Page 180 of The Fire Line

Jay closed the door behind him. “Even sexier.”

The cabin was smaller than Harris’s had been and furnished for guests rather than permanence: a generic landscape over the couch, enamel mugs beside the sink, a brown-and-burgundy bedspread selected by someone with a limited theory of Montana. Nothing belonged unmistakably to Harris except his boots by the door, his hat on the counter, and the man himself beneath the yellow light.

His gaze moved over Jay. “You doing all right?”

“I’ve spent the day packing cables and being told I fold shirts incorrectly. I may never recover.”

“Lungs?”

“Still in there.”

Harris waited.

Jay sighed. “I’m fine.”

The phrase changed something in Harris’s face. It belonged to the mountain now, to a night when honesty had meant admitting neither of them knew whether the next ten minutes were survivable. Here it referred only to healing lungs, insurance forms, and a night neither of them had named out loud as their last.

“Good,” Harris said.

Jay crossed to the table. Harris’s inventory filled the page in compact handwriting: bed frame, stove, boots, tools, books. Ordinary nouns trying to account for a home. There was no line for Nell’s handwriting inside the books or Claire’s refinished table or all the small things that had mattered because Harris had lived among them long enough for them to become invisible.

Jay put his palm over the form. “You can’t spend our last night filling out insurance paperwork.”

“Got a deadline.”

“So do I.”

Jay had not meant for the words to sound like that. They sat between them anyway, too sharp to pretend they referred only to forms. He stepped between Harris’s knees and rested his hands behind his neck.

Harris looked up. “Suppose you do.” His left hand settled at Jay’s waist, the bandaged right remaining close to his body.

Neither moved closer at first. They knew what came next, which might have been the problem. Familiarity had accumulated between them without either man noticing when it became dangerous. Jay knew the slight narrowing of Harris’s eyes when he wanted something but was deciding whether to reach for it. Harris knew exactly how long Jay usually tolerated silence before filling it.

Tonight Jay let the silence stay.

Harris’s thumb moved once along his side. “You all packed?”

“Mostly. I still can’t find my favorite blue hat.”

“Navy one?”

Jay looked at him. “Thank you for finally respecting the distinction.”

“Check the van?”

“Twice. Eli claims he hasn’t seen it, but his testimony is unreliable.”

“Probably turn up.”

“I hope so. I look excellent in that hat.”

Harris’s mouth shifted slightly. “Course you do.”

Jay bent and kissed him before he could decide whether that had actually been a compliment.

Harris answered slowly at first, almost cautiously, before pulling him closer. The beer bottle shifted beneath Jay’s hand, and he moved it out of reach before the insurance documentation ended up soaked.

Clothes came off as they made their way toward the bed, Jay repeatedly interfering whenever Harris tried to use the injured hand as though nothing had happened to it.