Page 124 of The Fire Line

Beside him, Jay appeared entirely normal. Relaxed, even, which Harris found deeply unhelpful.

“You okay?” Jay asked as they reached the truck.

“Yup.”

“Fire?”

“Nothing changed.”

Jay held his gaze for a moment. Harris knew the question had contained more than the fire.

He opened the truck.

* * *

The clerk gave them adjacent rooms on the fourth floor.

Jay studied both key sleeves as though the arrangement carried administrative significance. “Four seventeen. Four nineteen. Professionally convenient.”

“Yup.”

“Should we need to exchange urgent notes about land-use policy.”

“Could happen.”

They carried their bags toward the elevator. Harris remained aware of Jay beside him in a way that made the hotel lobby feel oddly overlit. Nobody looked at them. A couple argued near the ice machine, and two men in county-emergency shirts crossed toward the bar without acknowledging Harris.

Nobody knew him here.

The elevator arrived. They stepped inside alone, and Jay pressed four.

When the doors closed, the quiet changed.

Harris had spent the day waiting for privacy. Now that it had arrived, so did every uncertainty he had managed not to examine.

He wanted Jay. That part was simple. Curiosity about more did not make him ready, and he was done treating hesitation as a failure that had to be overcome before someone else noticed it.

Jay had stopped when Harris asked him to stop. He had gone slowly when Harris asked for slow. Even now, he stood beside him without assumption or demand, his key sleeve loose in one hand.

Harris looked at him.

Jay turned his head.

One look was all it took.

Harris caught the front of his jacket and kissed him.

Jay came forward immediately, one hand gripping Harris’s shirt while the other struck the wall beside his shoulder. The key sleeve fell to the floor.

The elevator bell sounded before either of them remembered it was moving.

21

An Excellent Use of County Resources

They started kissing in the elevator and barely stopped long enough for Jay to get the hotel-room door open.

The lock had hardly clicked behind them before Harris put him against the door, one hand beneath his shirt while Jay’s fingers hooked into the back of Harris’s belt. The room smelled like industrial carpet cleaner, and the air-conditioning unit rattled beside the window. Harris barely noticed either with Jay this close.