Page 73 of The Fire Line

Jay stopped.

When Harris looked back, Jay was staring at him, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Well. Look at you.”

“Shut up.”

The smile lingered. “How long have you known?”

“Long time.”

“And you’ve been with men before?”

No.

The answer rose immediately. Then Harris looked at Jay—mouth still swollen, posture loose with the confidence of a man who knew what he was doing—and imagined him turning careful.

“Yup.”

The lie felt wrong the moment it left his mouth.

Jay gave a small nod, accepting the answer more easily than Harris deserved. “And nobody knows?”

“No one.”

“Not Claire?”

Harris shook his head.

“Your family?”

“Nobody knows.” He turned the canteen slowly between his hands, thumb working over the ridged cap. Beyond the broken window, the valley dropped away beneath them, hazy with distance and smoke. “Nobody can know.”

Jay’s expression sobered. “They won’t hear it from me.”

“My family especially.”

“Okay.”

“Crew too.”

Jay nodded, his gaze flicking briefly toward the camera case. “Yeah. And the film stays the film.”

“I know.”

The easy humor from a minute ago had gone quiet between them. Jay shifted against the wall, stretching one leg out across the dusty floor before looking toward the doorway and back again.

“So… what happens when we get back?”

Harris’s thumb stopped against the canteen cap.

Jay watched him closely. “We ride down there, Priya starts yelling about schedules, your entire family is within a hundred yards again. Doors, dinner tables, people who might notice where you’re looking.” His mouth pulled slightly to one side. “Do we pretend none of this happened?”

“No.”

The answer came before Harris had time to consider whether there was a safer one.

Jay went still for half a beat. Then his shoulders eased against the wall.