Page 183 of The Fire Line

“Jay.”

His pulse jumped.

Harris swallowed. “I—”

Jay knew.

Worse, he wanted him to finish.

“What happens after me?”

Harris went still. “What?”

“With men.” Jay heard himself rushing and couldn’t seem to stop. “You have a whole new demographic available to you now. That has to be at least a little exciting.”

Harris stared at him.

Jay smiled, aiming for teasing and not quite getting there. “Come on. You’ve spent forty-three years thinking this was mostly theoretical. Now you know it isn’t.”

Whatever had been in Harris’s face a moment earlier was gone.

Jay kept going because letting him return to that unfinished sentence felt more dangerous.

“There are apps, you know. You could explore. Have some adventures.” He made himself smile again. “I expect reports.”

Harris’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Reports.”

“Obviously. I’ve invested considerable time in your personal development.”

The joke landed flat.

Harris looked at him for a long moment. “That what you think I should do?”

Jay’s stomach tightened.

“I think you should get to find out what you want.”

That was true enough to make the lie easier.

Harris looked toward the dark window. “Suppose if I wanted to.”

The words landed harder than Jay had expected.

He had dragged them into the room himself and still wanted to take them back.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing something lighter into his voice. “Exactly.”

After that, the conversation lost its shape.

Jay could not have said later exactly what they talked about. Something about the drive in the morning. Something Harris still needed to do around the ranch. Jay probably made a joke; Harris might even have answered it. They spoke with the careful ease of two men who had arrived, by mutual implication if not explicit agreement, at the sensible conclusion.

Jay would go back to New York.

Harris would stay here.

Whatever had happened between them belonged to Montana, to the film, to one strange summer that had become much more intense than either of them intended. It had mattered. That did not mean it had to become anything else.

By the time the conversation faded, the story felt almost convincing.