big strong Ranger husband, scared of a harmless little lizard. Privately, he thought that if TK did find Lou II in their bedroom — worse still, in their bed! — they were going to have to move. He feared he would never be able to sleep again knowing that the lizard had been in their room. Maybe it was for the best, anyway. They were going to have to get a house with a real room for Jonah sooner rather than later.
While TK moved his search to the kitchen and dining area, Carlos contemplated how much money it would cost to just replace every piece of furniture in the loft, in case Lou II had crawled all over them with his slimy little body. He was just lamenting that they did not nearly have enough funds for this complete redecoration when TK let out an excited: “I got him!”
TK had found Lou II sitting in the shadows beneath one of their dining room chairs. The lizard appeared unhurt, if a little miffed about the fact that his habitat had come crashing down around him, and TK was able to lure him out with mealworms while Carlos fetched the old tank they used to keep the first Lou in from the garage.
TK gave Lou II some extra treats and promised him that first thing in the morning, they would go out and buy him a new tank. Carlos, meanwhile, just thanked God that this whole nightmarish ordeal was finally over. He made his way into the bedroom, deciding he was too exhausted to wait for his husband. He could still hear TK cooing to Lou II in the living room, saying how sorry he was that the lizard had had such a scary day. Carlos snorted. Yeah, out of all of them, Lou II was the one who’d had the worst day.
Carlos flopped down onto the bed and was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
A year later, Carlos is sitting at work recording some notes on a case when the chief comes by to introduce a new Texas Ranger. His name is Joshua O’Connor, and he’s a little younger than Carlos was when he first started. O’Connor has wide eyes and an awestruck expression as he takes in the Texas Ranger’s office. The chief explains that the new recruit has been assigned to shadow Carlos for the week so he can see how an experienced Ranger conducts his work.
“Ranger Reyes is one of the best. You’ll be in good hands with him,” the chief tells O’Connor, clapping him on the back. “He was even on duty when that asteroid hit the city last year. He’s seen it all.”
O’Connor’s wide eyes grow impossibly wider. “You were here for the asteroid strike?” he asks incredulously. “I saw that on the news! How those firefighters stopped a nuclear meltdown? That was insane! You must have some crazy stories from that day, right?”
O’Connor practically begs Carlos to tell him about the most terrifying moment from that day. Carlos dutifully explains how nerve-wracking it had been to be standing in the dispatch center, listening helplessly on the radio and praying that Captain Strand and the firefighters at the 126 would get to the scram button in time. O’Connor is suitably impressed and declares that Carlos is far braver than he could ever be, facing a disaster like that.
Carlos will never tell O’Connor that the imminent nuclear meltdown had not been the most terrifying thing that had happened that day. Nor had it been the asteroid strike, the ensuing cleanup of a city in chaos, or the crushing fear he’d experienced while he and TK waited to see if their friends and family would be okay. No — by far the most heart-stopping moment of that day had been coming home to find that Lou II, TK’s creepy, slimy little lizard son, had been set free from his tank and was roaming somewhere around their loft. But Carlos will never tell anyone that. He vows he will take that secret with him to the grave.
And if the first thing he did after waking up the day after the asteroid strike was to scour the internet and put a rush order on the sturdiest, most highly rated, most indestructible lizard tank ever made, that promised to remain whole and intact in the face of any natural disaster?
Well, that would stay between him and the lizard.