Page 178 of The Fire Line

“Did you tell him why?”

“I said I could work remotely.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“It’s what I said.”

Jay sat on the edge of the bed. There were words he could have used. He could have told Harris that leaving felt wrong, that he wanted to know what happened after the fire because it was Harris’s life and not because any of it belonged in the film. He could have admitted that waking in the hospital and finding Harris beside him had done something Jay had not managed to put back where it belonged.

Wanting Harris was not the part he mistrusted, though. He mistrusted what he might promise because he wanted him.

“I’m not doing another Miles,” he said. “I’m not building a relationship out of departures and asking somebody to be grateful for whatever parts of me happen to be available.”

“Has Harris asked you to?”

“No.”

The answer hurt more than it should have. Miles had never asked Jay to stop leaving either; he had simply adjusted until neither of them could tell the difference between flexibility and resignation. Jay would not repeat that pattern merely because this departure felt harder.

Priya studied him for a moment. “People sometimes say no because they’re afraid of what yes would require.”

“That sounds embroidered on a pillow.”

“It probably is.”

She left him to finish packing.

* * *

Dinner that night happened outside the lodge beneath temporary work lights, with ranch hands, neighbors, too much food, and a group photograph Jay objected to until Willa took his hand and made refusal impractical. By the time everyone sat down, the distinction between crew and family had blurred enough that nobody seemed sure where one group ended and the other began.

Jay sat across from Harris and spent most of the meal pretending not to notice how often they looked at each other. Conversation moved around them through fencing, insurance, road closures, and the coming week’s work. Once, Jay coughed into his elbow and Harris’s attention snapped toward him before anyone else reacted. The response was quick enough that Elise noticed. Her gaze moved from Harris to Jay and remained there for half a second—not triumph or teasing, only the quiet look of someone adding one fact to another.

Harris knew exactly what she had seen.

The change in him was small but immediate: his shoulders tightened, his attention shifted back toward Della, and for the next several minutes he barely looked across the table.

Jay understood more from that retreat than he wanted to.

Staying would not have meant only remote editing and a few weeks helping around the ranch. It would have meant remaining inside something Harris still did not know how to let other people see.

By ten, the neighbors had begun leaving. Jay helped with cleanup until Della removed a stack of plates from his hands and informed him he was doing it incorrectly. When he looked for Harris again, he was gone.

Jay found him near the large barn, leaning against the fence with a cigarette between two fingers. Laughter still carried from the lodge behind them, but the yard was dark enough here to feel briefly separate from everyone else.

“You starting again?” Jay asked.

“Nope.”

“Good. I’d hate for surviving a wildfire to lead to unhealthy choices.”

Harris glanced at him. “You came over here to lecture me?”

“I came over because you disappeared.”

The answer came out more plainly than Jay intended. Harris went quiet, and Jay could feel the moment opening in front of them, dangerous mostly because either of them could still choose to step into it.

Instead Harris asked, “All packed?”